Planned Outline

View and consider the TIMS Data Schema Analyze and examine some key relationships

within the TIMS Data Schema Introduce the application of GUIDS in TIMS Consider the History (and Philosophy) of TIMS

Present some of the challenges of making modifications to the TIMS Application

TIMS is…

50+ tables

Many complex (and sometimes ambiguous) relationships and pathways

Multiple possible views

TIMS Math:

“Person” + “Event” = “Participant”

(and becomes a)Participant

Person (attends) Event

Consider…

“Persons” have both enduring and current attributes

“Participants” have attributes associated with them as of the time of they attend an event

Both “Persons” and “Participants” share common types of attributes, such as a facility or “Service Delivery Point” but the values of these attributes can of course be different

Question:

How would we formulate a query for determining the District of a participant?

In other words, what pathway do we take through this maze of relationships?

Associated Questions

What “District” are we most interested in? Residential District? (Why?) District of their SDP as of the time they were trained? (Possibly?) District of their current SDP?

– Is there SDP data up to date? – Did the data entry person remember “check” the correct box when

entering SDP data?

What is the precise question we are trying answer?

What happens when the SDP field is blank or missing?

GUIDS, GUIDS Everywhere!

Most of the “keys” in TIMS are GUIDS, or “Globally Unique Identifiers.”

Because of the length/complexity and supposedly random nature of GUIDS, we are reasonably assured that all records have a truly unique identifier.

Unfortunately…

GUIDS were used almost everywhere in TIMS. Once an entity in TIMS gets assigned a GUID, it is very difficult to assign a new GUID, and thus it is difficult to de-duplicate data.

History (and Philosophy) of TIMS

TIMS is 12+ years old TIMS is in its 7th major revision TIMS developed during the TRH days, and

some TRH artifacts still exist Some fields in TIMS have been “repurposed”, so

what you see is not necessarily what you get

TIMS: Old and New

TIMS was designed to support the Trainer Development Pathway, which was a whole philosophy and approach to sustainable training

Currently used in many different countries in different ways, pushing (and sometimes straining) it beyond its original capabilities

A Brief Tour of the TIMS ApplicationTIMS has a rich set of features and capabilities. However, there are some difficulties with maintaining the current TIMS. To understand some of these challenges, one needs to examine the actual code in the TIMS Application.

1. As many as 4 (and possibly more) developers, programmers, database users, and others have been involved with the actual development and maintenance of code

2. These programmers and developers have not always approached programming in the same manner, and thus within TIMS there is no real standardization of how to write queries, report, etc.

3. Reports and Queries have most probably been re-used and repurposed, but lack of documentation raises concerns about whether later programmers knew what the earlier programmers knew.

You can follow along by followingthe prompts in the green boxes.

To illustrate some of these issues and challenges, the following slides will go into the ‘heart’ of the TIMS Application and the code that is behind a few of the reports and queries.

NOTE: BEFORE PROCEEDING, YOUMUST COPY THE DATABASE

AND APPLICATION INTO A NEWLOCATION AND WORK ON THE COPY AND NOT THE ORIGINAL.

A SEPARATE BACK-UP OF THE

DATABSE AND APPLICATION WOULD ALSO BE ADVISABLE!

LAUNCH TIMS AS NORMAL (THE SAFE COPY THAT IS).

AFTER LOGGING ON (as “admin”) AND GETTING TO THE MAIN MENU,

PRESS F-11.

NOTE: THIS PROCEDURE SHOULD NOT BE SHOWN

TO THE CASUAL OR UNTRAINED USER.

YOU SHOULD NOW SEE THE ABOVE. NOTE THE “OBJECTS”PANEL ON THE LEFT AND THE BUTTONS FOR “TABLES,” “QUERIES”,“FORMS,” AND “REPORTS.” AT THIS POINT, EXPLORE THE VARIOUS

OBJECTS. BECOME FAMILIAR WITH THE NAMING CONVENTIONS. NOTETHE VARIATION IN THE NAMING CONVENTIONS.

NAVIGATE TO THE “TABLES” OJBECTS. FIND ‘ztblReports” AND OPEN THIS TABLE. STUDY THE FIELDS. NOTE THE PATTERNS.

THIS TABLE POPULATES THE REPORT MENU.

RETURN TO ACCESS (IT IS ACTUALLY STILL RUNNING) BY FINDING THE “WINDOW” MENU IN ACCESS AND

SELECTING “MAIN MENU”

ON THE MAIN MENU, SELECT “REPORTS”

WHAT YOU WILL WANT TO DO NOWIS STUDY THE REPORTS MENU, NOTING THAT

THE REPORT MENU SCREEN CHANGES ASYOU SELECT VARIOUS REPORTS. FOR INSTANCE,

FIND AND CLICK ON THE 5th & 6th REPORTS AVAILABLE UNDER “PARTICIPANT REPORTS” AND NOTE

HOW THE “GEOGRAPHY SOURCE” FRAME APPEARS AND DISAPPEARS. NOW NAVIGATE BACK TO THE

‘ztblReports’ TABLE AND FIND THE ROWSFOR THE 5th 6th PARTICIPANT REPORTS.

WHAT YOU’LL WANT TO DO NOW IS ARRANGE THE SCREENS LIKE I HAVETHEM HERE. NOTE THE LINK BETWEEN THE REPORT MENU AND THE ztblReprots

TABLE. [THE 6th PARTICIPANT REPORT, BY THE WAY, IS RptID #71.] NOTE HOW THE “DISPLAY NAME” FOR THIS REPORT HAS BEEN CHANGED. SEE IF YOU

CAN CHANGE THE DISPLAY NAME. YOU’LL NEED TO CLOSE AND REOPENTHE FORM BEFORE THE CHANGES TAKE EFFECT. TRY OTHER CHANGES…TRY DIMMING

THE PROVINCE DROP DOWN FILTER

TO SEE IF THE CHANGES TOOK EFFECT, DID YOU REMEMBER TO CLICK ON THE 6th REPORT

UNDER PARTICIPANTS? EXPERIMENT WITH MAKING OTHER CHANGES IN THE ztblReports TABLE AND NOTE

THEIR IMPACT ON THE MENU.

NOW, TRY TO ADD A REPORT (OR REPORT NAME) TO THE REPORTS DROP DOWN.

WHAT YOU ARE SEEING NOW IS THE PROPERTIES/DESIGN VIEWOF THE ztblReports TABLE.

WHAT DO YOU NOTICE (OR WHAT DO YOU NOT NOTICE) ABOUTWHAT IS WRITTEN IN THE DESCRIPTION FIELDS?

Points so far…

Certain things about the appearance of TIMS can be fairly easily changed, although it takes some practice and knowledge of MS Access.

What impact do making superficial changes have? Without a good deal of study, it might be hard to say because these processes (and the application) are not really well-documented.

IN THE ztbleReports TABLE, NOTE THE FIELDS FOR “AccessName”, “LookupTable”, and “RptQuery.”

THESE VALUES SEEM TO BE PASSED TO THE PROCEDURE THAT PRODUCES THE REPROTS.

LET’S DIG A LITTLE DEEPER.

UNDER ACCESS’S “WINDOWS” MENU, NAVIGATE TO THE APPLICATION,SELECT THE “FORMS” OBJECT, AND SELECT “frmReportsMenu.”

WITH ‘frmReportsMenu” HIGHLIGHTED, GO INTO “DESIGN” MODE.

ARRANGE THE WINDOWS SOMETHING LIKE THIS.

PRESS ON THE “Preview” BUTTON, WHICH REVEALS THE CODE BEHIND TIMS. NOW PRESS WHERE IT SAYS “Event Procedure”

THIS IS WHAT YOU SHOULD BE SEEING. cmdPreview_Click IS THE PROCEDURE THAT IS RUN WHEN

THE USER CLICKS ON THE PREVIEW BUTTON. THE BIT OF CODE WE ARE INTERESTED IN IS:

ShowQuery Me.lstReports.Column(0), Me.lstReports.Column(2), BuildWhereClause

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED, FIND THE ShowQuery SUB-ROUTINE TO SEE WHAT IT DOES: IN THE “Edit” MENU SELECT “FIND”

AND ENTER “ShowQuery” TO SEARCH.

IF YOU FOLLOW THE CODE YOU WILL SEE AND UNDERSTANDTHAT QUERIES AND REPORTS CAN BE RUN FROM

WITHIN TIMS BY PASSING INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THE ztblReports TABLE AND ON THE REPORTS MENU.

Additional Points…

The Code in TIMS is semi-structured

TIMS Code can be followed and studied, but…

It is not well-documented

Understanding the TIMS code requires both a command of Access, SQL, and VisualBASIC…and a good deal of patience

Closer study and inspection of the TIMS code reveals the many different coding styles and approaches were used during its development and maintenance