Hey folks,
We are shifting out SelfHosted Tessitura to Hosted Services (nee RAMP) and in the run up we really need to have a good look at the various, and many customisations that have been put in place over the last 10 years.
Does anyone have advice, tips and/or a customisation leger/doc that has helped them in the past?
H
I keep a separate MS Access database that tracks custom reports, objects, customizations that are based on canned versions that need to be explicitly checked for each upgrade, etc. (Re the MS Access db, don't laugh ;), I created it when I started the job in 2006 and haven't moved it elsewhere yet. I have grand plans as a low priority project to actually track this in Tess...someday!) This database is also where we log all changes to customizations or significant changes to Tessitura's system table values, integrations, etc.
A simple front-end convention that we've always instituted is to put the copyright symbol (©) at the end of all of our report names. This helps end users distinguish between canned and custom reports.
And of course the leading "L" in front of all backend custom object names. It's not foolproof since some EcoSystem partners and TNEW code also use the leading L, but it certainly whittles down the list!
One area where we don't mark or track customizations, however, and I would love to hear how others are doing this, is with output set objects (groups, elements, and parameters) and list manager elements. I'm toying with the idea of adding the copyright symbol to these objects' descriptions, but how are others noting these?
MS Access!! That made me smile.
Similar to what you do with the copyright symbol we use "CP" (as abbreviation for CPA/Center for the Performing Arts), but we put it at the FRONT of everything. So a custom report is easily located by just verifying that it starts with "CP". This DOES move it away from being next to the original report if it was taken from a standard report and only slightly modified. That said, usually when I have done that, it is because for whatever reason we SHOULD be using the custom version instead of the canned report, so that bothers me less than it might. Being a consortium as well, we have 8 total organizations which might have their own thing, and we use a distinct 2 letter prefix for all of them.
The only thing I have done to track things like output/list set objects/elements is to put them into our "CP Public" security group (or otherwise relevant, but we seem to do the majority of customising there) while everything else lives in our "Campus All Access" (default) group. So, anything that is NOT available to everything is a custom element. So, while not specifically a naming convention, it at least DOES have the benefit of being a unique identifier. Probably would not be the best solution if we had custom elements that more than one organization wants and so probably would not work for you, but thus far at least that has not been a worry. Unless I suppose you wanted an "All Access" and "All Access Custom" security group. But that seems very hacky.