TMG-L Archives

Archiver > TMG > 2002-01 > 1009907142


From: "Cheri Casper" <>
Subject: RE: [TMG] tmg with audit trail and rollback functions?
Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2002 09:50:51 -0800
In-Reply-To: <MABBJHBCCCAFJHJGELJDKEDAEDAA.holly.hendricks@att.net>


Since I don't use the Lat/Long detail field for anything, (I know there is
someway to change the label on this and will have to figure that one out.)
I think my new plan is to use it to record the date a tag was added or
modified in anyway (even if it is only to add a source or change a sentence,
add some minor notation to the memo field). I will put the information in
sensitivity brackets so it will not print. This way I will have a record of
what I did when. Then if necessary I can pull a backup, merge the data and
then work through the data using these dates as comparison points, or by,
perhaps, running some sort of report from the main dataset and the backup
and comparing from there. There maybe other alternatives out there (if you
know of one, please let me know!) but at the moment this is the only thing I
can think of that will allow me to "date" changes. While you *can* use the
"last edited date" feature, if you set flags and have the program
automatically update those people whose flags were modified, this isn't
going to betoo helpful. I found that out the hard way. <g> Won't make
that mistake again. I will also embed in the dataset memo extensive notes
about when the dataset was created, when it was merged and with what other
dataset, etc.

While re-entering data takes time, it isn't too tedious. It is when you
have sourced a lot of material, carefully worked through all of the CDs,
gotten the reports to print out just so, that would be a pain in the patoot
to have to redo. IMHO.

CheriC

-----Original Message-----
From: Holly Hendricks [mailto:]
Sent: Tuesday, January 01, 2002 6:23 AM
To:
Subject: [TMG] tmg with audit trail and rollback functions?


Cheri's emails have brought to mind how much we invest in our databases.
Although I do have lots of backups on CD, restoring V3.5 silver backups
might be tedious and difficult. As Cheri points out, how do you keep track
of what changed when to analyze the errors and select the appropriate
rollback point? How do you figure out what you entered since then? Can
you change one thing without losing everything else? I see that some
people invest as much in their databases as they would in a full time job.

Would other people pay more for ecommerce level TMG with audit trails? I
would if it were an upgrade path from a standard version. Once I was sure
I was going to use TMG (took about 3 weeks for me) and had all my data
converted and cleaned up, I would have started saving up for the high end
version.

An e-commerce system (example: ATM machine) logs every transaction into a
separate file. You can "roll back" any transaction to any point. You can
keep all your audit trail logs as long as you wish, and you could use 3d
party file utilities to compare the logs or search for occurrences of
various strings. This would have required too much disk space before the
advent of affordable multi-gig hard drives, but could work in the current
environment.

I think if there were a series of security levels and a front-end management
system, some of us would find a way to pay significantly more for this level
of data integrity.

Bob seems to be very good at staying focused on his main priorities. But
there might be an opportunity here for a 3rd party company which has already
developed these types of transaction processing modules and a front end
management system for end users.

+----------------------------------------+
Holly Hendricks
Creative Web Development
+----------------------------------------+


==== TMG Mailing List ====
To un-subscribe from TMG-D (digest mode), send a message to
<> with just the word "unsubscribe" (no quotes)in
the text and turn off your signature.

This thread: