Reluctant DBAs are those of us who aren’t formally trained in database administration, but manage through a combination of our wits, technical manuals, and online forums. This crash course will explore best practices for installing, configuring, and maintaining Microsoft SQL Server, and highlight some SQL Server features (and Easter eggs) that can improve your user experience and institutional ROI.
Presented at Collective Imagination. 17-19 December 2021, Online.
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With staff working from home, many institutions are prioritizing data quality projects. Originally presented at Collective Imagination 2012, this presentation has been updated to reflect changes to The Museum System (TMS), and the availability of new low-cost or free tools. It provides insights into how to prevent, clean, and monitor data quality, with techniques for power users, system administrators, and SQL experts alike.
Presented as a webinar for Gallery Systems. 16 June 2020.
Like many other institutions, The Morgan Library and Museum utilizes TMS to generate reports using templates prepared in Crystal Reports. But the reports and forms we desire most – loan agreements, condition reports, and exhibition checklists – need to be highly dynamic. Instead of typesetting each block of text or every checkbox, the Morgan leverages Crystal Reports’ powerful capabilities to make reports dynamic, flexible and easy to maintain. This presentation dissects some of our most complicated reports to look at the underlying structures and formulae.
Presented at Collective Imagination. 6-8 December 2017, Los Angeles, CA.
Presented as a webinar for Gallery Systems. 25 April 2018.
Last year, I was running cursors against massive datasets, and they seemed to run forever. It was like watching paint dry or grass grow, because, while SQL Server Management Studio shows the time elapsed and a running ticker of (1 row(s) affected) messages, there is no indication of what percentage of the dataset has been processed. So I ended up developing this progress bar in SQL to add to my scripts.
When preparing for training sessions, it is a good idea to elevate your users’ permissions so that they can fully participate in training. However, this can expose users to highly sensitive information – such as valuations – that they would not otherwise have access to. This makes it necessary to hide the money.
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