I like a nice clean user interface, unencumbered by extraneous options. I also like to restrict access to modules and fieldsets that our institution isn’t currently using, as a way of preventing “rogue” data entry. The Insurance Policy module is one such example, with our blanket policy there is no need for tracking this in …
Month: June 2016
Perpetual Calendar: Updating a Date Field in a Saved Query
I have a saved query in TMS that I run every day. And every day, I have to change the date field to reflect the current date. Perhaps in the future, Gallery Systems will provide a new relationship “Is Today” for date fields, but until that happens here’s a hack to try.
Improving the Quality of your Constituent Addresses
Since we do not tend to include the country name when addressing domestic mail, users tend to forget to enter this into the Constituent address. Having the country specified can enable you to perform certain queries, such as what is the geographic distribution for outgoing loans in a given year, and enables better formatting of …
Giving Users More Than an Empty Report
Occasionally, using an INNER JOIN or selection criteria in Crystal Reports, can result in an empty recordset and a blank report. For instance your user may be trying to run an accessioning report on unaccessioned objects, or a valuation report on records that have never had values entered into the system. These scenarios could create …
A Photosynth Experiment
Years ago, I blogged about emerging technology for deep zooming called Seadragon. This was inspired by a TED Talk, in which Blaise Agüera y Arcas demostrated the capabilities of Seadragon alongside Photosynth, software that assembles photos into 3D environments. Before my recent trip to China, I never had enough photographs of a single object for …