Hybrid CDTs: The Final Chapter

Years ago, I published a series of articles on a data modeling technique I named "Hybrid CDT". If you're not familiar with the concept and are curious you can find them here:

1. Implementing a “Hybrid CDT” (9/3/2009)
2. Implementing a Hybrid CDT – Update (11/8/2009)
3. Hybrid CDT's and Cloning (4/19/2010) 
4. Hybrid CDT, Cloning, and Click™ Portal 5.8.x (2/22/2012)

But wait! With the release of Huron Portal 8.1, none of what I wrote matters any more. This is because Portal 8.1 introduces a new feature that allows you to get all the capabilities the Hybrid CDTs delivered with a single setting.

Momentum is a beautiful thing

It’s been nearly a year since my last post and a lot of great things have happened. I last spoke about the challenges around building a packaged solution for a market accustomed to having complete flexibility to tailor software to meet unique institutional requirements. While those challenges remain, it’s worth noting that there’s a not so subtle shift in market expectations that’s starting to happen.

Custom solutions with shrink-wrap dreams

I’ve been involved in the business of research administration through the provision of software and services since the old Webridge days and I can honestly say it’s a great place to spend my time. I’ve often been struck, however, with the wide variety of approaches all aimed at meeting the same set of compliance and business objectives. As much as the market is shaped by regulation and compliance guidelines, each institution is able to determine on their own how best to meet the internal business demands while remaining compliant. I recall, many years ago, a visit to an institution where there was distinct pride in fostering a “cowboy culture”. I applaud the desire to innovate and build a better mousetrap as there is always need to improve and adapt to an ever changing world. However, this does make life interesting in a number of ways.

Thoughts on integration

First let me say thanks to everyone who attended the annual C3 User Group Conference this week. It was great to see you all and share new ideas. The energy and excitement was contagious as always. I look forward to this event every year and this year didn’t disappoint. You are the reason.

At the conference, a major conversation theme was how best to address the integration challenge. This topic was so popular we even altered the conference agenda to make room for an entire session that allowed us to explore the challenges and approaches related to addressing the need to integrate the different solutions in a meaningful way.

The road from Starter Sites to Products

Over the past 10 years, Click (Huron) has established a solid track record of providing software and services that enable research institutions to improve operational efficiency, capture critical data, achieve and sustain accreditation, and service the needs of the research community. Over that time, we’ve also learned a lot about what it takes to accomplish those goals. Our base Click Portal platform has evolved significantly over that time as we continue to identify ways to better meet demand and institutions have been able to benefit from these improvements by simply upgrading to the latest software. We also continually hone our best practices in application design and implementation patterns, but unfortunately these advancements have been significantly more difficult to realize for existing customers. This is due primarily to our reliance on what we’ve called “Starter Sites”. Starter Sites are fully configured solutions that serve as a point of departure for a custom implementation. Think of it as a head start on your custom site. The model works well but assumes that all future development is the responsibility of each institution in partnership with Click Professional Services. Advancements in the starter site can only be realized in your site through custom development. In December of 2011 we began to chart a new course that aims to change this reality through the introduction of products.

Crafting your own document upload form

Extranet 5.6 introduced some nice enhancements to how documents are presented, including the ability to avoid the use of the standard document form altogether. Not forcing the user to use a popup window when all they want to do is upload a document is a nice improvement, but what if you really want to collect additional data that describes the document? You could certainly use the standard document form, but if the meta-data you wish to collect is different than the information collected on that form, what do you do?

Make your own document form, of course!

Let me show you how…

Avoidable Pitfalls when using Custom Data Types

Custom Data Types (CDTs) are a powerful and critical part of any Click(tm) Portal implementation. When used correctly they provide the means of defining robust Object Models. When used incorrectly, however, they can be a source of subtle problems that are difficult to diagnose and painful to correct.

Hybrid CDT, Cloning, and Click™ Portal 5.8.x

The previous post of how properly handle Hybrid CDTs during the clone process described the implementation targeted at Click™ Portal 5.6.x and 5.7.x. Click™ Portal 5.8 introduced a new implementation of the clone capability which requires a different approach to support Hybrid CDTs.

Click Happenings, January 2012 Edition

Life is a blur here in Beaverton. So many exciting things are happening. There was little time to recover from a whirlwind 2011 before we jumped head first into 2012. I thought I’d highlight a few of the notable efforts….

Tech Tip: Changing the data type of a custom attribute

When updating your object model, many of the changes are simple such as adding new attributes to existing types, adding new types, and changing display names of attributes. These kinds of changes can be done directly via the normal check-out, make the change, check-in approach. The Type System in Click Portal will gracefully accommodate the change. Not all types of change are that easy though. The one that I wan to spend time on in this post surfaced in two separate instances this week. It is when you wish to change the data type of an attribute.

Weighing the costs of implementing Hide/Show

As the saying goes, nothing is free. This can’t be more true of the choice to implement dynamic Hide/Show functionality within your SmartForm. When deciding if your requirements demand the ability to dynamically hide and show information within a single SmartForm step, it’s important to take into consideration the implications of doing so.

A nifty tool to record steps to reproduce a problem

Today’s post is credited to Levi Hawes from our Customer Support team for bringing this to our attention. It was so cool, I just had to share.

Creating new Content Pages via a Configuration Update

It’s been a while since my last post and I apologize for the lengthy absence. It’s not that there hasn’t been anything to say – far from it. It’s just that those quiet moments where random thoughts are massaged into something coherent have been hard to come by lately. That being said, it’s time to jump back into the fray.

Click Happenings

On any given day, I’m involved in a broad array of activities and projects here in the Beaverton office. This allows me a perspective that I wouldn’t otherwise get if focused on a single project. This horizontal awareness allows me to see trends and patterns and I thought I’d share some of them with you today. I encourage you to participate in the discussion by either commenting on this post, or posting to the forums at http://forums.ClickCommerce.com.

Epic Battle: Simplicity Versus Complexity

I’ve seen this too many times to not consider it a common theme in every project. I’m sure I’m not going out on a limb when I say that everyone starts their project with the goal of simplifying their current process, but with all that can be accomplished with the Extranet framework and starter solutions, the temptation to add additional complexity is often tough to resist. I submit the following for your consideration:

Complexity is evil and should only be allowed into your project when absolutely necessary

Strong statement, I know, but I find that we don’t ask the question “Is there a simpler way?” often enough. I’ve been wondering lately why this is the case and have formed a theory:

Simple is boring and we don’t like being bored

Now, before you disagree with me, let me explain.

The Dark Side of the Moon feeling

This morning I had a moment to reflect on how differently I’m able to interact with my two sons, one 15 and the other 13. My oldest son has reached a point in his life where he enjoys conversation. No subject is out of bounds and I think I get as much or more out of the discussions as he does. This is in stark contrast to what my younger son is able to provide at the moment. With him it’s the typical parent-child dialog where the parent has to play 20 questions just to get anything out of the child and there are more moments of silence than moments of verbal exchange. I’m not complaining, I realize this is typical and I had the same experience with my older son when he was that age. I’ve come to consider that age as a “Dark Side of the Moon” period. But it is very frustrating.

Click Documentation Tools 1.0

It’s long been a desire of mine to be able to automatically generate Object Model documentation for an Extranet-based store so I’m very happy to announce Version 1.0 of Click Documentation Tools!

Getting external data into your store

Extranet 5.6 and 5.7 enabled greater access to the data stored in the underlying database by exposing more data in standard SQL tables and automatically creating SQL Views that simplify the task of authoring SQL Queries to extract information. All of this is intended to support the needs for advanced reporting or data extraction. In other words, they are targeted at getting data out of Extranet. Thinking about how best to get data into the Extranet database is a completely different matter, however.

An Approach to Parallel Amendments

Goals

This post outlines steps to support an implementation for parallel amendments. The described approach is guided by the following principles:

Performance
Only create data that is necessary to support the functional requirements and avoid long running transactions. New amendments should not need to cause the creation of a complete copy of the previously approved protocol.

Ease of Review
Provide features that improve the overall experience of the reviewer.

Efficiency
Avoid the review bottleneck by allowing for amendments of different types to be in process at any given time.

Ease of Maintenance
While supporting the first two principles, the design should minimize redundancy of configuration

This is based upon ideas that have been floating in my head for a while now and largely driven by my desire to effectively support parallel amendments and dramatically reduce the dependence upon clone. We’re in the middle of the first real implementation of this approach and so far so good.

ProjectValidationRule Version 2

Since initially making the Project Validation Rules available for download, I’ve seen it successfully incorporated into several sites. I’m now happy to post version 2 of this package which extends the core features originally described in the original post on December 4th, 2009.