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.