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Thursday, January 21, 2016

From IT saint to IT zero: The story of an error

Everyone's eyes fall on IT when a project goes astray. Presently it's up to the guru to work out the arrangement, down to the most diminutive point of interest .

From IT hero to IT zero: The tale of a typo

You can compose the best program on the planet that works 99.9 percent of the time, however trouble unto you the first occasion when it comes up short. At that point motivate prepared to play both investigator and advocate on the off chance that you need the issue altered, as I learned at work.

At our organization, the finance/HR division likes to keep up a printed version of certain information. They have intricate records for excursion time, medical coverage data, individual time, and a general worker data card.

There are near 20 divisions in the organization, so HR approached in the event that it was workable for me to compose a project that would shading code the main 1/4 inch of every card to distinguish which division it had a place with and make it less demanding for them to rapidly record and monitor the data. The asked for information would be separated from their HR program, which we obtained from an outside seller.

Mission achieved - for the time being

I could rapidly deliver a system that would get to the information, which was put away in a SQL database, and recognize any new workers. As every card was printed, the project would coordinate the right shading for their division.

The office workers were joyful, and the system ran easily for quite a while ... until one game changing day.

Somebody from finance called and said the wrong shading was showing up on one card. The group contained records for workers from a few distinct divisions, and the various cards in the bunch were right, however one representative's was most certainly not. HR was persuaded that my homegrown project was bringing on the issue. I went into discover.

I wandered over to the division to watch the project running, and beyond any doubt enough, the cards for the one new representative printed with a top band of dark when it should have been be purple. I explored closer. Checking the code (around six pages single-separated), everything gave off an impression of being right and unaltered.

Next, I investigated the crude information separated for the new representatives. In no time flat, the issue became exposed. Somebody (nobody admitted to it) had entered the wrong information for the card that was printing erroneously. They had filled in the division field as ***N0 rather than ***NO. "NO" distinguishes a northern division, and obviously ***N0 was just wrong data.

Found, yet not yet settled

I brought up the issue and the way that their finance project ought not have allowed such an activity. The industrially bought program permitted a representative to choose an organization from a drop-down rundown, which is fine. In any case, it additionally let the laborer enter another organization identifier - a capacity that should've been left to an executive, consequently taking out these sorts of issues. Rather, they could sort in ***N0 rather than ***NO.

I told the merchant of the issue yet have yet to get any much obliged. I am not amazed.

Clients must comprehend that the PC peruses each character precisely as it is entered, not as we proposed it to be. We likewise need to recall that projects have unforeseen imperfections, so we can never expect. Twofold checking can spare a great deal of sorrow over the long haul.


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