Civil XLR8 Extra: Captaining the Enterprise |
InRoads Preferences: Standards and DeviationsDespite all efforts to the contrary: Standard Preferences mutate into something non-standard. Some of the mutations are benign, many malignant, others beneficial. The great challenge in an InRoads implementation is maintaining standards over time, across the enterprise, and with a high degree of certainty. Even with a qualified individual administering the INRoads Preferences full time , the task is impossible without the awareness and active participation of all the users. Types of Standards MutationsMalignant MutationsMalignant mutations can be defined as any change to any preference that does not serve an intended or useful purpose. It does not necessarily have to be actively damaging. The changes may be accidental, unnoticed, not easily noticeable or irrelevant. The fact remains that they are a deviation from settings designed and promulgated as standard. Beneficial MutationsBeneficial mutations are those changes to standards that serve a purpose. Regardless of the user's awareness or intent, beneficial changes fall into three categories: Fix: a correction to an erring or incomplete standard Personal: a change that enhances personal productivity Project: a deviation from standards required by a Project's unique
needs Note: the process for managing "department-specific" changes is
similar to the "Fix" process. Managing the MutationsAdminstrators' OptionsExtremes: Lock-down and Laissez-faireSome administrators require that the preference files be read-only or that distributed preference files be overwritten periodically. These heavy-handed methods are often imposed to keep the malignant mutations from getting out of control. The downside is that many, if not all, beneficial mutations are lost. At the other extreme, administrators can post a "approved"
standards file and leave it up to the end user to manage their own mutations.
The challenge here is that it requires awareness and vigilance on the part of
all end users to manage the decay of their standards files. Mutations inexorably
creep into the system, the speed and extent of which varies by the user and the
zealotry of the InRoads Administrator. Even in this "Iron Fist" extreme, where the InRoads Administrator manages all the preferences throughout the enterprise, the end user cannot abandon all responsibility in the appropriateness of InRoads preferences. The end user must be aware, at a minimum, of any peculiar design requirements in the active project where the default standards may lead to an improper design. A middle ground A method exists to ensure 100% accurate standards and the inclusion of beneficial mutations; it requires that the Administrator periodically "push" updated standards throughout the enterprise and that the end-user manage his or her own beneficial mutations. The InRoads Administrator can be responsible for spraying the approved
standard file throughout the enterprise, disseminating new standards and
clobbering all mutations. The problem with the above method is that ALL mutations, not just the malignant ones are overwritten. Saving PreferencesChanges made in InRoads settings are not saved unless the user hits the "Preference" button on a command form and then Saves the Preference, either overwriting an existing Preference or creating a new Preference. Unless the user explicitly saves changes as a Preference most accidental deviations are not saved from one InRoads design session to the next. Saving changes for future use requires making a conscious decision. Some foresight can greatly facilitate managing these changes. User's Responsibility for Managing Beneficial MutationsPersonal changesMuch time in InRoads is spent designing and debugging, well before actually preparing graphics for plotting. Standards designed for plotting may not be optimum for debugging. Comfortable user will very often save these personal preferences as InRoads Preferences. Depending on how the Preferences are saved - specifically, how the Preferences are Named - these personal InRoads Preferences can easily be clobbered by the any push from the administrator. If personal Preferences are clobbered, the only loss is to the user, who has to re-create them. The project should not be affected. To preserve personal changes, the user should create a Preference with a unique keyword (suffixes work nicely) in the Preference name. For example, this author names all his Personal Preferences with the suffix "-jam". Utilities exist which make separating the keyworded Preferences easy. The user can then save his personal preferences in a separate, safe, file of its own. Project StandardsThe clobbering of Project settings has potentially far more serious consequences; steps MUST be taken to manage and protect the project-specific changes. In order to ensure that Project-required changes to Settings are not clobbered, the user should save any changes to standard preferences as new Preferences. Again, a consistent keyword should be used to make later segregation easy. This keywork can be a suffix like "-proj" or perhaps the project number. The project customizations can be saved in a file and, if need be, appended to any new or updated preference file. In this way, project-specific changes can be preserved. FixesThe InRoads Administrator cannot anticipate every need for every user for every command in the InRoads implementation. More commands and options are continually added to InRoads. The InRoads file will never be perfect. There is a continuing need to update the InRoads Preference file. There must be a process to get Fixes from the end user who makes them to the InRoads Administrator, so that other users do not have to re-create the wheel time and time again. One way to manage this process is discussed below. There is no binding obligation on the part of the end user to participate in the cooperative effort to keep the Standards up to date. The smallest amount of cooperation with the InRoads Administrator, however, can yield tremendous benefits. When noticing a command in InRoads whose settings are not correct here are some suggested steps: Check other Preferences for the command. Hopefully they are well-named and a more appropriate Preference is already available. Notify the InRoads Administrator that the particular InRoads command is not set up properly. He may already have an update in place. The InRoads Administrator may be able to quickly create a correct Preference
for the command and distribute it. Otherwise, you may want to perform the Fix
yourself. If so, make the changes, save the changes as a Preference (you may
want to overwrite the Default Preferences). Use an agreed-upon keyword
"-update" (?) to flag the Preference for the InRoads Administrator. He
can pull it and add it to the Standard Preference file. Tools/Techniques for Managing Special PreferencesInRoads Preference files are standard Windows Initiation files (*.ini), text files which can be edited via standard text editors and word processors. In addition there are a number of tools available on the web appropriate for managing and comparing ini files. Ini Manager was written specifically to manage the InRoads Preference files (it was written by Jeff Martin of Bohannan Huston, so you have access to help on it). It is free and available at http://www.civilxlr8.com/ini_manager.htm. The screenshot to the right shows how Ini Manager can be used to segregate all the Preferences with the "-xl" suffix. The results are output to a separate file via the "Export to Ini
(subset)" button. Regardless of methods, maintaining a "stash" of your personal and
Project Preferences ensures that, regardless of administration methods, your
Beneficial Mutations can be preserved. |
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