Microsoft Tech Ed – Durban 2010

Microsoft Tech Ed Durban 2010

They say that when you are young, your brain is like a sponge – readily absorbing fact and detail as a sponge absorbs water.After attending Microsoft Tech Ed for 3 days last days, my brain felt more like a coconut – dry, husky and buoyant!And that’s not just due to the free beer at the closing party…We were all encouraged to ‘Immerse’ ourselves, and to ‘Learn’, ‘Connect’, ‘Evolve’ and ‘Explore’ Microsoft Tech Ed.

(note to self – not to immerse ourselves in the free drinks on offer, which is what some of the delegates chose to do, judging by the general appearance of the Tech Ed crew on Wednesday morning…eye drops and a razor anyone?)

But it’s not all just fun and games…

Tech Ed is a truly amazing experience for anyone that considers themselves an IT professional.Being surrounded by Microsoft’s top ‘propeller heads’ is an exciting and humbling experience to say the least.Some of these professionals are the IT equivalent of NASA’s astronauts – and require a satellite dish just to translate what they are transmitting!They remain circulating in some distant Exchange, Sharepoint and Forefront orbit around the world of IT systems as we know it.

 I have been made aware of many things over the last few days, here are just a few observations:

 1.       The days of IT technical engineers being a ‘jack of all trades but master of none’ is over!Today’s ‘Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals’ are a highly skilled, highly specialized breed of techheads.They are passionate and knowledgeable about their chosen field, and fiercely believe in the capabilities of their products – and with good reason!‘Jack of all trade’ engineers appear to be going the way of the dodo, the brontosaurus and the kwagga…

It’s Time to ‘Evolve’!

2.       Microsoft’s newest offerings are designed to meet business’s ever growing need for tighter security, greater scalability and fault tolerance, but also to be more easily accessible to the mobile worker.This would seem a contradiction in itself! How can you make something more secure and redundant, but ultimately more exposed at the same time?Surely that would be almost impossible…

Well – one thing Microsoft has always been good at is delivering comprehensive solutions by leveraging the capabilities of their individual offerings off of each other. Let me give you a few examples:

Want to access your Exchange email data from the web? Sure, you just need Microsoft Threat Management Gateway to publish it securely.

Want to secure your Sharepoint data when it’s out in the big bad internet world?Why you just need to run Windows Right Management Services to safeguard your data against unauthorized use.And so the list goes on…

As Microsoft’s offerings become highly specialized, they also become better and more tightly integrated.Now THAT’S how you sell software!

Time to ‘Connect’!

3.       Nowadays IT security concerns are not just about ‘hackers’ trying to penetrate your network to access your company’s data.There aren’t millions of Industrial Espionage spies out there trying to find open TCP or UDP ports or exploit vulnerabilities on your company firewalls.They have automated bots to do that for them, randomly scanning public IP addresses in an attempt to find a weakness and then exploit it, payloading Trojans and viruses inside your network to automatically open backdoors.But this doesn’t mean they are lazy either…

Right now ‘Dr No’ seems more concerned with granular level information gathering.And they have the tools to do this! Interrogating your web published .pdf files to gather information about your internal network, server names, user names etc.Using automated web searching software to compile contact information about people in your employ – e-mail addresses and contact numbers etc.The list goes on…

In the age of social networking, it appears one has to be more concerned with their info and presence on the internet than ever before.I’m not suggesting that you close your facebook account – BTW you need to request Facebook to do this for you – as your profile is the property of Facebook now!The same goes for all of your uploaded content, photos and videos.(Queue deranged evil genius laughter! Muahahahaha!)We all need to manage our company and personal information that’s out there on the ‘Big bad internet’ properly.

Time to ‘Learn!’

4.       It’s all about the cloud!

Cloud computing and service hosting is the next big thing.You cannot deny it or hide from it.If you are like me and enjoy the feeling of walking into a nice cold server room – hearing the reassuring hum of the servers , seeing all the lights blinking away like twinkling stars – you’re in for a rude awakening.The server room of the future will probably only have one or 2 physical servers to host your onsite applications and routers, the rest of your infrastructure will exist in a virtual universe, half a world away in a datacentre.The datacentres of this ‘futuristic’ IT landscape can be found in countries like Iceland, where it is much more cost effective to run them, and easier to keep them cool.

I know Iceland definitely isn’t the first place that springs to mind when you think of IT infrastructure, Data Centres and Microsoft – far from it!This may seem strange when the general population of Iceland probably consists of a number of Seal hunting Eskimo’s and a couple of random Eskimo hunting polar bears,but Iceland does have multi-terabit connectivity to America and Europe due to its prime location. (note to self – investigate Igloo real estate!)

This is why there are far more internet links connected to Iceland than places like South Africa, a definite sore point for some – As Microsoft closing key note speaker Miha Kralj remarked in frustration ‘It feels like the internet only comes to South Africa to die!’

The Data Centres of today do not require much physical human interaction, they are custom built and fully redundant. In any one container alone there can be up to 2500 blade servers, Microsoft reckon that they can afford to lose up to 400 of those blades in a single disaster without any serious issues. That’s 400 blade servers without blinking an eye.If they lose more than 400 blades in a single failure, they won’t even replace them – they just replace the container! Replacing the individual blades takes too much time…It’s difficult to picture, not caring about 400 failed blades, when most of us live in a world where even a single failure spells instant doom and sleepless nights.

Time to ‘Explore’ (Iceland)!

Last but not least, I have come to the realization that I am definitely not as smart as I hoped I was…45 minutes of ‘Exchange Server 2010 High availability Deep Dive’ was enough to reduce my brain to tapioca, and the last 15 minutes of the hour long session was like having my head drilled into by some deranged  dentist.

Deep Dive indeed!

Well… we all know coconuts can’t dive…

Until next year!

For now, I intend to ‘Immerse’ myself…

Cheers

Sustainability – more than just “Green”

The recent events on world markets have led to business leaders everywhere seriously questioning the sustainability of their operations.  While many factors are outside the direct control of management, such as raw material prices, demand for product and availability of capital, there are nevertheless many areas that are within managements control.  These areas, if addressed holistically will lead to more sustainable and profitable operations.

Business leaders in the process manufacturing industry have concluded that sustainability needs to be a combination of initiatives in three key areas:  financial, environmental and social.  When all three are addressed simultaneously, new value can be created.  This of course makes good business sense, companies that address these areas are likely to show greater returns to shareholders and other stakeholders.

A production manager can make a significant difference in the way plants are operated.  Previously it was sufficient for them to concern themselves mainly with production targets, such as production rate, conversion efficiency, cost of production (per ton), inventory and supply chain management.  However there are other significant KPI’s such as incident rates, emission management, health and wellbeing of employees and community development which need to be superimposed in order for a plant and business to operate responsibly and of course more sustainably.

The IT industry has recognised this and software vendors have started recognising that sustainability is a key driver in successful manufacturing operations.  The philosophy is that Health, Safety, Environment and Quality (HSEQ) needs to be embedded into all production processes and made intrinsic in the overall measurement and reporting of all activities.  No longer is production cost the only factor.   Unfortunately, it is unsatisfactory to try and “bolt on” SHEQ systems on top of business systems.  It is far better when designing and selecting software based systems that HSEQ is seen to be embedded in each and every step in the software and when selecting systems the practical integration of these with each other and the business systems needs to be evident.

A simple example of how a holistic systems approach can be achieved is through the integration of production, maintenance and SHE in a typical operating company.  It is often that these three areas report to a common production manager, but this is the only point where there is joint accountability.  Production, maintenance and SHE teams often operate in separate “islands of information”, citing every reason as to why they are different and need separate systems.  A typical production environment therefore has separate maintenance, SHEQ and operational software with absolutely no thought given to the process integration between these areas, and the consistency between these systems.  An fragmented approach definitely leads to wasted opportunities to drive improved sustainability through a common integrated approach. 

The overall production processes includes several activities including determining rules for safe work; enforcing these through the maintenance function when executing work orders, getting authorisation from operations through the permit  to work process, integrating this into the SHEQ management system through incident management and non conformance handling; while always retaining a strong focus on the process operations in the control room.  Additional areas include measurement of production efficiencies, energy efficiencies, emissions and environmental spills.

IT systems are evolving (some quicker than others) to embrace this holistic approach.  The business drivers are there; and several vendors have been adopting the holistic vision for many years.  It behoves business and plant management to take a new look at these IT systems and understand how they are evolving to a more comprehensive solution. These new generation systems can act as a vital tool for production managers who need to contribute to improved sustainability within their production environments.  This will improve the chances of weathering the Global economic storm and allow your business to emerge stronger to take advantage of the inevitable upturn in a world that will be much more aware of sustainability as a key business success factor.

Has IT Been Sidelined by Success?

In the past as certain technologies mature they become pervasive and eventually disappear into the “fabric” of the world around us. For example, a device like a cell phone has now become a commodity item, and we take it for granted that people can communicate via voice, SMS, e-mail and video through a small portable wireless device from just about any location. Ten years ago I worked in a plant environment where cell phones were limited to “management only” and there were less than 10 in the whole company. Now every employee in the same plant carries a cell phone. In a few short years we have all simply forgotten how useful a communication device a mobile phone has become.

It is my observation that in the manufacturing sector, to a large extent information technology has become side-lined by its own success. For years, IT managers concerned themselves with implementing reliable information infrastructures. Business systems had to operate 24X7. Failures had to be constrained to a few hours in a year and the mean time to repair had to come down to minutes. Is it therefore really surprising that business leaders have come to regard their IT systems as mere commodity infrastructures, unable to add new strategic value and in the same category as office buildings, telephones and photocopy machines? IT Managers may be tempted to switch off the mail server for several days just to prove a point.

This dilemma faced by IT Managers in manufacturing is real. Successful technology that works well must disappear into the fabric of the business. When a core business system goes down things can get very ugly and IT Managers do everything they can to avoid failure by investing heavily in system reliability. However, after the implementation is over the inherently very reliable business system is somehow forgotten for the underlying value it continues to create for the organisation, for example by coordinating financial, supply chain, HR, manufacturing, procurement, sales and logistics processes.

In a recent discussion with a leader of a reasonably complex manufacturing company, I realised that in fact managers do want the IT systems to “disappear” in the sense that in his view the underlying business processes just need to operate reliably and with integrity so that managers can focus on the areas that are far less predictable – markets, customers, competitors and so on. Like when purchasing a cell phone contract, people want their business systems to just work without any issues.

In the manufacturing systems environment two types of distinct IT professional emerge. The first is concerned with the reliability, stability and underlying predictability of the IT platforms, systems and applications. They succeed when the systems “disappear”. The second, equally important category is the group who constantly stretch the boundaries of technology to extract the last residual value and opportunity from the existing and new IT investments. The second is challenged by the need to create value. This group works tirelessly to align IT and business strategy, innovate frequently and accepts that failure in projects is an inevitable consequence of taking risk, but that when projects succeed the risk is generously rewarded. Both categories of IT professionals are critical to the ultimate success of the business, and when in balance both complement each other.

The mistake that companies sometimes make is that they fail to recognise the fundamental differences in motivation within their IT staff. As a result of a lack of insight, these companies try to manage IT as a homogenous environment. Inevitably the emphasis will either be on stability or innovation, but rarely both in balance.

As technology disappears into the fabric of the world around us, both companies and individuals are now grappling with how to create differentiated business value with what is perceived as a commodity service. The software vendors also recognise that technology is rapidly commoditised, and in order to retain competitive advantage they have to consistently and convincingly illustrate business value. They recognise that business value is created by close alignment with the challenges within vertical industry segments. The leading providers of business systems are therefore increasingly vertically focussed. While still leveraging the “big brand” to give confidence they nevertheless have to organise themselves internally along functions that have deep, credible knowledge of the target industry itself. In manufacturing companies these specialised competences include manufacturing, operations improvement, supply chain and logistics, information management, sustainability and customer relationship management.

In assessing the efficiency of an IT Department in a manufacturing company, it is no longer adequate to measure the pure commodity service. Leaders in manufacturing need to challenge IT professionals constantly for value add and alignment to business objectives. They need to challenge and constantly assess the impact of the vertical focus of the suppliers of their critical business systems. They need to so this whilst at the same time respecting and also recognising those individuals who take great pride in the fact that through the reliable infrastructure that they now maintain they have perhaps become victims of their own success.

New IntelliPERMIT workflow rules

The set of rules supported by IntelliPERMIT continues to grow.   These rules allow the system to react more intelligently to permit scenarios and to guide users through the permit process.

 

• Rule #33 states that a permit acceptor may not suspend more than one permit at a time.  This rule is useful in scenarios where isolations are being removed for testing or commissioning of equipment that has been worked on.  The rule should be enabled in order to control this process and ensure that the responsible person deals only with a single commissioning activity at a time.  
• Rule #34 is designed to limit access to particular operations to the person who initiated/applied for the permit. For instance, this is a useful control to ensure that only the original applicant can edit a permit (even prior to it being issued.) 
• Rule #35 governs which permit types may not include isolations – by definition some permit types require work on equipment that is live.
• Rule #36 may be used to ensure that a permit includes a safety lock and key safe number prior to the permit being issued.  This rule only applies to those sites that make use of key safes.
• Rule #37 ensures that if other permits are cross referenced to a “master” permit, the master may not be edited unless the cross references from the “slave” permits are first removed, or they are signed off.
• Rule #38 simply alerts users when signing permits if their competencies are due to expire.  This is particularly useful in the cases where users may not have received emails warning them of the impending expiration of their competencies. 

 

These rules have been published for general release with version 5.  (Hotfixes for version 4.3 SP4 are available on demand for some of these new rules)

 

A more general enhancement also included in version 5 is the opening up of the permit editing process to allow for additional rules to be added without making changes to the core software.

 

Enhancements to IntelliPERMIT workflow and rules

Version 5.0 of IntelliPERMIT includes a number of subtle enhancements to the underlying workflow and rules engine of the system. These enhanced capabilities will not disrupt the functioning of existing systems, nor require any re-configuration unless the site specifically requires the new functionality. While the technical details of these changes may seem slightly obscure, the intention behind them is to allow the system to more efficiently guide users through the permit process and allow them to produce permits that more accurately reflect the requirements of a task. Here are four examples:

1. Precautions and Preparation questions may be configured to appear in the Permit Wizard even if not linked to a specific hazard. This is useful in a scenario where a question must be asked on all permits across site but is not necessarily associated with a hazard. Unless a hazard is linked to this question, no rule is applied to the given answer. However, the user is forced to supply an answer.

2. Authorisation questions may now be linked to specific hazards. If a question is linked to a hazard, then it only appears if the permit includes that associated hazard. A practical example of where this may be used is in gas testing where a question should only be displayed and the answer validated if a gas hazard is included on the permit.

3. The workflow actions may be optionally configured to only appear for specific permit types or if the permit includes specified hazards. If no hazard or permit type is specified in the configuration, then the action will be visible for all permit types and for all hazards. Again, this is useful to more closely tailor the workflow to the requirements of the specific permit and ensure that users are only presented with relevant actions to perform.

4. Question rules now support the “NOT” operator. This allows a rule to be set that allows any answer except a specific response. For example, a question may have 3 options in a dropdown: Yes, No and N/A; and a rule set to “NOT No”. This means that both “Yes” and “N/A” will be valid responses to this question.

Some thoughts on the future of IT in business

I write this summary after attending two “back to back” conferences at Sun City which provided an ideal opportunity to get away from operations,  to win back some mind space and reflect on the state of the industry.
It will take some time to feedback all of the great ideas from both our strategic technology partners (Microsoft and Infor).  So I have resolved to write several blogs on our website to help share some of the highlights over the
coming months. 

At a very high level, these are the key messages I have for you from the past week:

Quote of the week:  “If you do not like change, then you should not be in the IT Industry”

Second quote of the week:  “If you truly want to be world class you truly have to focus, no matter how capable you are” 

Here are the headlines which I will drill down into in the next few months:

1. There is a significant shift taking place in IT today, as important as the early development of the web itself.   This is the migration of applications, including business applications to “the cloud”.  We will have to take this trend seriously, and investigate carefully how the cloud will impact on OpSUITE.

2. CIO’s are rapidly warming to the outsourced application model where the business application is served from the cloud.  Within a few months CIO’s will start accepting ERP, CRM and even MES applications served off premise from hosting service providers. 

3. CIO’s actually want IT to be a commodity, that runs at the lowest cost and highest level of reliability.  An example of how costs are dropping comes  from Microsoft where one of their data centres consists of several
thousand servers with only two engineers on site supporting the entire system.

4. In South Africa, bandwidth is about to increase substantially and prices will drop such that cloud computing will be a viable model for this region, and into the rest of Africa.

5. Consumers will drive the adoption of low cost computing through gaming, video and social network applications.

6. In South Africa, as in many parts of the world, FY10 was a terrible year for enterprise software vendors. 

7. In South Africa, unlike most parts of the world there is a tremendous opportunity in providing IT solutions to the public sector.  The potential for offering business applications to this sector is expected to increase as infrastructure investments are made, and we expect that this high growth will be sustained in FY11.

8. Dynamics CRM is worth watching closely. The new version holds much promise for ISV’s who wish to build IP solutions on the platform.

9. Microsoft is transforming into a services company.

 
Third Quote of the Week:  “The future of IT is already here, it is just unevenly distributed”

 
The IT industry can at times seem daunting and confusing.  However despite the technology waves (like cloud computing) the basics stay the same. 

Ironically the cloud is more like the mainframe than ever.  It demands disciplined software deployment and well written applications on a powerful platform.  Both Microsoft and Infor spent a lot of time talking about Azure – and you need to know what this is.  If you are technically inclined, Google “Azure” right now and see the future of cloud computing.  Most of the great ideas that will transform business applications in the future already exist somewhere, usually in other industries.  It is just a matter of time before the ideas spread into mainstream best practice.  You have the opportunity to see the future by simply being aware of what is already being used by consumers who carry iPhones and other smart devices that combine GPS, connectivity and rich applications in a mobile device.

Until next time, and keep an eye out for the blogs on our site over the next few weeks.

Bringing it all together

For some time now we have been working hard to provide our customers with a more integrated and customisable view of all aspects of Operations Suite. Historically we assessed our customers needs and then developed a fairly unique set of reports or view of their data, and then provided a “Portal” page, from which they can access certain aspect of the Suite. These developments were mostly around IntelliPERMIT. Many of our customers will be familiar with the “Smart Portal” screen, which was the original concept.

The ApplyIT Development Labs have subsequently been very busy in enhancing the concept, which should be available in the next major release on Operations Suite.

We have taken the industry experience over the past few years and from all our integration projects, and looking at what our customers are doing with our operations, safety, health & environment solutions, and have come up with something that will allow us to finally consolidate all aspects of Operations Suite, as well as providing insight into third party systems to provide you with the most pertinent information to facilitate good operational decisions in real time.

Data from all current modules in Operations Suite will be consolidated and displayed in various graphical forms and indicators. These could include trends, KPI indexes, common tasks and alerts etc.  This will provide production managers with highly relevant information and an overall view of your plant at any given time.  Unlike many best of breed systems, Operations Suite is unique in its in depth and comprehensive coverage of SHEQ and operations information, resulting in a comprehensive set of operations, safety, health, environmental performance indicators.  The concept is not another real time process control dashboard, it goes to the heart of the key production metrics which include process control, human interactions, people task based processes and engineering information.

Past experience has also taught us that a universal one size fits all “Snap Shot” also does not really cut it, so end user customisation is being taken into consideration during the current design phase.

As development progresses, we will be keeping you up to date with this specific development, and you can look forward to some very interesting and informative additions to Operations Suite.

Feature Focus : FlexiLOG Trending

Continuing on from the previous post in the “Feature Focus” series, I’ve decided to highlight another great feature within FlexiLOG that is not always used but can provide insight into the current data that is captured within the logs.

Trending, the way it has been implemented within FlexiLOG, allows you to create a template with a section that deals with manual numeric data entry. The data being captured will create a visual indicator as to whether the current value is higher, lower or the same as the previous value captured. Below is an example of this is action.

 

 

But we do not stop there. Showing an indicator from the previous values captured is all good and well, but would it be more useful to have a trend over time of the data captured?!?

By clicking on the actual indicator (coloured arrow), a chart is generated which will show the previous ten values captured. Below is an example of this in action.

 

 

Having all this additional information at hand, would definitely provide any user with context to make better decisions on running his plant or any other situation that they might find themselves in.

It should be noted that the “FlexiLOG Trending” is part of Operations Suite 5.0, which is currently undergoing final development, and will be available during 2010.

MES and the Cloud

Significant discontinuities occur in technology every 5 – 10 years. The development of the personal computer, client server computing and the Internet have each had a profound impact . Each development has been accompanied by significant excitement and “hype” in the industry, which can unfortunately clutters the message relating to the underlying value and as a result creates some scepticism when a new concept is mooted, and then hyped out of proportion.

Yet, when the largest technology companies in the world demonstrate a universal acceptance of a new concept then we should sit up and take notice, because this is probably beyond mere hype. And so it is with Cloud Computing.

Rather than simply jumping on the hype bandwagon, I would like to take a few moments and address a specific aspect of cloud that should concern manufacturing companies. The question is what role cloud computing will play in the evolution of manufacturing execution systems (MES). Should CIO’s in manufacturing be doing something now, to prepare for the shift that will come? What about manufacturing systems managers, process control engineers, traditional system integrators and others?

On the one side cloud computing is already practical at the business application level . For example several examples of successful and mature hosted CRM solutions have existed for several years that demonstrate the viability of consuming business critical services from the cloud. Examples of ERP systems in the cloud also exist, and the number is growing. Right now the major application vendors are not idly waiting for someone else to develop the software services market. They are all actively building cloud based application infrastructures, exploring relationships with telecommunication and other hosting providers, and promoting SAAS based software architectures that allow on-premise or hosted applications. These architectures are based on web services, a common security model and a standard for information transfer between these environments.

So lets briefly explore specific manufacturing systems: SCM (supply chain management), MES (manufacturing execution systems) and process control . Where could these fit “in the cloud”? The answer is of course that conceptually, all of these (except direct process control) can be hosted and provided by third parties though “the cloud”. The main issue with near real time process control of course relates inter-alia to the long latency of connections to hosted servers, introducing safety and other engineering considerations that make it impractical to host anywhere but on-premise. However it would be a mistake to argue that because process control does not fit into the cloud neatly, the same applies to the rest of MES. In fact, process control systems that are architected with cloud in mind will work better with cloud based MES level applications in future. And consider the example where NASA can fully control a complex orbiting space station remotely.    Complex remote process control is possible, just not economically viable perhaps.

MES include such applications such as laboratory management (LIMS), operations performance management, business process automation (such as safety incident reporting, maintenance work orders and permit to work), and others. None of these are significantly constrained by the inherent latency in cloud based connectivity. In fact, service providers that can simplify standard “commodity” business processes such as work order processing (plant maintenance), or “sample analysis and reporting” (laboratory systems); and make these applications available to customers who are happy to consume these as required through the cloud; stand to capture significant market share over the next few years.

For manufacturing companies, cloud based MES solutions allow standardisation of manufacturing sub-processes across multiple plants in many countries, a concept that will be attractive to the global giants who acquire manufacturing assets around the world and seek to leverage best practices internally within their entire organisation.

So how should manufacturing CIO’s and systems managers react? My recommendation is to do what all engineers do when confronted with a fundamental shift in technology. Get informed, quickly. Study cloud computing now because it will impact on the way you will select, deploy and integrate software applications in future. In studying the subject, get your hands dirty and experiment with the new virtualisation technologies available. Look at the underlying architectures in Microsoft’s Azure to see how windows environments will be impacted. Consider identity and security models and how these will become even more complex when critical data in future is hosted outside your firewall and direct control. Consider how Look at the service providers, are they going to be able to provide you with a reliable hosted service. Consider governance, how will you meet legislation and other requirements around your information? Look at your software vendors, which of them have a clear strategy to move selected applications into a hosted model, and how will they work with the infrastructure companies going forward.

The technology world is about to make a fundamental shift (again). Manufacturing companies will not be immune to this new wave. As the saying goes, there is no smoke without fire; there is no hype without an underlying driver – be informed and be prepared for the next generation of MES. Dare I also jump on the bandwagon and call this MES 2.0?

Feature Focus : FlexiLOG Extended Validation

Our “Feature Focus” series of blog entries will try and highlight those features that can make a big difference in the way you would interact with Operations Suite on a day to day basis. We will look at all aspects of Operations Suite, the first being the “Extended Validation” feature in FlexiLOG.

This feature provides additional validation functionality when manually entering data. The benefit is that the system knows what range of values to expect.  This is normally within a specified range or ranges. In real live production environments however, frequently the data being captured is out of range.  To not inhibit productivity the extended validation feature can be configured to either warn you, or to explicitly discard the suspect data.

So that in a nutshell is “Extended Validation”. So the question now is, how and what is the end result. The following images will illustrate the how. To enlarge the image, simply click on it.

The first thing you would have to do when setting up validation checks is to edit an existing template or create a new one. It should also be noted that the extended validation currently only works with “Numeric” values. These are usually captured within a “Question & Answer” section. Once you have identified or created a “Question & Answer” section, we can add a new question. As illustrated below, ensure that the “Answer Type” is “Textbox – Numeric”. The extended validation is set in the “Expected Answer” field.

The options available to you are “>”,”<”,”<=”,”>=” and the actual value. To create a range for instance, you would start with the lowest value in the range and then comma (,) separate the subsequent range highest value in the range. If you want to have a specific value, you should just type in that value. By ticking the “Enforce Validation” checkbox, you are telling the extended validation to NOT save the value if it does not adhere to the validation rules.

Now that we have configure a single question with some extended validation, let’s see what it does. Well, if the values does satisfy the validation rules, the answer will be saved and you would never be any wiser. It is when the answer does not meet the validation, that the user is presented with the following notification.

As you can see the user is notified that validation has not been met, but also tells you what the validation rules are. This makes this feature invaluable when capturing information where tight controls have to be in please to ensure optimum efficiency within the affected areas. Checklists and questionnaires are also greatly enhanced by this feature, ensuring that there are no unexpected variances when providing statistical reports based on data captured.

It should be noted that the “Extended Validation” is part of Operations Suite 5.0, which is currently undergoing final development, and will be available during 2010.