Ho Hum

So far so good on the conversion today, except for the vendor going AWOL on us.

I created the database to use for the conversion, with over 500,000 documents and 13,000 cases listed.  I backed up the target SQL database and started to go through their instructions.

Ultimately we had to call the vendor, which because the did not answer the phone when I called, happened by the office manager calling someone else directly and then hooking me to the other person on her phone.  I stood there for an hour talking, while he connected remotely, checked and confirmed settings, and then what the heck, ran the conversion executable.  Which reminds me of the post I have yet to write about how fascinating it is to observe other people doing tech support, and what assumptions they make, what they call things, and so forth.

The unexpected included that the program expected and User DSN and wouldn’t work with an otherwise identical System DSN.  Weird.  It also included needing to change the field names in the source MDB.

Anyway, since the guy there started the conversion, we hung up and he monitored it, to call me when it was done.  When it’s done it creates a script for the next part, to link the documents.  Idea was to call and then I’d run that and so forth.  I’d expect that to take longer.

After long enough of hearing nothing, I checked to see if I could tell part one completed.  Yes, it had; at 12:59, about 50 minutes after it started.  There was no indication the script had been started yet to handle the documents.  There was no word from anyone at that company.  The manager called and left one person voicemail.  I called and left the other person voicemail.

We both want to leave here by 4:00.  It’s now 2:29.  They also needed it done so they could clean up some details over the weekend, remotely, before going live Monday (changing the status of 1300 migrated cases from closed to open).

I see 12:59 and think “ah, they went to lunch then.” It’s an hour earlier there.  But now it’s well past that time.

It’s boring sitting, waiting, not knowing what the status is…

Update:

Aha!  The first part is just taking longer than expected.  It should be done before too much longer and they’ll call me.  At that point we have to pause to let the manager look at things to clarify what they will do from home, then I start the 2nd part.  Then I have to be around for that to finish, and it should take a couple hours.  So I either have to hit the bank that’s open until 7:00, or while I wait for the 2nd part, I have to go to the bank that closes at 5:00 and then come back.

Posted by on 05/11 at 01:11 PM

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