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The Gods overheard Eric -dot- Ray -at- wcom -dot- com state:
>How many of you have dedicated Training/Documentation
>databases for your development projects?
This Loch Ness Monster has long been rumored to be in development.
Still waiting....
>What do the rest of you do on doc projects--do they set up a
>database for you? Who maintains and loads it? Who fixes it?
>Suggestions?
We want a consistent look to our data (i.e. same customers, locations,
etc.) so we have, written down on paper, what needs to be entered.
Not the most automated way of doing this, but by far the most effective
(unfortunately).
When a new project begins, we see if the old data survived. When
we see that it didn't, we need to re-enter the data. We then march over to
the folks responsible for doing the development and explain to them
that they need to be careful with our data. When they blow it away,
we have to re-key. Fun!
However, when they come knocking for their documentation, we tell them,
"Well, if it wasn't for the fact we had to re-enter the data 4 times,
we'd be done by now." They are none too happy when this is the response
that the VP hears, and then they end up trying to explain to the VP
why they blew away our info 4 times.
