Kentico Import Tool inconsistent/buggy when updating documents - import

I've had a number of problems using the provided Kentico Import Toolkit, namely when using the "Import new and overwrite existing pages" option to update my existing/already imported pages. I'm using a custom SQL query to import and have had a profile saved for each import I've needed (client has article based site so a few tables of similar information) to try and keep each as consistent as possible between imports.
Here's the problems I've encountered thus far (in no particular order):
the tool tries to guess which fields from the query correlates to the fields of the page type in Kentico for you, which is a nice idea, but seems poorly implemented. If I'm not very careful and reload the profiles every time I import I've had instances where fields changed inexplicably when testing imports because the tool thought it knew which field I wanted
this is more the problem when importing/reimporting multiple times in a session and choosing to go back and load the same profile (without reloading)
the NodeAlias field is only seemingly required on update/reimport rather than on initial import. I'm sure there's an internal cleaning of the document's title to generate a NodeAlias and this is generated fine when importing documents while NOT providing the NodeAlias. After importing the items initially and wishing to update however the NodeAlias is seemingly required as you'll get errors with text asking it be included. This implies to me that there's matching of the NodeAlias along with the given ID field, which should be fine in theory but isn't specifically mentioned anywhere in the tool as best I can tell.
I've had instances where reimporting items will change/strip their NodeAliasPath. I've gotten around this by specifically setting the NodeAliasPath (which only shows after selecting "Show Advanced Columns") but like NodeAlias path before it, I'd think the tool should be smart enough to know to keep the path if not specifically given for updated items.
it seems very odd that in order to match on ID for previous items you have to provide the name of the new column instead of the old one. My example: client was using just a field named 'id' and the new one is 'OriginalID' to clearly differentiate it from the Kentico derived ID fields. To match the items I have to use 'OriginalID' rather than 'id'
A couple of notes/niceties or potential updates along with the above:
it would be nice if there were some way to select if the page should
be published or not through a single query. Currently having the
"Automatically publish pages under workflow" toggle checked seems to always publish
the items. I have an instance where the client has old documents in
the provided DB dump that they don't want visible on the site but
want preserved in the DB if they change their mind later. Currently I
have to perform 2 imports, 1 for the unpublished and a second for the
published items, to accommodate this, which is quite cumbersome
I'll likely edit/add to this as I get responses. This isn't really a specific problem (as I managed a workaround to the NodeAliasPath stripping problem, which inspired this post initially) but more just me asking if these are bugs,if I'm not using the software as intended, etc.

You've stated all the problems you're having/experiencing and possibilities why they are happening but didn't ask a particular question. If you suspect they are bugs, then I'd go to directly to Kentico Support and report the issues there since these are things that have been part of the KIT for as long as I have worked with it.

Related

Azure DevOps Migration - Moving Project to Another Org

I'm looking to migrate a project from one org to another in Azure DevOps. We've ended up with two or three orgs, and this project that I'm looking to move has all sorts of weird and wonderful work items created and custom fields added. What I'm looking to do is move the project and then see if I can persuade the powers that be that certain things can be dropped but I have an immediate need to move as-is so that reporting and other work isn't impacted.
I have tried to get this to work with the migration tools (and tried to follow the videos) but have hit a dead-end. I think there are two issues potentially. One being the ReflectedWorkItemId. It says that it's not found in User Stories but I'm not sure how to resolve this? Do I go into user stories and add a field called 'ReflectedWorkItemId' and populate it with the work item number and/or add the same field in the destination org process?
It also mentions in the info that it can't find one of the Work Item Types - Processes. There are a few other custom work item types that have been created too but I assume it's given up on the first one. Do I have to create all of the work item types and the custom fields for each work item type in the destination org? Or am I getting the wrong end of the stick with this?
To provide sync as well as migration it is important that the tools knows which items have already been migrated. This is the purpose of the ReflectedWorkItemId field.
The field is not required in either case, however... if you don't have
the field then the system cant be re-run as it will re-copy all
completed work items. If you add the field to the target then it will
only copy those items it cant find. If you add the field to the source
(yes it needs to be the same refname), and set UpdateSoureReflectedId
to true then you can also filter the source, using a query and limit
what you load.
The former prevents duplicates, and the latter allows you to filter
the data load...
This is mentioned in this document. Here is a similar issue you can refer to.
TF201077 that usually happens when the target Project does not have a work item of that name. You can refer to this issue on github for help.

Is there a way to permanently add a box displaying points of students in the navbar

So I am working on a project that awards points to students for submitting assignments or participating in forums, these points are then exposed as an Http resource using Flask.
The points are calculated by looking at the events triggered for each student.
One of the requirements right now is to add a box next to the student's name that shows the total amount of points they have. I have two ways of accessing the points, either by an http request from moodle or by storing and retrieving the points from moodle's database.
My question is what is the best approach of creating this "box", I have tried using moodle blocks and hacking the code but nothing seems to be working. Is creating a plugin for this the only solution or is there a simpler way to do it (if it is even possible)?
To answer your question properly you should have provided at least the theme and the Moodle version you work with. Should this box be displayed everywhere? Is the score calculated for every course individually?
Two proposals that came into my mind:
You could create a custom plugin of type block. There you can display the score of the user of the session and the top ten for example (If the score is calculated for each course individually). A disadvantage is that every teacher of a course could remove that block easily, if he or she wants to.
If the score counts system-wide you could put that box at the start page of your Moodle website, where only people with higher rights will be able to remove it.
If you use boost you could display the score in the navbar right next to the users name. For that you will have to create a new child theme of boost and overwrite navbar.mustache of theme_boost which get's it's information from columns2.php because it's included into columns2.mustache. In this PHP file you can include your logic and display it with the HTML which you put into navbar.mustache.
Of course these are not really simple ways to do that. But at the moment I doubt that an easy solution exists for this problem.

Content merging AEM

We're looking for a solution on how to best deal with the situation where multiple authors are working on the same page. If the first author pushes in the content, the second should have a way to merge it when he tries to publish. Launches appears to be a way to take care of this but it doesn't seem to be handling content merging. Is there any way an author can view the diff(and or do merge) of the content that might have been pushed by another author while they were working concurrently ?
Please help with any pointers.
Page modifications happen in real time to the underlying structure. They also happen at as small a level as possible.i.e. If you go into a text area and modify the text there, the text node is changed on the server, you aren't saving the entire page.
The only way that person A could interfere with what person B is doing is if they were working on the exact same area of the page. Which, honestly is a process issue. I say this because the answer to your question is that there is nothing out of the box to handle this type of scenario and if you are on 6.0 or higher and looking at the JCR3. JCR3 handles this far worse than the older version did. Last time I checked it didn't support nodes at all
Adding to what Bailey said, AEM OOB allow multiple users to edit same page in real time, though if multiple users are working on same node will be a reason of conflict. Such cases can be managed by defining a process like:
1. Take a lock of page and edit page or
2. Create versions of page and publish versions

is it possible to get an xPages build number?

I do all development in a single application. when a new version is ready I create a template and give it a version number. this way I can store a history of all previous versions.
the development templates are used to push the new design to many applications via replace design.
Creating manual version number or template names is fine but I am looking for a more automatic way of finding out which build the different applications are inherited from
When I visit the different applications I would like to be able to see which build number each application are inherited from. is this possible?
A simple build time stamp could do, but is there a built in build number that can be used and that can be displayed on the xpage.
e.g Build 2012092712345
Update:
Thank you for all your answers, many good suggestions but it looks like all require manual work.
The best solution would be if there is a way to read (from ssjs) a timestamp from any file within the nsf that is always updated during a build. is this possible?
In classic notes, there was a method to add a shared field with a special name to the application. Cannot remember the details, but have it somewhere on the disk.
Then you can see the build number in the design tab of the application properties. And you can of course display the value in your applikation as well.
But you have to fill the item manually on each build. Or use teamstudio Buildmanager. This tool adds the value automatically.
And I also guess that you can write some code that changes the value whenever you create a new build.
Another option would be to use a versioning system like CVS/SVN. This is possible since 8.5.3.
Source control
I think I know what you are meaning. Your a pushing out design and want to check thru code what version each database has. I usually do this with a Build form. In this form I have computed fields with all the data I want to retrieve. Then I open the database with an agent create a document
and set the form field to "BuildForm" and do a computewithform.
Now I can see all information about this database.
I once wrote a rudimentary build system for "classic" Notes, and had the last part of the build pipeline create a form named _BUILDID_, and put the build id in the $Comment field.
The main reason to create a form instead of a shared field was that I could dynamically fetch the form using NotesDatabase.Forms, and open up the desired field.
I sure hope there are simpler solutions nowadays... :-)

FileMaker layouts have missing elements. What could be the cause?

I've recently started using filemaker to create some contact databases. I played around with one of the templates and after having tweaked the template to a point where its got all the data I need on it, I've found that I messed some things up in the process.
All the things listed below seem to have been affected.
'View Contact List Report' no longer works
'View Address Labels' no longer works
(Both show a prompt saying "no matching records were found")
the avery label printer doesn't show anything more than the name of each record.
(NB: All of these were working fine with the standard untouched template)
I'm guessing that because I altered the names of the fields, their corresponding scripts, calculations are no longer valid..
Where do I go to fix these scripts/calculations/etc (i.e. replace old field names with new ones..) is there any way I can edit the current ones or have a shot myself in the foot?
It sounds like you deleted some fields. If you simply renamed fields then the scripts should still work, unless you changed the data around drastically (perhaps the script is doing a find on a field that should contain some specific type which is no longer set in the field...) Go to layout mode, find out what script the button is calling and then open the script and re-set any set field steps that are calling missing fields and you should be good to go.
FileMaker doesn't normally rely on names, so users are free to rename everything. It's possible to write code that does depend on names, but it must be an explicit decision and I'm not really sure they did this in templates.
But who knows; to check this figure out which scripts run these reports. To do this switch to the layout mode and double click the buttons (or right-click and select "Button" from the context menu). Open scripts, find the script there, and see if it does anything suspicious.