ZZ - Database Change Policies

General Policies:

Facility Updates:

1. Do not change the data in facilities/organization records
that you have not created unless you have checked with the
creator of the dbase record and/or the person that last updated
the dbase record, and/or the actual site itself. As a general
rule, it is impolite to write over someone else's work unless
you strongly believe that it is incorrect. If you write over
someone else's work, make sure that you list your sources
in the sources block.
2. It is highly frowned upon to change the work of someone who
is actually at the site without checking with them first. Even
if you "know" that the data is wrong, check with them first, out
of politeness.

Website Considerations:
(when to believe that the website is more up to date):

a. Website info that is posted by the organization may not be more
up to date than the person who last updated the database record.
Even those tricky date/time indicators on websites that make it look
like it's been updated recently, be careful. Do not believe them.
b. If there's a press release posted on the website that's date more
recently than the last change in the record, you can usually believe
that.
c. If there's an embedded document that has a date stamp internal to the document, you can usually believe that.

Admin Level Notes:

The following notes are for those that have admin read/write access
only:

You won't ever mess anything up to any large degree, because we
have regular backups. But to avoid our having to do extra work
because you've messed something up, please follow these rules:

NEVER CHANGE CATEGORY NAMES

1. never change the category names without checking with us first
1.b. ALWAYS check before deleting or changing item names!!!
(if you do not understand the above then check about Training!!)

ONLY MESS WITH YOUR OWN DATA

2. if you're piloting a new system, only mess around with "your" data...there
are others working on other stuff, so unless you ask, you might not know
what they are doing and you might mess them up.
Tim's data, right now, is in Category Y, and the facilities listed there.
Tim can make any number of new facilities. Tim can mess with any of the data for those listed in your Category, under Mississippi.

DON'T DUPLICATE EXISTING ITEMS

3. When you make new "items" for your category, please try and use
the same "naming conventions" for the items. It helps us keep the data
in order. If you want to change the naming convention, let me know so
that then we can change all the items in your category so that they match.
Currently, the naming convention is this: "Rebuilding Component #: Item".

4. Be careful to check and make sure that an item doesn't already exist before
you create a new one. It's a pain to deleted duplicates. Not right now, but once we get started and there are thousands, then if we don't notice it right away and 20 places sign up for one item and 20 more sign up for the almost exact item, then we've got to reenter the data for the first 20 before deleting the dupe. We have a way that we might avoid some of this automatically, but right now, for those that have the right to enter new items (which you do), we've got to use our brains and be careful.

READ THE GENERAL POLICIES ABOVE...we KNOW that you work fast and probably
skipped them...