The Project Data Management System

Developed by Tom Hall and Peter Hoyt

The Project Data Management System (PDMS) is a series of ASP pages that interact with an SQL Database on a Web Server. The PDMS provides a means of organizing and managing your ToolBook training projects. Projects can be identified, principals involved can be identified, and lessons added within any project. The system is set up to allow for 3 QA cycles: QA1 Review, QA2 Review, and SME Review (Subject Matter Expert). On the ToolBook side of the process is the Comment Collector System that allows the reviewers to enter comments. On the PDMS side of the process, project principals (including the ToolBook developers) can review those comments and respond to them.

The PDMS is built to be used by:

This is a sample Home Page for the PDMS.  In a Live Deployment, not everyone would have this view of the PDMS. For instance, writers, SME’s, and Reviewers would likely be given a separate menu that only includes the QA1, QA2, and SME links.  

 

Names can be added by clicking Add a New Name. From here, we set up the management site (database) with all the names of the various people that will be part of the process.

Once we have the names, we can view the current names as well as those that have been marked as Inactive.  This is the Active list.

Project Managers, other principals, and the ToolBook Developers would see everything and various roles would be assigned. Projects can be added by clicking Add New Project from the Home Page, or a project can be edited by clicking Edit. A link on the Home Page brings up a report of all current projects.

An Add Lesson/Lesson Details link brings up the list of current lessons for any project.  Notice the Dev Status column which displays where each lesson is within the process.

From here, a principal in the project would add new lessons or edit a current lesson. The Edit link to the Edit Lesson form is one of the most important forms. From here, assignments are made and the status is tracked. The DevStatus field drives what is seen on the various QA review menus.

 

From a Menu that the Reviewers will have access to (or from the PDMS Home Page), the lessons can be launched and reviewed in QA1, QA2, or SME review stage of the project. This shows 1 lesson for a project in QA1 and the reviewer is identified as Hall (just for this example). In a real situation, this would be the name of someone who is part of the project.  The lesson to be reviewed is launched from this page.  Once launched, the lesson would have the Comment Collector in place to provide the Reviewer the ability to input comments.

Once the review is done, the Reviewer marks this review cycle for this lesson as complete using the Edit button from the QA Review Menu. A Review Complete checkbox is checked and the results are submitted.