[senco-forum] ARRGH! Deleting students from LASS

New year, time for a tidy up. Time I deleted all those

My sympathies. Looks like the IT guys and galls who did the systems
analysis omitted a bulk delete function.

I'm not at all familiar with Lass but as a general rule you should
never go delving into raw data files unless you really know what you
are doing. Why? Because I assume these are in the form of a relational
database, and if you start deleting records in individual files you
could all too easily disrupt the integrity of the database as a whole.
For example you might apparently be successful at deleting a single
record but leave its related index files and transaction data pointing
to black holes in the database. Then when you try to print
..."$CV%%^V^G()*POI<MP*MM_)>_)*({<_)I&()**%^$$!!!!

There are comparatively ways around this, for example by creating a
keyboard macro that basically emulates what you type and where you
mouse click on the screen. Then all you have to do is create a list of
names or student reference codes to feed into this macro and the
computer does all the hard work. But for this to work you need a good
knowledge of macro / script programming. Plus you must extensively
test this first on a backed up data set and build in appropriate error
trapping functions where for example you've mistyped a name and the
student record is not found.

All in all this will probably take you far longer than laboriously
deleting the data one item at a time. But of course you could use it
again next year ...provided LASS hasn't been updated in the meantime!

The best solution would be to contact to the makers of Lass and give
them a blow by blow description of what the problem is (what you have
to do now) and how you'd prefer them to solve this. Ideally they could
then create an additional program function that extracts (deletes form
the main database) the student records you want to get rid of, but in
the process also transfers these to an archive file from which they
can be reinstated if necessary at a later date (in case you
erroneously delete a record).

I hope this is helpful. If enough people complain to Lass about this
issue maybe this new function will be included in an update before
next September comes around.

David Bowles

> New year, time for a tidy up. Time I deleted all those
> students from LASS who left yonks ago.

> But what's this? Not only do I have to individually pinpoint
> and delete students one by one, but each time I have to type
> in the students surname to confirm deletion. What's more it
> then returns to the last student I enetered on the system.

> This makes for very, very slow progress when you are
> deleting many files.

> Anyone know of a work around?

> Should I start delving into the LASS directory and start
> messing directly with the data? Or is there an easier way?

> Thanks