[senco-forum] ARRGH! Deleting students from LASS

My sympathies. Looks like the IT guys and galls who did

Thank you David for the well written and informative reply.

Most appreciated.

I think the LASS bods do sometimes lurk on this forum so
perhaps things may change. I did hear sometime ago that LASS
was being overhauled, hopefully this will be ironed out
then.

----- Original Message -----
From: David Bowles <bowles.d at gmail.com>
To: senco-forum <senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk>
Subject: Re: [senco-forum] ARRGH! Deleting students from
LASS
Date: 08-Sep-2006 11:53:15 +0100

> 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
> 
> 
> 
> 
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--
Mark Norwood
www.avssc.org

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