Hello evaluators and blog enthusiasts! I’m Sheila B Robinson, aea365’s Lead Curator and sometimes Saturday contributor. As you may realize, curating a daily blog is a big job! I owe a lot to the many sponsored week volunteer curators who take on the task of shepherding authors and conducting first round checks and edits of a whole week’s worth of blog posts. Lesson Learned: Sponsored or themed weeks are curated by a volunteer who gathers posts from a group  - an AEA Topical Interest Group or Affiliate, or other group of  evaluators with some common interest. Sponsored weeks include six posts (Sunday-Friday), as the Saturday spot is reserved for our aea365 staff contributors. Sponsored week curators have three key tasks to complete: 1.) Recruit and invite authors ensuring the group has six confirmed posts (and ideally an emergency backup) on topics of interest to evaluators. Many groups start this process by sending an open call to their membership to ask for authors and then supplementing those who volunteer with invited posts or posts from group leaders. Ensure that all contributors (a) commit to the timeline, and (b) receive a link to the contribution guidelines and instructions to follow them. Send reminders at appropriate times before the deadline. 2.) Identify the general topics of the contributions and coach to minimize overlap. Cool Trick: Your posts do not need to follow a theme! If you are curating for a TIG, for example, the posts would naturally be about the larger topic (e.g. PK-12 Educational Evaluation) but do not need to relate to each other with any additional subtopic or theme. That said, people have proposed themed weeks in which the posts do indeed share a common thread, and this is OK too! We recommend that the sponsored week curator have posts due the 10th of the month prior to publication, as the batch of six is due to an aea365 curator on the 20th of the month prior to publication. This timeline allows for final reminders and editing as needed. 3.) Edit posts (if needed) and determine the order in which they should be published. Ensure that the first post introduces the week: Identify a Sunday contributor to introduce the week’s general topic, noting that the Sunday post: Should NOT introduce the week’s presenters or their individual topics - this post is NOT an index. Should offer content (tips, resources, lessons learned) beyond the introduction. Hot Tip: Email  aea365@eval.org to reserve a week for your group! I will send you a worksheet with all this information and more to make the job easy! Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org . aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. Related posts: Sheila B. Robinson on Being an AEA365 Sponsored Weeks Archaeologist! Best of aea365: Sheila B Robinson on Being an AEA365 Sponsored Weeks Archaeologist! Sheila B Robinson on A Call for Blog Posts!

This blog is part of the following series: Installing and configuring the Lotus Domino Server  - Part 1 Search Lotus Notes Documents from SharePoint 2013 - Part 2 Search Lotus Notes Documents from SharePoint 2013 - Part 3 Overview In the Part 1 of this series I have covered how to install the Lotus Notes Domino Server. In the Part 2 of the series I will discuss how to crawl a Notes database with SharePoint 2013 Search. As part of this effort, we will also need to install the Lotus Notes client and connector on the SharePoint 2013 Server. This blog includes detailed steps of installing Lotus notes connector for SharePoint 2013. In this blog we’ll install Lotus notes Client with Designer & Administrator. This is the high level architecture of how search works. Server Details: Start by logging in to your SP2013 server with Setup account where the SharePoint 2013 is already installed, we will install Lotus Notes client here. Task 1: Installing Lotus Notes Admin/Designer Client: Login to SharePoint 2013 Server with the SP_Install user account. The SP_Install user account is a member of the Administrators group on this server. We are now going to install the 32-bit version of Lotus Notes R8.5 on my SharePoint 2013 server. We will install the client and the Designer or Administrator software here. Step 1: Download the lotus designer & double click. Step 2: Start Installation. The files are extracted and the installation process begins. The Install Wizard screen appears. Click Next to continue. Accept the terms in the License Agreement screen and click Next to continue. Modify the settings in the Custom Setup screen as shown below. Select the Domino Designer and the Administrator Client to be installed since we are going to install all this machine. You can install the Designer & Administrator on another virtual machine (recommended). But in this server we need to install Lotus notes client. Click Next to continue. Now we can see these icons in the desktop Step 3: Configure Lotus Notes Client Let us now configure the Lotus notes client. Double click the Lotus Notes 8.5 icon on the Desktop. Enter your domino server details here. Click Next. Now we are installing the client in different machine and not in the server. We have entered here the server IP or host name. Step 5: Continue Installation Now map the network drive where the domino server stores ID files, generally it is in "Data" folder. Right click the "computer" icon from your desktop and map the network drive. While installation it will ask you for the User ID file, just locate it. It will prompt for userid/password. Type your Administrator user id & password.   First screen appears Task 2: Create the Mappings database Now we will create the Mappings database, which will map the lotus user ID with windows Domain account. For this we have to open the Lotus Notes Designer client. Open the Lotus Notes Designer client and create a Notes database. Step 1: Open the Domino Designer client Step 2: I have opened the Lotus Notes Designer client and created a Notes database and named it "NWMappng". Created a new form with same name "NWMappng". Now we need to add two fields with proper labels. Changing the Window Title of the form to "NWMappng". Then created a view named "NWMappng" The View Selection formula is: SELECT Form="NWMappng". Add a column for each field and sort the first column in ascending order. The view design appears like this: Remove the default view. So only NWMappng view is there in view. Task 3: Create a Discussion Database Lotus Note connector service started, now we will crawl our Lotus Notes Database from SharePoint. Step 1: Open the Lotus Notes Click on Files->Application->New Create a new Discussion Database ,based on the template Task 4: Add a user account mapping to the Mappings database We have created the Mappings database named "NWMappng" with Domino designer. Now we will enter data in this Database. Step 1: Open the Lotus Notes Client Click on File -> Open Application ->select "NWMappng" Then click Create->"NWMappng" Enter the user ID you want to map  Here I am adding my user ID and mapping with my windows User ID Conclusion We have covered detailed installation of Lotus notes in a SharePoint Server. In my next article, I will discuss installing lotus notes connector from SharePoint. At this point you can create different types of databases in your Lotus notes, which you search from SharePoint.

I am Humberto Reynoso-Vallejo, Director of Research and Policy for the Office of the State Auditor in Massachusetts. This week the research team will share a series of useful tips for evaluating large and complex projects using our work evaluating the Health Care Cost Containment Law in Massachusetts known as Chapter 224. Chapter 224 is a large and comprehensive health care initiative with the primary purpose of containing the growth of health care expenditures. The law also supports strategies for payment reform, for integrated health care delivery systems to increase access and quality of services for diverse population groups in different regions and for specific services such as primary care and behavioral health, promoting workplace wellness, for reducing the prevalence of preventable health conditions, and for reducing racial/ethnic disparities in health outcomes. Conducting such a large and complex evaluation required the development of a comprehensive evaluation plan capturing all essential pieces of the law. The evaluation design needed to structure all the different topic areas into a logical and concise plan that guides all activities performed by a multidisciplinary team of researchers and data analytic experts. We proposed a longitudinal mixed-methods quasi-experimental design for the evaluation, aiming to determine the law’s impact on health care costs, access to health care services and quality of care, the health care workforce, and the impact on public health. Another important task to address in the evaluation plan is collecting and securing relevant data that will allow the team to perform both quantitative and qualitative analysis. Hot Tips: Be specific when indicating the purpose of the evaluation. Include a brief but comprehensive overview and indicate who the target audience is. Divide the evaluation plan into manageable units, including high level evaluation questions that correspond to the overall topic areas, followed by principal evaluation questions on specific aspects of each topic area. After describing the purpose of the evaluation and stating the evaluation questions, write an introductory section that provides an overview of the project and any relevant information that allows the reader to understand more about the background of what you are evaluating. Develop a research design for the evaluation that includes methodology, data sources, sampling, and analysis strategy. Create a table with a set of measures for each principal evaluation question including their respective data sources. Also, indicate the analytical procedures for either quantitative or qualitative data. Create a timeline for evaluation activities, including research undertakings (collecting and analyzing data), engaging key stakeholders (as members of an Advisory Committee and/or research participants), creating interim reports, white papers, blogs, drafts, and other pertinent documentation for the evaluation process. The American Evaluation Association is celebrating Large Scale Evaluation Week. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from evaluators who have worked on the evaluation of the Health Care Cost Containment Law in Massachusetts. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. Related posts: MA PCMH Eval Week: Ann Lawthers on Triangulation Using Mixed Methods Appeals to Diverse Stakeholder Interests DOVP Week: JS Sulewski on Using Universal Design to Make Evaluations Inclusive Linda Cabral and Laura Sefton on So many to choose from: How to Select Organizations for a Site Visit

I’m busy. You’re busy. You are probably sitting in the airport on your way to #SHRM15 going what.the.hell.  I’m not ready.  Where do I go?  I just sat at gate C3 and recognized 20 others from my small town going to the conference.  Multiply that times a jillion other cities.  Crap.  It’s a big conference. DON’T SWEAT.  You’ll be fine. If you are late on the upswing prepping for the conference, here are a few things that will ease your mind. The App is where it’s at.  Download the SHRM15 app.  It really will walk you through a bunch of...

This blog is part of the following series: Installing and configuring the Lotus Domino Server  - Part 1 Search Lotus Notes Documents from SharePoint 2013 - Part 2 Search Lotus Notes Documents from SharePoint 2013 - Part 3 Overview In this series of blogs I will be discussing how to crawl a Lotus Notes database from SharePoint 2013 environment. In the Part 1 series I have covered how to Install Lotus Notes Domino Server, in the Part 2 I have covered how to install the Lotus Notes client and  connector on the SharePoint 2013 Server. With the above two blogs we had already installed Domino Server and then Lotus notes Client with Designer & Administrator in SharePoint App server. In this blog we will register and configure Lotus Notes Connector and crawl from SharePoint 2013 search. Task 1: Register Lotus Notes with the Service We have already created the Mappings database named "NWMappng" with Domino designer and entered the UserID through which we want to make the connection between Lotus note & SharePoint. Now we will register the service. Step 1: Run the NotesSetup.exe. Open the C:Program FilesMicrosoft Office Servers15.0Bin1033 folder. Double-click on the NotesSetup file. The Index Setup Wizard screen appears. Click Next to continue.   Step 2: Registration The Register Lotus Notes screen appears. Enter the Location of the ini file and the password for the Notes ID to run the Lotus Notes client software. Leave the checkbox un checked. In my installation:  Location of notes.ini file  D:IBMDominonotes.ini  Location of Lotus Notes install directory  D:IBMDomino   Step 3: Enter Mapping details The Specify Lotus Notes Owner Field screen appears. Enter details and click Next to continue.  Lotus Notes server name  192.168.20.xxx  Lotus Notes database file name  NWMappng.nsf  View name  NWMappng  Lotus Notes field name column title  UserID  Windows user name column title  DomainAccount     Step 4: Complete the Lotus Notes Index Setup. Click Finish to continue.   Task 2: Start the Lotus Notes Connector service  Congratulations! Lotus notes is now registered. Next we will start the connector service from SharePoint 2013 Step 1: Open Central Admin , click on Manage services Step 2: Start the Lotus Notes Connector Service Step 3: Start the connector Create a new App pool Select the account Click Provision Service started. Task 3: Setup & Start the Crawler Lotus Note connector service started, now we will crawl our Lotus Notes Database from SharePoint. Step 1: Open Central Admin , click on Manage services  applications Step 2: Click on the search service Application Step 3: Click on the "Content Source" from the left Navigation Step 4: Create New Content source Step 5: Enter the name "Lotus Notes Application" Select the Lotus Notes radio button Step 6: Set the Start Addresses to point to the Notes database that we created earlier Also set the craw setting, schedule… Click OK to accept the settings and continue. The new content source appears in the Manage Content Sources screen.   Start Full Crawl Task 4: Setup, Start and configure the metadata service Check the metadata service, if not started then create & start. Step 1: Goto Central Administration and click on Manage service applications. Step 2: In my server Metadata service is already started. If not then Click on "New" from the left icon of the ribbon>Create new>Managed Metadata Service Check the services Task 5: Create a Search Center Site Create a new sub site or site collection with "Enterprise search" template. Here I am creating a new sub site. Step 1: Go to Site content , click on "new subsite" Search for "lotus" Expected Result! Click on the Link Conclusion This concludes the series and wow you should be able to search your Domino contents from SP2013. I hope this blog series was helpful.

Hello, I am Humberto Reynoso-Vallejo principal investigator evaluating the Health Care Cost Containment Law (Chapter 224 of the Acts of 2012) from the Office of the State Auditor in Massachusetts. In order to capture the broad perspectives of key stakeholders and integrate them with the quantitative analysis, we developed a longitudinal mixed-methods quasi-experimental design for our work in this complex evaluation. This mixed-methods approach is designed to answer the following Chapter 224 high-level evaluation questions: 1) What is the impact on health care costs, including the extent to which savings have reduced out-of-pocket costs to individuals and families, health insurance premium costs, and health care costs borne by the Commonwealth? 2) What is the impact on access to health care services and quality of care in different regions of the state and for different populations, particularly for children, the elderly, low-income individuals, individuals with disabilities, and other vulnerable populations? 3) What is the impact on access and quality of care for specific services, particularly primary care, and behavioral health which includes both substance use and mental health services? 4) What is the impact on the health care workforce, including, but not limited to, health care worker recruitment and retention, health care worker shortages, training and education requirements and job satisfaction?; and, 5) What is the impact on public health, including, but not limited to, reducing the prevalence of preventable health conditions, improving employee wellness, and reducing racial and ethnic disparities in health outcomes? Hot Tips: Considering that this is a longitudinal study, we will conduct open-ended semi-structured interviews through an online survey with key stakeholders at the early stages of the evaluation and integrate their responses into the quantitative baseline. We will conduct in-depth semi-structured interviews as follow-up with selected key stakeholders based on their responses to the online survey. During these interviews, we will share the preliminary findings from the quantitative baseline and ask stakeholders for their insights in explaining them. Once the longitudinal quantitative analysis is complete, we will share the findings with a small group of selected stakeholders, and schedule face-to-face in-depth semi-structured interviews to explore their interpretation of the quantitative analysis results. It will also be important to consider contextual factors that may explain the research outcomes. Integrate all the research pieces into the final report. Structure the report it in a conducive way to maximize understanding of diverse group of readers -policy makers, agency executives, program managers, other oversight agencies, and the general public. The American Evaluation Association is celebrating Large Scale Evaluation Week. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from evaluators who have worked on the evaluation of the Health Care Cost Containment Law in Massachusetts. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. Related posts: Large Scale Eval Week: Humberto Reynoso-Vallejo on Developing an Evaluation Plan for Large and Complex Projects Large Scale Eval Week: Qiong Louie-Gao and Humberto Reynoso-Vallejo on the Use of Predictive Modeling in Creating Baseline for Longitudinal Projects with Large Amounts of Data MME Week: Terri Anderson on Using Best Practices for Mixed Methods Research in Evaluation

Overview You are using SharePoint 2013, you have deployed My Sites. You or your users have tasks assigned. But when you or your users visit their MySite, they see below screen. Despite the users having assigned tasks elsewhere in the system, MySite still shows no tasks which is incorrect.   What is My Task List in SharePoint 2013? By architecture of the Newsfeed site on SharePoint 2013, My Tasks list puts together and shows all the SharePoint and Project Server (if installed) task assignment right into the users My Site page. The tasks can be either private tasks or public tasks. Pre-requisites for proper sync of My Task? Search Service Application - very important to have this service enabled and running. Aggregator checks every 3 hours for any new "Tasks Lists". Though the aggregator would look for SharePoint events / hints, they are known to have not activated an aggregation and hence the importance given to the indexer. Very important to have an Incremental / Continuous Crawl running. Work Management Service Application (WMA) and the service running on the server. User Profile Synchronization Service Refreshing the My Tasks Page The code behind aggregator is triggered by simply visiting the page within Newsfeed Site as long as the last trigger was older than 5 minutes. This delay is to preserve the performance of the SharePoint farm. This can be changed using PowerShell but highly recommend against the same for large farm deployments. Possible problems causing sync not work? Work Management Service wasn’t running Search wasn’t indexing anything yet. No indexer meant aggregator could potentially be not performing any aggregation as well. Solution Work management Service should run on App Server. If required create one from Central Admin Work management service application should be created with an app pool which must run with profile app pool account Create/ensure Incremental Crawls to happen across all the content sources, setup people search, my sites search. Ensure that continuous crawl is running Wait till the crawl completes Review the permission of profile app pool and portal app pool account on the specific databases with dbowner permissions social db sync db profile db state service db manage metadata db my site db portal content db projects content db teams content db communities content db Search db. 7. User profile synchronization service should be running. 8. Run IIS reset on all app and WFE servers at the same time.  

Like many of the nearly 16,000 people attending this year’s SHRM Annual Conference in Las Vegas, I have received my fair share of pre-conference mailings from vendors. The pile is impressive, colorful, full of enticements to visit booths, and mostly useless! While some have made efforts to stand out from the crowd and engage on a deeper level, many of the postcards and fliers simply feel like they have been recycled from previous events with updated dates, location, and logo.   Look at this pile of #SHRM15 vendor brochures! One major vendor (who...

Hello - Erin M. Liang and Mark M. Holske here, members of the research team evaluating the Health Care Cost Containment Law (Chapter 224) from the Office of the State Auditor in Massachusetts. Large evaluation projects dealing with complex research questions may require several sources of data. Securing data becomes one of the most important and ongoing tasks for the successful completion of the project. For our Chapter 224 work, we are in various stages of accessing and securing data. These data sets include administrative data (e.g. the All Payer Claims Database (APCD) from the state’s Center for Health Information and Analysis (CHIA) and survey data such as the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey (BRFSS) from the MA Department of Public Health. We would like to share with you some lessons we have learned thus far. Lessons Learned: It can be a long process for an agency to prepare and disseminate data, so be flexible on your timeline to account for this. For example, the APCD contains confidential health information at the patient level and CHIA must de-identify the data and only extract the necessary fields. Be specific about data requests. Standard application forms cannot cover all research situations, and often more information is needed by those preparing the data extract. Be prepared for follow-up questions about your application. Think about future partnerships and endeavor to make the data request process mutually beneficial. For example, the APCD is a relatively new dataset and agencies across the Commonwealth are working with this data for the first time. Sharing experiences and providing feedback will enable each agency to learn faster together. Don’t overreach in your data request. As data geeks, we want to know everything, so we ask for everything. However, keep your request to what is necessary depending on your research questions. Asking for data that is not directly related to your research can delay the receipt of data and possibly strain your relationship with those who own the data. Hot Tips: Don’t be afraid to touch base with the data owners often to make sure all application material was received and no additional information is necessary. Make your data security expert available to address any concerns regarding data transmission and storage. Once you receive the data requested, make sure all files are included. Large data transfers are complicated, so it’s important to make sure you received everything you requested. Form a working group with members from both agencies to share information in order to improve the process. The American Evaluation Association is celebrating Large Scale Evaluation Week. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from evaluators who have worked on the evaluation of the Health Care Cost Containment Law in Massachusetts. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. Related posts: Large Scale Eval Week: Humberto Reynoso-Vallejo on Developing an Evaluation Plan for Large and Complex Projects Brad Coverdale on Using the National Educational Longitudinal Survey of 1988-2000 Sheila Matano and Dani O’Neill on Alternative Methods for Qualitative Data Collection: Community Survey Day

Background Suppose you are a Database developer. You have created lot of tables, views, SP etc. for your development. You have also put the required indexes on the tables for query optimizing etc. Now your database is deployed to production environment and you found that everything is running properly. Now after long period of time of performance the data volume will be increased and you found that your database performance has been degraded as compared to the previous while there was a small volume of data. Now once again going through the database design, putting the new indexes is not an easy task to do, it may take huge effort and at last it may not be fruitful at all. SQL-SERVER has SQL Server-Profiler tool to help us optimize our database. Steps It’s basically a four steps process: Step 1: Generate a TRACE/LOAD file for selected database. Open SQL Server Profiler Click Connect to the server Select ‘Tuning’ template of ‘General’ tab. Select ‘Column Filters’ of ‘Events Selection’ tab. Choose the filter options. E.g. Database name ‘ABC’ in this case on which the trace/load file for query optimization will be generated. Click ‘Run’ button. Click ‘Stop Selected Trace’. Save the Trace file. Step 2: Put that LOAD file to Database Tuning Wizard. Open ‘Database Engine Tuning Wizard’ Select ‘File’ and Database Name of ‘General’ tab and then ‘Start Analysis’. Step 3: Check the suggestions/definition made by Tuning wizard. Step 4: Implement those in the Database tables. As per the definition implement the suggested indexing into the table/s. Conclusion: In this blog I have described how we can use the inbuilt SQL Server tool SQL Server-Profiler for query optimization.

Hello, Erin M. Liang, Mark M. Holske, and Humberto Reynoso-Vallejo here, members of the research team evaluating the Health Care Cost Containment law (Chapter 224) from the Office of the State Auditor. Using administrative data with a significant number of missing key variables (e.g. race/ethnicity) can be challenging in trying to answer specific evaluation questions. One of our research questions seeks to evaluate the impact of Chapter 224 on racial/ethnic disparities in health outcomes. Both administrative data sets available to us (the Massachusetts Medicaid Program (MassHealth) and the All Payer Claims Database (APCD)) have sparsely populated information about race and/or ethnicity. Since we were not able to apply imputation techniques due to the large number of missing values, we have to use alternative methods. As a proxy for race/ethnicity data, we used US Census Bureau Data and GIS mapping software. Hot Tip: Use state level census data to account for missing racial/ethnic values. The US Census collects detailed race/ethnicity data at the state level every 10 years. Census data is publicly available on the American Fact Finder website. There are several data sets available, and this tool can aid in determining which data set best suits the needs of your project. In this project, census data from 2010 will be applied to collected data spanning years 2006 to present, segmented by ZCTA (zip code tabulation area). Researchers should be aware that a zip code can be in more than one ZCTA. To learn about how zip codes are translated to ZCTAs, consult this census demonstration. This map was made using QGIS and census data. The map is segmented by cities/towns with the darker areas representing populations with a higher percentage of diverse residents. Rad Resource: The Census Bureau Help Line is 1-800-923-8282. A census representative can help to download the correct data. The American Community Survey provides annual demographic information at the state and county level. In addition to QGIS, a large project with sufficient funding could utilize Tableau, an easy to use data analysis tool that allows users to visualize data with graphs, cross-tabs, and maps. While these functions can be done in other tools like Excel or ArcMap, Tableau allows a user to create a dashboard containing all visualizations on the same page. The American Evaluation Association is celebrating Large Scale Evaluation Week. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from evaluators who have worked on the evaluation of the Health Care Cost Containment Law in Massachusetts. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. Related posts: DOVP Week: Jennifer Sullivan Sulewski on Data Sources for Tracking Outcomes of People with and without Disabilities DVR Week: Chris Lysy on Data Sources that Embrace Data Visualization Melissa Biel on the Uniform Data System (UDS) Mapper

I still remember the first SHRM event I attended in my first days as an H.R. professional.  I walked in the meeting room feeling a bit anxious.  Would I fit in?  Would I have anything in common with the H.R. people in the room? We all seek connections.  We all want to belong.  But we are also prone to look for our differences rather than the commonalities we share.  That’s what I did that day.  I went into that SHRM event expecting to see how I was different.  Truthfully, I got what I expected.  ...

Overview When you are involved in an SSIS project, you have to collect data from various data sources like from databases, flat files, excel files etc. Generally when you find that the data is not well formed, it’s of very poor quality for analyzing, lots of data are missing etc. etc. So before starting the project and designing a database structure if we can analyze the data properly it will be helpful for us to design our data ware house properly. SSIS provides a wonderful control ‘Data Profiling Task’ to accomplish this task that helps us to provide the Meta information of how the data is organized. Scenario: Suppose you have received data in excel format as follows: Now we need to analyze this data to get the insight and Meta information to design our data warehouse. Firstly we need to import this excel data into Sql Server. The reason for this is currently ‘Data Profiling Task’ control only supports SQL Server ADO.NET connection type to import data. Hopefully in future Microsoft will give more option to connect excel file, text file etc. for profiling directly. Steps: It’s basically a three steps process: Step 1: Drag the control ‘Data Profiling Task’ in ‘Control Flow’ tab. Step 2: Select the path where the profiling information should be stored. E.g. ‘ProfileInfo’ is the file name in this case. Step 3: Select the Server and Database name on which the profiling will be performed. 3.1   Click ‘Quick Profile’ in ‘General’ tab. 3.2   Select Server and Database 3.3   Select the table name and check all the ‘Compute’ options. 3.4 Run the Package. Now the profile data has been stored in the file ‘ProfileInfo’ in this case, which is basically a XML file and looks like as follows if you open in web explorer: But, the above file is not in a readable format. To read this file Microsoft has provide us a DataProfile Viewer that is stored in the path ‘C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\110\DTS\Binn’ Open the DataProfile Viewer and open the file ‘ProfileInfo’(in this case) in it that looks like as follows: In the above snap if you unfold the ‘Tables’ and then [dbo].[Sheet 1$],  you will find seven profile that I will discuss one by one in coming Blogs elaborately. Candidate Key Profiles : Suggest which column has the unique values. Column Length Distribution Profiles : Suggest the minimum and maximum length of column. Column Null Ratio Profiles : Suggest the null percentage of each column value. Column Pattern Profiles : Suggest the pattern of column value. Column Statistics Profiles :  Statistic for numeric field such as Minimum value, Maximum Value,  Mean, Standard Deviation. Column Value Distribution Profiles : Give a repetition percentage of a column value. Functional Dependency Profiles : Imply if any column value is dependent on another column value. Conclusion: In this blog I basically tried to explain how you can use the SSIS Data Profiling Task Control to get the insight of the received data. I hope this is helpful.

The SHRM Foundation sponsored an informational and fun orientation event for YPs and students attending this year’s SHRM Conference.  This was the first event of this type and it seemed to be a big hit!  Jeff Pon, SHRM’s Chief HR & Strategy Officer, started off the event by recognizing the 2015 Graduate and Undergraduate Case Competition Winners.  Temple University, East Undergraduate Division winner, was in attendance and received a large round of applause.  Jeff also recognized the Outstanding Merit Award winning chapters of which there were 28 this year! Tom Darrow, SHRM Foundation Chair, was up next to introduce this...

Hello, we are Qiong Louie-Gao and Humberto Reynoso-Vallejo, members of the research team evaluating Chapter 224, the Health Care Cost Containment Law, from the Office of the State Auditor in Massachusetts. In order to implement a comprehensive evaluation on the impact of Chapter 224, our research team is committed to find the most effective statistical procedures to use in order to create a solid baseline that can lead to a sound quantitative analysis of the entire longitudinal project. One of the procedures we found useful is predictive modeling. Predictive modeling is a process of fitting a statistical model based on existing relationships among variables and making an informed prediction for future behavior(s). In our study, a primary goal is to find the trend or pattern of our variables using a number of data points before the implementation of Chapter 224 (prior to implementation in 2012) as a baseline. We then use the parameter estimates of the baseline to predict the values after 2013. A solid baseline with predicted values will be compared with the actual data once we conclude the longitudinal quantitative analysis. Hot Tip: This method can be used for both individual data and aggregate data. For individual data, each individual may have repeated measures that may produce a correlation. Generalized Estimating Equations (see Zeger & Liang, 1986) and Linear Mixed-Effect Models (see Cnaan, Laird, & Slasor, 2005) are the two general statistical methods for the longitudinal data analysis. Note that General Estimating Equations represent the effects on the population average, whereas Linear Mixed-Effect Models aims to estimate the effects on a subject-specific basis. For aggregate data, a linear regression model can be used to estimate the slope of the time series. Hot Tip: Data fluctuation or outliers will compromise the results. To account for this, some statistical techniques such as "moving average" may be used to smooth out the data. Hot Tip: Carefully select covariates to control confounding and avoid multicollinearity (see Steen, et al, 2002) based on background information. Some variable-selection approaches can be used, e.g. step-wise, forward, and backward selection procedures. The American Evaluation Association is celebrating Large Scale Evaluation Week. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from evaluators who have worked on the evaluation of the Health Care Cost Containment Law in Massachusetts. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. Related posts: Guili Zhang on Longitudinal Data Management and Analysis Large Scale Eval Week: Humberto Reynoso-Vallejo on Using Mixed-Methods for Complex Evaluations of State Law Initiatives Ed Eval TIG Week: Kelly Murphy and Michelle Sloper on Innovative Statistical Solutions for Evaluation Data: Latent Growth Curve Modeling to Examine Change Over Time

Many organizations have developed forms based applications using InfoPath and SharePoint on-premise during the last few years. With the advent of cloud technologies and the movement of on-premise SharePoint to Office 365 along with InfoPath retirement, many organizations are looking forward to developing the future roadmap. Netwoven has worked with many organizations to help define their cloud based application integration and workflow strategy. On Wednesday, June 11th, 2014, join us at 10:00 A.M. (PST) for a fast-paced, 60-minute Webinar presented by the experts at Netwoven and Nintex where we will discuss how Nintex’s Office 365 forms and workflows can help you create cloud based applications. Register today by clicking here. These cloud based applications can span across various applications such as Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, Drop Box, Box.NET, Social Networks and other applications. Key Takeaways: Learn how to mobilize your workforce Incorporate external stakeholders into your business processes Better integration with external data sources Offline support Mobile Forms Branding your Forms Speakers Rajesh Agadi: ECM and SharePoint Lead - Netwoven Inc. Rajesh has over 20 years of consulting experience mainly focused on Microsoft Stack of ECM. He has architected and built large scale Organizational Portals, Extranets, Public Sites, Migration, Branding, Enterprise Workflows. As SME Rajesh provides architecture solutions for Infrastructure, Information and Technical Design. As hardcore developer Rajesh has deployed solutions across all versions of SharePoint. Rajesh held Consulting and Organizational Leadership roles.   Brad Orluk: Brad is a Nintex Technical Evangelist with over 10 years of IT architecture, administration and sales experience. As an Information Architect at a Fortune 500, he has worked on business and IT process improvement and automation on a variety of real world global projects and productivity initiatives. Brad’s unique, technical yet business focused, background gives him the ability to help users leverage technology to drive value to their businesses. Attention early registrants: If you register by May 16th, 2014, you will also be entered to win a Fitbit Flex Wristband of retail value $99. Webinar Prize Giveaway: All participants of the Webinar will be entered into our drawing for Nest Learning Thermostat - 2nd Generation of retail value $249. See you at the webinar

It’s exciting to hear that #SHRM15 was one of the top trending hashtags yesterday. The SHRM conference in Las Vegas is hosting 15k+ HR professionals, from early career to senior level roles. Yesterday, these professionals were posting, liking, re-tweeting and blogging their personal opinions and content of interest. Any concerns? While some posts may have been questionable, all interaction was welcomed and embraced in this "professional community". Does your company offer a platform for your employees to engage in the social media realm to post blogs, share inspiration or leadership points? I would like to hear why/why...

Happy Pi Day! I’m Sheila B Robinson, aea365’s Lead Curator and sometimes Saturday contributor. If you had an internet browser open to this site today, 3.14.15 at precisely 9:26:53 am (EST) looking for today’s post to be about Pi Day, then you probably know that today is a particularly prodigious Pi Day as we have a date and time that represent the first 10 digits of pi, something that will not occur for another 100 years (OK, to be fair, another 12 hours, then another 100 years!). Lesson Learned: Pi Day is celebrated internationally each year with deference to every mathematician’s favorite constant - the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter —which is approximately 3.141592653… and has now been calculated to over 1 trillion digits! (Back in my school days, we only had to memorize 3.14.) Pi enjoys an illustrious history and you can read more about it and actually see one million of those daunting digits on www.piday.org. Apple Pi by Alex Cockroach via Flickr Now, as we slickly segue from the consistently celebrated constant to the perpetually plagued pie chart, let’s take a moment for a 360 degree look at pie chart perspectives from around the blogosphere: We can only surmise how Cole Nussbaumer, of storytelling with data, feels about pie charts with her evocatively titled 2011 post, death to pie charts. Perhaps not surprisingly, it opens with, "I hate pie charts. I mean, really hate them." Nussbaumer explains, "My main beef with pie charts … is this: our eyes aren’t good at attributing quantitative value to two dimensional spaces. In English: pie charts are really hard for people to read!" Pie charts receive a bare modicum of redemption from Slate in a 2013 article, In Defense of Pie Charts wherein author Matthew Yglesias declares (somewhat not-so-convincingly, as it’s by way of a double negative), "it’s by no means true that pies are never the right way to go." Back in our own evaluator neighborhood, Kim Firth Leonard, of actionable data blog stands boldly on the fence declaring, "I’m not entirely ready to abandon using pie charts in my own practice" in her 2012 post, My love hate relationship with pie charts. And pie. And evaluation’s dataviz darlings Stephanie Evergreen and Ann K Emery have allowed pie in moderation with only the simplest of ingredients, of course, as elucidated in their recipe card for gorgeous graphs, the Data Visualization Checklist (downloadable from either of their sites). Coming full circle (seriously, how could we not?) with a return to Pi, we can perhaps see some esoteric connections to evaluation in this fact, courtesy of www.piday.org: "As an irrational and transcendental number, [pi] will continue infinitely without repetition or pattern." Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org . aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. Related posts: Angie Ficek on Using the Framing Function in Word to Wrap Text Around Charts APC TIG Week: Kat Athanasiades and Veena Pankaj on Small Picture, Big Picture: Using the Framework for Public Policy Advocacy in a Large-Scale Advocacy Campaign DVR Week: Jennifer Bain on Creating Attractive Charts in Excel Every Time With Chart Templates

Introduction In this blog I will cover on how to install and use the Selenium Test Automation Tool to create automated test cases for your projects. Steps to Install Selenium 1. Preconditions Firefox browser should be installed in the system where the user wants to install selenium. Note: Selenium IDE is a web application testing tool. It supports only Mozilla Firefox browser. If users want to run their test cases of Selenium IDE they should have the Mozilla Firefox browser opened. Now let us see how to download Selenium IDE. 2. Steps: The following steps will explain how to download Selenium IDE Add-on: 1. First download Mozilla Firefox browser. Note: User should download the latest version of Firefox (or update the existing one). 2. Click on the Firefox tab present at the top the browser window. 3. Click on Add-on in drop down menu. 4. Go to add on page of Mozilla Firefox browser 5. In the search box of Add on page search the term "Selenium IDE" and press enter 6. A page will open which displays Selenium IDE add-on. 7. Click on install next to the Selenium IDE add-on 8. Once installation is done the Mozilla Firefox browser will ask you to restart the browser. The User should restart the browser. 9. Open the Selenium IDE under the tools tabs after the browser gets restarted. 10. The Selenium IDE will open for the user to start recording of the test cases. 3. Post Condition The user should be able to see all the following IDE features required for creatring automated test cases: 1. Menu Bar The File menu has options for Test Case and Test Suite (suite of Test Cases). Using these you can add a new Test Case, open a Test Case, save a Test Case and export Test Case in a language of your choice. You can also open the recent Test Case. All these options are also available for Test Suite. The Edit menu allows copy, paste, delete, undo, and select all operations for editing the commands in your test case. The Options menu allows the changing of settings. You can set the timeout value for certain commands, add user-defined user extensions to the base set of Selenium commands, and specify the format (language) used when saving your test cases. The Help menu is the standard Firefox Help menu; only one item on this menu-UI-Element Documentation-pertains to Selenium-IDE. 2. Toolbar The toolbar contains buttons for controlling the execution of your test cases, including a step feature for debugging your test cases. The right-most button, the one with the red-dot, is the record button. Speed Control: controls how fast your test case runs. Run All: Runs the entire test suite when a test suite with multiple test cases is loaded. Run: Runs the currently selected test. When only a single test is loaded this button and the Run All button have the same effect. Pause/Resume: Allows stopping and re-starting of a running test case. Step: Allows you to "step" through a test case by running it one command at a time. Use for debugging test cases. TestRunner Mode: Allows you to run the test case in a browser loaded with the Selenium-Core TestRunner. The TestRunner is not commonly used now and is likely to be deprecated. This button is for evaluating test cases for backwards compatibility with the TestRunner. Most users will probably not need this button. Apply Rollup Rules: This advanced feature allows repetitive sequences of Selenium commands to be grouped into a single action. Detailed documentation on rollup rules can be found in the UI-Element Documentation on the Help menu. Record: Records the user’s browser actions. 3. Test Case Pane Your script is displayed in the test case pane. It has two tabs, one for displaying the command and their parameters in a readable "table" format. The other tab - Source displays the test case in the native format in which the file will be stored. By default, this is HTML although it can be changed to a programming language such as Java or C#, or a scripting language like Python. See the Options menu for details. The Source view also allows one to edit the test case in its raw form, including copy, cut and paste operations. The Command, Target, and Value entry fields display the currently selected command along with its parameters. These are entry fields where you can modify the currently selected command. The first parameter specified for a command in the Reference tab of the bottom pane always goes in the Target field. If a second parameter is specified by the Reference tab, it always goes in the Value field. If you start typing in the Command field, a drop-down list will be populated based on the first characters you type; you can then select your desired command from the drop-down. 4. Log/Reference/UI-Element/Rollup Pane The bottom pane is used for four different functions-Log, Reference, UI-Element, and Rollup-depending on which tab is selected. Log When you run your test case, error messages and information messages showing the progress are displayed in this pane automatically, even if you do not first select the Log tab. These messages are often useful for test case debugging. Notice the Clear button for clearing the Log. Also notice the Info button is a drop-down allowing selection of different levels of information to log. Reference The Reference tab is the default selection whenever you are entering or modifying Selenese commands (commands that we use in Selenium IDE are called "Selenese commands") and parameters in Table mode. In Table mode, the Reference pane will display documentation on the current command. When entering or modifying commands, whether from Table or Source mode, it is critically important to ensure that the parameters specified in the Target and Value fields match those specified in the parameter list in the Reference pane. The number of parameters provided must match the number specified, the order of parameters provided must match the order specified, and the type of parameters provided must match the type specified. If there is a mismatch in any of these three areas, the command will not run correctly. UI-Element and Rollup UI-Element is a Selenium feature that makes it possible to define a mapping between semantically meaningful names of elements on webpages, and the elements themselves. The mapping is defined using JavaScript Object Notation, and may be shared both by the IDE and tests run via Selenium RC. It also offers a single point of update should the user interface of the application under test change. Note: Detailed information on these two panes (which cover advanced features) can be found in the UI-Element Documentation on the Help menu of Selenium-IDE.

Greetings! I’m Sara Vaca, independent consultant at EvalQuality.com and Creative Advisor of this blog. I started with this post (link) observing where and how evaluation can use a dash of creativity, and now I’m going to share my experience using creativity to better understand evaluation. After my first AEA conference in Washington D.C. (October 2013), during my daily stroll, all the words and concepts I had been hearing during that week -mixed methods, rubrics, approaches, participation, values, dashboards, etc.- were flying around in my head. I was wondering: there are so many different possibilities (stance, paradigm, approach, methods) to design an evaluation, and yet they are not clearly visible in evaluation reports… Suddenly, it all clicked in my mind and I thought: What if you could see many of these evaluator’s decisions in just one page? I know! I will create a "meta-evaluation" dashboard! Some months later, after much reading and research and many sketches and drafts, I came up with this dashboard, where you can see reflected in a very visual way 10 (for me) major issues of an evaluation: Complexity Purpose ranking Evaluative synthesis thermometer Participation scan Sampling decisions Mix-methods scan Core tools Credible evidence Evaluation standards and Evaluation outputs. Initially, the Dashboard can be used to visualize the evaluation methodology of an evaluation report after its completion. Or it can be used by evaluators to explain the methodology they have followed. Also it is a tool for meta-evaluating and quality assurance. But, it can also be used to visualize an evaluation design prior to its realization. Finally, it can be useful in discussing evaluation design with evaluation commissioners, to explore various options. And, it could be used to show the evaluation design proposed by the commissioner in the Terms of Reference. Or, even to teach evalution. I presented it as a poster in both European Evaluation Society and Evaluation 2014 conferences (Dublin and Denver) and I would like to thank all the comments and feedback received, from the people who didn’t understand it at first, to those who told me that it was inspiring. Special thanks to Michael, Scriven, Jennifer Greene, Patricia Rogers, Jane Davidson, Beverly Parsons, Ian Davies and many others who took the time to take a look at it and comment on it. For more information: http://www.evalquality.com/the-meta-evaluative-dashboard/ For reactions and comments: Sara.vaca@EvalQuality.com Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org . aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. Related posts: Sara Vaca on Creativity and Evaluation Part I Sara Vaca on Creativity and Evaluation Part II Veronica Smith on Data Dashboard Design

SHRM15 has begun, and the latest numbers puts attendees just shy of 15,500.  Whether you're an introvert or extrovert, the sheer number of attendees at this year's conference suggests you may meet lots of meet new people. Let me rephrase that, you SHOULD meet LOTS of new people. If you look up from your phone, you will meet new people. If you split up from...

Overview SharePoint (all versions) currently do not have a way to lookup lists other than lists and libraries within the same site (SPWeb) context. In this blog we will discuss how to look up for example a master contract list  which is residing in one of the sub site and  the list being looked up from another sub site under the same site collection. Solution Steps From your Site Collection follow below steps: 1. Create a Master List at one of the sub sites with the column that is going to be looked up in the libraries residing at different sibling sub sites under the same site collection. Important: Please note that the users uploading documents in the lookup libraries should have reader permission in the Master List to look up the corresponding column values for the look up column in the libraries. 2. Created a doc library (in the same sub site where the master list resides) with a look up column referring to the desired column of the Master List. 3. Created a list template of the library containing the look up column. Navigate to the corresponding library->Click on Library tab->Click on Library Settings->click on "Save document library as template" under the "Permissions and Management" section.   4. Template got uploaded at the list template in the site collection level. Navigate to the top level site collection->click Site Settings->Click "List template" link under "Web Designer Galleries".   5. Created doc libraries at the sibling sub sites (under the same site collection) using the template. Go to site contents of the corresponding sub site->Click on "add an app"->Click on the library template created for the look up library. 6. Referred the look up column of the created libraries to the corresponding column of the "Master List in another sub site. (New entries in the Master List also got reflected in the look up column of the created libraries under different sub sites). Go to site contents of the corresponding sub site à Click on the library created from the template.  

I'm here at the Annual SHRM Conference - we're in Vegas! As always, I'm having fun reconnecting with colleagues I haven't seen in a while and connecting with brand new ones. But alas, it's not all about socializing; I need to attend the concurrent sessions too! I attended a session today on workplace bullying and was thrilled to hear, within the first ten minutes, the two presenters validate what I have been telling my clients for two years now: we are close, very close, to having bullying be "prohibited by law" and, therefore, the time has come to start preparing...

AEA365 Valuing Voices impact vs self-sustainability trade off submission - Hi, I am Jindra Cekan, PhD of Valuing Voices at Cekan Consulting LLC. I have been roaming around international development projects since 1988. Lesson Learned: What’s likely to ‘stand’ after we go? A new consideration in project design and evaluation Last spring I had the opportunity to not only evaluate a food security project but also to use the knowledge gleaned for the follow-on project design.  This Ethiopian Red Cross (ERCS) project "Building Resilient Community: Integrated Food Security Project to Build the Capacity of Dedba, Dergajen & Shibta Vulnerable People to Food Insecurity" over 2,000 households with credit for crossbreed cows, ox fattening, sheep/goats, beehives and poultry as well as other inputs. We met with 168 respondents (8% of total participants) and had in-depth interviews with 52. My evaluation team and I asked in-depth questions on income and self-sustainability preferences. We used participatory methods to learn what they felt they could most sustain themselves after they repaid the credit and the project moved on to new communities.  We also asked the to rank what input provided the greatest source of income.  The largest income ($1,500) was earned from dairy and oxen fattening, other activities garnered between $50 to $500. And even while 87% of total loans were for ox fattening, dairy cows which brought in farm more income, and only 11% of loans were sheep/goats (shoats) and 2% for poultry, the self-sustainability feedback was clear. Poultry and sheep/goats (and to a lesser degree, ox fattening) were what men and women felt they could self-sustain. So how can such a listening and learning approach feed program success and sustainability? Hot Tips: We need to sit with communities to discuss the project’s objectives during design plus manage our/ our donors’ impact expectations: 1) If raising income in the short-term is the goal, the project could only have offered dairy and ox fattening to the communities as their incomes gained the most. 2) If they took a longer view, investing in what communities felt they could self-sustain, then poultry and sheep/goats were the activities to promote. 3) In order to learn about true impacts we must return post-project close to confirm the extent to which income increases continued, as well as the degree to which communities were truly able to self-sustain the activities the project enabled them to launch. How do our goals fit with the communities’? What is important is seeing community actors, our participants as the experts. It is their lives and livelihoods, and not one of us in international development is living there except them… What are your questions and thoughts? Have you seen such tradeoffs? We long to know at www.ValuingVoices.com Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org . aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. Related posts: Jindra Cekan on Furthering Community Self-sustainability of Our Projects Bloggers Series: Eric Sarriot on the Sustainable Human and Social Development Blog Annaliese Calhoun on Measuring Sustainability Capacity and Planning for Long Term Success