- Joined
- Jan 9, 2006
Keeping up with the important milestones is a lot more work, now that we have the SMP and GPU clients. So I wrote a program that does a lot of the work for me. 
Jolly Swagman and I will be using it,
BUT
(there's always a big but in these kinds of sentences), that will entail some changes for the milestone reports.
Here's how the milestone program works. A daily summary donor list from Stanford is d/l'ed, of all FAH donors. That's the starting point for the period we're reporting on. A week (or so) later, another daily summary donor list from Stanford is d/l'ed. The milestone program steers our team's folders with more than 5k total points, into two files: old and new.
These two files are then compared. Every folder with more points on the newer d/l file, is judged to be an active team member. Their data is processed. Anyone who doesn't show at least *one* more point on the newer d/l file, is judged inactive, and not processed further. They will not show up on the milestone report.
So let's say Jolly Swagman runs the program, covering a 10 day period. Then during that 10 days, you will need to have earned at least *one* point, to be an active folder. If he runs it once a week, then during that week, you will have to have earned at least *one* point.
If you go on vacation to Tahiti (lucky you), for two months, you'll become an inactive folder. When you return, and start folding again, the program will automatically see the increase in your points, and make you an active folder again, and you'll be right back on the milestone reports.
New folders will need a "baseline" points total above our lowest milestone level (currently 5k), and then one point over that, during the next period. If Jolly Swagman runs it every week, a brand new folder will need at least 8 days, and at most 15 days, to get into the milestone report. Why so long? Because we compare old point totals, with new point totals, to decide who's an active folder. Brand new folders don't have that "baseline" starting point total, yet. The dates the points were made, are not included from Stanford - only the total points.
Why the change? It's a huge labor saver. The milestone program prepares both the new milestone, and the whole team milestone reports, including all the colors, formatting, dating, and sorting each teammate by name, at each milestone level, in about 10 seconds.
If any inactive or unlisted folder wants to see where they are with their points, please have them use EOC's or Kakao's stats, or Stanford. Our milestone reports are not a database report, running on a dedicated server.
Names are limited to 63 characters. Longer names will be truncated.
Supercalifragilisticexpealidosis
Shows a pretty long name, but it's only 32 char's long. It's fine.
SupercalifragilisticexpealidosisAnotherlifragilisticexpealidosis Shows a very long name, that would lose a bit off the end.
This program has gone through lots of revisions and we've tried all kinds of idea's. Both Jolly and I wanted a way to make the reports inclusive, but not have our active membership buried under the thousands of inactive members that Stanford has, for our team. (All teams have a huge number of inactive members after several years of folding, btw.)
The program also needed to be as clear and easy to use, as possible. It won't be used or maintained, otherwise.
You will begin seeing the program's reports, in the Milestone Thread, as soon as Jolly Swagman is ready for them. It looks like Jolly's normal milestone thread report *except*, inactive folders during the period being looked at, will not be listed.
If you have some special concerns about it, please pm me.
This concludes theMilestone program for Dummies, summary of the new Milestone Program. 
Jolly Swagman and I will be using it,
BUT
(there's always a big but in these kinds of sentences), that will entail some changes for the milestone reports.
Here's how the milestone program works. A daily summary donor list from Stanford is d/l'ed, of all FAH donors. That's the starting point for the period we're reporting on. A week (or so) later, another daily summary donor list from Stanford is d/l'ed. The milestone program steers our team's folders with more than 5k total points, into two files: old and new.
These two files are then compared. Every folder with more points on the newer d/l file, is judged to be an active team member. Their data is processed. Anyone who doesn't show at least *one* more point on the newer d/l file, is judged inactive, and not processed further. They will not show up on the milestone report.
So let's say Jolly Swagman runs the program, covering a 10 day period. Then during that 10 days, you will need to have earned at least *one* point, to be an active folder. If he runs it once a week, then during that week, you will have to have earned at least *one* point.
If you go on vacation to Tahiti (lucky you), for two months, you'll become an inactive folder. When you return, and start folding again, the program will automatically see the increase in your points, and make you an active folder again, and you'll be right back on the milestone reports.
New folders will need a "baseline" points total above our lowest milestone level (currently 5k), and then one point over that, during the next period. If Jolly Swagman runs it every week, a brand new folder will need at least 8 days, and at most 15 days, to get into the milestone report. Why so long? Because we compare old point totals, with new point totals, to decide who's an active folder. Brand new folders don't have that "baseline" starting point total, yet. The dates the points were made, are not included from Stanford - only the total points.
Why the change? It's a huge labor saver. The milestone program prepares both the new milestone, and the whole team milestone reports, including all the colors, formatting, dating, and sorting each teammate by name, at each milestone level, in about 10 seconds.
If any inactive or unlisted folder wants to see where they are with their points, please have them use EOC's or Kakao's stats, or Stanford. Our milestone reports are not a database report, running on a dedicated server.
Names are limited to 63 characters. Longer names will be truncated.
Supercalifragilisticexpealidosis
Shows a pretty long name, but it's only 32 char's long. It's fine.
SupercalifragilisticexpealidosisAnotherlifragilisticexpealidosis Shows a very long name, that would lose a bit off the end.
This program has gone through lots of revisions and we've tried all kinds of idea's. Both Jolly and I wanted a way to make the reports inclusive, but not have our active membership buried under the thousands of inactive members that Stanford has, for our team. (All teams have a huge number of inactive members after several years of folding, btw.)
The program also needed to be as clear and easy to use, as possible. It won't be used or maintained, otherwise.
You will begin seeing the program's reports, in the Milestone Thread, as soon as Jolly Swagman is ready for them. It looks like Jolly's normal milestone thread report *except*, inactive folders during the period being looked at, will not be listed.
If you have some special concerns about it, please pm me.
This concludes the
Nice to "ship" that binary isn't it? 
