Bill Kunkel

I work for a medium size manufacturing company in upstate New York. We are trying to centralize/modernize our systems that used to exist as ‘information silos’. One of these systems we use is a DOS based Database system known as ‘Symantec Questions and Answers’ or ‘Q&A’.

They used Q&A to create separate information stores about customers, machines we have built and shipped, Technical Service/Field Service calls, etc. I am evaluating each database they currently have and seeing if:

• The information is already collected and we just need to do some database/report magic to extract the info.
• By altering a business process, our ERP system, CRM System, or Microsoft SharePoint becomes a better fit for the information they wish to collect.

That lead me to yesterdays quest * attempting * to find some helpful information on how to extract data and field definitions from ‘Symantec Questions and Answers’ or ‘Q&A’ in order to import the information into an access database so that I could first clean it up, and later import into the SharePoint Call Center template.

My quest seemed extremely unfruitful yielding no direct instructions, save a few ‘costly’ consulting services who, for the right price, would do it for me. But alas, I am the type of person who wants to the ‘how’ to do it, and I don’t mind getting my hands dirty in the process.

Since I had such a hard time finding this information freely on the internet, once I finally figured it out (my wife knows all about my inability to ‘let it go’), I was inspired to join the 21st century, create a blog and share with you my experience.

Below are the steps I tool to get the data out. Looking back it seems so easy, yet in the middle of the process it seems confusing. You may have to change certain variables in the formulae to achieve the desired results. You take full responsibility for your actions should you decide to follow my advice.

Phase 1 – Emotional Preparation

1. Get over the fact that you are a stubborn German man, and cannot export to a .csv file to achieve the results you want. This step is paramount, do not overlook this step.
2. Accept the fact that you have to export the Q&A database into a temporary Paradox database.
3. Brace yourself for the ramifications of bothering the sales quoting staff for 5 minutes so you can start the process.

Phase 2 – Get to Work

1. Through VNC remote into the sales staff’s desktop before she returns from lunch and fire up Q&A in Windowed mode so you can tell WTH you are doing.
2. Through Q&A export the data to a file. Choose Paradox
3. Name the file 8 characters or less with .db at the end – Q&A is a DOS based lifeform.
4. Make a copy of the export file so you always have a source file to open.
5. Open Microsoft Access 2007 (if you have it)
6. Create a new database
7. Go to the ‘External Data’ section of the Ribbon
8. Go to More -> Paradox File
   
9. Select ‘Import Source Data…’ and browse to the location of your copy of the data.db file you created
   
10. A table is now created with the name of your source file
11. If you go to Home->View->Design View you can see the field names/definitions
    
12. Now your data is in Access 2007 and you can clean it up and export it to any format you wish.

To quote the company computer Guy, "That wasn’t so hard…"

• I used Gadwin Software’s Gadwin PrintScreen free edition to create my limited screen shots.
• If you find this post helpful, please leave comments below.

I am starting to see that e-mail may cause just as many interruptions to productivity to unapproved data stores (excel spreadsheets, silo databases, etc.)

I was reading an article that offered the following insight

“However, Basex proposed several steps to mitigate information overload. With e-mail as the biggest offender, Basex said users can save time by not e-mailing someone, and then following up with a phone call or an instant message two seconds later [Or, walk to your office 4 seconds later and ask “did you get my e-mail”] (a no-brainer perhaps, but a trap many of us fall into).

Basex also said users must not combine multiple topics or requests in a single e-mail; make sure the subject clearly reflects the topic and urgency of the message; read their e-mails before sending to make sure they make sense; and will not hit reply-all unless necessary or [not] reply with one-word e-mails such as "thanks."

This Dilbert comic seems to offer a similar conclusion.

Another company I’ve been looking at called ActionMethod offers similar insight:

Email can kill productivity, because the actions you must take get buried in regular communication. Tasks should have an ecosystem of their own.

It suffices to say that the issue warrants a deeper study which should result in proper workplace policy for the use of e-mail and collaborative tools (SharePoint, etc.).