Extension:Mccp

 "MCCP" stands for "Metrology & Configuration Control Portal" 

What can this extension do?
Adds a collection of Special Pages which provide web-access to an external "Metrology & Configuration Control" database. These special pages allows for the secure, online management of equipment with special attention to:
 * Systems and Subsystems
 * Multiple facilities, sites, buildings, rooms and location nomenclature
 * Calibration and calibration recall cycles and histories
 * Association and tracking of procedures and checklists
 * Technical print ECO (engineering change order) Tracking
 * Instrument Lists for Testing
 * and, my favorite, (SRS) System Readiness Status tracking



=Introduction= Unless you are using an expensive proprietary software package, metrology and configuration control data is traditionally then tracked using a stand-alone database file which is carefully maintained by a single user. While this approach is simple, it is time consuming and lacks many of the modern accessibility features which are increasingly common to proprietary solutions. It is also highly prone to errors due to a lack of an adequate input checks nor does it provide the ability to review a time-history log of changes.

So the goal of 'this' extension is to keep the approach of an external database file as an end-product, but to utilize the highly-popular Mediawiki software as a ready-to go, feature-rich, user-based website to facilitate a simple web-portal from which to use features like, user-authentication and list export for the metrology database. This approach has many advantages, primarily, the ability to use the facilities/organizations preexisting network domain in order to validate users and assign permissions which allow users to view and update the Metrology database from a web-page as determined by the wiki administrator.

Important Caveat
The extent to which this extension works on any platform other than a WAMP server is completely unknown to the author.

It is also important to state that this is a work in progress and is provided As-Is.
 * please report all bugs and feature requests in the appropriate sections below.

Mediawiki Mechanics
This extension will have you install:
 * 1) A custom skin (required! - I will be working to eliminate this as a requirement soon.)
 * 2) A collection of special pages in the wiki extensions folder
 * 3) Additional folders which will be instaled outside the wiki folder path
 * 4) A "System DNS" ODBC connection on the wiki server system (ADODB is a planed upgrade)
 * 5) The popular "wGET" executable
 * 6) A PHP PEAR Extension for generating MS-Excel spreadsheets.

=Extension Details=

Requirements

 * 1) A WAMP Server equivalent to "Web-developer version 2.0"
 * (http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=187164)
 * 1) Mediawiki (latest version)
 * (http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Download)
 * 1) wGet
 * (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wget)
 * (I got the Windows binary here: http://users.ugent.be/~bpuype/wget/#download)
 * 1) PHP Spreadsheet Express using PEAR
 * (http://pear.php.net/package/Spreadsheet_Excel_Writer/)

Usage
see the FAQs and Manual below

Download instructions
visit: http://www.mavericks2252.net/archive/mediawiki-extensions/mccp/

and download the latest zip file.

Installation
'''please see my complete installation walk-through on this articles "talk page"
 * here: Extension_talk:Mccp'''

Requested Features


=Personal note from the author= I am a test & measurement scientist/engineer who has been working in the national laboratory and aerospace test facilities environment for more than 12 years now. Between 2002 and 2005 I had a written a stand-alone web-application out of necessity called "Devlore*" which was the predecessor to this extension and served the same purpose. This extension was written to replace the Devlore project (1) http://accelconf.web.cern.ch/AccelConf/ica05/proceedings/pdf/P1_096.pdf By late 2005 I had realized that although the Metrology functions worked, the monolithic Devlore web-site itself was out-of date and clunky. The value of being able to leverage Mediawiki as a stable, full-featured and highy customizable web-site foundation can not be under-stated. This has eliminated ALL of the burden of developing a website (and shifted strictly to administration of one) and allowed me to focus my programming effort solely on the Metrology and Configuration Control features that I wanted. I would like to extend an enormous "thank-you" to everyone in the Mediawiki development community for their contribution to society that will never fully be appreciated by the vast majority of users that benefit from it. ...That's the way it is, I think, for us engineer's (software or otherwise)...

I hope this extension proves useful to you. Please feel free to contact me about it.

Cheers! - Rich (revansx)

=Quick Start F.A.Q.s (aka Survival Guide)=

How do I... Add a new location?
A location is defined in the MCCP database as the result of four tables which are related in a linear hierarchy to define a unique location in the system. The final location has the following heirachy: - Site - Buildling - Room Area An fictional example would be: - "XYZ University" - "Engineering Building" - "Lab 1" - "Rack 3" The location tables are:
 * Table: "B2X_Location_Sites": This is the top level location table and it is basically a simple list of sites (or facilities) that contain structures (or buildings).
 * Table: "B2X_Location_Structures": This table is a list of structures (usually buildings) that contain rooms. Each Structure must reference (or belong to) a pre-defined site from table 1.
 * Table: "B2X_Location_Rooms": This table is a list of rooms that will have specifically identified locations. Each Room must reference (or belong to) a pre-defined structure from table 2.
 * Table: "B2X_Location_List": This table is a list of specifically named locations. Each Location Area that is defined must reference (or belong to) a pre-defined room.
 * Direct Database Method
 * Open the MCCP_Database.mdb file using MS-Access
 * Open the Table named "B2X_Location_Sites" in datasheet view
 * Expand the Site/Facility that your new location belongs to (or add a new site if the one you need does not exist)
 * Expand the Structure/Building that your new location belongs to (or add a new Structure/Building if the one you need does not exist)
 * Expand the Room that your new location belongs to (or add a new room if the one you need does not exist)
 * ADD the new area as a location belonging to the appropriate room.
 * save and close the database
 * visit the special page "Special:MCCP Database - Locations Listing" to rebuild the location list.
 * From the web --- currently you can not add new locations directly from the web

How do save a link to a list?
Ok. so you have this great extension (MCCP) that mines a database and generates these terrific lists... and you have played with the filters to get a specific, targeted list that displays just the columns you want and is sorted in just the right special way... and now you want to make it easy for other to check this list without having to set all the filters on their own... here's what you do.

You can make a shortcut using your web-browser and save it in your favorites and/or send the short-cut to people... OR ... you can save the links as external links in your wiki per the usual way... namely:
 * 1) click on the browser's address bar such that it highlights the FULL URL (make sure you get all the extra stuff beyond the page name... this is where all the list settings are encoded)
 * 2) paste that giant link into the wiki page of you choice
 * 3) save the page
 * 4) direct people to that wiki page with the list URL
 * 5) tell them to click on that link to get the list

Optionally, you can use wiki formatting techniques to make the link more presentable

such as:
 * 1) encapsulate the URL in square-brakets as:
 * if the url is like this:
 * URL=http://localhost/mediawiki/index.php/Special:MCCP_Database_-_Inventory_Listing?&b2xTblPresets=pid...
 * then do this [URL this is my link]

=User Manual= ...to be written