12 Oct SAM performance survey
Posted at 00:10h
in News
APHA have asked us to thank everyone who took the trouble to contribute to their recent survey on SAM functionality. They have already commissioned some changes as a result, including the request to ensure that the system sends a confirmation that submission of test schedules has been completed successfully. The time-out provisions within SAM are also now set to 30 minutes with a warning pop up appearing after 25 minutes of inactivity.
The survey raised several other questions and some feedback and comments are indicated below:
Q: What happens if there are SAM problems outside normal office hours?
A: All calls to the APHA Service Desk go through to an answering machine that is listened to on the following working day.
A: All calls to the APHA Service Desk go through to an answering machine that is listened to on the following working day.
Q: Can the Service Desk unlock tests that OV’s have locked?
A: Unfortunately not. Database restrictions mean that unlocking requires a database engineer and in any case is not guaranteed to be successful.
A: Unfortunately not. Database restrictions mean that unlocking requires a database engineer and in any case is not guaranteed to be successful.
Q: A vets name sometimes does not appear in drop down list of options
A: This is a known problem and is being investigated further. Please continue to report these problems to the XL Farmcare UK administration team who have the relevant issue code to hand.
A: This is a known problem and is being investigated further. Please continue to report these problems to the XL Farmcare UK administration team who have the relevant issue code to hand.
They will ensure it gets passed on to the relevant APHA team.
Q: Why are animals on the printed worksheet in a different order to the way they appear in SAM
A: This is due to details being exported out of SAM into an excel document. Excel sorts the animal Id’s using the last 5 digits whereas SAM sorts using the last 6 digits after sorting by the 2 digit country prefix (UK, IE, FR…). Unfortunately, there is not a single agreed standard for sorting animal Id’s.
A: This is due to details being exported out of SAM into an excel document. Excel sorts the animal Id’s using the last 5 digits whereas SAM sorts using the last 6 digits after sorting by the 2 digit country prefix (UK, IE, FR…). Unfortunately, there is not a single agreed standard for sorting animal Id’s.
Q: Occasionally we have a test disappear after submission
A: It is thought that this may be due to inclusion of a ‘special character’ somewhere in the submission fields. Special characters include the @ sign and the tilde shape ~. This is being investigated in more detail. We have been told that if a practice spots that the test has not moved to ‘submitted work’ then please contact the SAM service desk so that they can ask the database engineers to reinstate the test and review in more detail what may have happened. In any case please contact XL Farmcare UK if you notice this problem so that we can use the appropriate technical coding when seeking to resolve any issues with timeliness of submission of work.
A: It is thought that this may be due to inclusion of a ‘special character’ somewhere in the submission fields. Special characters include the @ sign and the tilde shape ~. This is being investigated in more detail. We have been told that if a practice spots that the test has not moved to ‘submitted work’ then please contact the SAM service desk so that they can ask the database engineers to reinstate the test and review in more detail what may have happened. In any case please contact XL Farmcare UK if you notice this problem so that we can use the appropriate technical coding when seeking to resolve any issues with timeliness of submission of work.