Transports to Production - Best Practice for Timing Imports

I would like to compile a list of possible issues/problems which can occur through Transporting requests to the Production system during Productive time, i.e. 'Business Time'.
This is obviously against SAP recommendations that, little if not no user activity should take place during a import, but i would like if possible some more detail on the risks.
Thanks for any help.

Hello Ashley,
If you are looking for list of problems and issues related to TMS and what needs to be done with particular problem
Here is very useful link
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Grid/4858/sap/Basis/tpprobs_solutions.htm
Thanks & Regards
Vivek

Similar Messages

Best practice for timing of Transfer of forecast to R/3 Demand Management

Hi All,
I have APO DP 4.0 with monthly bucket. What is best practice to transfer the planning results to R/3. Meaning how many times we should transfer it?
And when forecast (PIR) is transfered it replaces the old PIR in demand management for that month. How it will affect the consumption of forecast in R/3? Meaning let us say in same month first time forecast transfered was 100 and by middle of the month 50 has been consumed. Now in same month forecast has been carried out and now 200 has been calculated for the same month and transfered to R/3. Now ideally the remaining quantity to be made should be 150 in R/3. Is it so? Any idea?
TBR, MM

Hi Somnath,
Thanks for the reply. The problem with frequent transfer of forecast to R/3 demand management is that the latest forecast ignores the prior shipments made in that month.
I will give numeric example:
Let us say we are in September month and in first week transfered forecast of 100 for one product to demand management. In first two weeks 40 items have been shipped so remaining is 60.
Now we are in third week and planner realizes that instead of 100 we needed to plan 150 and 150 number is sent to R/3 demand management as a fresh forecast for that month.
Now for September month we should see net demand as 110 (=150-40). Somehow this is not happening. It shows as a whole 150 net demand. Any idea why it is not happening.
Thanks and Best Regards, Manoj

Best Practice for Keeping Imported Music Organized? - Help Please

I download tunes and am looking at the best way to keep iTunes up to date with new downloads (as opposed o CD rips). Am i best to have all files in one overall folder and then just use iTunes to import the files from whatever folder they reside in (after the download) to the copy in iTunes and delete the original? To date Ive been keeping them scattered across drives and just using iTunes as the pointer to the original but now losing track as to what has been imported and what hasnt. Perhaps the above is a better way and if so....best to delete iTunes, reinstall with an empty database, import all and then delete from original flile locations? Help and thanks in advance!!
Porsche216

I import similar to the way you described. Import then delete original. I keep a folder just for importing. iTunes has a function consolidating the library. It will copy from the multiple locations to the iTunes library location. You would then have to delete the originals to free up space.

Best Practices for AD Import into FIM MV

I'm working on a project which will require AD users to be imported into FIM and then be shown in the FIM portal. I know I could import users from a specific OU, but what I'm not sure about is how FIM and the MV keeps track of users.
For example:
I configure "john.doe" in OU "London" and then import the account into the MV.
john.doe is moved into the Hong Kong OU and I run a delta sync - can FIM track this change?
Would I be better off using an anchor on objectsid to deal with user account moves and users changing names\logons?
Thanks

When you are configuring AD MA you are selecting OUs in which you are managing object through MA. As long as you will keep user in selected OUs FIM will "see" this user and will import changes on object.
FIM is using objectGUID as anchor internally (I assume this - never looked into agent code :) ) but presents DN as an anchor for you. You can't change this. When user will be moved between OUs you will see it as rename operation and you will see it as DN
change.
Tomek Onyszko, memberOf Predica FIM Team (http://www.predica.pl), IdAM knowledge provider @ http://blog.predica.pl

SAP Best Practice for Water Utilities v 1.600

Hi All,
I want to install SAP Best Practice for Water Utilities v 1.600. I have downloaded the package (now available only Mat.No. 50079055 "Docu: SAP BP Water Utilities-V1.600") from Marketplace, but there is NO transport file included on it. It only contains documentation. Should I use the transport file from Best Practice for Utilities v 1.500?
Thank you,
Vladimir

Hello!
The file should contain eCATTs with data according to best practice preconfigured scenarios and transactions to install them.
Some information about preconfigured scenario you could find here:
http://help.sap.com/bp_waterutilv1600/index.htm -> Business Information -> Preconfigured Scenarios
Under the "Installation" path you could find "Scenario Installation Guide" for Water Utilities.
I hope it would be helpful.
Vladimir

Best practice for a deplomyent (EAR containing WAR/EJB) in a productive environment

Hi there,
I'm looking for some hints regarding to the best practice deployment in a productive
environment (currently we are not using a WLS-cluster);
We are using ANT for buildung, packaging and (dynamic) deployment (via weblogic.Deployer)
on the development environment and this works fine (in the meantime);
For my point of view, I would like to prefere this kind of Deploment not only
for the development, also for the productive system.
But I found some hints in some books, and this guys prefere the static deployment
for the p-system.
My question now:
Could anybody provide me with some links to some whitepapers regarding best practice
for a deployment into a p-system ??
What is your experiance with the new two-phase-deploment coming up with WLS 7.0
Is it really a good idea to use the static deployment (what is the advantage of
this kind of deployment ???
THX in advanced
-Martin

Hi Siva,
What best practise are you looking for ? If you can be specific on your question we could provide appropriate response.
From my basis experience some of the best practices.
1) Productive landscape should have high availability to business. For this you may setup DR or HA or both.
2) It should have backup configured for which restore has been already tested
3) It should have all the monitoring setup viz application, OS and DB
4) Productive client should not be modifiable
5) Users in Production landscape should have appropriate authorization based on SOD. There should not be any SOD conflicts
6) Transport to Production should be highly controlled. Any transport to Production should be moved only with appropriate Change Board approvals.
7) Relevant Database and OS security parameters should be tested before golive and enabled
8) Pre-Golive , Post Golive should have been performed on Production system
9) EWA should be configured atleast for Production system
10) Production system availability using DR should have been tested
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Deepak Kori

Best practice for importing non-"Premiere-ready" video files

Hello!
I work with internal clients that provide me with a variety of differnet video types (could be almost ANYTHYING, WMV, MP4, FLV). I of course ask for AVIs when possible, but unfortunately, I have no control over the type of file I'm given.
And, naturally, Premiere (just upgraded to CS5) has a hard time dealing with these files. Unpredictable, ranging from working fine to not working at all, and everything in between. Naturally, it's become a huge issue for turnaround time.
Is there a best practice for preparing files for editing in Premiere?
I've tried almost everything I can think of: converting the file(s) to .AVIs using a variety of programs/methods. Most recently, I tried creating a Watch Folder in Adobe Media Encoder and setting it for AVI with the proper aspect ratio. It makes sense to me that that should work:using an Adobe product to render the file into something Premiere can work with.
However, when I imported the resulting AVI into Premiere, it gave me the Red Line of Un-renderness (that is the technical term, right?), and had the same sync issue I experienced when I brought it in as a WMV.
Given our environment, I'm completely fine with adding render time to the front-end of projects, but it has to work. I want files that Premiere likes.
THANK YOU in advance for any advice you can give!
-- Dave

I use an older conversion program (my PrPro has a much older internal AME, unlike yours), DigitalMedia Converter 2.7. It is shareware, and has been replaced by Deskshare with newer versions, but my old one works fine. I have not tried the newer versions yet. One thing that I like about this converter is that it ONLY uses System CODEC's, and does not install its own, like a few others. This DOES mean that if I get footage with an oddball CODEC, I need to go get it, and install it on the System.
I can batch process AV files of most types/CODEC's, and convert to DV-AVI Type II w/ 48KHz 16-bit PCM/WAV Audio and at 29.97 FPS (I am in NTSC land). So far, 99% of the resultant converted files have been perfect, whether from DivX, WMV, MPEG-2, or almost any other format/CODEC. If there is any OOS, my experience has been that it will be static, so I just have to adjust the sync offset by a few frames, and that takes care of things.
In a few instances, the PAR flag has been missed (Standard 4:3 vs Widescreen 16:9), but Interpret Footage has solved those few issues.
Only oddity that I have observed (mostly with DivX, or WMV's) is that occasionally, PrPro cannot get the file's Duration correct. I found that if I Import those problem files into PrElements, and then just do an Export, to the same exact specs., that resulting file (seems to be 100% identical, but something has to be different - maybe in the header info?) Imports perfectly into PrPro. This happens rarely, and I have the workaround, though it is one more step for those. I have yet to figure out why one very similar file will convert with the Duration info perfect, and then a companion file will not. Nor have I figured out exactly what is different, after running through PrE. Every theory that I have developed has been shot down by my experiences. A mystery still.
AME works well for most, as a converter, though there are just CODEC's, that Adobe programs do not like, such as DivX and Xvid. I doubt that any Adobe program will handle those suckers easily, if at all.
Good luck,
Hunt

Best Practice for Production environment

Hello everyone,
can someone share the best practice for a production environment? or is there a SAP standard best practice to follow in a Production landscape?
i understand there are Best practices available for Implementation , Migration and upgrade. But, i was unable to find one for productive landscape
thanks.

Hi Siva,
What best practise are you looking for ? If you can be specific on your question we could provide appropriate response.
From my basis experience some of the best practices.
1) Productive landscape should have high availability to business. For this you may setup DR or HA or both.
2) It should have backup configured for which restore has been already tested
3) It should have all the monitoring setup viz application, OS and DB
4) Productive client should not be modifiable
5) Users in Production landscape should have appropriate authorization based on SOD. There should not be any SOD conflicts
6) Transport to Production should be highly controlled. Any transport to Production should be moved only with appropriate Change Board approvals.
7) Relevant Database and OS security parameters should be tested before golive and enabled
8) Pre-Golive , Post Golive should have been performed on Production system
9) EWA should be configured atleast for Production system
10) Production system availability using DR should have been tested
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Deepak Kori

Best practices for development / production environments

Our current scenario:
We have one production database server containing the APEX development install, plus all production data.
We have one development server that is cloned nightly (via RMAN duplicate) from production. It therefore also contains a full APEX development environment, and all our production data, albeit 1 day old.
Our desired scenario:
We want to convert the production database to a runtime only environment.
We want to be able to develop in the test environment, but since this is an RMAN duplicated database, every night the runtime APEX will overlay it, and the production versions of the apps will overlay. However, we still want to have up to date data against which to develop.
Questions: What is best practice for this sort of thing? We've considered a couple options:
1.) Find a way to clone the database (RMAN or something else), that will leave the existing APEX environment intact? If such is doable, we can modify our nightly refresh procedure to refresh the data, but not APEX.
2.) Move apex (in both prod and dev environments) to a separate database containing only APEX, and use DBLINKS to point to the data in both cases. The nightly refresh would only refresh the data and the APEX database would be unaffected. This would require rewriting all apps to use DBLINKS though, as well as requiring a change to the code when moving to production (i.e. modify the DBLINK to the production value)
3.) Require the developers to export their apps when done for the day, and reimport the following morning. This would leave the RMAN duplication process unchanged, and would add a manual step which the developers loath.
We basically have two mutually exclusive requirements - refresh the database nightly for the sake of fresh data, but don't refresh the database ever for the sake of the APEX environment.
Again, any suggestions on best practices would be helpful.
Thanks,
Bill Johnson

Bill,
To clarify, you do have the ability to export/import, happily, at the application level. The issue is that if you have an application that consist of more than a couple of pages, you will find yourself in a situation where changes to page 3 are tested and ready but, changes to pages 2, 5 and 6 are still in various stages of development. You will need to get the change for page 5 in to resolve a critical production issue. How do you do this without sending pages 2, 5 and 6 in their current state if you have to move the application all at once??? The issue is that you absolutely are going to need to version control at the page level, not at the application level.
Moreover, the only supported way of exporting items is via the GUI. While practically everyone doing serious APEX development has gone on to either PL/SQL or Utility hacks, Oracle still will not release a supported method for doing this. I have no idea why this would be...maybe one of the developers would care to comment on the matter. Obviously, if you want to automate, you will have to accept this caveat.
As to which version of the backend source control tool you use, the short answer is that it really doesn't matter. As far as the VC system is concerned, you APEX exports are simply files. Some versioning systems allow promotion of code through various SDLC stages. I am not sure about GIT in particular but, if it doesn't support this directly, you could always mimic the behavior with multiple repositories. Taht is, create a development repository into which you automatically update via exports every night. Whenever particular changes are promoted to production, you can at that time export form the development repository and into the production. You could, of course, create as many of these "stops" as necessary to mirror your shop's SDLC stages, e.g. dev, qa, intergation, staging, production etc.
-Joe
Edited by: Joe Upshaw on Feb 5, 2013 10:31 AM

Best Practice for Production IDM setup

Hi, what is the best practice for setting up prodcution IDM:
1. Connect IDM prod to ECC DEV,QA and Prod or
2. Connect IDM prod to ECC prod only and Connect IDM dev to ECC Dev and QA.
Please also specify pros and cons for both options if possible.
Thanks in advance,
Farhan

We run our IDM installation as per your option 2 (Prod and non-prod on separate instances)
We use HCM for the source of truth in production and have a strict policy regarding not allowing non HCM based user accounts. HCM creates the SU01 record and details are downloaded to IDM through the LDAP extract. Access is provision based on Roles attached to the HCM Position in IDM. In Dev/test/uat we create user logins in IDM and push the details out.
Our thinking was that we definitely needed a testing environment for development and patch testing, and it needs to be separate to production. It was also ideal to use this second environment for dev/test/uat since we are in the middle of a major SAP project rollout and are creating hundreds of test and training users with various roles and prefer to keep this out of a production instance.
Lately we also created a sandpit environment since I found that I could not do destructive testing or development in the dev/test/uat instance because we were becoming reliant on this environment being available. Almost a second production instance - since we also set the policy that all changes are made through IDM and no direct SU01 changes are permitted.
Have a close look at your usage requirements before deciding which structure works best for you.

Best Practices For Portal Content Objects Transport System

Hi All,
I am going to make some documentation on Transport Sytem for Portal content objects in Best Practices.
Please help in out and send me some documents related to SAP Best Practices for transport for Portal Content Objects.
Thanks,
Iqbal Ahmad
Edited by: Iqbal Ahmad on Sep 15, 2008 6:31 PM

Hi Iqbal,
Hope you are doing good
Well, have a look at these links.
http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw04/helpdata/en/91/4931eca9ef05449bfe272289d20b37/frameset.htm
This document, gives a detailed description.
https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/servlet/prt/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/f570c7ee-0901-0010-269b-f743aefad0db
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Sandeep Tudumu

Best practices for promotions to production

My company's production environment is way to lose, I need to implement some controls. My analysts keep fouling up the production objects. Does anyone know of best practices for an organization rolling out production changes?
thanks

Yes you can. With SOA 11g, you can create deployment profiles to change poperties during deployment. You can also build your own deployment mechanism, as I did.
http://orasoa.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-oracle-soa-build-server-osbs.html
Marc

BI Best Practice for Chemical Industry

Hello,
I would like to know if anyone is aware of SAP BI Best Practice for Chemicals.And if so can anyone please post a link aswell.
Thanks

Hi Naser,
Below information will helps you in detail explanation regarding Chemical industry....
SAP Best Practices packages support best business practices that quickly turn your SAP ERP application into a valuable tool used by the entire business. You can evaluate and implement specific business processes quickly u2013 without extensive Customization of your SAP software. As a result, you realize the benefits with less Effort and at a lower cost than ever before. This helps you improve operational efficiency while providing the flexibility you need to be successful in highly demanding markets. SAP Best Practices packages can benefit companies of all sizes, including global enterprises creating a corporate template for their subsidiaries.
Extending beyond the boundaries of conventional corporate divisions and functions, the SAP Best Practices for Chemicals package is based on SAP ERP; the SAP Environment, Health & Safety (SAP EH&S) application; and the SAP Recipe Management application. The business processes supported by SAP Best Practices for Chemicals encompass a wide range of activities typically found in a chemical industry
Practice:
u2022 Sales and marketing
u2013 Sales order processing
u2013 Presales and contracts
u2013 Sales and distribution (including returns, returnables, and rebates, with quality management)
u2013 Inter- and intracompany processes
u2013 Cross-company sales
u2013 Third-party processing
u2013 Samples processing
u2013 Foreign trade
u2013 Active-ingredient processing
u2013 Totes handling
u2013 Tank-trailer processing
u2013 Vendor-managed inventory
u2013 Consignment processing
u2013 Outbound logistics
u2022 Supply chain planning and execution Supply and demand planning
u2022 Manufacturing planning and execution
u2013 Manufacturing execution (including quality management)
u2013 Subcontracting
u2013 Blending
u2013 Repackaging
u2013 Relabeling
u2013 Samples processing
u2022 Quality management and compliance
u2013 EH&S dangerous goods management
u2013 EH&S product safety
u2013 EH&S business compliance services
u2013 EH&S industrial hygiene and safety
u2013 EH&S waste management
u2022 Research and development Transformation of general recipes
u2022 Supplier collaboration
u2013 Procurement of materials and services (Including quality management)
u2013 Storage tank management
u2013 E-commerce (Chemical Industry Data Exchange)
u2022 Enterprise management and support
u2013 Plant maintenance
u2013 Investment management
u2013 Integration of the SAP NetWeaver Portal component
u2022 Profitability analysis
More Details
This section details the most common business scenarios u2013 those that benefit most from the application of best practices.
Sales and Marketing
SAP Best Practices for Chemicals supports the following sales and marketingu2013related business processes:
Sales order processing u2013 In this scenario, SAP Best Practices for Chemicals supports order entry, delivery, and billing. Chemical industry functions include the following:
u2022 Triggering an available-to-promise (ATP) inventory check on bulk orders after sales order entry and automatically creating a filling order (Note: an ATP check is triggered for packaged material.)
u2022 Selecting batches according to customer requirements:
u2022 Processing internal sales activities that involve different organizational units
Third-party and additional internal processing u2013 In this area, the SAP Best Practices for Chemicals package provides an additional batch production step that can be applied to products previously produced by either continuous or batch processing. The following example is based on further internal processing of plastic granules:
u2022 Purchase order creation, staging, execution, and completion
u2022 In-process and post process control
u2022 Batch assignment from bulk to finished materials
u2022 Repackaging of bulk material
SAP Best Practices for Chemicals features several tools that help you take advantage of chemical industry best practices. For example, it provides a fully documented and reusable prototype that you can turn into a productive solution quickly. It also provides a variety of tools, descriptions of business scenarios, and proven configuration of SAP software based on more than 35 years of working with the
Chemical industry.
SAP Functions in Detail u2013 SAP Best Practices for Chemicals
The package can also be used to support external toll processing such as that required for additional treatment or repackaging.
Tank-trailer processing u2013 In this scenario, SAP Best Practices for Chemicals helps handle the selling of bulk material, liquid or granular. It covers the process that automatically adjusts the differences between the original order quantities and the actual quantities filled in the truck. To determine the quantity actually filled, the tank trailer is weighed before and after loading. The delta weight u2013 or quantity filled u2013 is transmitted to the SAP software via an order confirmation. When the delivery for the sales order is created, the software automatically adjusts the order quantity with the confirmed filling quantity.The customer is invoiced for the precise quantity filled and delivered.
Supply Chain Planning and Execution
SAP Best Practices for Chemicals supports supply chain planning as well as supply chain execution processes:
Supply and demand planning u2013 Via the SAP Best Practices for Chemicals package, SAP enables complete support for commercial and supply-chain processes in the chemical industry, including support for integrated sales and operations planning, planning strategies for bulk material, and a variety of filling processes with corresponding packaging units. The package maps the entire supply chain u2013 from sales planning to material requirements planning to transportation procurement.
Supplier Collaboration
In the procurement arena, best practices are most important in the following
Scenario:
Procurement of materials and services:
In this scenario, SAP Best Practices for Chemicals describes a range of purchasing processes, including the following:
u2022 Selection of delivery schedules by vendor
u2022 Interplant stock transfer orders
u2022 Quality inspections for raw materials, including sampling requests triggered
by goods receipt
Manufacturing Scenarios
SAP Best Practices for Chemicals supports the following sales and
Manufacturingu2013related business processes:
Continuous production u2013 In a continuous production scenario, SAP Best Practices for Chemicals typifies the practice used by basic or commodity chemical producers. For example, in the continuous production of plastic granules, production order processing is based on run-schedule headers. This best-practice package also describes batch and quality management in continuous production. Other processes it supports include handling of byproducts,co-products, and the blending process.
Batch production u2013 For batch production,
SAP Best Practices for Chemicals typifies the best practice used by specialty
chemical producers. The following example demonstrates batch production
of paint, which includes the following business processes:
u2022 Process order creation, execution, and completion
u2022 In-process and post process control
u2022 Paperless manufacturing using XMLbased Process integration sheets
u2022 Alerts and events
u2022 Batch derivation from bulk to finished materials
Enterprise Management and Support
SAP Best Practices for Chemicals also supports a range of scenarios in this
area:
Plant maintenance u2013 SAP Best Practices for Chemicals allows for management
of your technical systems. Once the assets are set up in the system, it focuses on preventive and emergency maintenance. Tools and information support the setup of a production plant with assets and buildings.Revenue and cost controlling u2013 The package supports the functions that help you meet product-costing requirements in the industry. It describes how cost centers can be defined, attached
to activity types, and then linked to logistics. It also supports costing and settlement of production orders for batch and continuous production. And it includes information and tools that help you analyze sales and actual costs in a margin contribution report.
The SAP Best Practices for Chemicals package supports numerous integrated
business processes typical of the chemical industry, including the following:
u2022 Quality management u2013 Supports integration of quality management concepts across the entire supplychain (procurement, production, and sales), including batch recall and complaint handling
u2022 Batch management u2013 Helps generate batches based on deliveries from vendors or because of company production or filling, with information and tools for total management of batch production and associated processes including batch derivation, batch information cockpit, and a batchwhere- used list
u2022 Warehouse management u2013 Enables you to identify locations where materials
or batch lots are stored, recording details such as bin location and other storage information on dangerous goods to help capture all information needed to show compliance with legal requirements
Regards
Sudheer

Best practices for setting up projects

We recently adopted using Captivate for our WBT modules.
As a former Flash and Director user, I can say it’s
fast and does some great things. Doesn’t play so nice with
others on different occasions, but I’m learning. This forum
has been a great source for search and read on specific topics.
I’m trying to understand best practices for using this
product. We’ve had some problems with file size and
incorporating audio and video into our projects. Fortunately, the
forum has helped a lot with that. What I haven’t found a lot
of information on is good or better ways to set up individual
files, use multiple files and publish projects. We’ve decided
to go the route of putting standalones on our Intranet. My gut says
yuck, but for our situation I have yet to find a better way.
My question for discussion, then is: what are some best
practices for setting up individual files, using multiple files and
publishing projects? Any references or input on this would be
appreciated.

Hi,
Here are some of my suggestions:
1) Set up a style guide for all your standard slides. Eg.
Title slide, Index slide, chapter slide, end slide, screen capture,
non-screen capture, quizzes etc. This makes life a lot easier.
2) Create your own buttons and captions. The standard ones
are pretty ordinary, and it's hard to get a slick looking style
happening with the standard captions. They are pretty easy to
create (search for add print button to learn how to create
buttons). There should instructions on how to customise captions
somewhere on this forum. Customising means that you can also use
words, symbols, colours unique to your organisation.
3) Google elearning providers. Most use captivate and will
allow you to open samples or temporarily view selected modules.
This will give you great insight on what not to do and some good
ideas on what works well.
4) Timings: Using the above research, I got others to
complete the sample modules to get a feel for timings. The results
were clear, 10 mins good, 15 mins okay, 20 mins kind of okay, 30
mins bad, bad, bad. It's truly better to have a learner complete
2-3 short modules in 30 mins than one big monster. The other
benefit is that shorter files equal smaller size.
5) Narration: It's best to narrate each slide individually
(particularly for screen capture slides). You are more likely to
get it right on the first take, it's easier to edit and you don't
have to re-record the whole thing if you need to update it in
future. To get a slicker effect, use at least two voices: one male,
one female and use slightly different accents.
6) Screen capture slides: If you are recording filling out
long window based databse pages where the compulsory fields are
marked (eg. with a red asterisk) - you don't need to show how to
fill out every field. It's much easier for the learner (and you) to
show how to fill out the first few fields, then fade the screen
capture out, fade the end of the form in with the instructions on
what to do next. This will reduce your file size. In one of my
forms, this meant the removal of about 18 slides!
7) Auto captions: they are verbose (eg. 'Click on Print
Button' instead of 'Click Print'; 'Select the Print Preview item'
instead of 'Select Print Preview'). You have to edit them.
8) PC training syntax: Buttons and hyperlinks should normally
be 'click'; selections from drop down boxes or file lists are
normally 'select': Captivate sometimes mixes them up. Instructions
should always be written in the correct order: eg. Good: Click
'File', Select 'Print Preview'; Bad: Select 'Print Preview' from
the 'File Menu'. Button names, hyperlinks, selections are normally
written in bold
9) Instruction syntax: should always be written in an active
voice: eg. 'Click Options to open the printer menu' instead of
'When the Options button is clicked on, the printer menu will open'
10) Break all modules into chapters. Frame each chapter with
a chapter slide. It's also a good idea to show the Index page
before each chapter slide with a progress indicator (I use an
animated arrow to flash next to the name of the next chapter), I
use a start button rather a 'next' button for the start of each
chapter. You should always have a module overview with the purpose
of the course and a summary slide which states what was covered and
they have complete the module.
11) Put a transparent click button somewhere on each slide.
Set the properties of the click box to take the learner back to the
start of the current chapter by pressing F2. This allows them to
jump back to the start of their chapter at any time. You can also
do a similar thing on the index pages which jumps them to another
chapter.
12) Recording video capture: best to do it at normal speed
and be concious of where your mouse is. Minimise your clicks. Most
people (until they start working with captivate) are sloppy with
their mouse and you end up with lots of unnecessarily slides that
you have to delete out. The speed will default to how you recorded
it and this will reduce the amount of time you spend on changing
timings.
13) Captions: My rule of thumb is minimum of 4 seconds - and
longer depending on the amount of words. Eg. Click 'Print Preview'
is 4 seconds, a paragraph is longer. If you creating knowledge
based modules, make the timing long (eg. 2-3 minutes) and put in a
next button so that the learner can click when they are ready.
Also, narration means the slides will normally be slightly longer.
14) Be creative: Capitvate is desk bound. There are some
learners that just don't respond no matter how interactive
Captivate can be. Incorporate non-captivate and desk free
activities. Eg. As part of our OHS module, there is an activity
where the learner has to print off the floor plan, and then wander
around the floor marking on th emap key items such as: fire exits;
first aid kit, broom and mop cupboard, stationary cupboard, etc.
Good luck!

Best practice for managing a Windows 7 deployment with both 32-bit and 64-bit?

What is the best practice for creating and organizing deployment shares in MDT for a Windows 7 deployment that has mostly 32-bit computers, but a few 64-bit computers as well? Is it better to create a single deployment share for Windows 7 and include both
versions, or is it better to create two separate deployment shares? And what about 32-bit and 64-bit versions of applications?
I'm currently leaning towards creating two separate deployment shares, just so that I don't have to keep typing (x86) and (x64) for every application I import, as well as making it easier when choosing applications in the Lite Touch installation. But I know
each deployment share has the option to create both an x86 and x64 boot image, so that's why I am confused.

Supporting two task sequences is way easier than supporting two shares. Two shares means two boot media, or maintaining a method of directing the user to one or the other. Everything needs to be imported or configured twice. Not to mention doubling storage
space. MDT is designed to have multiple task sequences, why wouldn't you use them?
Supporting multiple task sequences can be a pain, but not bad once you get a system. Supporting app installs intelligently is a large part of that. We have one folder per app install, with a wrapper vbscript that handles OS detection. If there are separate
binaries, they are placed in x86 and x64 subfolders. Everything runs from one folder via the same command, "cscript install.vbs". So, import once, assign once, and forget it. Its the same install package we use for Altiris, and we'll be using a Powershell
version of it when we fully migrate to SCCM.
Others handle x86 and x64 apps separately, and use the MDT app details to select what platform the app is meant for. I've done that, but we have a template for the vbscript wrapper and its a standard process, I believe its easier. YMMV.
Once you get your apps into MDT, create bundles. Core build bundle, core deploy bundle, Laptop deploy bundle, etcetera. Now you don't have to assign twenty apps to both task sequences, just one bundle. When you replace one app in the bundle, all TS'es are
updated automatically. Its kind of the same mentality as active directory. Users, groups and resources = apps, bundles and task sequences.
If you have separate build and deploy shares in your lab, great. If not, separate your apps into build and deploy folders in your lab MDT share. Use a selection profile to upload only your deploy side to production. In fact I separate everything (except
drivers) into Build and deploy folders on my lab server. Don't mix build and deploy, and don't mix Lab/QA and production. I also keep a "Retired" folder. When I replace an app, TS, OS, etcetera, I move it to the retired folder and append "RETIRED - " to the
front of it so I can instantly spot it if it happens to show up somewhere it shouldn't.
To me, the biggest "weakness" of MDT is its flexibility. There's literally a dozen different ways to do everything, and there's no fences to keep you on the path. If you don't create some sort of organization for yourself, its very easy to get lost as things
get complicated. Tossing everything into one giant bucket will have you pulling your hair out.

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