Application Analyzer 2006 usage report

Since Application Analyzer 2006 (AA06) was released, we received some comments on Database usage report generated by AA06 that we want to address in this blog.

Current design of AA06 collects two properties from DB: “DATAMOD” and “NONDATAMOD” and use them to report Last Modified and Last Accessed dates accordingly in Quadrant Classification Report as well as Database access pattern in Executive Summary Report. There is a setting called “Maintain LastAccessed property” on each DB that could be found by following steps bellow:

a. In Notes Client open DB

b. Click on File > Database > Properties

c. Select very last tab

d. “Maintain LastAccessed property” check box under Advanced Options

This setting directly affects accuracy of the report generated by AA06 for the Last Access Date.

In some cases “Maintain LastAccessed property” might be set to off, and then AA06 will generate report based on value saved in “NONDATAMOD” even if DB were accessed after. Therefore we recommend to pay attention to usage report and if you feel that Last Accessed Dates are not accurate we would recommend to turn on this setting on Database, let it run with new setting for some time and run AA06 again. If Database accessed after “Maintain LastAccessed property” set to on, then it will be reflected in a new AA06 report. We plan to address the fact that not all Notes Databases have the Maintain LastAccessed property turned on – we will modify reports to take this into consideration in one of the next updates to AA06.

- Kahren
- Ed

Comments

• Anonymous
  March 22, 2006
  Very interesting, and it helps explain some of the odd dates.  I have two thoughts on this technique.  
  
  The first is that the Maintain LastAccessed property is very seldom used unless there is a compelling reason.  The Notes Help goes so far as to say: "If you set the database to delete documents based on intervals without activity, such as 10 days without being read or modified, select "Maintain Last Accessed property" and be aware this may negatively impact database performance. Otherwise, leave the option deselected for best performance."  So, it is unlikely to be very effective to use this measurement alone.
  
  The second thought is that tracking modifications alone is sometimes misleading.  A company policy manual may be updated once a year, and accessed hundreds of times a day.
  
  So what is the best way to track usage?  I am not sure, but I'll put a bit of thought into it.
• Anonymous
  March 23, 2006
  "We plan to address the fact that not all Notes Databases have the Maintain LastAccessed property turned on – we will modify reports to take this into consideration in one of the next updates to AA06."
  Couldn't that be addressed more succinctly by saying "This bug will be fixed in one of the next updates to AA06."?
  
• Anonymous
  March 23, 2006
  The comment has been removed
• Anonymous
  March 23, 2006
  We definitely don't want a perf impact to any databases by turning on the Maintain Last accessed property.  We will have have a better way to track usage in an updated AppAnalzyer release.  We have several ideas on how best to track this, but are interested in hearing your recommendations.  Thanks.
  - Ed
• Anonymous
  March 24, 2006
  Hire an experienced Domino developer ?
  
  Come on folks. This is a no-brainer..
  
  ---* Bill
• Anonymous
  April 12, 2006
  Bill, they have been at Microsoft for so long they forgot how to do the simple things.
  
  Look Collab guys, this is truly a no-brainer. There are very SIMPLE ways to do this without the maintain last access property on. And since you are using COM, you have to think on a smaller scale. But of course this will require you to have access to the database which you may or may not have, even as an administrator depending on the ACL to the database. There are way to get around that too... but, you can find out.
  
  Bill - agreed, some experienced Domino developers and maybe an administrator or two on your team might be helpful.