Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Working with the Org Tree

If you have used the Create Organizational Tree to set up a year's organization and later find that you need to modify it, here's how to do it.

Adding a new unit If you want to add a new unit node onto the tree, then first create the group from the IGOR administrative screen. Add members to the group. Then go into the GUI, click on the unit that the new one will be subordinate to. Use the Add Subordinate Unit to select the group you created. Click 'Accept' to add it.

Moving a unit If the org chart gets rearranged or you want to move an objective from one goal to another, you need to use an auxillary function accessible only to a system administrator. Telnet to the server, cd to the /cgi-bin/igor directory and run perl IE_move.pl. It will prompt you to enter node numbers. These can be found in angle-brackets in the top left of the GUI window. For example <510>. Unit numbers always end in zero, goals in 1, objectives in 2. You can use this utility to move more than one node at a time. Note that you can easily create illogical arragements, with a unit subordinate to an objective, for example. This isn't recommended.

Copying a node You may want to create a template for an academic unit, consisting of set goals and objectives that are required. Once this is created, you don't want to have to repeat that process for each unit. You can use /cgi-bin/IE_cp.pl instead. The script will prompt for node numbers. A very powerful way to use this is to copy the prior year's goals and objectives (without results) to the new year.

Example To set up a new year that looks like the old one, except for the results and actions part of the objectives (the only part that definitely won't roll over from year to year), do this:
  1. Make sure the years table contains the new year--you'll need to access the table directly in SQL do add it if not. Check out MySQL administrator for a free tool to do this.
  2. Use the Create Organizational Tree to stub a tree for the new year. To do this, delete everything except the root node (normally the President's unit). Be SURE you're on the new year so you don't delete anything important, and create it.
  3. Now have the system administrator copy (using IE_cp.pl) everything under the root node for the expiring year into the new year. The prompts you'll see when you run IE_cp will take care of the details. All you need is the node number of the old root node and the same for the new one. These are easily obtained from the GUI. Click on the unit and look at the number in angle brackets, top left in the report window on the right side.

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