Report of recent changes

[John Robinson 0]

Is there a report that I can create to show the details of all changes that have been made for a specified time period, like in the past two weeks?

My son was "helping" me and I would like to double check some of the things he has done, as I have already found a few issues with his "help".

 

John Robinson

[Jim Byram 0]

You can filter the Project Explorer, Picklists, or List of People report with this filter...

 

Last Edited Date > Comes After (some date) END

 

That should provide you with a list of people to check. (It helps to restrict the output to primary names only so that a person only appears in the list once.)

 

The 'Last Edited Date' for a person is updated any time that [OK] is clicked on a Tag Entry or Edit Flag screen.

 

There is no way to create a list of specific edits or tags over that period.

 

(If you need a more specific step-by-step example so that you don't need to figure out how to do this, please ask.)

[John Robinson 0]

Thanks Jim

That should at least get me in the ballpark.

 

John

[Michael Hannah 0]

For future purposes, you might try this method to identify changes. Periodically I run an Individual Narrative report to a word processor file of everyone in the dataset that includes all people showing their TMG ID numbers with all tags and all excluded and sensitive data, and all exhibits, memos, sources and bibliography. Then I do a TMG backup. The next time I run that report I can use the word processor facility to show changes between the two reports. That can help me focus on what has changed.

 

Hope this gives you ideas,

[GenerationGoneBy 0]

Michael,

You must have a small tree. Assuming one page per person, I would have a 16,000 page report. That's a lot of comparing. <G> And most of my people run 3-4 pages.

[Michael Hannah 0]

Michael,

You must have a small tree. Assuming one page per person, I would have a 16,000 page report. That's a lot of comparing. And most of my people run 3-4 pages.

Yes, I get thousands of pages as a report. But... using the MS Word comparison facility it can highlight only the changes, and depending upon how often you run the report the changes report is likely to be a manageable number of pages.

[Virginia Blakelock 0]

Michael

 

For years I've entered the day's date in L10 of new or edited tags. It's the perfect system, easy to do with F3 and I have great LOE records - but there is the drawback of creating unique places. I'd like to see a dedicated, non-place field on tag entry screens for the tag-entry or -edited date.

 

Virginia

[Michael Hannah 0]

I completely agree, Virginia. My word processor method is an admitted "work around" that I would prefer not to have to use. I actually only refer to it in desperation when I think I have done something terribly wrong or stupid! As has been proposed on the TMG-L e-mail list, I would love to have a separate extra field on tags to use however I might choose. Many stated they would use such a proposed field as a tag by tag date of last major change of that tag or last review or ... But that is only a wish at this point.

 

While this thread is mentioning alternative ways to keep track of changes, here are some others that users have mentioned. Any field that you are not using for its "intended" purpose (like the L10 place field) can be used for other purposes. For example if you only want to identify the change at the person level, then a custom Flag can be set to a different value whenever you have finished working on a person. I use this scheme and even set an accent color based on the Flag. Or you might put some code in the Reference field to indicate changes to this person. If you want to track changes at the tag level like your L10 idea, some users have mentioned using the tag's split memo feature and add an edit date or comment about the information in the tag in a split memo part that is not referenced or output in the tag sentence.

 

The very significant advantage of the built-in Last Edited date field is that it changes automatically without the need to remember. Its disadvantages are that it is at the person level and not the tag level, and may reflect changes that you consider less significant than you wish to track. The advantage of using a Flag or Reference field is that it only changes when you want. The advantages of the L10 or memo methods are that they are at the tag level, and can reflect whatever you personally believe to be significant changes to that tag. The disadvantages with all these alternatives are that you have to remember to change the field, and the field used now is unavailable for its "intended" purpose.

 

As is true of much of TMG, there are many different ways to do an equivalent action, each with its advantages and disadvantages.

[LornaHenderson 0]

Michael

 

For years I've entered the day's date in L10 of new or edited tags. It's the perfect system, easy to do with F3 and I have great LOE records - but there is the drawback of creating unique places. I'd like to see a dedicated, non-place field on tag entry screens for the tag-entry or -edited date.

 

Virginia

OR an automatic date added/updated field to a citation.

Whereas I've always (well for the last few years anyway) added a mmm yyyy date to the end of my citation detail, I began thinking about the automatic addition of such a date after reading this article:

http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:biC4-L...lient=firefox-a

(hope that link works, my first attempt at finding this again gave a 404)

[Virginia Blakelock 0]

Lorna - try this site for the article - and a video of the presentation:

 

http://www.thinkgenealogy.com/2008/04/06/1...ware-should-do/

 

The comments are also interesting.

 

Virginia

[Michael Hannah 0]

OR an automatic date added/updated field to a citation...

I've ... added a mmm yyyy date to the end of my citation detail

Since citation detail fields can be split like memos, putting this in a split citation part that is not output in the source templates also works well. But your comment is well taken. It might be useful to have a spare "user defined" field on most data entry elements: tags, source entries, citations, repositories, exhibits, tasks, and ??? I prefer a general purpose "user defined" field to an automated date field as more flexible. That way one could still put today's date (via F3), but might also put a comment with the date, or whatever else desired.