Hi all,
Looking at the release notes I have spotted another change on the Databases screen with “Is Suspended”, what is this?
I get its “suspended” the DB, but why? Is this a flag that marks it as suspended? What makes a DB qualify as suspended? I have noticed this morning 3 production DBs which have not been updated for a couple of days that I have had to manually rebuild which are normally on a schedule.
Thanks,
Jon
hi Jon,
I believe they suspend automatic build if the database is not accessed or modified within 45 days.
Yikes! Are subscriptions included in determining if a database is being accessed?
Thanks @Linh ,
Thanks for the heads up.
A message to Phocas:
If the above is correct, this is worrying as this has not been documented or cascaded to the customer base. Please can you provide official details on this?
So for example a quarterly analysis databases wont refresh any more if nobody goes on it for 45 days???
It would be better to allow your customers to determine when we consider databases are not important for refresh. For example I have a few of deprecated databases which we need to keep (as a form of backup), but very happy for them to disappear until/if needed (what I would consider suspended). Also to echo @Jordon 's comment, does a subscription record its being accessed?
I would suggest that the 45 day limit is controllable by the end client to control what should and shouldnt be updated.
I’ve gone through support as this was an issue for us.
So after 45 days the database is suspended, then either viewing a database or a dashboard, even through an external shared link, would have triggered the databased to no longer be suspended.
*However, *the database wouldn’t be refreshed until the next scheduled rebuild time.
This means that the first time a user checked the dashboard, it would no longer be suspended, but the data would be out of date until the next rebuild. I brought this up as an issue and apparently they are modifying it so that after it is accessed, it will do a rebuild and when that is complete it will prompt the user with the usual message about changes and they should refresh.
I’ve been told that a sync still occurs on a suspended database, so the most recent data is stored in the system, they have just chosen not to display it if the database hasn’t been accessed in 45 days.
Personally, still not happy that a user can open a dashboard and not see the most recent data, they will then need to refresh when a rebuild is complete, and it gives no indication on the screen that this isn’t the most recent data prior to a rebuild. But the support/dev teams kept closing my ticket after every reply…
Cheers,
Sam
I get that this would save a lot of resources on the servers, but at a bare minimum, admins should receive a notification when a database is suspended and a banner on the page when users are viewing a suspended database.
Nice to see this pop up when opening a suspended database:
Thanks for the feedback and the new popup that appears. I too am still not happy about this, no information that this was a thing from Phocas from my communications or release notes. We have databases that may not get used until quarter end. If the DB is not available on day 1 of quarter analysis there is hell to pay.
Dissappointed that nobody from Phocas has responded on this following my last comment in Nov 22. I am raising this as an issue with our account manager on the next meeting. Will let you know what come of it.
I also need to understand Phocas’s contract and T&C’s, fundamentally this is impacting reporting requirements and could be in breach. I.e. we pay for a cloud solution to perform our reporting, Phocas is now controlling how we report. If this is a change in data strategy from Phocas, the userbase (i.e. data architects, BI managers and alike) need to be aware and adjust development designs accordingly, not just do a change and not tell anyone. As you can tell I am pretty miffed about this 
Regards,
Jon
As promised I would get back in touch after meeting with our account manager. The information on release 8.1.19 (September 22 release) was updated on 17th Jan 23 to include this new feature and an advisory on the current release notes 8.1.23 again on the 17th Jan 23.
It was an oversight on the release notes and Phocas will be reviewing how the release notes are submitted. I also asked about we used to get insight into whats in the next release as part of the current release notes (as it was in the good old days), they are looking into re-introducing that if possible.
From myself I am satisfied that this has been addressed, would be useful to have control on a per database when we would expire them but as of now its documented and managable from my perspective.
Kind Regards,
Jon
