Upgrade to Gooroo Planner’s data handling

Upgrade to Gooroo Planner’s data handling

05/02/2018
by Rob Findlay

We have today released an upgrade which strengthens the processing of large data files in Gooroo Planner. Those of you who have automated your planning using the Planner API may wish to update your API client to benefit from this upgrade.

The problem

When you use Gooroo Planner from an NHS computer, your connection goes through one or more servers on the NHS side before it reaches the internet. These NHS servers sometimes close the connection if nothing has apparently happened for a while.

This used to cause problems if you were uploading large data files that took a few minutes to process, because when the Gooroo server had finished its work it sent back a message to say so, but the NHS server had closed the connection so the message never reached your computer.

The symptoms, if you were uploading via our website, were that the orange spinner never stopped; or if you were using the Planner API then the job never seemed to finish and you never received the results files.

There were other ways to check whether the job had finished – the “(processing…)” message beside the dataset disappears when you refresh the dataset manager page – but that wasn’t obvious and this issue did catch people out.

The solution

The latest upgrade fixes the problem by handling the connection differently. Instead of keeping the connection open, it allows it to close and checks back from time to time to see if the job has finished. So it no longer matters if an NHS server closes the connection.

We have also introduced a progress bar on the website (and a progress report in the API client) so that you can have confidence that the job is still being processed.

All of this was quite a big job, and involved changing a lot of code. We have of course tested it extensively and think it’s all working correctly, but if you find anything unexpected happening then do let us know.

If you use Gooroo Planner via our website then you don’t need to do anything because the upgrade is already installed for you – that’s the beauty of “software as a service”. However if you run Gooroo Planner automatically using the Planner API, then read on…

Planner API users

If you have automated your planning using the Planner API, you will want to download the latest version of the API client to take advantage of this upgrade. (If you choose not to upgrade just yet, the previous version should continue to work as before.)

You need to replace your existing “GoorooRESTClient.exe” and “GoorooRESTClient.exe.config” files with the latest versions. Depending on how Windows is set up on your machine you may find that “GoorooRESTClient.exe.config” is hidden – in which case you can either unhide it, or leave it hidden in the folder and move your other files into that folder instead.

You also need to modify your existing config file (Goorooconfig.xml) to work with the new API client. We will be happy to help you convert it over to the new version, but if you want to do it yourself then make sure that the line containing <ServiceAddress> is updated to read:
<ServiceAddress>https://api.gooroo.co.uk/api/upload</ServiceAddress>

There are also two new options which you will probably want to insert into the main section at the top of the config file (i.e. the same section as <ServiceAddress>):

<EmailReport>true</EmailReport> will email the reports to your username as a zip attachment, as well as downloading it via the API client; if this option is omitted or set to false then it won’t email you; and
<RunUnattended>true</RunUnattended> disables user interaction via the API client so that it can run automatically when nobody is there; if you are there to interact with the API client then you can omit this or set it to false.

What happens if you run the API, and then close the API client before the results come back? Don’t worry – if you run the API client again it will download the results from your previous run. If you have set
<RunUnattended>false</RunUnattended>
in the configuration file, you will be given the option not to upload any new data when you do this.

Support

As always, we will be delighted to support you if you need any help. Just email us at support@gooroo.co.uk

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