New Feature: Diagnostics

by Kate Mueller

We're working to make DevResults easier to understand and use. Our newest feature is the Diagnostics panel. Don't see what you're expecting in DevResults? This page should be your first stop. It highlights potential problems with your configuration. It doesn't find every problem yet, but we're going to keep working on every configuration warning you might need.

For now, here's what you need to know to start using it:

1 Who Can See It?

The Diagnostics panel is accessible by any user who belongs to a group that has View or View & Edit access for the Program Settings permissions category. If you've kept our default permissions, this limits it to Owners, but since you can change permissions for every group in the system, you'll need to check group permissions on your site to be sure. (And if you need a refresher on how to change permissions, here's how.)

2 How Do I Find It?

From the main navigation menu, go to Administration. Look in the Configuration section; Diagnostics is the last entry here:

3 How Do I Use It?

The panel has tabs at the top for each section of the site. Currently this includes Activities, Data Tables, Indicators, Locations, and Reporting Periods. Click on each tab to see available diagnostics. When a tab has diagnostic warnings, it has a red circle with a number to show how many diagnostics have warnings:

Each available diagnostic will display:

  • in green with a checkmark, to show it's fine, or
  • in red with a warning symbol, to show it isn't fine

You can click the colored title bars to expand/collapse each section.

Below the diagnostic, you'll see:

  1. A brief explanation of why the diagnostic matters
  2. A Get help link that will direct you to a relevant help page with the steps to fix it
  3. Links for the guilty objects: clicking on these will take you directly to the object so that you can edit it to fix the problem

We hope you make the diagnostics panel your first step when something seems to be broken. (It's quickly becoming ours!) And if you think of diagnostics you'd like to see that aren't on here, let us know.

Please email us if you have any questions or feedback on this new feature!