ECI: Schedule & Automatic Events Control Panel (SAECP)
New August 2011, version 6.3.7 and worked on further version 6.3.8 with more features being added.
This relates to post or data updating projects and projects that make use of any automatic events. Easy CSV Importer will display a table, I like to called a panel, at the top of every page. The reason for it being at the top of every page is so because every time you change pages, you may trigger the next event. Events can be triggered in and outside of the admin area but if your testing you might find it useful to get a little more up to date information as that information becomes available. Mainly the times and dates of events including those still to come, not just what the plugin already done.
This new panel will be simple looking for now. I tried this approach before and it made the page look a lot more complicated. Your feedback is needed to ensure I go in the right direction with this. The aim of the panel is to make post and data updating a lot easier.
Key Information
- Panel only shows statistics for project records that have been used to create posts, post creation is not handled by this page. The idea is that you use this page to focus on updating only and so if a record is updated many times but never used to create a post. That record will not be included in the statistics.
- This panel will only be displayed when the “Current Project” that you are working on is using a Scheduled/Spreadout speed profile.
- The purpose of this panel is to monitor exactly what the plugin is doing, know when it makes changes then be able to check those changes made are true and accurate
- Most statistics shown, do not include records marked as no longer in use, indicated by the eciinuse column. Records can become black marked/disabled/rendered out of use if the user wants this to happen when the records post is manually deleted or the user does it manually. The purpose of this column is to prevent the record from ever being used again. It makes sense to never include them in statistics, however at this time a projects CSV to project table updating will update these records. This is the easiest approach to dealing with rows in the CSV file that have been rendered out of use. It is also counted in the process. Deciding how ECI should behave and what exactly it should count is complicated.
Last Event Time
This is the last time an event was run and actions taking to make changes to your blog or project. If no changes made, then it is not considered as an event because processes is very short in that case. The time you see displayed is for your current project only, not global between all projects.
Last Event Type
Again this is only applies to the current project you are working on. The type is a key term used to described the action taking during the event. Data Updating, Post Creation etc. Easy CSV Importer may have the option of running any number of event types based on your settings. ECI decides the best event to run based on previous events i.e. if you still have data to import and the last event was post creation, the plugin will usually import more data. This ensures that there is data for post creation events however it may also decide not to do data import if a lot of data has not been used.
Next Event Time
This time marks the next time an event may be run. Easy CSV Importer requires a visitor to load any page and that will trigger an event any time after the Next Event Time. Easy CSV Importer handles scheduling on its own so that it can put things in priority and adapt based on many variables.
Next Event Type
As I write this, this value is not set. This is going to need an accurate prediction of the next event, which may seem simple enough but the plugin adapts and changes the type of event based on many variables. I’ve still to write the function that makes the decision on the next event. When it is done, the Next Event value may change as a result of doing something as simple as changing settings or manually importing data etc.
Records Updated (applied)
Added in version 6.3.8, this should tell you how many of your imported database records (for your current project) have been updated since their import and applied to their post since it was updated. In other words, the number of posts updated out of all the records that have been updated. This does not make complex calculations based on separate update events. It simple compares the eciapplied column to the eciupdated column. If the eciapplied column is a later time and date than eciupdated then we know that the post belonging to the record has also been updated.
This will indicate how many posts have been updated, not the number of times posts have been updated but just the number of posts currently updated with the latest possible data.
Records Updated (not applied)
Added in version 6.3.8, this should tell you how many of your imported records have been updated since their original import but not yet applied to their post. The eciapplied column is compared to eciupdate column to establish this. This total will tell you how many posts are still to be updated with the latest data imported to the project table.
Last Project Log
The eci_log function will not record the last log entry. It is recorded in $pro. The last log entry for the project your currently working on will be displayed for this value.
Last Global Log
The Last Global Log entry is over written by any project. It is a way of knowing if another projects event was actioned in priority to the project your currently working on. This is important because your configuration, may make another project priority and it could explain why your current project has no automation happening. Controls to manage this and configure priority are not simple especially when Easy CSV Importer keeps expanding. As new features are added more and more needs to be taking into consideration. The problem there is the extra processes per page refresh, just to decide what to do. So I’ve decided to keep it simple for now and try to rotate projects where possible.