Daniel North - "Experienced Database Designer / MS Access Developer / Systems Analyst - Freelance System / Database Administrator, United States"

         When the implementation of a Bed Management application in a 1000 bed hospital was in its first hours of operation, a problem occurred with the system at a second hospital that was already on the new system and was sharing the same SQL server data.  Due to an oversight in the updating of pager numbers into the proper SQL server table in the application, Nurse Managers were not getting their pages when new patients were arriving on their floor.  A call was put in to the vendor to correct the problem.  However, with the attention of the implementation directed to the large hospital, and it being the end of the work day, all the vendor representatives were on their way home.  I was the analyst who was left to monitor the system for the next shift.
     I quickly determined the type of data that was missing and had already tried to update it using the application's system maintenance program.  However, there was a problem where this type of update could only currently be done by the vendor.  I went into the SQL server and located the file listing the pager numbers for the nurse managers at the large hospital and noticed the absence of the same data for the hospital that, up to that day, had been running smoothly.  I was also able to find the list of pagers in another file that was available to me and re-entered the missing data in the SQL Server table.  I then notified the nurse supervisor at the second hospital and was able to test a few of the nurse manager pagers successfully.
     When the vendor and our implementation management called to get the details of the problem, I informed them that the problem had already been resolved.  I had not, before that point, had knowledge of the vendor's pager update procedures.  What I did have was intimate knowledge of how an SQL server works, and a familiarity with the application running on it.  With that knowledge, I was able to locate the correct data, determine how it was stored, and directly updated the data in the proper table without upsetting any other process or data in the system.