Title: How To Create Client-Friendly IDX Builder Output Logs
Author: Promethyl
Catagory: Best Practices
Date: Monday, July 21 2003

As a developer or a realtor, you can tell if your IDX is setup correctly if you can take a vacation.

In your IDX Builder, send all output to a custom Print function called Out. This function will save the output to a log file, and cache it. At the end of the build, email the cache of all the build information to the developer and/or client for analysis.

Create GIF bullets for each line. If the line indicates normal activity, you could put a green stoplight for example. If there is a problem, put a red or yellow stop light.

This way, when you or the client get the email, you can glance down the left side quickly, and determine if there were any problems.

You cannot assume everything will go smoothly. What if the IDX data provider's computers didn't run nightly maintenance, and there is no data to import? What if the internet dropped 100% of your packets?

This information could prove crucial at a latter time in showing where the problem lies, and may give hints as to how to provide a soultion.

At the end of the build, include a summary which outlies where the data went, how many listings (records) were added or updated, how many pictures were processed, and the amount of time the build took.

You can use this information later for debugging. After you setup your crontab or schedule task so the process will be automated, there will be no way to know if the builder ran successfully. This allows you an audit trail of every action the system took, and why.