However, I can create a new resource but cannot save any changes to existing resources due to a validation failure for the resource name. I am not changing the name at all, just the ownership names. Here is the message:
“Resource names cannot contain special characters.”
Yes, this can be an issue when going from 6.5 to 7 or 8 Versions. We added field validation to the form (in Domino 7 actually) that checks for characters that shouldn’t be used in room names. When you change anything on those docs, the new validation formula kicks in and won’t let you save it.
We have a technote that tells one way to get around the issue. You go into the form in designer and remove whichever character is the offending character from the field validation formula, the re-save the doc.
You really SHOULD rename the room to one without the character - which is going to be
<, >, = |, ( , ), +, , ', or more than 2 forward slashes.
I thought that # was in there too - its not - but its also a very bad idea to use any character that isn’t allowed in an email address (since the resource is actually a mail-in document).
Hello Susan. Thanks. We were using parens because they present a clean look to users. For instance, 202 (Board Room), 229 (Training Room),…etc.
Also, what happens if I rename the 202 (Board Room) resource to 202 Board Room ? Will all the users who chair and/or are invitees get email for all the changes that AdminP will be making ? Will their meetings all disappear ? Can we add this to the TechNote as well. It helps planning off shift and/or un-popular weekend work.
I have found these types of gotcha’s lacking in redbooks,… especially when moving from 6.5 right into the fire of 8.5 . Suggest that maybe a collection of “in the trenches” pre-migration steps for 6.5 or earlier clients be drafted and made easily available all over the Lotus.com web site. There is much chatter in the local user groups about 6.5 - 8.5 migration. This can only make for a smoother and friendlier transition.
I am working on a paper about upgrading from 6.5 to 8.5 for R&R as we speak - will work faster…
The rename function requires the agents in the RRDB to be enabled, specifically the one for Renaming Resources - but all 4 scheduled agents must be enabled. The agent sends a meeting to the chair telling them of the new room name, and the notice will contain a button for updating the Chair’s calendar. The attendees calendar will not change unless the chair does an update - and it really doesn’t matter because the room is still in the same place with a (slightly) different name. The agent works great - I’ve never heard of it causing a problem. AdminP only changes the name in the Mail-in document - the agent does the rest.
Replace the design of the R&R dB with the one you got from the upgrade. A design refresh may happen, I prefer not to leave it to chance.
Reenable the 4 R&R “system” Agents in the dB with an ID that is allowed to run Agents on the server.
Restart the server.
You may be able to move the “restart server” up to #2. Ive done it both ways but forget which is the “official” ordering. (Susan can correct me if need be…)
these are the only 4 agents that I see can be manually enabled.
After having changed some room names without parens, some users get and error that their rooms were not changed (these seem to be recurring meetings that exist in the past and future.)
Now other users who succed with the button, cannot seem to cancel the meeting ?
I have the same issue where a user has received the update notice and button, but when she ran it it didn’t update all reservations… seems to be on recurring meetings?
There are a lot of moving parts in play especially with repeating entries. A lot depends on the way actions are done, previous responses and more. Unfortunately there is just not enough info in your post to allow me to make any further progress on this reported issue.
If you have a reproducible case then please contact Tech Support and open a ticket so we can dive on with you to get to the root of the problem.
First off, enable at least your “Update Blocker Documents”! Without it you cannot use the "Limit the Advance Reservation of this Room/Resource: " feature that was added in 7.0. If you ever do try to use it, you would find it not working and may forget.
In general you should enable all 4 of the system Agents since they do not really impact server performance if the features are not used.
Make sure that that ID that you use to enable the Agents has Agent execution privileges on the R&R server. Otherwise the Agent Manager wont run them and the features wont function properly.
You can always manually run the “RenameReservations and SendNotice” Agent to see why it does not process the room name change. I have never seen a report that it fails except when the user who tried it was not authorized to run Agents.
Hi, most of our resources contain a colon character. After upgrading to 8.5 we have found that this is not allowed - and looking at the validation folrmula it is shown on the list of charatcers that are not allowd. But it is not included in the list in the response above. We are debating whether to rename all resources or delete the character from the list in the validation formula. Do we know what the definitive list will be - if the colon will not be be on the allowed list I would prefer to rename as I can forsee problems with tenplates/ database design elemets replicating back the missing items from the list in the validation formula - we have over 100 servers on many sites and I think managing this might be difficult. But if future templates do not include the colon we could avoid all the hassle of renaming…
Here is the definitive answer you want: R&R names now have the same character limitations that Users have.
Just like RnRMgr warning you get when it finds a bad name (but still will allow so your R&R will work after upgrading), the only valid characters are letters, numbers, ampersand, apostrophe, hyphen, period, space, and underscore.
ANY other character in a room name (eg: colon or asterisk) is NOT good and can cause you some pain or headaches. We highly recommend you simply rename your rooms to use any of the valid characters. You could of course hack the Template up to take out the check but it will not stop RnRMgr from warning you ever time it sees a bad name. Nor will it solve any headache you get when users have problems related to the (now) bad characters. Plus you’d have to rehack it the next time you upgrade. It is just a lot simpler to rename the room once and be done with it.
FWIW: The list of allowed characters has not changed since we made the decision in 7.0 and it is not likely to change any time soon.