In my auditing of Millennium® systems over the past decade, I have seen many meaningless and vague error messages. So I was intrigued by the message I found recently while performing a system audit for a client. The interesting thing about the message was that it actually told us how to fix the problem. I applaud the Millennium developer who was kind enough to think of how to help clients with this issue.
The message appeared when I was reviewing some fast-wrapping message log files. Several messages appeared in the ECO (Explode Continuing Orders) server. The ECO server is used to “explode” orders that have multiple schedule times. For instance, if a clinician orders a daily x-ray for a patient, the information is exploded initially on the ECO server: ORM Explode Cont Order (SCP Entry ID 105). Once the first day’s x-ray is ordered, the order is exploded by a second ECO server for batch jobs: ORM Explode Cont Order 001 (SCP Entry ID 108).
One ECO server message in particular grabbed my attention. Even though it was only an audit-level message, it included the way to resolve the issue. It said:
The number of orders to explode for order_id: 123456789 is > than NUM_ORDERS (50). Only 50 instances will be exploded. To increase the limit, run dcputil_set_config_prefs in CCL and then cycle this server.
I learned that I had more orders to explode than the system would allow. But I also learned how to fix the problem. I had to:
- Go to CCL.
- Run the script dcputil_set_config_prefs.
- Change the NUM_ORDERS from 50 to something larger.
- Cycle the ORM Explode Cont Order (SCP Entry ID 105) servers on all of the application nodes and then cycle any clones of this server, such as ORM Explode Cont Order 001 (SCP Entry ID 108).
What about your system? If the LogLevel of SCP Entry ID 105 and any clones of it is 2 or higher, I would encourage you to look for Event ExplodeOrders. If you have a message similar to the one above, you will have a quick fix for your environment. Once you execute it, the clinicians will think that Millennium has magically started working and they can stop working around it or, rather, working around the fact that the orders that were supposed to be there were not.
Prognosis: Interesting error messages can actually be helpful. If you take their advice, you’ll help ensure that Millennium delivers all the information the clinicians need.
