The Philosopher’s Stone is a database tool I created while working in Advanced Support at Perceptive Software. I began the project after discovering a lack of in-depth knowledge and documentation regarding the database of the software we were supporting (Perceptive Content, a.k.a. ImageNow), and how this was negatively affecting the department’s overall time to resolution on complex customer issues.
The Philosopher’s Stone is a database dictionary for the underlying structure of the Perceptive Content database. It explains the purpose and functionality of each Table/Column in an easy to understand way.
(Due to the proprietary nature of the database’s structure, only 10 of the 390 tables are shown below)
Since its release, it has been immensely helpful to Advanced Support since many of the more complex issues we encounter require looking all the way down to the database level to see how the individual components of the system are behaving.
The Philosopher’s Stone currently has over 650 definitions entered. This number is constantly growing as all of Advanced Support is able to collaborate add to it. The Philosopher’s Stone has been released to escalated resources within the Support Department, and is used daily. This was a project I personally came up with and developed, and was done in addition to my position’s normal responsibilities.