System Administrator Curriculum
VistA Overview: The VistA Overview course examines the twenty-two years of development that have gone into making VistA the sophisticated hospital software system that the Veterans Affairs uses today. Although VistA development is straight forward today, in the beginning VistA pioneers had many hurdles to overcome. The history of VistA’s beginning is a unique story that seldom happens in a government agency.
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M [MUMPS]: The M (MUMPS) course will provide the student with a brief introduction to the M database and programming language. This course will examine the differences between a relational and hierarchical database system, provide an overview of key M commands, and discuss the use of M as both a database and programming language.
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FileMan: The FileMan course will examine how FileMan is the front end to M database management system. This introductory course will focus on basic FileMan concepts such as the data dictionary, displaying and editing data (scrolling method), and report writing. Other areas, including file security access and kernel globals with FileMan will also be mentioned and referenced, however the details are beyond the scope of this course.
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TaskMan: The Taskman course will examine the task management utility built into the VistA system. The student will learn how to manage tasks, monitor the Taskman environment, start / stop / pause Taskman, modify the Taskman parameters, and create a new Taskman system. This course will also demonstrate how to view and delete the error log of Taskman which will enable a student to better troubleshoot the Taskman system.
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MailMan: The Mailman course will examine the mail module that is built into the VistA system. The mailman module is the communication backbone of the VistA system. This course will examine how to manage the mail groups and distribution lists, space utilized by Mailman files, the background filers which deliver mail to and from Mailman users, the background domain mail queues for network transmission, and the transmission scripts for Mailman domains. The students will also learn how to configure the network mail site parameters by creating the primary Mailman domain for a system and how to recover messages for users which they have deleted.
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Device Management: The Device Management, or Device Handling, course will examine the Device Handler User Interface and Device Handler System Management functions. This course will focus on host files, spooling, and other special device issues. Other topics that will be referenced include device handler programming tools, host file programming tools, and device handler security management.
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Spool Management: The Spool Management course will examine the spooler built into the VistA system. In this course, students will learn about spooling privileges that allow users who prepare and manage reports to send their output to the spooler, rather than to a printer. The many advantages to this approach are also covered within this course.
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User Management: The User Management course will examine the user management functions within the VistA system. The student will learn how to add a new user to the system, edit users, copy privileges to other users, deactivate users, test menus, edit signature codes, and view user profiles. This course will also cover maintenance and clean-up of the New Person file (#200), where all user information is stored.
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Security: The security course will examine the various security measures that may be implemented in order to protect a user’s VistA system. This course will cover user level, menu, and option security, as well as system auditing and monitoring functions. This course is meant to be an introduction to the security features of the VistA system.
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Menu Management: The Menu Management course will examine how a student can define options with the Edit Options template, available from the Menu Management menu. This course will discuss options templates, menu creation and maintenance, and options for creating and managing delegates.
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Operations Management [1 of 2]: This is the first part in a two part course on Operations Management. In this course, students will learn how to view the system status and statistics, edit the introductory banner, and generate reports for alerts by user, patient, and within date ranges. Students will also learn how to create alerts interactively and how to troubleshoot these alerts when a problem arises. This course will also cover some of the various cleanup utilities present within the VistA system.
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Operations Management [2 of 2]: This is the second part in a two part course on Operations Management. In this course, students will learn how to use the kernel’s system management tools to effectively manage a secure, multi-user system. This course will cover kernel site parameter configuration, institution configuration, RPC Broker parameter configuration, and basic user management tools (more details are provided in the User Management course). Students will also learn how to monitor user status as well as produce print outs of the sign-on log and user status reports.
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HL7: The HL7 course is an introductory course on the VistA HL7 System. This course will introduce the student to the administration tools and options of the VistA HL7 system that a Systems Administrator would use in managing the system. This course will not cover any advanced features present in the HL7 system.
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KIDS: The Kernel Installation and Distribution System (KIDS) course will provide the student with the skills to load packages and patches into a VistA System. This course will cover the KIDS installation process and discover why the KIDS system is so essential to a healthy and stable VistA system.
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Error Processing: The Error Processing course is an introductory course on locating, tracking, and fixing errors within a VistA system. This course is only meant as an introductory course and will focus on the basics of error processing, debugging, and troubleshooting.
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