Occasionally, Symplectic receives support tickets from clients asking for help with directly querying (or even directly updating) data in the operational database using their own SQL queries.

On the face of it, it would seem entirely natural to want to directly query the Elements operational database.

However, direct client access to the Elements operational database is not supported by Symplectic as part of the documented/advised proper usage of Elements, and is against the terms of its licence for usage.

The reporting database and API are the provided interfaces that support client access to the data managed in Elements. Please see the following rich documentation for those interfaces:

• Elements Reporting Database

• Elements API

Not supporting direct access to the operational database allows Symplectic to maintain and optimise the database structure for the operation of Elements applications, rather than for interpretability by or stability for direct consumers.

Because direct access to this database is not supported, its structure is intentionally not documented, and in contrast to the supported data interfaces above, no support is provided by Symplectic in this area.

Connections made to this database by clients can negatively interfere with system performance and stability. For example, it is very easy for seemingly simple scripts, even those that just read data, to lock database rows and tables, causing severe errors in Elements applications.

Directly altering data in the database is also very likely to cause errors or other forms of improper behaviour within Elements.

All support relating to the direct querying or altering of data in the operational database, including support required to diagnose, identify and correct any logical data corruption introduced in this way is chargeable at Symplectic's standard support rate.

Should your institution migrate from a self-hosted to a Symplectic-hosted Elements subscription in the future, there will be no access provided to this database by Symplectic. Taking a direct dependency on this database now would therefore cause additional issues (and possible need for support) at that point in time.

There is an eye-catching table in the operational database named AAA_CUSTOMER_tblReadmePlease, intended for client DBAs and others who might consider integrating directly with the operational database. It contains text similar to this support article.

Should you require help querying the supported data query interfaces, please see the Elements Reporting Database section and the Elements API section of the support site, or ask us for help!

We also occasionally receive requests to help troubleshoot issues (typically failed upgrades) which turn out to be caused by modifications to the structure of the Elements operational database made by clients who have at some point hosted Elements themselves.

From past experience, the most common reasons clients might be tempted to make alterations to the operational database have been:

• To "fix" an upgrade which is failing by altering upgrade script code or database structure;

• To improve the performance of Elements by altering indexes in the operational database, etc;

• To alter the behaviour of Elements in some way

However, direct client access to the Elements operational database is not supported by Symplectic as part of the documented/advised proper usage of Elements.

Modifying any part of the database (such as table structure, indexes, foreign keys, stored procedures, etc. etc.) whether directly or by modifying Elements installation/upgrade scripts is a form of reverse engineering of the product, and is against the terms of its licence for usage.

Any modification to the internals of the operational database made by clients is an alteration of the product so that it is no longer Symplectic Elements, but some different software that Symplectic no longer understands and can no longer commit to supporting.

Such changes are highly likely to be incompatible with current and/or future components of Elements, with the most common symptom being a failed future upgrade.

All support relating to alterations made by clients to the structure of the Elements operational database, including support required to diagnose, identify and correct any problems introduced in this way is chargeable at Symplectic's standard support rate.