Well FME'ers,

This week the quiz involved taking on our IT manager, John Lees. John isn't an FME user (at most he would have dabbled in it) so this should have been easy... right?!

Let's see the correct answers and how well John did...

1) Which one of these is NOT a piece of FME documentation listed on our docs page?

• FME Readers and Writers Manual
• FME Server REST API Documentation
• FME Cloud Documentation
• FME Terminology and Localization Guide
• FME Factory and Function Documentation

This is usually the easy question and this one should have been only a small obstacle. But it makes me glad to see that you do know our available documentation and where to find it.

The Terminology and Localization Guide isn't a real thing... in fact they are two real things I joined together for quiz purposes, neither of them listed on that page.

The terminology guide exists here on our web site, while I understand that a localization kit is given to users or partners who wish to translate the FME interface and documentation into a different language.

There are some other interesting technical documents you can browse through; for example the IFMEReader setConstraints() Documentation, Transformer Definition Documentation, and Metafile Documentation. Not your everyday reading material, but useful is you want to get a better understanding of how FME works underneath Workbench.

John's Answer: FME Terminology and Localization Guide (Correct)

2) According to a tweet last week, how many past webinars are available for viewing on our web site?

• 40
• 95
• 160
• 210
• 299

The answer is 160:

Let's see. 160 webinars at (usually) 1 hour each = 160 hours. At 8 hours per working day, that's 20 days continuous FME webinars.

If you ever take an in-cube sabbatical (and I'm not saying you should) then you know what you can be doing with all that free time!

Incidentally, you can find the blog post mentioned on our blog page here.

John's Answer: 160 (Correct)

3) Which of these tools in Workbench includes the option to "Include Feature Caches"

• Save Workspace
• Save Workspace as Mapping File
• Save as Template
• Export as Custom Transformer
• Export as Custom Format

I hoped you'd know this answer, and you didn't let me down. It's the option to save a workspace as a template:

Not to belabour a point you already know, but a template saves the workspace and data together in a single file, and you can also include feature caches in there to save recreating their content. Cool.

John's Answer: Save Workspace (Incorrect)

4) To which country was the first international FME sale made?

• Germany
• China
• Sweden
• South Africa
• Australia

Ah, another question requiring Twitter following. Sorry for two in the same week! Anyway, the answer is Sweden:

Interestingly, it was in response to a tweet noting that the same organization is now dropping Shapefile and MapInfo TAB from its supported data delivery formats. I wonder if this is the beginning of a trend...?

John's Answer: Germany (Incorrect)

5) Which transformer transforms data to such an extent that the entire schema is disrupted and a new one created automatically as a set of attributes?

• FeatureReader
• SchemaMapper
• AttributePivoter
• SectorGenerator
• Logger

The answer - perhaps surprisingly - is the AttributePivoter.

Pivoting attributes means you take a table of data and twist it round to create new summary statistics. Aggregating and summarizing the original data creates a whole new structure and schema. Therefore the transformer also generates a dynamic schema to assist you in writing the data.

Check it out and you will see it creates a whole series of attribute_name{} and attribute_data_type{} list attributes. Here's some parks data being summarized with the new attribute schema itself defined as attributes:

To write that new schema you simply put your writer into Dynamic mode and pick Schema From Schema Feature as the source:

Back to the question, and surprisingly it's not the SchemaMapper. I say surprisingly because many of you chose that answer. That transformer does rename feature types and attributes, but in a predictable and controllable manner, and it's assumed you already have the output schema set up (or could use the same lookup table to create it dynamically).

Plus the SchemaMapper might not affect the entire schema, so not all of the existing attribute schema is destroyed.

The FeatureReader... well that would be closer to what I was thinking, but it's not transforming data as such, just reading new features. But it too will create an attribute-based schema if you set the correct parameter.

John's Answer: SchemaMapper (Incorrect)

6) When I check Safes internal systems to find the current beta status, sometimes I forget to connect to our VPN first. Without that connection, what does Google think I'm looking for?

• Letters in the Greek alphabet
• A book called Crafting with Car Hair
• How to construct a bar in my basement
• Recipes on cooking with bananas
• Information on Scaled Agile Framework Extensions

I call the last question the "Impossible Question" and boy, was it ever! Only one person at all got this question correct, with the exception of John! Does he know something you don't? Maybe...

See, I'm searching for the FME builds, and the team responsible for those is the Build-and-Release team (BAR), so when I'm not connected to our systems via VPN, Google thinks I want to build a bar in my basement. I don't even have a basement!

Sometimes it instead goes to a site with a bunch of lawyer jokes (bar.com). I guess it varies depending on what URL or search I use.

Also, Crafting with Car Hair is actually a real book, by the way! I saw it in a used bookshop once, and now I'm bitterly disappointed that I didn't buy it (and I don't even have a cat).

So for those who picked letters of the Greek alphabet (i.e. Beta) or Scaled Agile Framework Extensions (SAFE), sorry, but do you think I'd be that obvious in the Impossible Question?!

John's Answer: How to construct a bar in my basement (Correct)

Let's see the general quiz info and scores:

• Quiz Week: 16 (Feb 18/2020)
• Number of Entries: 28
• Best Score: 6
• Worst Score: 2
• Average Score: 3.69
• Easiest Question: 3 (26)
• Hardest Question: 6 (1)

So not bad. Congratulations to @sipsysigh for being the only person, bar John, to get Question 6 correct. In fact, double congratulations for getting the rest correct too and being the only person to get a full 6/6.

I thought that Question 1 (Documentation) would be the easiest, but in fact the most correct answers came from Question 3 (Saving Caches). But you all did really well.

Still, John got off to a flyer and also got Question 6 correct, so how did he do overall?

• Beat John: 18
• Equalled John: 8
• Were Beaten by John: 2

Not so good. You all had a good win there, though if John had picked Sweden instead of Germany, he'd be celebrating. There was a big swing with one question different.

Still, the overall score is now...

• Users 4 Safers 5

To finish up, here's a league table of your results...

And the Safe Staff table:

Thanks for taking part and I'll see you all next week.