# Reference *Lookups you'll come back to* # Validation Rules ### Overview — Why a Save Button Stays Grey NSCAT validates forms as you type and keeps the save button disabled until everything passes. When a button will not enable and nothing looks obviously wrong, one of the rules on this page is the reason. This is a reference. It collects the limits that apply across the application in one place, so you can check a rule rather than guess at it.
**PRO TIP **A disabled save button is almost always a validation failure, not a fault. Scroll the whole form — the offending field shows a red message underneath, and on long forms it is often above or below the visible area.
### Passwords Applies to **Register a User**, **Manage User** (with **Changing Password?** ticked), **Reset Password**, and **Profile**. A password must satisfy **all** of:
**Requirement** **Detail**
**Minimum length** 6 characters
**Uppercase letter** At least one, A–Z
**Lowercase letter** At least one, a–z
**Number** At least one, 0–9
**Special character** At least one of @ $ ! % \* ? &
The message on failure is: *"Minimum 6 characters, One capital latter, Special charater, Number"*.
**HEADS UP Only** @ $ ! % \* ? & count as special characters, and no other symbol is permitted **anywhere** in the password. A password containing \#, -, \_, ., +, or / is rejected even if it also contains a valid special character. This is the single most common validation surprise in NSCAT.
**PRO TIP **When a strong-looking password is rejected, the cause is nearly always an unsupported symbol rather than a missing one. Replace anything outside @ $ ! % \* ? & and try again.
**GOOD TO KNOW Confirm Password** must match exactly. A mismatch is reported separately from the policy rules, so a valid password can still fail on the confirm field alone.
### Email Addresses Applies wherever an email is typed rather than picked from a list. The address must be a structurally valid email — a local part, an @, and a domain with a dot and a two-or-more-letter suffix. Failure reports *"Invalid e-mail."*
**GOOD TO KNOW **This checks **format only**. NSCAT cannot tell whether the mailbox exists, so a typo in a valid-looking address passes validation and only shows up when mail does not arrive.
### Required Fields The general required rule rejects two things: 1. An **empty value** — and whitespace-only text counts as empty, since the value is trimmed first. 2. The literal value **`Select`** — the placeholder some pickers start on. Both report *"Required."*
**HEADS UP **A picker still showing **Select** counts as empty even though it does not look blank. If a form insists a field is required and it appears filled in, check whether it is still on its placeholder.
**PRO TIP **Spaces are trimmed, so a field containing only spaces fails as empty. Where a field looks filled but reports Required, select the contents and retype.
### Multi-Select Limits Several fields accept a list, and lists have caps.
**Rule** **Minimum** **Maximum** **Used by**
**Standard list** 1 **20** Add / Delete themes, CPRO utilities, Team Leads
**Trending activities** 1 **20** Trending Report activity selection
**At least two** **2** — Consolidate Themes
Messages are *"At least one required"*, *"Maximum of number of activities allowed is 20"*, and *"At least two required"*.
**GOOD TO KNOW **The maximum message mentions "activities" wherever it appears, including in the theme dialogs. The **20-item limit** is what it means; the wording is generic.
**HEADS UP **The 20-item cap bites hardest on the **Trending Report**, where a long assessment history can easily exceed it. Split the comparison into overlapping batches of 20 rather than trying to force it into one report — see **Trending Report**.
**PRO TIP Consolidate Themes** needs two or more selections because merging one theme into a new name is simply a rename. If the button will not enable with one theme selected, use **Rename Theme** instead.
### Numeric Fields Where a number is required, it must be present, must actually be a number, and must be **zero or greater**. Messages are *"Required."*, *"Must be a number."*, and *"Must be 0 or greater."*
**GOOD TO KNOW **Negative numbers are rejected in these fields. This does **not** apply to rating scale values, which are fixed at -1/0/+1 or -3…+3 and are not typed in — see **Rating Scales**.
### Text Length Some short fields cap at **20 characters** — *"Max 20 characters"* — and some longer ones require a **minimum of 8** — *"Min 8 characters"*.
**PRO TIP **The 20-character cap is a hint about intent. A field with it is meant for a label or an abbreviation, not a description — a utility **Short Name**, for instance. If you are fighting the limit, the value probably belongs in the corresponding long-name field.
### Themes — Naming Themes are named by convention as Attribute - Trait, for example Standards - Personal Accountability.
**HEADS UP **This format is **not enforced**. The theme name field accepts any non-empty text, so a free-form or mistyped name saves without complaint. Consistency has to be maintained by your team — see **Theme Management**.
### Rules That Are Not Validation Some things that block a save are not field validation and produce a dialog rather than a red message:
**Restriction** **Where**
**Rating scale type frozen once responses exist** Activity Properties — shows **Cannot Change Rating Scale**
**Published questions cannot be edited** Question Composer — the Edit button is absent
**Deprecation cannot be reversed** Question Composer — the switch is disabled
**Saved ISF Traits and Attributes cannot be deleted** Manage ISF — no delete icon
**A locked activity is read-only** Everywhere in the activity
**Utility must match to edit an activity's team** Activity Properties — fields greyed out
**GOOD TO KNOW **These are structural rules, not form validation. No amount of correcting fields will satisfy them — the state of the data has to change, or a different account has to make the change.
### Quick Diagnosis
**Symptom** **Check**
Save disabled, nothing obviously wrong Scroll the whole form for a red message; check for a picker still on **Select**.
Password rejected Remove any symbol outside @ $ ! % \* ? &.
Passwords "do not match" Retype both fields; check for a trailing space.
Field looks filled but says **Required.** Whitespace-only, or still on the **Select** placeholder.
Multi-select refuses more entries You have hit the 20-item cap.
Button disabled with one item selected That field needs at least two — you probably want a different operation.
Number rejected Must be numeric and zero or greater.
A dialog blocks the change rather than a field A structural rule, not validation. See the table above.
# Troubleshooting ### Overview — Start Here Most NSCAT support questions come down to one of five things. Work through these before digging deeper: 1. **Is it a role problem?** Admin roles and activity assignments are separate — see **Roles & Access Control**. 2. **Is the activity locked?** Locking hides **Properties** and **Activity Feed** and disables every save. 3. **Is the session stale?** Role changes only take effect on the next sign-in. 4. **Is it validation?** A grey save button is nearly always a rule — see **Validation Rules**. 5. **Is it a structural rule?** Published questions, deprecated questions, saved ISF items, and rating scales with responses cannot be changed at all.
**PRO TIP **Ask two questions before anything else: *"What roles does the account have?"* and *"Is the activity locked?"* Between them they explain the large majority of "I can't do X" reports.
### Sessions and Signing In #### Re-login prompts NSCAT warns you before your session expires, at **30 minutes**, **5 minutes**, and **1 minute** remaining: ***You are about to be Logged Out**** — Your session is about to expire in 30 minutes. Click on 'Re-Login' to stay logged in… Ensure that you save your work in advance.* Click **Re-Login**, enter your password, and the session extends. Your work is not discarded by the prompt.
**HEADS UP **Take the **30-minute** prompt seriously if you are part-way through something long — a new ISF, a survey, a batch of themes. Dismissing all three prompts means being signed out mid-edit, and unsaved form contents do not survive it.
**PRO TIP **Save your work at the 30-minute prompt, then re-login. Doing both is quicker than deciding later whether the last twenty minutes of typing survived.
#### Role changes not taking effect The sidebar is built from the roles in your **current session token**. Granting someone a role does not change what they can see until they sign in again.
**GOOD TO KNOW **This is the answer to "I ticked Utility Admin but they still can't see Question Composer." Have them sign out and back in.
### Access Problems
**Report** **Cause** **Fix**
**Access Restricted** on an activity's menu No assignment on that activity Add them as a Team Lead or Team Member in **Properties**
A sidebar entry is missing The role gate for it is not met Check the role matrix on the **Overview** page
COG Admin cannot see Question Composer, Themes, Training, Trending, CPRO, or Report Builder All are **Utility Admin only** Tick **Utility Admin** as well
COG Admin cannot see **Lessons Learned Review** Hidden from COG Admins by design Nothing to fix — use a Utility Admin account
Utility Admin cannot see **Add Utility**, **ISF**, or **Manage Activities** All are **COG Admin only** A COG Admin must perform the action
COG Admin cannot edit content inside an activity COG Admin grants no in-activity write access Add Utility Admin, or an activity assignment
Redirected to the dashboard from **Activity Feed** Not a COG Admin or Utility Admin — access is enforced, not just hidden Grant an admin role
Utility Admin sees team fields greyed out The activity belongs to a different utility An admin from that utility must make the change
**HEADS UP **COG Admin is **not** a superset of Utility Admin. Most day-to-day administrators need **both** boxes ticked. If one account is reporting an odd mix of missing menus, check whether only COG Admin is set.
### Locked Activities
**Report** **Cause**
**Properties** missing from the activity menu The activity is locked
**Activity Feed** missing from the activity menu The activity is locked
Every save button disabled inside an activity The activity is locked
Cannot change a locked activity's team Team editing lives on Properties, which is hidden
Cannot change the rating scale Locked — or the activity has responses
Locked it by mistake and cannot undo it Only a COG Admin can unlock, via **Manage Activities**
**HEADS UP **A Utility Admin who locks an activity **cannot unlock it**, because locking removes the page holding the lock checkbox. Only a COG Admin can reverse it — see **Manage Activities**.
**PRO TIP **The **Unlock** button in Manage Activities is disabled while the checkbox is ticked. That confuses people regularly — untick the checkbox first, and the button enables.
### Questions and the Pool
**Report** **Cause** **Fix**
No **Edit** button on a question It is published, or owned by another utility Published questions cannot be edited — **copy** it and edit the copy
No **Set Deprecated** switch Not a Utility Admin, question unpublished, or another utility's Check all three
**Set Deprecated** greyed out Already deprecated — this cannot be reversed Publish a corrected copy instead
A question is missing from a survey composer Unpublished, deprecated, private to another utility, or classified against a different ISF Check its state in the pool
**Attribute** shows **No Options Available** The chosen Trait has no Attributes Add them in **Manage ISF**
Demographic breakdown missing from a report The question uses plain **Demographic** rather than the specific category Create a question in the specific category
**PRO TIP **"Someone wrote a question but nobody can find it" is almost always an **unpublished draft**. Filter the pool to **Unpublished** and look.
### Reports
**Report** **Cause** **Fix**
CPRO: **No Results available !** Nothing matched the criteria Widen the date range first, then check the utilities
Trending: **No Results available !** The selected activities have no scored survey data Confirm responses exist
Trending: mixed rating scales warning Selection spans 3-point and 7-point activities Compare same-scale columns only, or split the report
Trending: many **NR** cells Those activities have no questions against those ISF elements Absent data, not poor scores
Cannot select more than 20 activities The cap is 20 Split into overlapping batches
Report Builder: **No records match the selected filters** Filters too narrow Remove them one at a time
Report Builder: blank Department / Level / Site columns The survey lacked the specific demographic questions Nothing to fix retrospectively
Trending Report has no download button It has no export Use CPRO or the Report Builder for exportable output
**Export failed** banner The export did not complete Retry; narrow the data if it recurs
**HEADS UP **Two reports look similar but are not comparable if the activities behind them used different rating scales or different question sets. Check the \[3-point\] / \[7-point\] suffixes in the Trending Report headers before treating a movement as real.
### Surveys
**Report** **Cause** **Fix**
Respondent sees **The Survey Expired** The survey's expiry date has passed Extend the expiry date on the survey
Respondent sees **Missing Answers** Required questions left blank They must complete them before submitting
**Cannot Change Rating Scale** The activity has recorded responses The scale type is frozen; only labels can change
**Please Select a File!** An upload was attempted with no file chosen Choose a file first
**HEADS UP **The rating scale lock cannot be overridden by anyone. Once responses exist, the only way onto a different scale is a **new activity**. Confirm the scale before distributing the survey link — see **Rating Scales**.
### Themes and the ISF
**Report** **Cause** **Fix**
No delete icon on an ISF Trait or Attribute It is saved — saved items cannot be deleted Rename it to mark it retired
An ISF Trait panel header is dark grey Its required **Long Name** is empty Expand it and fill the field in
Theme names no longer match the ISF Themes do not follow ISF renames Rename them in **Theme Management**
Theme saved in the wrong format The Attribute - Trait format is not enforced Fix with **Rename Theme**
Theme counts changed between report runs A consolidation or deletion happened in between Consolidate before reporting, not after
Findings lost their categorization A theme in use was deleted Not recoverable — use **Consolidate** for themes with history
Duplicate near-identical themes Duplicates are not prevented **Consolidate** them
**HEADS UP **After **any** rename in the ISF, review your themes. Nothing links them, nothing warns you, and the mismatch only becomes visible when a report reader cannot trace a theme back to its Attribute.
### Users
**Report** **Cause** **Fix**
Password rejected but looks strong An unsupported special character Use only @ $ ! % \* ? &
Every field greyed out in **Manage User** The account is disabled Tick **Account Enabled** to edit anything
Registration rejected on the email Invalid format, or the account already exists Search **Manage User** before creating
Cannot add someone as a Team Member They are already a Team Lead on that activity Remove them from that list first
A trained person is missing from **Training Management** They have no NSCAT account Register them first
Wrong name against a training record The account's name is wrong Fix it in **Manage User**
Departed staff still on a team list Disabling an account does not unassign them Remove them from the activity as well
**PRO TIP **When someone leaves, do both: **disable the account** in Manage User **and** remove them from their activities. Doing one leaves either a live account or a team list naming someone who cannot sign in.
### When Nothing Loads
**Symptom** **What to check**
Activity Feed: **Could not load activity feed** It retries automatically, then stops after three failures. Use **refresh**.
Feed stopped updating on its own Three failures stopped polling, or the tab was in the background. Refresh.
Spinners that never resolve Reload the page. If it persists on one page only, note which and report it.
Everything fails after a period of inactivity The session expired. Sign in again.
**HEADS UP **An empty list after a failed load is not evidence of empty data. If a warning alert is on screen, treat what you see as unreliable rather than concluding nothing exists.
### Escalating When none of the above explains it, gather this before reporting: · The **account's roles** — COG Admin, Utility Admin, or neither — and its **utility**. · The **activity id**, from the address bar or the Manage Activities picker. · Whether the activity is **locked**. · The **exact message**, including the dialog heading. · Whether it happens after a **fresh sign-in** — which rules out a stale session.
**PRO TIP **"Fresh sign-in, roles confirmed, activity unlocked, and it still fails" is a genuinely useful report. Without those four facts, the first response will only ever be to check them.
# System Health & the COG Database Account ### Overview — When NSCAT Cannot Reach Its Database NSCAT's API exposes a health endpoint that checks whether the application can reach its database. Where it cannot, the response now names the most likely cause explicitly rather than returning a generic failure:
*Unable to connect to the database. If this persists, the COG Database Owner Account password may have expired. Please contact COG IT.*
This message exists because an expired database owner account password produces symptoms that look nothing like a credentials problem to the people reporting them. ### What This Is — and What It Is Not
**This is** The password on the **COG database owner account** — the service account NSCAT's API uses to connect to SQL Server. It is managed by COG IT, on COG's password policy, entirely outside NSCAT.
**This is not** Any NSCAT user's password. NSCAT user passwords do not expire, are not rotated, and have no maximum age.
**HEADS UP **Do not respond to this message by resetting anyone's NSCAT account password. It will not help, and it wastes the window in which the real problem could be fixed. The account in question is not visible in Manage User.
### What Users Will Report When the database account password has expired, NSCAT does not present a tidy error. Expect reports like: · Spinners that never resolve on pages that normally load instantly. · "Everything worked this morning and now nothing loads." · Sign-in failing for everyone, with correct credentials. · Saves failing across unrelated pages at the same time. · Autosave chips showing **Save failed** on every content page at once.
**PRO TIP **The tell is *breadth*. A permission or validation problem affects one person or one page. A database connectivity problem affects everyone, everywhere, starting at a single moment in time. If three unrelated reports arrive within a few minutes of each other, check health before investigating any of them individually.
### What To Do 1. **Confirm the breadth.** Ask a second person on a different account and a different page. If it works for them, this is not it. 2. **Check the health endpoint.** Your COG IT contact or whoever deployed the API can query it; the message above is what it returns. 3. **Contact COG IT**, quoting the message verbatim. The fix is theirs — rotating the database owner account password and updating the API's connection configuration. 4. **Tell your users to stop retrying and to leave their browser tabs open.** Autosave queues changes when the failure looks like a network problem and drains the queue automatically when connectivity returns. Closing the tab discards the queue and any local draft with it.
**HEADS UP **Point 4 matters more than it looks. An analyst who closes a browser tab in frustration loses whatever autosave had queued. One that stays open may recover it. Say so when you acknowledge the outage.
**GOOD TO KNOW **Autosave's offline queue makes up to five attempts to drain once connectivity returns, one second apart, then gives up and shows **Save failed**. So a short outage often resolves itself with nothing lost; a long one does not.
### Preventing It
**PRO TIP **This is a scheduled, predictable event. Ask COG IT for the database owner account's expiry date and put a reminder in your own calendar two weeks ahead. The one thing worse than the outage is discovering the account expired on the morning your assessment team was writing up thirty interviews.
**GOOD TO KNOW **There is nothing to configure inside NSCAT for this. The health message is informational; the remedy is entirely on the infrastructure side.
### Common Problems
**What you see** **What it means**
The database connection message on the health endpoint The API cannot reach SQL Server. Likely an expired database owner account password. Contact COG IT.
Everyone signed out at once Same cause — or the API is down. Check health before anything else.
Save failed on every page for every user Not a permission problem. Check health.
An administrator asks you to reset the "expired password" Clarify which account. NSCAT user passwords do not expire.
Health is fine but one user cannot sign in Their account is disabled, or their credentials are wrong. Nothing to do with this page.