Date
Attendees
Goals
- Determine August meeting schedule
- Review situation regarding the LDP App - determine next steps
- Discuss process for including other apps in the FOLIO reference environment
Discussion items
| Time | Item | Who | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 min | August PC Meetings | Jesse | Both Jesse and Kristin are out of the office on August 12. Is preference to have no August 12 meeting? |
| 30 mins | LDP App under the FOLIO Umbrella | LDP App was not included in the Juniper Release See Community Council notes (2021-07-26) See Additional Information below: email from Angela Zoss (Reporting SIG) to Capacity Planning - 2021-07-22
| |
| 30 mins | Process for including other apps in Reference Environment – as part of FOLIO |
|
Additional Information:
Dear Capacity Planning Team,
I’m reaching out as convener of the Reporting SIG to follow up on the status of the LDP app and the process for getting it included as a new FOLIO app.
The Reporting SIG recently learned that our LDP app - an app that allows people to access LDP data directly from FOLIO instead of using an external database query/SQL tool - was rejected from the Juniper release. The app has been in snapshot for months now and has been getting great feedback from users, who are anxiously awaiting the ability to connect to their LDPs using a non-SQL query builder and to use FOLIO permissions features to control that access. In late June, after following the public documentation for the Juniper release, our developers heard that the app had failed to meet several deadlines and would not be included in the release.
When asked for public documentation of the extra requirements so we could be sure to be in compliance in the future, no documentation was produced. As a SIG, we’re disappointed by the delay this will cause in getting the app to institutions waiting for it, but we’re even more concerned about the process of holding new apps to timelines and standards that are not clearly documented. The Reporting community has volunteered innumerable hours to the design of reporting solutions that meet the needs of community members, and we are relying on the broader FOLIO community to facilitate incorporation of that work into the FOLIO app infrastructure.
For the sake of transparency, planning our development resources, and announcing the timeline for reporting feature availability to FOLIO community members, we ask for a review of FOLIO release procedures and the timely creation of clear, public documentation of all requirements and deadlines for new apps, specifically before any deadlines for Kiwi pass. If there is any way for the LDP app to be placed on a fast track through previously undocumented requirements in order to be approved for Juniper, the Reporting SIG members would greatly prefer that.
Please do reach out if I can help in any way or answer any additional questions!
Thanks and best regards,
Angela
Hello Angela,
The deadlines to make a release are very well documented and posted for all to see. This has proven to be very successful as all FOLIO development teams and product owners have been very aware of those deadlines and drive to those deadlines for each release. In the case of Juniper, those have been posted since February and notifications of changes have been posted to Slack when needed. You can see that schedule that the FOLIO project uses here. These dates are determined in advance by the capacity planning team which include Holly Mistlebauer, Khalilah Gambrell, Oleksii Petrenko, Mark Veksler, Jakub Skoczen, Mike Gorrell and myself. These dates are generated by working towards a target release date and based on past experience of the time it takes to get through each stage for a final release.
We agree that better documentation is required that describe the process that can be used to submit an application to be included in a FOLIO release. The TC is charged with this task and has started those discussions in earnest. There is an existing process of submitting code for review that has been used for previous submissions, but this is what requires documentation. Previous submissions in some cases were rejected due to concerns about security, architecture, UI issues and test coverage based on a review provided by assigned developers. In some cases, the rejected code was changed or test coverage provided (for example) and then the submission was re-evaluated and accepted.
The LDP app was built using the FOLIO platform, but is not currently part of the FOLIO code base. it exists outside of FOLIO. The expectation is that LDP will exist as a separate project under the OLF such as Reshare an Vufind. FOLIO is not responsible for building and releasing code maintained external to FOLIO and has not done so in the past. There is a growing body of code that exists outside of FOLIO that are open source and available to any library or vendor that wishes to use it. Duke has made code available as open source specifically for FOLIO that has not been submitted, yet is in use. The LDP app is in the same situation. Libraries and vendors that wish to use it can do so. Ultimately, this model supports the original vision of what FOLIO was to bring to the market and is a positive and healthy development. The fact that the LDP app is not part of the release should not stop any organization from using it. The TC will be evaluating the technical merits of including non-FOLIO apps as part of future FOLIO releases.
Thank you for reaching out,
Capacity Planning Team