2021-08-19 Product Council/SIG Conveners Meeting notes

Date

Attendees

Discussion items

TimeItemWhoNotes
 5minAnnouncements
The PALCI consortium has gone live on ReShare using the FOLIO platform and VuFind as the discovery layer.  ConnectNY is next.
10min

BugFest Update

(presentation)

AntonBugfest is finished and we are waiting for the release to be made.  Bugfest did better this time with Juniper versus Iris release (after 2 weeks of testing 90% passed for Juniper versus 75% for Iris and 100 more test cases).  After bug fixes, 98% passed versus 96% passed; the test cases that didn't pass are for low-priority bugs that were deferred to the next release.  At the moment, there are no plans for a hotfix for Juniper (unlike Iris).  New for this bugfest, 6 people were added from the EPAM team, and they completed 30% of the test cases.  For the next bugfest, Anton will ask EPAM to wait for community members to select test cases before picking up the rest.  Overall, this bugfest had fewer participants and fewer institutions.  The number of defects found by bugfest is down 45%: 76 versus 139.  Smoke test results were better: 87% of test cases passed versus 38% for Iris.  If one thing could be changed, Anton would like to automate the smoke test so it runs every day.  There is a lot of effort going into automated tests now.  folio-api-tests-karate tracks the results of automated tests of the Okapi modules.  A similar effort is underway for automated tests for Stripes modules.
30minSIG Convener Updates

See SIG Updates heading below.


10minFOLIO at WOLFcon
Looking for plans where face-to-face is of the biggest benefit while also considering hybrid meeting options.  There is a call for participants in the Product Council slack channel.  There is also a "folio-woflcon-planning-group" Slack channel with a Doodle poll for volunteers to meet.

SIG Updates

App Interaction (Martina Schildt)

  • The App Interaction SIG is discussing how “Create orders and link order lines to materials in the Knowledge Baseis envisioned and can work without creating unnecessary dependencies
  • The Roadmap Group discussed with AI the current list of themes and approach
  • File storage across apps was discussed. AI favors a general approach. Proposal is to use S3-API and to implement storage using min.io client. The topic was brought to TC for decision making.

ERM (Martina Tumulla & Martina Schildt)

  • The Roadmap Group presented on the roadmap process ideas and the current list of themes.
  • The SIG discussed Open Access and similar additional Agreement types and properties.
  • ERM development: Improvements have been added to existing functionality.

Acquisitions (Martina Schildt)

  • Charlotte presented on the Inventory UI results list updates.
  • The Roadmap Group presented on the roadmap process ideas and the current list of themes.
  • Additionally, the ACQ SIG discusses the following topics:
    • editing POL instance connection
    • displays a history of edits for the order record. 
    • process invoices against previous fiscal years 
    • adding a status of “Claimed” to the POL

Open Access (Björn Muschall)


User Management (Maura Byrne)

  • We’re currently helping Magda Zacharska spec out a pilot project regarding bulk edits.  We’re still in early stages.
  • There is a new JIRA ticket, UXPROD-3176, where we ask that it not be possible to have two permission sets to have identical names.  That means that, right now, a local user can create a permission set that has a name identical to an existing permission set. We should all be careful when creating and naming permission sets.
  • There is currently no development going on with Profile Pictures for users, but the feature is present in Settings -> Users.  This has caused confusion with implementing libraries, who thought that it was usable.  Since it isn’t, we’ve agreed to have Brooks Travis ask for it to be taken out of the display in Settings -> Users until profile pictures have been developed.
  • Maura B. and Patty W. presented the new feature, “Checking for data dependencies before deleting users,” for the latest Sprint Review (time index: 51:48) FOLIO Sprint Review 116-119 

Resource Access (Jana Freytag)

  • Title level Requests - finalizing the requirements  (Steph Bucks)
  • go-live-reports, which led to a very interesting exchange on implementation - we want to do that more often now (Andy Horbal)
  • Additional staff slip tokens for requesters (Brooks Travis)
  • Cleaning up patron notice features (Darcy Branchini)
  • Updates to permissions for viewing loans in Users (Erin Nettifee)
  • Road Map group update (Sharon Wiles-Young)
  • patron notice errors (Darcy Branchini)
  • Gap analysis Review (all) - Review the current situation and assess which gaps we as a group have and in the process identify priorities
  • Reporting Sub-Team for RA and UM related topics - we plan on tightening the relations between Reporting SIG and RA SIG by having general Reports every first and third Thursday in the month  (Angela Zoss)
  • ILL Discussion - e.g. how other FOLIO libraries are conducting interlibrary loan workflows (Molly Driscoll and all)

Reporting (Angela Zoss)

  • Thanks to quick mobilization, the LDP app seems to be moving toward inclusion in the Kiwi release. The Reporting SIG is working with PO Charlotte Whitt to provide Bug Fest testers.
  • Reporting SIG will have a presentation on the 16th of August from members of the ERM reporting subteam on what we can expect from the upcoming upgrade of the LDP to a new software platform called metadb. Metadb has helpful new features like access to even more FOLIO data and streaming data updates. On August 9th the SIG also had a long demonstration of how to use Postman and KNIME to query FOLIO APIs (recording).
  • The RA/UM reporting subteam is partnering with the RA SIG to improve communication between the two groups. Angela will join the RA SIG meetings twice a month so the groups can share information of mutual interest. Other subteams seem to have members who attend both SIGs, but let Angela know if your group would like closer ties with the reporting community.
  • Development status
    • At this time, over 100 report queries have been written, reviewed, and posted on the FOLIO Analytics report repository
    • Our next release includes queries on missing and overdue items, HathiTrust reports, vouchers, agreements, and more.
    • Version 1.3 of the LDP app includes UI testing and will hopefully be included in Kiwi release
    • FOLIO Analytics Report Repository: 
    • LDP app:
  • Ongoing reminders for all FOLIO Participating Institutions
    • Action =>> Please review Reporting SIG-All Report Clusters (60 issues) in JIRA and RANK each report cluster for your institution (R1-R5); the SIG uses these ranks to prioritize report development
    • Reporting SIG is always recruiting new subject matter experts and report developers. Please contact Angela if you have staff who would be a good fit for reporting.

Metadata Management (Laura Daniels)

  • Inventory Search Improvements and Inventory UI Improvements Working Groups (both under the auspices of MM, but including members from other SIGs as well) have given recent updates to MM. 
  • One recent meeting focused on discovery layers and online public catalog displays of FOLIO data, with some demos and comparisons. This is an area of particular interest for institutions migrating from an ILS with an integrated public catalog. 
  • Kristin Martin joined MM to talk about the roadmap themes. Areas of particular interest can be seen in the notes for that meeting.
  • MM was excited to see the back-end development that has been done for representing bound-with items in FOLIO.
  • Phillip Schreur will need to step down from the MM liaison to PC role. MM will discuss our options (and welcome suggestions from PC).
  • Began discussion, which will continue in Acquisitions SIG, about discrepancies in search behavior between Inventory and Orders/Receiving.

Consortia (Noah Brubaker)

  • Consortia met once this month, canceling one call due to availability. 
  • Currently the group is finishing an initial discussion and ideation around addressing consortia administrator needs.  The group is exploring two possibilities which may be developed separately or together, but increasingly likely to need both: 
    • Consortia Admin User
    • Consortia Admin Tool
  • We are also beginning to develop a Consortia Data Statement which will articulate the needs of consortia to have control over data within the system - sharing certain things but not others.  The hope is that this would be useful to consider as new features/functionality is being developed in each area of FOLIO
  • Our docket also includes beginning to create an outline of needs related to Security and Privacy building on the statement above and including unique needs of consortia related to security and privacy between institutions in a shared environment
  • Two items that I am wanting to improve upon and am also seeking input or advice on how to approach
    • Tying our efforts more closely in with the roadmap - timing of discussions where to send input/feedback and understanding how to get input from the consortia group to those that need it in time for consideration as features are being developed
    • Working more closely with other SIGs to align consortia input with their efforts.  It seems it would be a better use of our time to connect with efforts as they are occurring in other SIGs with those having subject expertise than the consortia SIG approaching each topic entirely independently.  Perhaps this document will assist with that process and enable more timey outreach between groups.

Accessibility (Beth German) 

  • Wiki has been updated to help with ease of finding information
  • The SIG is looking for workflows that we could test. For an example, please see this Course app test. If anyone is curious about a particular functionality / set of functionality please contact Khalilah or Beth via Slack.

SysOps (Ingolf Kuss)

Reference Data Upgrades TC Recommendation

  • In the future Reference Data will overwrite any customization during an upgrade.
  • The Upgrade process will create reports (old data vs. new data), reconciliation will be done by the users.
  • Customization for internationalisation / multi-linguality is a different effort (but at the moment, it is done via Reference Data customization)
  • Introducing more automation would induce a lot of risk
  • Will be made Production ready in subsequent releases

Implementers (Paula Sullenger)

(Added by Peter Murray) There was an interesting discussion at the last meeting on reasons why UChicago and TAMU made decisions not to implement at their previously announced time.

Support (Anya Arnold and Debra Howell)

The support sig’s current dashboard https://folio-org.atlassian.net/secure/Dashboard.jspa?selectPageId=11117

P1- are supposed to be fixed right away ( hf candidates). This means a library has to stop doing the work that is needed until a fix or change is made in the code.

P2 - are supposed to be fixed in the next upgrade. This issue is painful and there might be a workaround, but it should take president over new features.

Bug reporters - 

Are supposed to locally triage, submit a ticket to their hosting provider /or implementation provider for further investigation. Then the hosting provider will either solve the issue or report it to the community and add the support label to the ticket. 

If a library is self hosted, they still need to try to recreate the issue on the current development and give steps to reproduce. On both the local and the community set up of FOLIO. They also need to add the support label to the ticket. 

The support sig meets once a week for an hour and we cannot try to debug or triage the issues. Our job is to assign them to the development teams and to track the issues’s progress. Currently we can go weeks without any updates on P2s or P1s. This needs to change. 

Privacy (Peter Murray)

The Privacy SIG meets bi-weekly.  We have had one call where a liaison from the FOLIO Security group came to talk about the intersection between that group and the SIG.  We are also working on a policy and practice document for log files from FOLIO apps; this will be useful for FOLIO operators to know when PII can be output to log files.

Public Library (Adam Murray)


Forum Facilitators  (Peter Murray)

No update.  Take a look at the FOLIO Member Onboarding videos and let us know what other topics would be useful.

Product Council Monthly Report


Action items

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