Grouper Developers Forum

[Jessica Bibbee <>]

MACE-Dir-Groups Conference Call
October 19, 2005

*Participants*
Tom Barton, U. Chicago (chair)
Minh Nguyen, Stanford U.
Joy Veronneau, U. Cornell
Gary Brown, U. Bristol
RL "Bob" Morgan, U. Washington
Steve Olshansky, Internet2
Jessica Bibbee, Internet2 (scribe)

New *Action Items*
[AI] {Gary} will develop a storyboard for the next WG call, which addresses not only searches, but also prototype subject pages, and how they might mesh with memberships management, and possibly even privileges management.

Carry-over *Action Items*
[AI] {Bob} will make suggestions regarding use of XML formats for load/distribution. (5-Oct-05)
[AI] {Gary} and {Blair} will work offline to determine an agreeable solution for housing libraries within Grouper. (7-Sep-05)
[AI] {Tom} will develop a list of how to point to different backend databases. (7-Sep-05)

*Discussion*
{Tom} walked the Group through tasks that will be completed for Grouper v0.9 (A list) and those potential tasks which may be addressed (B list) <https://mail.internet2.edu/wws/arc/grouper-dev/2005-10/msg00021.html >.  In the B list, there is thought to have support for extended group types and fields (level 2 will not make it into the v0.9 release.) Another item is to improve membership management by better exposure of effective membership and subject attributes; this will include a revised subject summary page. One matter to finalize is how to revise the method for revoking of subjects within certain groups. Improvements will be made to the method of searching for subjects, via a simple and advanced search – group focused or member focused. The management of effective privileges is another item to address. Lastly, determination of an XML document model for use as an integration artifact: [AI] {Bob} will make suggestions regarding use of XML formats for load/distribution. (5-Oct-05) [AI] {Gary} will develop a storyboard for the next WG call, which addresses not only searches, but also prototype subject pages, and how they might mesh with memberships management, and possibly even privileges management.

{Bob} mentioned the Subject API connection to LDAP, an issue raised by Jim Fox at U. Washington.  Minh suggested that it would its availability would coincide with the release of Signet v1.0, in late November. At that point, the Group can roll the LDAP adapter into the Grouper product.

As effective memberships may derive from several groups, it becomes increasingly complex to try revoke by way of viewing a list – an intermediate page showing all the ways in which a subject is an effective member of a group. Another issue is that they may be listed multiple times, but there are not links for the effective members, as attempts to revoke memberships in this way did not work satisfactorily. Clarity in the UI is the goal.

Addressing these problems from the perspective of who is the audience will save time in the long run – figuring out what they are trying to do: a user who is simply putting a person into a group/club, or perhaps it is more complex as in the case of an organization manager who is involved at multiple levels defining groups for particular purposes. The UI should be complete enough for users to accomplish their tasks, without providing additional items that would prove distracting.

{Tom} suggested considering how much the privilege interfaces could be augmented to deal with non-flat structure, versus dealing with a "flatter" presentation to Privilege Management in the UI.

The Group discussed which issues should be dealt with internally or externally to Grouper, for example Signet – management of privileges, etc. How does having a large subject population with privileges affect matters? How should Grouper manage the implementation of interfaces? If privileges will be managed outside of Grouper, Grouper will have to offer information to that PM system.  

The next MACE-Dir-Groups call will be on Wednesday, November 2 at 12pm ET.