Grouper Developers Forum

["Jessica Bibbee" <>]

MACE-Dir-Groups Conference Call
May 3, 2006

*Participants*
Tom Barton, U. Chicago (chair)
Joy Veronneau, U. Cornell
Steve Barrett, U. Cornell
Gary Brown, U. Bristol
Ann West, EDUCAUSE/Internet2
Steve Olshansky, Internet2
Jessica Bibbee, Internet2 (scribe)

Carry-Over *Action Items*
[AI] {Minh} will propose a test for sorting, and/or write the code and send to the list for discussion.

*Discussion*
{Tom} gave an overview of the Signet/Grouper BoF, Early Adopter (SGEA) Meeting, and track session from the Spring Internet2 Member Meeting in Arlington, VA. Topics included the Subject API, rules, better auditing capabilities, and a possible alert mechanism for group changes.

From the discussion at the SGEA Meeting, the developers hope to gather material for use cases, which will lead to more thorough high-level and technical documentation.

{Gary} discussed changes to the UI, which he summarized with screenshots: <http://portal.bris.ac.uk/grouper-ui-docs/uionezero/>.
        - GrouperSystem no longer has personalized menu items, i.e., no My memberships, etc.
        - Wheel group members can switch mode - not fully supported in API.
        - As admin lose personalized menu items - like GrouperSystem.
        - Can change GrouperAll privileges when editing group.
        - Can assign / remove available custom group types.
        - Custom group attributes shown on group summary.
        - Add / change custom attributes.
        - Advanced search takes account of custom fields.
        - User can control which attribute to show on result page - can be site defined.
        - An actual search.
        - And the results - query shown and displayName used as result field.

The 'hide hierarchy' button still exists, though not in 'All Groups' mode (list would be too large). It is also possible to view hierarchy, such that you can see the complete name of several groups with the same name (extension). Grouper supports two or more attributes which are lists of objects, e.g., staff. Alias is a custom, named attribute, in the form of a string that can be queried. Query fields are case insensitive.

Grouper currently does not support a soft blink, for blinking to a stem in another hierarchy of a stem. There will be some restrictions on what can be combined through group math, at least for the initial implementation in v1.0.

The idea of having a single group in two or more stems needs more discussion. Another issue is who should be able to create groupType – only GrouperSystem, or others as well?

{Gary} is still working on the xml import/export tool – prompts in command line, etc, and hopes to have schema for v1.0. Cornell is thinking to put web services in front of this.

The Group agreed that the final destination for Grouper documentation should be addressed by audience – high-level (architect) docs on the web site, and more technical (sysadmin, community-contribution) docs on the coming wiki. The Grouper-users/dev mailing lists will still serve as the central point of deployment discussion. The documentation will aim to parallel Signet and Shibboleth's presentation as seen fit. The Group also expressed interest in finding a way for users to retrieve a full hard-copy of the documentation. Please send comments or suggestions regarding any documentation aspect to {Jessica}.

The next scheduled MACE-Dir-Groups WG call will be Wednesday, 17-May at 12pm ET.