Grouper Developers Forum

["Jessica Bibbee" <>]

Grouper WG Conference Call
October 18, 2006

*Participants*
Tom Barton, U. Chicago (chair)
Blair Christensen, U. Chicago
Gary Brown, U. Bristol
Joy Veronneau, U. Cornell
Mark Weber, U. Wisconsin
Monica Crawford, U. Wisconsin
Steve Olshansky, Internet2
Jessica Bibbee, Internet2 (scribe)

New *Action Items*
[AI] {Tom} will notify the user-list with respect to the availability of the Grouper v1.1 release.
[AI] {Joy} will share a write-up of a Cornell use case for the provisioning connector regarding the preservation of a query for group attributes.

Carry-Over *Action Items*
[AI] {Blair} will share his testing results with the Working Group. (6-Sep-06)
[AI] {Stephen L. and Blair} will speak offline regarding the development of additional interfaces. (6-Sep-06)
[AI] {Stephen L.} will pass along a link to their CVS for a model similar to the Grouper object model, including use cases and code. (6-Sep-06)
[AI] {SteveO} will work with {Tom} to create higher-level screenshots. (12-Jul-06)

*Agenda*
1. release 1.1 status
2. Sig-Gro LDAP Provisioning Connector Status
3. Campus Deployment Strategies for UIs.
4. Issues with Supporting UI Strategies.

*Discussion*

Grouper v1.1 Release Status
{Tom, Blair, and Gary} are working on the final items for the nearing release of grouper v1.1. {Blair} has a bit of performance testing and still needs to add a few methods/commands to gsh. A few of his changes include the addition of query filters for membership creation time and group modification time, as well as now being able to update the sourceID. He noted that while performance has definitely improved, he does not have numbers to provide the specifics. The hibernate query cache is now disabled, as it was found to be a hindrance in the UI – though it may be turned back on via configuration, if desired. He has also worked on enabling incremental updates.

{Gary} has finished fixing the known bugs, and will now work to make the QuickStart available for testing, then packaging before the November CAMP in Denver. One of the changes he made was to make the behavior consistent for the displayExtension label, etc. Whichever field names are displayed, they are now read in the properties file.

The Group agreed on a target date of Thursday, November 2, 2006 for v1.1. [AI] {Tom} will notify the user-list with respect to the availability of the Grouper v1.1 release.

Sig-Gro LDAP provisioning connector status
Development of the provisioning connector is still underway with an expected arrival date coinciding with the upcoming CAMP. [AI] {Joy} will share a write-up of a Cornell use case for the provisioning connector regarding the preservation of a query for group attributes.

Campus Deployment Strategies for UI
{Tom} had the following questions for those on the call:
- What are campuses contemplating for meeting UI needs for their various Grouper use cases?
- Has anyone tried to "skin" the Grouper UI (i.e., going beyond style sheets, logos, and customized text and into struts tiles and actions)?
- Are you planning to develop custom java UIs incorporating the Grouper API?
- Who is planning on building a UI that interacts with a (future) web services interface to the Grouper API?
- Are there other approaches being considered?

{Mark} reported that U. Wisconsin currently has no specific plans to write there own UI. More so, they are choosing to focus on the underlying surface structure. {Joy} explained how Cornell has changed the style sheets and template, which required editing the JSP and making a few simple modifications to the html tags. They are still using the same basic workflow/capabilities, with minor appearance changes, e.g., from horizontal to vertically listed radio choices. Both Cornell and U. Wisconsin have a wide variety of users in mind for deployment, as opposed to just the more technical user community.

Issues with Supporting UI Strategies.
{Tom} fielded perspectives from the Group regarding:
- the leading issues deployers expect to face while designing UIs?
- the benefit of additional support from the Grouper API?
- how Signet has a notion of Signet-specific behaviors for different types of subjects, affecting how subjects are sorted, displayed, and summarized in exports from Signet; is there a need for something like this in the Grouper toolkit?

{Monica} expects that the size of the University will dictate how they organize groups, which would imply a greater emphasis on sorting.  Additional discussion will follow on the grouper-dev list.

Upcoming Grouper-related event dates include:
- November 7-9, Denver, CO: CAMP <http://www.educause.edu/CAMP064>.
- December 4-7, Chicago, IL: Fall Internet2 Member Meeting <http://events.internet2.edu/2006/fall-mm/index.html>

The next scheduled Grouper Working Group call will be Wednesday, 1-Nov at 12pm EDT.

-- 
Jessica Bibbee, Technical Analyst
Internet2

mobile: +1-734-255-6644

The Fall 2006 Internet2 Member Meeting:
Because the best way to predict the future is to keep inventing it.
http://events.internet2.edu/2006/fall-mm/