Grouper Developers Forum

[Emily Eisbruch <>]

Draft Minutes: Grouper Call of 26-March-2014

Attending

Tom Barton, University of Chicago (chair)

Chris Hyzer, University of Pennsylvania

Jim Fox, University of Washington

Shilen Patel, Duke University

Emily Eisbruch, Internet2, scribe

New Action items  

[AI] (Shilen) investigate ways to get new attribtues in a single step

[AI] (Shilen) do performance testing prior to the Grouper 2.2 release

[Ai] (Emily) assist with outreach around testing the new Grouper UI when Chris is ready for testers

[AI] (Emily) draft a message promoting the Grouper BoF at Internet2 Global Summit (done)

Carry Over Action items

[AI) (DaveL) look at PSP ChangeLogDataConnector Inconsistency issue

https://lists.internet2.edu/sympa/arc/grouper-users/2014-02/msg00047.html

[AI] (DaveL) write up the doc related to the Shib Grouper question.

https://lists.internet2.edu/sympa/arc/grouper-users/2014-02/msg00004.html 

[AI] (DaveL) work on the PSP aspect of GRP 914.  

DISCUSSION

Testing the new Grouper UI

We hope to enlist some community members for testing, vetting, and providing feedback on the new Grouper UI.

This testing will be initiated after Chris finishes his current work on developing the new Grouper UI. Chris hopes to be done with first pass on the new UI in about one week. See the tasks table for the Grouper UI development work: https://spaces.internet2.edu/display/Grouper/Grouper+UI+v2.2+tasks

Testers will be asked to provide feedback via JIRA. Chris will make a new section in JIRA for UI 2.2

Linking the new Ui and the two older UIs

How should we handle linking of the three Uis?

- Admin UI

- Lite UI

- New Grouper 2.2 UI

-Currently a setting in the properties file controls linking between the Lite and Admin UI.

-The default is to go to the Admin UI.

-Default for Grouper 2.2 should be to go to the new UI

-Some users might have links to their groups and not know the new UI exists

-Chris: When the old Uis go away (eventually, but not for Grouper 2.2), we can redirect URLs to the new UI.

Chris: suggestion to provide an option in the left nav. bar of each UI to go to the other Uis.

Linking to previous Uis for functionality not in the new UI 

There is some functionality for which the user may need to rely on the older Uis,

    Example: In the Admin UI, it's possible to assign legacy attributes to groups.

The Lite UI has permission management, and allows you to create attributes and set up your hierarchy

and attribute assignment. That is not in the new Grouper 2.2 UI.

But many sites don't use attributes a great deal.

-Chris: On the Group Screen, we could add an option for managing attributes that links the user back to Lite UI

-Jim: don't just jump to another UI version, display a note that says "this is not available in this UI" and explain the user is being taken to the older UI.

Subject Searches

Chris noted that subject searches for groups might benefit from some enhancements to improve performance.

When a group is found via a search and displayed on the UI, all attributes are resolved. It would be good to resolve attributes in one query instead of multiple queries.

Also, when a subject is being added to a group, currently there is a subject search in all the sources.

Generally when adding a subject, you want to see groups that you can read the membership of, not groups you can only view but not read.

Chris has added a subject search option to limit the search to "groups I can read" or "groups I can view."

Chris:  we may want to add more options to the subject API

[AI] (Shilen) investigate ways to get new attribtues in a single step

[AI] (Shilen) do performance testing prior to the Grouper 2.2 release

 

Querying Grouper Databases by Loader jobs

https://lists.internet2.edu/sympa/arc/grouper-users/2014-03/msg00008.html

There was a question on the list about whether querying Grouper database tables by loader jobs is recommended. Chris has responded to this, noting that we don't change the DDL much, so things should be fairly stable.  Eventually it would be good to update the documentation on this.

Lists

Jim: what is the status on lists?

Chris: groups can have lists, but they are not a first class object in the UI.

 It is recommended to make two groups rather than having lists within a group.

Grouper BoF at Internet2 Global Summit

Wed. April 9 at 7:30am – 8:30am in Governor's Square 17 room

Possible Agenda Topics:

 Present the new Grouper UI

 - Invite people to participate in the testing the UI

Discuss the Grouper 2.2 Roadmap https://spaces.internet2.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=14517754

  -What's the next big thing that the community wants?

 

  Security plug-ins?

  Standardized API (CIFER project) work? 

Plans for IAM Online webinar to focus on Grouper

This was tentatively scheduled for Aug. 13.

Has now been rescheduled for Wed. Sept. 10

Next Grouper Call: Wed. April 9, 2014 at noon ET (Chris will lead this call)