Grouper Users - Open Discussion List

[Michael Hodges <>]

# how do you hide all that magic from them ?

Basically, to hide the magic we have introduced the concept of a Grouping here, maybe not the best choice of terms, but it is meeting our needs thus far.  We present a Grouping as a single concept to our user that encompases a triplet of Grouper groups: a Foundation Group (we used to call this a Basis, but that term has taken on new meaning for Grouper) and companion Include and Exclude groups.  The Foundation Group is composed of zero or more Reference Groups, which by definition are automatically populated groups.  The Include and Exclude groups allow the owner of the Grouping to fine-tune the outcomes, either manually, or programmatically.  We are working on an improved UI to make this more readily accessible to our community.  We've had success with our alpha deployment and plan to release the UI as on open source project.  A student team is currently working on the improved UI.

For a Grouping we also have the concept of selectable publication destinations (again, not the best of terms).  Currently we support LDAP for AuthZ, in a fashion, and LISTSERV lists.  Confluence groups may be up next.  A grouping owner can also designate Grouping membership as required or optional such that member may or not, be able to opt in or out.  We foresee substantial growth in utilization once we get the new UI into production, hopefully this summer.

 - Michael