06 Mar 13 ITTS News Meeting – February 19, 2013
1. Drupal Modules (Rob)
Rob explained how decisions are made about which Drupal modules we can add to the ala.org installation and why
ITTS evaluates each module request, with the first criterion being its development status;
“alpha” modules are never installed because they’re too unstable and there’s no guarantee the developer will fix any problems
modules in “beta” testing are considered, but we’ll still take into consideration other factors, such as whether the developer is actively working on the module, if it’s dependent on other modules being installed first, etc.
“release candidate” status on a module still equals “beta”
even when accepted for testing, modules can still fail when implemented on the development site because the module just doesn’t work properly in our environment or with other installed modules
a list of existing modules in the ala.org installation is available at http://www.ala.org/support/res/modules
we’ll also add a list of rejected modules to the Support site
2. Connect Migration to Drupal 7 (Jenny)
the upgrade is scheduled to begin at 6:00 pm CST on Wednesday, March 6th
Connect will be offline for approximately an hour if all goes well
watch the Connect Twitter account for updates – http://twitter.com/alaconnect
users shouldn’t notice any major changes when the new version is up – the interface will be the same, with only minor changes made to chats (see January 2013 meeting notes)
once we’re in Drupal 7 and the dust has settled, we’ll begin working on better email notifications
watch for an online poll to provide feedback about how you think the notifications should look and what should be in them and where
we’re also planning a larger survey about Connect later this year to get broader feedback about how to improve the site
3. Merging Connect and ala.org Profiles (Jenny)
ITTS continues to work on the plan to merge Connect and ala.org profiles into a single profile that will result in a new, standalone membership directory; all of the data will be unified and will live in iMIS as our central source
we’ll be implementing Apache Solr as the search engine for profiles (members, non-members, and staff), which will allow us to offer faceted searching
this also means that Connect profile interests will be available to units via iMIS for use with Informz
4. Status of the New Hire Form (Louise)
the form is not yet ready but is getting closer to going live
Louise discussed various features and showed the “Changes and Departures” side of the form (building on what was shown at the January 2013 ITTS Update meeting)
when live, the form will be behind a staff login on the Support site
ITTS will seek feedback from Unit Managers before the form goes live
all other related, existing forms will be deactivated when this new one goes live
5. New Event Management System (Sherri)
the group working on selecting a new system has narrowed the choices to two vendors
we hope to sign a contract in March and begin work as soon as possible since the new service has to be ready for testing in August
