Date: October 1, 2007 12:58:48 PM GMT-04:00
To: mcommunity.updates@umich.edu, fln@umich.edu, acsf@umich.edu, macsig@umich.edu, win2000@umich.edu, unix.admins@umich.edu, novell.admins@umich.edu
Subject: MCommunity Update: June 2008 Deliverables and More
Hello,
This message provides information about
The MCommunity enterprise directory will bring together data from multiple institutional sources and will organize, present, and secure the data in a way that is particularly well suited to managing access to University resources. If you have questions about MCommunity, please contact us.
Regards,
-- MCommunity Project Core Leads (MCommunity.core.leads@umich.edu)
Deliverables for June 2008
We are well into the design phase for the parts of MCommunity that we expect to make available to the campus by June 2008. These are the new MCommunity tools and systems you can expect then:
The Sponsor System and a web interface to it. This system will allow people in departments and in the ITCS Accounts Office to create and manage identities for sponsored individuals (e.g., summer campers, contractors, conference attendees, incoming faculty who need early access to computing resources, etc.). This system will also be used to create uniqnames for sponsored individuals.
We have prepared draft mockups of the web interface to the Sponsor System and conducted usability tests. We've made adjustments to the mockups based on those tests and plan additional usability testing for early October.
LDAP read-write programmatic interface or command-line utility that U-M IT staff can use to make changes to the LDAP data that they are authorized to change. Many departments do this work using U-M Online Directory data, and this tool will provide a way to continue this work with MCommunity.
New uns command line tool. We need to make some changes to the command line utility used to access the uniqname server to accommodate MCommunity. The functionality currently provided by the uniqname server will eventually be handled by MCommunity instead.
For more detail about about the MCommunity deliverables planned for June 2008 and beyond, see our detailed timeline information on the web.
Please note that although new MCommunity tools and systems will be provided in June, we will not yet take down any of the existing directory and uniqname tools and systems you currently use and depend on.
Our System Development Process
Our system development process is now available on our website. It lists the steps we are following and where we are in the process. We are at different steps in the process for different parts of MCommunity.
(http://www.itcs.umich.edu/mcommunity/process/)
Requirements Documents
We have published requirements documents for several parts of MCommunity. These documents are being used to guide our detailed design of the system. While they were written for the MCommunity developers, you might find them interesting.
(http://www.itcs.umich.edu/mcommunity/requirements/)
The documents published thus far cover these MCommunity components:
1. Identity Management.
A comprehensive set of tools and processes for creating and managing digital identities.
2. Sponsor System.
The system that allows for creation and management of identities (and uniqnames) for sponsored affiliates.
3. Identity Vault.
This includes the Registry and Directory, which will serve as the data and processing hub for identity management, service provisioning, and workflow.
Alpha Testing
We have formed a team of alpha testers who will participate in early testing of MCommunity system components. The team includes members from the Dearborn Campus, the Flint Campus, the College of Engineering, Housing, U-M Libraries, MAIS, and ITCS. The team has met twice, and plans for testing are being developed.
