The requirements for the sharing notification service have been initially written by Mark Surman. The following text consists mostly of original text. After it had been posted on the APC Action Applications mailing list, there were some discussions about it. Some results of these discussions have been added to the text.
The original text is printed in fixed font,while the additions have proportional font and bold face.
The original text as well as the discussion is archived in the SourceForge mailing list archive at http://www.geocrawler.com/lists/3/SourceForge/4305/0/ (look for subject "Requirements - Sharing Notification Tool"; some discussion also happened under the subject "email subscription service").
APC Action Applications Sharing Notification Service - Feature Description August 25, 2000 1.0 Purpose of This Document This document outlines the basic requirements for a slice directory and sharing notification system that will facilitate communication between people who have created sharing relationships within the APC Action Applications. 2.0 Background APC's Action Applications are simple Web-based publishing tools that allow non-profit organizations to post news, events and other information on their Web sites. To post, non-profits simply cut and paste information into a Web-based form. Content management is also performed via a Web interface. One of the key features of the Action Applications is the ability for non-profits to share content with each other. Each non-profit Action App is called a slice. Slices can having 'sharing relationships' where they automatically feed content to each other. Sharing is managed in a section of the Action App admin interface called 'feeding'. The feeding management tool allows a slice owner to offer sharing relationships to other slices. It also allow slice owners to accept a sharing relationships that have been offered to them. Once a sharing relationship has been accepted, the feeding of content between slices is automatic. While this interface works well at a functional level, it provides slice owners with very little information about each other and about the relationships that are being offering. To address this problem, the APC would like to add a slice directory and sharing notification system to the Action Apps. These tools would give slice owners the opportunity to look up descriptions of other slices. It would also provide e-mail notification when sharing relationships are offered and accepted. 3.0 Slice Directory Requirements The slice directory is simply a method of listing all of the slices within an individual action application installation. Each entry in the slice directory should include: - Slice name - Slice description (no sure if we have a field for this yet) - 'Slice owner - name or org name - Slice owner e-mail address The listing of items should be alphabetical and include all slices that do not have an 'exclude from slice directory' flag. Users should be able to filter the list of slices using the default category list. For example, they should be able to list all slices that use the environment category and exclude all other slices. The slice directory should be available from the feeding page in the admin interface. The feeding page should also include a check box which enables a user to exclude their slice from the slice directory. 4.0 E-mail Notification Requirements The e-mail notification system is intended to let slice owners know when sharing relationships are offered, accepted or removed. 4.1 Offering Sharing When a Slice Owner A wants to offering a sharing relationship to Slice Owner B, she enters the feeding admin interface and adds a new slice to the list of slices she is willing to share with. When this happens, an e-mail should be sent to Slice Owner B to say that sharing has been offered. 4.2 Accepting Sharing When this e-mail is received by Slice Owner B, she can either ignore or accept the offer of sharing. To ignore the offer, no action is required. To accept the offer, Slice Owner B must go to the feeding admin interface and enable sharing. When he enables sharing, an e-mail should be sent back to Slice Owner A saying that her offer has been accepted. 4.3 Removing Sharing If Slice Owner B ever removes the sharing relationship, and e-mail message should be sent to Slice Owner A informing her that the sharing relationship has been eliminated. 4.4 Message Editing Page Each slice should have a Web page that allows the slice owner to edit the text included in the e-mail offers, acceptances and removals. Default text should be included with all slices. Users should be able to modify or replace this default information by editing text in a Web form window.
The message edit pane should also include notification options. It is managed by the slice administrator. Option include settings about which users receive email notification messages concerning the slice.
Also, the discussion brought up a new feature which is considered needed: An email notification for new items in the holding bin. The users who get these messages can be set here, too.
4.5 Sharing Log There should be a sharing log that tracks all offers, acceptance and removals. This should be available only to the super users. Next Steps The next step in this process is to write a basic technical specification for this service. This service is slated for development as a part of Action App release 2.0.