Here are my notes/thoughts after our meeting today. Please comment as necessary.

  1. The Tech Council (and FOLIO at large) doesn’t have a technical blueprint on meeting reporting needs for FOLIO.
  2. We have 2 potentially related efforts, A reference implementation of the Library Data Platform (UXPROD-1128  and what turned into the AES (UXPROD-330) - both of which earlier were thought to represent the ‘official’ approach to reporting. These two aren’t aligned.
  3. FOLIO needs an official approach to reporting, including a technical blueprint and a clear delineation between what the FOLIO platform provides and whatever an implementation/tenant needs to provide themselves.

Specific thoughts related to the LDP document and the proof of concept that is being built:
  1. It is concerning that the data warehouse approach may be too closely tied to schemas inside FOLIO in that changes to FOLIO would force upkeep/maintenance of the ETL
  2. The original thought of FOLIO providing a Data Lake (from which a tenant would create potentially its own data warehouse or other reporting capabilities) may alleviate some of the maintenance burden associated with changing FOLIO Modules/schemas.
  3. The proof of concept is scheduled to finish in a week or two. We agreed to provide the core team support needed to finish this.
  4. It is assumed that the LDP effort aligns with what the Reporting SIG desires. In as much as the LDP isn’t totally aligned with the TC, that means that the TC is not aligned with the Reporting SIG, which is a problem.

The Tech Council has architectural responsibility for FOLIO and its approach to reporting. As such, the following actions are recommended:
  1. Creation of a reporting architectural blueprint. This would include where data is streamed vs batch exported, etc, where data lakes may be involved and generally how tenants would report against their FOLIO content and activity
  2. We need to resolve open questions related to the LDP approach/prototype, starting with documented and prioritized concerns. These should be discussed with Nassib. It’s possible those discussions impact the Blueprint. 
  3. We need to align with the Reporting SIG. Once we have performed the actions above we should meet to present the blueprint and discuss their needs and concerns.

Looking forward to your comments. I’d like to have some email dialog (or would you prefer a Google Doc?) so that we have as many issues ironed out prior to next Wednesday’s meeting. If anyone wants to volunteer to draft any part of the reporting blueprint or documented concerns with LDP, please do volunteer.

Thanks!

-mdg