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IS480 Team wiki: 2009T1 Adeline’s Boys

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Project Overview

SMU has setup an Intellectual Property Management Office (IPMO) as a part of the Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (IIE). As the office is still in its startup phase, they look forward to having an online system that will help them keep track of all innovation disclosures submitted to this office and manage the life cycle of the IP.

It will be an online platform where innovators can electronically submit a new innovation idea via a web form. Thereafter, selected evaluators from the industry will be able to review the innovation and assign scores to it. Innovators will then be able to know if they have passed the "stress test" and judging criteria of the evaluators. They will be able to commercialize the innovation or have their innovation patented if they pass the test. SMU IIE will be integral in the entire process.


We call our system IMPRESSION!

Motivation

In recent years, Singapore has been encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship, with the availability of seed funding for interesting and viable ideas. As entrepreneurship in the local scene grows, the need for a proper and structured system for the handling of patents increases.

Our team seek to address this issue by coming up with an intuitive content management system which serves the need as a conventional document system as well as the ability to handle workflows for patent approvals.


Objectives

Outcomes: A working copy of IPMS by November 2009

Value Statement: the IIE would be able to manage the innovation disclosure process much more efficiently, therefore seeking more ways to value add the role of the IIE in promoting entrepreneurship in SMU.


Impression would help the Intellectual Property Management Office to:

• Administer and monitor intellectual disclosures and the intellectual property lifecycle more effectively and efficiently

• Allow innovators to submit anytime and anywhere

• Aid managerial decision making with useful reports related to intellectual property compliance, and revenues and expenses incurred.


We have selected Microsoft Office SharePoint Server to be our main platform, aided by design tools, namely Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2007, as well as Microsoft Visual Studio 2008.


Features of Impression

1. Innovation disclosure submission

2. Innovation disclosure approval and routing management

3. Tracking innovation disclosure, IP lifecycle and sponsor compliance

4. Calendaring of marketing efforts and campaigns

5. Document Management System

6. Report generation and views for innovators, approvers, and administrators

7. Configuration management (manage approval routes, add drop evaluators)

Our team’s sponsor is Ms Adeline Tan, Manager, Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, SMU (adelinetan@smu.edu.sg) Stakeholders (Users) Innovators (Staff/Faculty/Students), Evaluation committee (Internal or External) and IPMO staff as administrators of the site.


Supervisor

Mr. Ng Tock Soon


Team Members

CAI Duanjie

KOH Kim Kui, Nathaniel

TOH Wei Zheng, Darren

XIE Shunping

YANG Kangwei


Project Updates

July - Aug

- Deliberated between the selection of Platform Technology. SharePoint vs OpenCMS vs Coding from Scratch

- Discovered an Open Source Content Management System based on SharePoint - Alfresco, and adopted the platform

- Finalized Weekly Meeting Schedules prior to school re-opening

- Discussed with CAC and IIE with regards to the feasibility of Open Source Deployment, and the availability of servers.

- Go ahead for Open Source Technology given by Adeline (Project Sponsor), and deployment is likely to be external

- Drawing up of Preliminary Use Cases

- Creating of our Platform Identity - IMPRESSION!


01 Aug - 16 Aug

- Finalized Use Cases

- Project Timeline drawn up, which see us completing the functionality of the project before Mid-Term break

- Explore the possibility of Single Sign On (SSO) for SMU staff and students

- Reduction on the "number of clicks" being looked into

- Bug Tracking will be largely based on a shared excel file

- Actual deployment of Alfresco on our workstations and ensuring that it works with Windows XP/Vista - Complete, with minor bugs

- Having a page which includes an overview of a particular workflow


17 Aug - 23 Aug

- Finalization of Forms A and B (For submission of innovation idea)

- To have a feedback session after every PM rotation

- Challenges faced in deploying Alfresco and its sample website

- Challenges faced again in deploying Alfresco other than Windows XP

- Team is constantly looking into solving the problem, and deadline for deployment of sample website is 25 Aug


24 Aug - 30 Aug

- Encountered various issues with Alfresco, including long deployment time each time we start up, and lack of user friendliness in the development environment

- Analyzed our skill sets, and deliberated on whether using a new tool is more important or delivering the project in its totality

- Met up with Tock Soon, and informed him of our dilemma and difficulties

- Client is not particular about the platform. They are concerned of its capability and feature.

- We have decided to give SharePoint a shot. Deadline for decision: End of the week.

- SharePoint and Alfresco have similar features. We have previously evaluated SharePoint, but chose Alfresco as it is a platform that is new and challenging

- With the timeline pressing on us, we have to be objective. More importantly, we need to deliver what we promised.


31 Aug - 6 Sep

- Everything in FYP Server up and running, including all softwares and system configurations

- Successfully set up Form A and Form B in InfoPath and published as web content for use in SharePoint. Submitted forms are stored in SharePoint libraries

- Initial design of UI up and approved by all team members. Pending actual development in SharePoint Designer

- Working on a sample template to tweak and customize to our requirements

- Important things to do next:

    1. Extract InfoPath Form data into SharePoint list or database
    2. Linking of submitted form i.e. Form A and a form which allows judges to leave their comments and score. They should be uniquely identified.


7 Sept - 13 Sep

- FYP Server transfered from FYP lab to iLab on 10 Sep. Internet connection down in the server.

- UI for Home Page, Administrator, and Innovator drafted in Sharepoint Designer.

- Updating of multiple rows in a form in a list achieved.

- Updated progress to Tock Soon in meeting


14 Sept - 20 Sep

- Static Design up for entire site

- Uploading of all information required in Form A into a SharePoint list in progress

- Draft of LDAP codes done for registration of users into SharePoint

- Began extensive usage of VMWare as our FYP machine's internet connection is still down

- Sept 11 incident: "Our FYP machine has dished out IP addresses illegally and that has caused SMU financially and has affected SMU reputation."

- In response, our team had a meeting and concluded that we know nothing about the incident and are unsure how that happened. We have clarified with one another, and no one has done anything malicious to the FYP machine. We will continue the FYP as usual, despite the lack of support from our FYP machine as it is down. (Switch to VMWare)

- This incident has in fact bonded our team further, and given us strength and motivation to conquer all obstacles.


21 Sept - 27 Sep

- Extraction of data from SharePoint Database test complete. Pending application of test result to FYP machine when the Forms and Workflows are set up

- Form A and Form B up on new machine, including partial customization of UI to fit Forms A and B

- List column permissioning configured with customization and application of source codes from the internet

- Workflow: Part A done -- From innovator submitting the Form A to the Administrator assigning it to the appropriate judges

- Workflow: Working on assigning forms to all members of a group (this function is not supported by the default SharePoint feature)

- Working on "internet facing" registration as we expect external users to register to our SharePoint site

- Consulted Wee Chuan (IITS) for his knowledge in SMU's domain architecture and the feasibility of allowing external users into the SharePoint Site in preparation for deployment into the production environment. (A "yes" from Wee Chuan. However, we need to think harder on the configurations"

- Consulted Professor Ilse on the same issue as we try to learn from her wealth of industry experience

- Mid term reflection draft completed for supervisor review. Working on the actual mid-term reflection for submission the following Monday.


28 Sept - 5 Oct

- Finalized evaluation criteria with SMU IIE

- Enable every hour backup of a copy of codes

- Team work together and brainstorm on how to enable a easy user interface when innovator logs in -- so that innovator does not need to send so many emails to SMU IIE for clarification

- User access configuration for innovator, reviewer and administrator

- Initializing customize permission level for innovators, reviewer and administrator


6 Oct - 13 Oct

- Conducted UAT Phase 1 with within own team (functionalities: authentication, submitting form A, assigning judges for evaluation, submitting evaluation)

- Conducted UAT Phase 1 on system functionalities such as user access rights, adding of user into various user group: innovator, judges and administrator

- Client feedback on the following possible improvements:

1. Change text of pending evaluation to "Please review"

2. Suggested a similar innovator welcome screen from ICA.gov.sg-APPLES

3. Ability for reviewer to save as draft during evaluation in the event that he has to leave half way for other purposes such as meeting

4. Instead of group assign for judges to evaluation, SMU IIE would prefer individual assign to allow more flexibility

5. Instead of populating the entire list of pending evaluation, SMU IIE would prefers to view it from an innovation title perspective

- Customize user interface for innovator, look and feel, navigation tabs and bar

- Improvement on workflow settings for sending email notification

- Preparation of UAT Phase II for SMU IIE in the week of 19th Oct 2009

- Enhancement of form A and B using JavaScript

- Custom list permission settings configuration for 3 different user groups: reviewer, administrator, innovator


14 Oct - 21 Oct

- Creation of custom level permission for reviewers, innovators, administrator

- Programming of display view for innovators, reviewers and administrator

- Creation of workspace for innovator, reviewers and administrator

- Customize sub site permission settings for various user groups

- Utilize SharePoint designer to create different view settings

- Programming of XSLT on display of data (personalization)

- Creation of workflow to send email notification to different user upon updates

- Configuration of email server, pop3 and smtp


22 Oct - 29 Oct

- Show/hide functionality for display of form A and form B

- Display of form A and form B data using XSLT

- Refine dynamic table row generated using C#

- Re-direct settings upon user group settings

- Deploy code behinds into windows assembly and modify code access security on web.config (more refinements to code access security will be implemented during production where the DLLs will not be deploy into the windows assembly but a custom code access security script will be return)

- Creation of display page for innovator, administrator and reviewers using SharePoint designer to pull out from custom list


30 Oct - 6 Nov

- Re-directing user based on group membership

- Design UAT test plan - phase 1 1. submission of form A and form B 2. user interface feedback 3. permission settings test plan 4. security site settings

Project Management Skills Acquired so far

1. Signing off black and white during requirements gathering phase -- useful when change in requirements occur, team could manage it as change request

2. Managing client/sponsors expectation and change request -- evaluating of resources and impact when managing a change request

3. Leveraging on resources such as instructors who are expert in SharePoint technologies -- fasten development work and resources utilization

4. Managing team expectation - Understanding what can be done and what cannot be done with available resources

5. Managing deadlines and milestones - Multiple projects and assignments running concurrently with FYP,

6. Managing team morale - Coping with various point of downtime and accident, watch video to boost morale: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QbgOGnbxDo

Technical Skills Acquired so far

1. Utilizing code behind and windows assembly to write C# codes

2. Understanding Cascading Style Sheets and how it works to enhance display settings

3. Writing XSL Transformations in transforming XML documents into other forms for display purposes

4. Writing JavaScript for display form A and form B in a new window

5. Considering code access security in SharePoint web.config for deploying DLL into windows assembly

6. Using SharePoint designer to edit and create aspx pages

7. Creating customize display data from SharePoint office server