25.10.2013 VME-DB

Meeting 25 October 2013, 11:00-18:00 pm

Location: FAO, Rome.

Presents:

• M. Assante - CNR
• F. Fiorellato - FAO
• A. Gentile - FAO
• E. Van Ingen - FAO

Agenda

11:00-12.30

Discussion: M. Assante, E. Van Ingen

• Status and presentations of the new tools
  • The gCube Reports Modeler
  • The gCube Reporting Library

13:00-14:00

Lunch Break

14:00-17:30

Discussion: M. Assante, A. Ellenbroek, A. Gentile, E. Van Ingen

• VME-DB / iMarine Interoperability
  • iMarine Templates Web Application
  • iMarine Reports Web Application
  • How to transform VME-DB Reports in iMarine Reports and viceversa.
  • How to save VME-DB Reports in iMarine Workspace

Notes

• iMarine VME-DB Application will be divided into 3 tiers:
  • [1] VME-DB: The Database containing the VME Reports (Relational/Graph Structure)
  • [2] iMarineReports: The WebApplication delegated to the creation and editing of VME Reports
  • [3] Report Storage Gateway (RSG): The (mediator) Webservice that will make [1] and [2]interoperable.

• The communication between [3] and [2]. will be based on a ReportModel that [2] is able to read and write.
  • CNR to provide FAO an API (ReportsModeler) to easily create and read ReportModel instances based on the gCube Reporting Library:

<groupId>org.gcube.portal</groupId>
<artifactId>gcube-reporting-library</artifactId>

• A VME Report (even its Fact Sheet Representation) originates from a Query (join) executed against the VME-DB.
  • As a result a VME Report contains unique and referenced (shared among other VME Reports) information.

Proposal

The information, regardless of the domain (VME, FishFinder, NEAFC..), can be classified into two main categories: "Core information resources" and "Shared information resources" (References in the following).

The iMarine reporting tool supports already the first category (core) while it will be enriched for covering the second category: the references. The core information can be temporary saved in the iMarine workspace for further editing iterations while the references are directly updated in the "originator" DB through a temporary locking procedure.

From an end-user point of view

• When an end-user opens a VME Report in [2] (Report Instance in the following) he can edit only the Core parts of the report, specifically, the ones belonging to the VME-DB relations named: VME, SpecificMeasure, Profile.

• The opened Report Instance contains also the references (Shared information resources) without giving the possibility of editing them (in this stage). The identified references are the VME-DB relations named: GeneralMeasure, InformationSource, History_1, History_2.

• It is possible for an end-user to associate and remove References from a Report Instance, e.g. remove or associate more than an InformationSource. The References list (where users can choose from) is populated in "real-time" by [2] trough a specific call to [3].

• A Report Instance can be saved in the workspace, an explicit action is required by the end user to export it to the VME-DB.

• The editing of References will be performed through a separated WebApp (CNR To Do) called Reference Editor. In the Reference Editor a reference can be edited through the following steps:
  • Step1: The list of VME Reports available is shown to the User, the User chooses a VME Report containing the Reference he wants to edit.
  • Step2: The list of the all the References "Associated" to the yet chosen VME Report is shown, User chooses the Reference.
  • Step3: At this point the User acquires a Lock on this Reference, the user edits and saves, the reference is committed in the VME-DB (still through [3]), the reference is unlocked.

• Each Report Instance having References is guaranteed to show the most updated ones since, wether the Report Instance comes directly from [3] or was previously saved in the workspace, [2] always asks [3] these references (that comes directly from [1]). ([3] passes [2] the reference identifier not the reference itself).

From an developer point of view

Reports Store Gateway [3] Draft Interface:

types: {Vme,Refs,InformationSource,GeneralMeasure,History1,History2}

Type getTypes();
 
ReportEntry - List<nameValue>
 
List<ReportEntry> listReports(type);
 
ReportModel getReport(type, reportId);
 
publishDelta(List<ReportModel>);
 
publishRef(ReportModel);

 

A ReportRef has attributes id and type