Starlight: Sprints 6 & 7 (April 22 - May 18, 2019)

What was the goal of Sprints 6 & 7?
The ultimate goal of these sprints to have the code at a place where stakeholders could begin working in their respective installations. To get there, this required additional testing and bug fixes, campus theme refinement (including the ability to apply a global theme), and getting Shibboleth configured for UCSB.

What is the milestone that these sprints are supporting?
Milestone 1 is to have an initial instance of the Spotlight platform production ready for both campuses.

Accomplishments of Sprints 6 & 7:
Theming:

• Global
  - Ability to apply a theme globally through super admin dashboard
  - Ability to provide completely a completely customized header and footer for a theme
  - Ability to specify an environment variable when the application is deployed which instructs the application which theme(s) to make available in the user interface. (Now UCSB will not need to see UCSD’s theme as an option)
• UCSB
  - Theme updated to use new global theme solution
  - Hybrid approach to theming blending new UCSB branding guidelines with current UCSB website theme
  - “Eyebrow” header and footer are new brand guidelines (including new wordmarks)
  - Masthead on homepage uses patterned background from library website
  - Resolved padding, spacing, and other text formatting issues
• UCSD
  - Theme updated to use new global theme solution
  - Custom header and footer updated to more closely align with UCSD branding

Bug fixes and enhancements:

• Fixed rendering bug when making objects private
• Now properly support creating user accounts who were invited via the Starlight user interface. An example is adding a user as an administrator for an exhibit that has yet to authenticate with the application.
• The application routing now places exhibits under /starlight instead of /spotlight. So an exhibit previously with the URL of /spotlight/exhibits/a-special-exhibit is now /starlight/exhibits/a-special-exhibit
• The Starlight docker configuration was updated to be better prepared for future Kubernetes-based deployments, including running the Docker image as a regular user instead of a root user
• Fixed bookmark page theme routing issue

UCSB Shibboleth:

• We will be discussing Shibboleth authentication this coming Monday as part of an architecture debrief and plan for next steps. The team has concerns about the feasibility of Shibboleth both as a multi-campus authentication solution and as a cloud-native solution. Both of which are critical next steps for multiple Surfliner products.

UCSB Production and Staging servers have been set up:

• spotlight.library.ucsb.edu
• spotlight-stage.library.ucsb.edu

Met with core Spotlight team:

• Recognition that they have a variety of governance issues to discuss at Stanford with the community of would-be Spotlight contributors
• Chrissy will meet again with the Spotlight product owner at Stanford to continue this conversation as well. We have learned there are other institutions who have similar goals that we do with Spotlight
• We will share more as this develops

Did we do everything we set out to accomplish?
Yes, pretty much. The team feels that the code is in good shape for an initial deployment to both campuses. There are still some outstanding issues (export error, controlled vocabulary indexing bug, etc.) that have been documented by the team. Workarounds will be added to end user documentation where they exist. Additionally, we anticipate that there may be further theme revisions that need to be handled by team members at both campuses in response to stakeholder feedback. The teams at both campuses will be available to make these adjustments. Additionally, the UCSB team will be continuing to work on the Shibboleth implementation with campus ETS and to resolve the local smtp email issue.

So, what is next for Starlight? Jessica and Chrissy will work with local stakeholders to give them access to their local installations. Chrissy and Matt will be working on a Milestone 1 wrap-up sprint to make sure that documentation related to outstanding work is in good shape. Additionally, Chrissy will be following up with stakeholders directly regarding training, end user documentation, and gathering and prioritizing additional requirements.

As stakeholders begin working with the site, please add bug tickets as needed to GitLab and new ideas to the Aha! ideas portal. Team members at both campuses will be monitoring the GitLab issues and will respond to urgent requests.  

GitLab links:
https://gitlab.com/surfliner/surfliner/-/milestones/18
https://gitlab.com/surfliner/surfliner/-/milestones/15