Denver, Colorado - September 5, 1995 Computer Policy Advisory Committee Meeting Minutes September 5, 1995 Denver, Colorado Attendees: Kathy Peter(Chair) KP Alan Lumb AL Jon Nowlin JN Isabelle Halley IH Jon Scott JS Brian Mrazik BM Steve Brady SB Tom Yorke TY Richard Hollway RH Sharon Kuhnlein SK Greg Allord GA Gloria Stiltner GS Verne Schneider VS Arlen Harbaugh AH Graig McHendrie GM Bill Carswell BC Cheryl Nelson CN Kevin Oberg KO Charles Tibbals CT Absent: Jerad Bales Minute Taker: Gloria Stiltner Kathy Peter introduced and welcomed the new District Chief members: Brian Mrazik (New Hampshire), and Charles Tibbals (Altamonte Springs) Kathy suggested sending memo to Janice and Hal to thank them for their PIC/CPAC membership. AI: KP - will draft memo from Bob Hirsch to Janice and Hal September 5th MEETING AGENDA ----------------------------- Status of compilation of policy memos - Stiltner and Peter ---------------------------------------------------------- Computer Policy Memos - suggestion was made to wait on recommendation from email archiving and regulations meeting on what and how to archive. Status of DIS actions - Stiltner -------------------------------- 1. Preliminary results from spreadsheet survey questionnaire to all WRD. 2. Draft of questionnaire to all WRD on common PC and MAC software used 3. Example of software support tri fold card designed by DIS - Applications Support Unit AI: GS on software support card put name of file so people can print, when it is updated. Check spelling. UPDATE: David had misspelled the words on purpose, but they will be corrected AI: GS - ASU will produce new copy for dissemination. Card will be sent to System Administrators to handout to all computer users. UPDATE: Card and memos are being copied. Mailed week of Oct 2. PC & MAC questionnaire - AI: CPAC recommended that we send out Corporate Picture of software issues instead of sending out a survey. The compilation should ask the WRD users what functional needs are we missing in our assumptions. Don't ask specific questions about lab equipment. It is DIS's position to support the important packages. We will start with this list. It was suggested that we support data exchange between packages (import/export). AI: Gloria will have Tom Wood rewrite and send for CPAC comment Spreadsheet The spreadsheet survey did not really give us any more insight then we already had. About 585 people answered the survey. One of the big spreadsheet issues is how to interchange data, e.g. put things into FrameMaker, graphics Hot links very productive; capability to move data between packages, integrated tools It was suggested that DIS summarize information from the spreadsheet. Use the results in the strategic planning effort and the note to the field about PC and MAC software support. What is theCost of Exclaim on the DG? Exclain is available. Single user. CPAC says we need a Working Interoperable system. Status of NWIS-II testing and release - Yorke --------------------------------------------- The transfer of discrete data in the Arizona District was successful. Additional modifications are being made to automate more of the transfer process. The time series transfer was not successful. About 30 percent of the unit and daily values were not transferred. The code has been rewritten and will be tested during the week of September 18. The discrete and time-series applications were tested in July. The discrete applications are generally fully integrated and complete except for boolean query and attribute/result report. This is a critical application that must be functioning before release of the software. The other discrete data applications are in the stage of fixing bugs. The time-series applications did not test well because they were not fully integrated with the discrete applications. The integration has been completed and the applications will be used to validate the mapping of time-series data during the week of September 4. There are still some outstanding issues with system reference lists. John Briggs is responsible for finalizing the relationhip between parent and child procedures and parameters. Jeff Christman is updating procedures used by the time-series applications so they are consistent with the discrete-data procedures. 3 tests scheduled in Arizona Sept. 4 - Time series transferred data tested Sept. 18 - Rerun the time series unit and daily value Sept. 25 - users to work with users to test site information and component Proposal by District Chief's work group to port ADAPS immediately - Yorke ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Recommendation was made by DC chiefs at the Naitonal DC mtg to port ADAPS It was also suggested at that senior staff mtg to do a review of NWISII and do an assessment of where we are and what needs to be completed. Recommend improvements in the enhancements process NMD will head up a group 3 users, 2 NMD system persons, 2 developers They have met to come up with a strategy for review users would go through current set of applications to see how much of the system was finished NMD - putting together recommendation for review Keith McFadden, Bill Barlett, Kathy Fitzgerald, Jeff Christman, John Terry Information from review committee should be available by mid-October. Find out how much work needs to be done. Reviewed by the testers also. ADAPS has been ported. AH wants NWIS to consider just porting ADAPS and going with NWIS-II GW and QW. 95 Water Use report is ported to DG. Howard Perlman did it. AI: VS & TY Port of the Primes - full analysis of state of NWIS-II report and full estimate and port plans of cost of the port by November Meeting AI: TY - CPAC recommended that more information from NWIS-II to the users be disseminated. Status of Annual Data Report-FrameMaker workgroup (PIC AI) - Yorke ------------------------------------------------------------------ FrameMaker workgroup take component of information from NWIS-II and merge into Frame documents and generate an annual report. Templates were walked thru, Colorado group liked the templates. Applications needed to grab these pieces and put in Frame document, Ask researchers to identify potential people to help out. CPAC recommended that status of this be disseminated to the field. The information could also be presented to the other regions. GA - what is the status of the State Data Reports? Was HQs going to provide support for boiler plate. Answer is yes. Darwin's program will read the information and comment on it. Districts can contact the following people?? for help. JN - release the draft of the template report AI: VS and GA will look into status of disseminating this information. AI: CPAC recommended that the Status of SPIDER group be disseminated. GA will ask Ken Lanfear to do this. GUI pat report (PIC AI) - Lumb ------------------------------ The following packages will be evaluated MFC (python), WxWindows, MOTIF, Interaction and/or GINS python/tk JS - Group should address the issues of training and support for the GUI application CPAC voted to continue to investigate GUIs. Report from Email archival group - Briefing on preliminary report and --------------------------------------------------------------------- recommendations - Halley des Fontaines -------------------------------------- Draft of preliminary report and recommendations were presented to CPAC. Next step: Ernie Dryer will come up with an implementation plan for recommendations of the archival group. Introduction of Software Library Proposal (AI from SIT) - Scott ---------------------------------------------------------------- It was agreed that this would be discussed at the next meeting. NEXT MEETING'S AGENDA GS - will identify problems that need to be agreed upon and addressed early by CPAC in the next 6 months AI: ask Chris Barnes to add Gary Allord to NT server email list AI: Send NTWindows testing summary update: UPDATE: Chris sent 9/19 Next Meeting: November 14-15, Reston, VA February Meeting Dates to be determined ACTION ITEMS FROM MAY, 1995 MEETING AND STATUS: (CPACers please update this AI list) Summary of action items Comment: the MO district has installed Corel and Illustrator on a networked Pentium system to provide better service for that capability. AI: Graig should talk with Gabe about the details on this. UPDATED AI: 9/13/95: from Gabe: Our experience in serving software on the pc's isn't much. However, it soon will be. We have ordered a pentium to be an NT server to about 7 windows95 pc's and maybe the mac's as well. We chose NT server over NT workstation because of it's management capabilities. We are also interested in serving Excel to the dg's from the NT server. By the way, NT workstation will serve up to 10 pc's. Comment from Independence: AIS report processing needs to be speeded up. A task that took just a few minutes took more than an hour from Independence. Connection is currently over a 19.2 line but will soon be upgraded to 56. Action: Steve Brady should be provided more details and he will look in to it. Action: Jim Fulton needs to get details on G2 problems in Missouri and make sure they are addressed by the new release. Action: Terry Reinitz needs to check on the Frame template issues and make sure they are covered by releases of new templates expected mid-summer. Q: what is being done about standardizing on AMLs, marker and symbol sets for meeting publication standards? A: A lot has been done locally but little has been captured and standardized. This is an issue that CPAC should address. Action: Gloria Stiltner will have Doug Nebert follow up on this item. Action: Kathy - Before the next town meeting, we should suggest that the users get together in small groups and discuss their issues. We could provide some pump-priming questions if needed. A CPAC member must be assigned to coordinate with the users at the meeting site. Action: Members should send comments on charter to Hal by end of the week. Hal will turn it into a fleshed-out document within a month. He will circulate and give 2 weeks for comments back. A completed draft will be presented at the next meeting. Action: Graig - A WWW page structure will be established for CPAC information, including the minutes. UPDATED AI: 9/13/95: from Graig: Done. The reference is Action: Tom Yorke will prepare a list of questions/issues that must be addressed by DODEC in evaluating its merger into NWIS II. Action: Pete Rogerson will coordinate that DODEC evaluation effort. The evaluation should be prepared along the "Must Know" format presented above. Action: Bill Carswell will bring up CDPs at the next Human Resources meeting. Action: CPAC members with comments on CDPs should send them to Bill. Action: Within 2-4 weeks, each Regional Computer Specialist must contact each of their districts to discuss and assess what additional computer resources will be needed for NWIS-II. Action: Greg Allord, Gloria, and Verne continue their discussions with Jim Biesecker on the need to better consolidate efforts of the DIS and Publications groups and committees, perhaps even merging the existing two committees into one. Action: Isabelle should notify the Email archiving subgroup that this is a high-priority issue and requested to supply us with a timeline and workplan within a month. UDATE: Sept 5, Report was presented to CPAC/ Action: Sharon K. and Bill C. will present to the group info on potential strategic planning facilitators by 5/30. Action: Gloria, Graig, Steve, Jerad will gather information for a strategic plan synopsis by June 16th. UPDATE: SE Region information obtained and forwarded. Also ICOM Strategic Plan obtained. NER SP obtained, USGS IRM planned obtained/ Action: Jon Scott will take the lead on refining the "Must Know" list by the next meeting. Action: Members send their comments to Jon by June 1. Action: Susan Trapanese, Jeff Miller, Merritt Blalock, and Graig McHendrie will continue to explore the idea of MS-Windows/DOS applications server for the network that would serve the applications to an X device. UPDATED AI: 9/13/95 WR BRR/ORH have ordered an HP 500 to test that approach for serving MS Windows applications to X devices. See the Web page at Action: a subgroup of HASS, NWIS, AIS, DIS, Discipline Offices and some NMD folks will evaluate GUIs. Alan Lumb will chair. Will present their results in the "Must Know" form for the next meeting. Action: Members should review the questionnaire sent out with the last minutes and comments returned to Kathy within a month.