Vision

The next generation of the collaboration platform will do far more than wikis or chat. ISDA wants to use the Clearspace product from Jive software as the base platform for customized collaboration products. The first product to use this platform as its base is Teamspaces, sponsored by the CCS team, for use in a Courseware context. IPS will use this project as a launchpad to understand the Clearspace application not just for this particular implementation, but for use in future products as part of the MAP set of application-platform components.

The IPS mission on the Teamspaces project is to take the baseline Clearspace product and determine that it integrates into the MIT environment with an acceptable level of simplicity. I needs to run in hosting environments that MIT provides to departments, it needs to integrate with user and group data, and work with all our existing authorization and authentication mechanisms. It must be an application that IPS has the skills to assist other developers in implementing.  

Backlog

Revised

• An internal end user* must provision an MIT identity through standard business channels and administrative applications that are external to the Clearspace UI.
  • Constraint: A Clearspace implementation's administrative UI for "signing up" should be hidden from end users.
  • Constraint: The project team cannot require Accounts to change to MIT's identity-management business rules or technical implementations of LDAP and Moira.
• An external end user* must provision an identity through the Touchstone registration process.
  • Constraint: A Clearspace implementation's administrative UI for "signing up" should be hidden from end users.
  • Constraint: The project team cannot require changes to MIT's identity-management business rules or the technical implementations of Touchstone.
• A space administrator must use Moira to define access controls for a space in a Clearspace implementation.
  • Constraint: A Clearspace implementation's administrative UI for managing or creating groups should be hidden from end users.
  • Constraint: The "groups" for display in a Clearspace implementation are all from Moira.

Old 

• And end user must go to an external system (Moira, Accounts, Touchstone, Stellar) to administer users, groups, and other facets of enterprise identity.
• When an end user updates a system of record (Moira, Touchstone), that change is reflected in the Clearspace installation in real time.
• The team must follow all existing business rules for users, group membership, status, etc. This project will not attempt to "fix" any business logic or processes related to managing user identity, other than providing a clean, real-time connection to identity information for client applications.
• A developer must integrate with Touchstone, IPS must be able to provide ongoing support for integrating Clearspace installations with Touchstone to other developers.
• A developer must integrate with Moira for access control lists, IPS must be able to provide ongoing support for integrating Clearspace installations with Moira groups to other developers.

• A development team must be able to run Clearspace on a Server-Operations hosted environment.
• IPS must be able to install and run Clearspace on JVM and web-application server environments that match our global standards.
• OIS will provide operational support of the Teamspaces implementation of Clearspace, therefore the MIT-customized version must be delivered as a clean install package or simple runbook, properly versioned and managed.
• A collaboration platform must allow for inclusion of members external to MIT. External identities must be derived Touchstone CAMS (possibly in combination with other sources), not stored in a local Clearspace installation.
• OIS must be assured that a Clearspace installation does not require that we feed, or shadow, data from enterprise identity systems into a local Clearspace data store.
• An end user must be able to use a "private" or "hidden" group list for access control. This means that even when Clearspace does not have access to the whole member list, it should still be able to determine if the authenticated user is in a private group, via a TRUE/FALSE mechanism.
  • Example: A client application sends a user ID and a group and the system returns an enumeration of that group's membership, subject to who the user is and the group's privacy attributes in the system of record (e.g. Moira's 'visible'/hidden' attributes).
  • Example: A client application sends a user ID (presumably the currently authenticated user) and the system returns the groups that user belongs to
  • Example: A client application is able to get all MIT users and their group affiliation, including all non-MIT/guest accounts and all affiliations and statuses.
• An outside developer will not have to understand the nuances of moira proxies to implement Clearspace. Either the method of integration makes this unnecessary, or the solution is scalable enough the IPS can support developers in setting this up.

• IPS can work on new ID web services, notably to Touchstone, if required.
• IPS performs enterprise hosting and enterprise ID integration work. Courseware integration is out of scope for Developer Support and the CCS team must provide the integration from Teamspaces to Stellar. This is a local implementation detail and not related to evaluating the platform for global use.

Taxonomy

Clearspace Implementation: Any given installation of the Clearspace platform, implying reuse for projects other than (but including) Teamspaces.

External End User: A person not a part of the MIT  community, not possessing a complete set of MIT identity characteristics.

Implementation Team: A theoretical, technical ISDA customer re-purposing the Clearspace platform.

Internal End User: A member of the MIT community possessing all of the local MIT identity characteristics.

Space Administrator: An end user with the privileges to administer access or configure specific spaces within a Clearspace implementation.

Notes to Self

• Are space administrators and external users mutually exclusive?