NIH Directory Project
Steering Committee Meeting Minutes
April 13, 1999
Participants:
Today's meeting included a demonstration of the Fast Track Directory user web interface. As expected, the demo focused committee members' attention on important issues regarding the content and use of the Fast Track directory and on business processes associated with its implementation. The remainder of this document summarizes the topics discussed and decisions made as a result.
After viewing the UID search screen, a lengthy discussion followed regarding how many and which attributes should be required to search for an individual in the directory. For the demo, the following attributes were included on the UID search screen:
 | Last Name |
| SSN |
| Date of Birth |
| Gender |
| Mother's Maiden Name |
| City of Birth |
| State of Birth |
| Country of Birth |
| Alias Last Name(s) |
| Alias First Name(s) |
| Alias Middle Name(s) |
However, the only required field was "Last Name." It was suggested that SSN be required, but noted that many people at NIH do not have SSNs, either because they are foreigners in the visiting program, or contractors (many of whom have SSNs that don't get captured by existing business processes). Contractors are presently required to provide only name and company affiliation. The new parking and ID system, which will include online photos, will help, but it was suggested that the business process for registering contractors might need to be changed. Someone estimated that up to 50% of the total NIH population (including contractors) do not have SSNs on file.
It was suggested that information be entered into four or five required fields in order to perform a search and should include first, middle, and last name, SSN, date of birth and gender. As in previous meetings, an objection was raised regarding the use of mother’s maiden name. As a result of the continuing controversy surrounding this issue, it was agreed that mother's maiden name will be dropped. A question posed, but not fully answered, was what happens if one of the fields is entered incorrectly. In any event, it was agreed that all information entered via the UID search screen should be "carried over," or automatically inserted into other screens to minimize data entry. A number of people expressed the opinion that the amount of information collected for a person might dictate the NIH services that would be available to that individual (e.g., a "weak" UID could allow an e-mail account to be created, but not allow one to get a badge). It was stressed that maintaining a minimum amount of information about a person is important in terms of being able to identify them in the directory ten years from now as more people come through NIH.
Security concerns were raised including the display of a person’s personal information. It was pointed out that other NIH systems (e.g., ITAS) allow off-campus access and display information such as SSN across unsecured lines. Apparently, this is not supposed to be the case and Don Preuss promised to look into it. It was suggested that access to the Fast Track from the outside world could be limited through a Parachute account. This would at least limit off-campus access to NIH workers. It was agreed that personal information should be used for searches and not routinely displayed.
People liked the idea of having a main menu with options corresponding to the basic business processes associated with the Fast Track. For the demo the three options were:
| Register a new employee or contractor |
| Update an existing employee or contractor's information |
| De-register an employee or contractor |
It was pointed out that "deregister" is an existing process and suggested that this be renamed to avoid confusion. Also, with the addition of directory statuses "transferring" and "suspended" to the previously defined active and inactive statuses, it was felt that there should be a "change status" option on the main menu. Thus, the main menu will be modified as follows:
| Register an individual |
| Update an individual's information |
| Change the status of an individual |
Selecting the latter will bring up a new screen with the following options:
| Deactivate an individual |
| Transfer an individual |
| Suspend an individual |
| Activate an individual |
There was concern expressed about the possibility of a new person being registered to the wrong IC. This is not possible because the user interface has been designed so that it defaults to the IC of the person who is registering the new individual. The interface also allows AOs (or their delegates) to update information only if that person is affiliated with their IC. It was correctly pointed out, however, that people working in the parking and ID badge office must be able to update directory entries across ICs. There was talk about needing both vertical and horizontal permissions for other groups as well and allowing them to change only certain fields. This functionality must be incorporated into the Fast Track authentication and authorization process.
The layout of the web pages was discussed. Currently, directory information is organized around the following four screens:
 | Office (top of screen) |
| Home/Personal (bottom of screen) |
| Work (top of screen) |
| Home/Personal (bottom of screen |
It was agreed that it is preferable to organize around the following three screens:
Based on our discussion, the Personal Information screen will include the following attributes for an individual in the Fast Track directory:
| First Name |
| Last Name |
| Middle Name |
| Salutation |
| Generation |
| Nickname(s) |
| Gender |
| SSN |
| Directory Status (e.g. active) |
| Date of Birth |
| City of Birth |
| State of Birth |
| Country of Birth |
| First Name Alias(es) |
| Last Name Alias(es) |
| Middle Name Alias(es) |
| Comments |
| Effective Date |
| Termination Date |
Based on our discussion, the Work Information screen will include the following attributes for an individual in the Fast Track directory:
| |
| Phone |
| Mobile Phone |
| Fax |
| Pager |
| Web Site URL |
| Building |
| Room |
| Street |
| City |
| State |
| Zip Code |
| Delivery Address |
| Postal Address |
| Mail Stop |
| Job Series Title |
| Organizational Title |
| NIH Status (e.g., FTE) |
| SAC |
| Organizational Unit |
| Contractor Affiliation |
| Contractor Phone |
Based on our discussion, the Home Information screen will include the following information for an individual in the Fast Track directory:
| |
| Phone |
| Mobile Phone |
| Fax |
| Pager |
| Mailing Address |
| Emergency Contact Name |
| Emergency Contact Phone |
For the demo, the UID search results screen ("hit list") returned the following information for a person matching the search criteria:
| First Name |
| Last Name |
| SSN |
| Date of Birth |
| City of Birth |
| State of Birth |
| Country of Birth |
There was an objection to displaying SSN (or any other private information). Ideally, the UID search results screen would display enough information to allow somebody to identify the individual, but limit the ability to view private information. Unfortunately, these objectives are to some extent, conflicting. One suggestion was to display as much public information as possible alongside the name of each person returned from a search. An alternative would be to display public information alongside the person's name and also allow a user to click on the person to bring up a screen showing additional details, possibly including private information. This would at least make it more difficult for anyone to harvest a large number of SSNs or other private information at one time.
It was suggested that the data entry screens have no defaults so that the person entering the data is forced to make a decision regarding the content of each field. It was pointed out that an "unknown" or "unavailable" option needs to be added to the "gender" drop down list. In general, the same rule should apply to all other drop down menus in order to give users the option to leave a field blank. Whenever possible, however, the interface will utilize drop down lists in order to maximize data standardization.
It was suggested that attribute definitions for some of the more cryptic fields (e.g., NIH unique email address) be available to Fast Track users. This could be accomplished through the use of on-screen examples of value and format or pop-up help screens. To facilitate data entry, it was suggested that possible names pop up as letters are typed into a field like a person’s name. There was also a recommendation that a "Done" button be included on each page so a person doesn’t have to go through unnecessary pages to get out of the interface. Someone suggested that the NIH logo at the top of most screens be removed in order to maximize the space available for displaying actual information. It was also pointed out that some folks still run their computers at 640 X 480 resolution and that this must be taken into account a it pertains to horizontal scrolling.
There was a discussion regarding the relevance of the "secretary" and "manager" attributes. The general consensus was that these are not really useful at the present time. Thus, it was decided that they will be dropped from the Fast Track interface and added later should the need arise. It was pointed out, that in general, it's better to exclude attributes that aren't really needed at the outset because it's a relatively simple matter to add them later on. However, the "secretary" and "manager" columns will be left in the Oracle database for the time being.
The issue of directory status "suspended," originally discussed at the last meeting, was revisited, including whether this should be tracked in the directory. It was suggested that suspended status might be used to turn off building keys, computer access, etc., but not display a person's status to the world. This led to a discussion of the difference between "intermittent" (e.g., students working at NIH during the summer or on vacations) and suspended workers. It was agreed that the former represent a different status and would typically remain active in the directory even though they are not on campus most of the time. After a fairly lengthy discussion, it was suggested that we refrain from further discussion of this issue and deal with it off-line (or on-line as the case may be via email, or the web). I'm not 100% certain of this, but believe that there was general consensus that a suspended status makes sense as long as it isn't available to the public.
The "business" attribute was discussed. The original intent behind this was to provide a free-form field to enter information regarding a person's special interests, current assignments, functions, etc. Some at the meeting opposed including this field because they felt it conflicted with standard definitions of what a person does. Others believed that it offered value in terms of providing the ability to search for keywords. The final decision was to drop "business" from the user interface for now, but leave it in the database.
There was a lengthy discussion of the "job title" attribute, which had originally been defined as a non-multivalued, free-form description of a person's designated position or function within the organization. It was agreed that the description would be changed to "job series title" reflecting a person's GS job series. Obviously, this will apply to only NIH FTEs. There was a question raised as to whether Fast Track should make GS Series information available on-line or not. We need to check with HR to determine whether a person's series is considered public information. It was also agreed that an "organizational title" would be added to reflect organizational roles (i.e., "Chief, CFB" or "Director, CIT").
Interest was expressed in having predefined queries (reports) similar to those currently available through the data warehouse. This might include a table to hold regularly used user queries that can quickly be recalled via a user-friendly interface. This will be explored as part of a Fast Track "Phase II."
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 | Next Meeting:Monday, April 26 |
2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Building 12B, Basement Conference Room
(Please note that since we are planning another demo of the Fast Track interface, I am attempting to change the venue to Natcher. Will keep you posted.)