General

The shift sign-up was revamped following the description of changes in STAR Notes PSN0482 : STAR PhoneBook and shift accounting - Definitions and development plan. As a result, we designed a produced an automated ShiftSignup Accounting. Not all reported issues are currently implemented (some requires a decision beyond the note).

During Year 10, we plan to implement the following features:

• The inclusion of an emeritus or alumni status - this status will remove the flagged individual from the list of effective authors
• The listof experts should be maintained by our phone book. The number of experts will then be auto-calculated (and a list would be generated as done for the ShiftSignup Accounting).

STAR Notes afformentionned states:

• We propose the introduction of a isEmeritus (BOOLEAN) field which will be used to flag
members acquiring emeritus status. Emeritus members of the collaboration are eligible for
authorship on publications but DO NOT count for shift credits for the associated institution.
• We propose the addition of two fields: isExpert (BOOLEAN) and an Expert description text
field indicating the area of expertise for the declared expert. This information does not need to
be kept in an historical manner but allow:
◦ extracting for all valid active members the list of experts per institution
◦ allow for automation of accounting of experts per institution

Year 10 addition & extensions

Shift sign-up limitations

• Problem: Upon the request from the council, the number of slots an institution could sign for should be limited to prevent over-booking.
• Implementation: The functional requirement should then be
  • Limit the number of slots an institution could sign for within a margin of error - the margin will be set to F=115% at first and adjusted at later time depending on statistics
  • Calculate the maximum number of shifts as  MAX{inst} =  int(X{inst}*F+0.5)  where X{inst} is the number of shifts due by institution inst. and F the fractional margin of error.
  • Unroll loop - for each users, each slot, do not update the DB in a one shot pass but check each slot if exceeds the number of shift for the institution. A second check is needed upon confirmation to avoid simultaneous user signing and over-committing.

Shift opening

• Problem: Shift opening logic should be altered - previous years included a timer but, a backdoor "advanced" signing was possible. This backdoor was not used  by users according to our checks but since it was identified, best to fix.
• Suggestion: coding should include a "test" mode and a "sign-up" mode. Both mode should use a different database. Possibility includes: using a different DB name, a different port or a different server.
   
• Status: (Dmitry / Jerome) Done for Year 10, used diferent port but need to clean-up the config (connection definition spread multiple places)

Shift assignment summary

• Purpose: makes accounting easier and allow better / more fair accounting
• Implementation: On ShiftSignup Accounting, we would add information which should appear either at the top or the bottom as additional statistics:
  • TSA="Shift available" - this number should be calculated based on the actual number of opened slots (based on the number of weeks and blocked/available slots)  [display "undefined" if the number of weeks has not been sorted]
  • TST="Shifts taken" - the total number of shifts currently taken for the year
  • TSO="Shifts owed" - the total number as entered in the "Shifts owed" column. This column is assigned by he Shift sign-up commitee
  • Summary information aded would include [if TSA != 0 to prevent problems whenever the shift period is not yet known; display "undefied" otherwise]:
    
    • "Offset owed versus total" = (TSA-TSO)/TSA
    • "Current Shift left un-assigned" = (TSA-TST)/TSA
       
• Status: some quick and dirty stats added (Jerome / Dmitry) -  see first cut information here. The stat likely needs to be on both the editor page (secret page for the Shift QA chair) and the accounting. As for the previous item, cleanup and consolidations are needed (we need one config file defining it all rather than a hardwired number-approach and logic all over the place)

Graphics addition

NB: classify as "fun" but not mandatory

• Purpose: show the number of sign-ups as a function of time
• Suggestion: Cumulative number of shifts signed for as a function of time
  • since the X axis is time discrete, one could get any resolution ...
  • + another graph could show as %tage i.e. 100% would mean all shift slots are taken
     
• Status: work started (Dmitry) -  see preview here.