BTeV Document Management and Control

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BTeV Document Managementand Control

• Eric Vaandering
• Vanderbilt University

2
Introduction

• BTeV developed and adopted a new document
  database (DocDB) in late 2001
• One stop shopping for all documents, including
• Collaboration meetings, reviews
• Technical and scientific information
• Project information and management
• Has been extended several times to handle new
  situations
• Better organization
• Agenda maker for meetings
• Most recently, sign-off capability for managed
  documents
• The DocDB has been a great help in managing BTeV.
• Since late 2001 archiving and managing 3800
  documents

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Introduction, cont.

• In addition to the files of a document, we store
  a lot of additional information
• Title and Abstract
• Creation and modification times
• Authors, subject, who is allowed to view modify
• Publication information
• All this information is easily searchable,
  allowing collaborators to find the information
  they need easily.
• We've done this with an eye to the future A
  reasonable expectation is that we will want to
  archive this information until 2020.

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Archiving and Security

• Each document can have many revisions, old
  revisions preserved. (Some OpenPlan files over
  100 versions.)
• A document is a collection of files, stored on
  central server
• Powerpoint, Word, PDF, etc. (any file format)
• Lots of users of DocDB, not all formally part of
  BTeV
• Reviewers have read-only access to selected
  documents
• RTES and Grid computing groups can upload
  documents, but don't have full access to all BTeV
  documents
• Public has access to publicly available documents
• Project management has documents not available to
  BTeV at large
• Viewers and Modifiers can be different lists
• For change control, documents are viewable by
  BTeV, but only modifiable by management

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Implementation

• Entire DB is managed and accessed via a web
  interface
• Users can easily upload documents from their PC
  or have them downloaded from the Web
• E-mail notifications
• New or changed documents of interest
• Either immediate e-mail or a daily/weekly digest
• Also e-mail notification for sign-off procedures
• Right now, just when document is ready for next
  signature
• In future, authors will be notified as document
  proceeds through process
• Especially useful for managers, who can track
  changes to all their documents fairly easily

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Meeting Organizer

• BTeV uses DocDB and a special meeting organizer
  that is part of the system to organize and run
  collaboration meetings
• Also used for reviews. Some review groups may get
  exposure to this
• Allows building of agendas early on, filling in
  links to documents as time goes on
• Many meetings are teleconferenced this software
  encourages (forces...) people to post things so
  others can see it

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View of a Meeting
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DocDB for Reviews

• There is a special DocDB account for reviewers.
• Reviewers are not allowed to change anything, but
  a large number of documents (gt1000) are available
  to reviewers
• This allows us to easily make information
  available that may not be printed and allows
  access before and after the review time

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Sign-off and Change Control

• The most recent addition has been to add sign-off
  control to the DocDB
• Aims to meet DOE requirements for CD2/3 as
  detailed by SC-81 Records document
• Any change to a document clears all signatures
• Signatories sign by entering their password
• Next signatory is notified by e-mail that
  document is ready
• Database supports complicated signature
  hierarchies
• Only FIFO list implemented now, others added
  if/when necessary
• Have begun to use for
• Monthly reports
• Project change requests
• Assorted other docs

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Sign-off Status
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Compliance with DOE Rules

• Some of these things DocDB does for all
  documents, some for only controlled documents
• Unique identifiers
• Review, approval through change control process
• Kept current, including receipt acknowledgement
• Ready access to current revisions
• Database with revision information kept current
• Easy retrieval of historic documents

Some of the requirements on document control are
social rather than technical, but we aim to
enforce as many as reasonable through technical
means
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Demonstration

• Normal use, uploading a document
• Group meeting agenda
• Sign-off system

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Conclusions

• BTeV already has well developed documentation
  procedures, large amounts of information are
  managed
• Adopted or being evaluated by other groups Beams
  Division, FOCUS, Computing Division, LBL, Daphne
• As we go forward, we will adapt our current
  system to new requirements if necessary
• This system has really improved the way we
  collaborate and allows us to focus our efforts
  elsewhere
• We believe this system meets the requirements for
  CD2/3 approval