evince blog

The ISPP Testing Strategy and Plan is split into four different phases.  The Testing Plan is currently in the Phase 2 testing with the DCSF, and as of 2nd March it moves into Phase 3 which is the ‘Interoperability Testing’ of the aggregator with integrating systems (evince and all other systems vendors).  This phase lasts until 29th May. 

The Interoperability testing is the process by which each of the systems that are required to integrate with the ISPP service are verified as compliant against a set of specific accreditation as defined by DCSF in collaboration with Tribal.

During this phase the test objectives are:

- to prove that system vendors (evince - Opp Links) is interoperable with the Aggregator interface and Search and Discovery interface

- Directgov proving their system is interoperable with Search and Discovery interface

- Verify functionality and performance reliability across interfaces

- Interoperable systems are ready for launch

PHASES

Phase 1 - Internal testing of Aggregator (Tribal)

Phase 2 - Customer Acceptance Testing of Aggregator and NFSD Solution (DCSF)

Phase 3 - Interoperability Testing - (system Vendors) - during this time Opp Links will also be running the Ofsted to Vendor Connectivity tests

Phase 4 - Local Authority Readiness Testing of evince (other systems) against the Aggreagator (Local Authorities) - starts in June 09

In summary - Interoperability Testing is immediately preceded by Customer Acceptance Testing of the Aggregator and NFSD Portal and is immediately followed by the Local Authority Readiness testing where each of the systems accredited as interoperable during Interoperability Testing is deployed to each individual authority for testing against the ISPP.

As we work through the Interoperability Testing and find out more about the Local Authority Readiness Testing further communications will come out.

The Aggregator Functional Design document gives a very good overview of how you will interact with the Aggregator.  Opp Links has summarised the document in the link below so that you can clearly see where evince and each Local Authority play key roles.

http://blog.evince-online.com/?page_id=60

The way that you receive and manage your Ofsted data will change when you start to work with the National Aggregator.  Click on the following link to take you through to a useful summary of how you will interact with Ofsted data in the coming months.

http://blog.evince-online.com/?page_id=65

On 19th June  we held an Family Service Directory (FSD) User Group in Birmingham, where we invited current users of our FSD websites and webservice to:

- meet with us to look at and feed into the roadmap for the FSD product
- hear about new products to link into the FSD (CMS and Browse Aloud)
- prioritise the change requests for a summer release of FSD.

It was a really positive and productive day and good progress was made in terms of agreeing priorities for the summer release – improving the search facility on the individual FSD websites, and a clearer understanding of how the product can link into the ISPP.

Part of the afternoon session was dedicated to talking about the roadmap for FSD over the coming year and how Opportunity Links plans to integrate the FSD core and FSD modules into the evince system.  This will enable local authorities to manage their childcare and service data in one location, and have this feed data up to ISPP.  We will be working with our users to ensure that the development of this phase of the roadmap includes their input.

The next user group is planned for Dec 08 and will include evince users as well as FSDs users.

Product User Groups
We have always valued the input of our customers into the development of our products. It helps us to ensure that we are creating and building products that meet your needs. We want to continue this approach with the evince system by giving you a number of different channels to communicate and discuss future growth of all our products and services.

User Groups
Due to the success of the format of our recent evince roadshows we are going to be running an annual Opportunity Links user group (4 regional days in Dec 08) where you can come and talk to us about the different products you currently have with us, hear about potential new functionality and new product and service ideas. It will be the perfect opportunity to network with other colleagues, speak face-to-face with members of Opportunity Links and have your input into the future direction of our work.

Change Requests
Change requests for the evince system can be submitted online within the support section of the evince-online website. To ensure that we get full user engagement on the requests received, each Local Authority will have the chance to vote and prioritise online, the changes for each quarterly release of the system.

IT Support Desk
The IT Support Desk will continue to offer you support when moving to using evince. They will offer support to our customers through, telephone, email, online FAQs and forum. You will have the ability to make service requests and report incidents online, through the use of forms that can be submitted straight to the support desk.

evince Pilots/User Testing
At the March evince roadshows we let you know that we were looking to run a short pilot/user testing once evince was live…that time has now come! The pilot participants are: Harrow, Kingston Upon Hull, Nottinghamshire, North Lincs (screen reader testing), Sheffield and Peterborough FISs. The pilot will run from April 14th – April 30th with the purpose of these selected FISs using the system as they would the current ChIS system and identifying any bugs or problems, so that we can get to work on them.

June 08 Release (Version 1.1)
At the March evince roadshows we asked the delegates to help us to determine the content of the June 08 release of the evince system. The June 08 release will form the final release of functionality currently in ChIS moving into evince. The following items will make up the release:

- Funding control – funding source amount and rewarded
- Record filtering – can be used for people. Registrations and careschemes
- Record duplication – creation and resolving
- Renaming labels – edit label descriptions
- Workflows
- Pathways module
- Recruitment Module – candidates and search

Future releases of evince will be determined by the change requests submitted by our users, and new functionality put forward as options by Opportunity Links and the users.