Overview
"Phase" might be a bad name, esp outside of "Phase 1". "Phase 1" really is a software delivery interval, I think, with all hands on deck to try to get "core planning" functionality completed. After that the "phases" morph more into functional groupings that don't necessarily need to proceed in sequence nor constitute the same amount of work. But the ordering does reflect my general sense of how features need to be prioritized.
Phase 1 - Core Planning
Phase 1 External Data Model
Phase 1 External Data Model Schema
Phase 1 External Data Model Dictionary
More details to be provided in the usual integration spec
external_course - A course "definition" as distinct from any one or more term-specific offerings of that course. If an institution "redefines" a course such that "ACCT101" has new sematics, that's a new row where formatted_course remains "ACCT101", but course_code is a new value. Integrators are well-advised to put and keep all course definitions in this table which might or have already been added to student plans.
| Column | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| course_code | varchar | Table-unique course identifier. E.g. might be duplicates of |
| formatted_course | varchar | Same as elsewhere in the external schema. E.g. "MAT101", "ENG101" |
| subject_abbreviation | varchar | Typically the alpha prefix on formatted_course. App should never attempt to parse formatted_course |
| number | varchar | Typically the numeric portion of formatted_course. Varchar b/c might be padded or non-numeric. App should never attempt to parse formatted_course |
| title | varchar | Self-explanatory |
| description | varchar | Self-explanatory |
| max_credit_hours | int | Upper bound for hours associated with this course when added to a plan. DM: not 100% sure on this. Advisors can override? |
| min_credit_hours | int | Lower bound for hours associated with this course when added to a plan. DM: not 100% sure on this. Advisors can override? |
| is_dev | char | Flags course as "developmental." Common enough at community colleges to model as a first-class attribute rather than as metadata. Also, the app applies special handling to this when displaying plan hour totals. So our appoach to handling metadata, which is completely agnostic to any semantics on any metadata tag/s, wouldn't work anyway. It's a char b/c we've historically represented booleans in external data as 'Y'/'N'. |
external_course_term - Binds a course to a term as "offered" in that term. I.e. eligible to be planned into that term. If a course is offered in multiple terms, there is row for each such course-term pair.
| Column | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| course_code | varchar | Pointer to external_course.course_code |
| term_code | varchar | Pointer to external_term.code |
Phase 1 External Data Model Notes
Support for core functional requirements:
- Find course by keyword - Wildcard-suffixed query on
external_course.formatted_courseandexternal_course.title.Case-insensitive. - Validate course-plan binding by term - Query for at least one record in
external_course_termwherecourse_codeandterm_codematch proposed plan binding.
Course bindings to Department, Division, Program, Requisites, and Attributes all specifically excluded from this phase.
Integrators will be responsible for ensuring that external_course_term is populated far enough into the future to support the application's planning scope. There is no means by which the application will automatically "extend" existing course-term bindings nor override those bindings. Any number of options exist for handling such features in future phases.
Traditionally, external data model schema implementations have not included formal foreign keys. Physical tables should be indexed by logical foreign keys and any other commonly queried fields:
external_course.course_codeexternal_course.titleexternal_course.formatted_courseexternal_course_term.course_code+external_course_term.term_code
Phase 1 Operational Data Model
Phase 1 Operational Data Model Schema
Phase 1 Operational Data Model Dictionary
map_plan - Plays master to map_plan_course's detail.
| Column | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| id | uuid | Self-explanatory |
| person_id | uuid | Pointer to the person to whom the plan applies (as opposed to the author). Formal FK to |
| name | varchar | User-supplied moniker for the plan. Except for the "Is Active" checkbox, everything else spec'd in the /wiki/spaces/SSP/pages/103986449 is deferred. |
| object_status | int | a |
| {audit-fields} | -- | Standard SSP edit audit fields. created_by must equal modified_by. I.e. if a plan is edited by a non-originating user, that is a "Save As..." action. |
map_plan_course - Plays detail to map_plan_course's detail.
| Column | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| id | uuid | Self-explanatory |
| plan_id | uuid | Pointer to the plan which owns this course-term binding. Formal FK to map_plan.id |
| person_id | uuid | Pointer to the person to whom the plan applies (as opposed to the author). Formal FK to person.id. Must always match map_plan.person_id for a given plan_id. This is a denormalization for performance. |
| term_code | varchar | Pointer to the term in which the course is planned. Informal FK to external_term.code. Integrators are strongly encouraged to use term_codes with business meaning, e.g. FA12 not 1234. This seems common enough that taking a copy of the term name/title is not necessary. |
| course_code | varchar | Pointer to the course being planned. Informal FK to external_course.course_code. Recall that this is a potentially opaque value, not something like "MAT101". |
| formatted_course | varchar | Copy of external_course.formatted_course. Should be something like "MAT101". Needed to produce a useful plan export should external data go missing. |
| course_title | varchar | Copy of external_course.title. Needed to produce a useful plan export should external data go missing. |
| course_description | varchar | Copy of external_course.description. Needed to produce a useful plan export should external data go missing. |
| credit_hours | varchar | Copy of external_course.min_credit_hours (per email from Jason). |
| is_dev | bool | Copy of external_course.is_dev. Needed to produce useful plan export should external data go missing. |
| order_in_term | int | Ordinal representing desired on-screen position relative to other map_plan_course records in the same plan and term. Ascending order. |
| {audit-fields} | -- | Standard stuff |
Phase 1 Operational Data Model Notes
No roll-up hours total on map_plan b/c that's presumably an optimization we don't know that we need. But we will support output of totals on-screen, in APIs, and in reports. Just not going to require the persistent sum until we know we need it.
No object_status field on map_plan_course... no requirement to preserve deleted planned courses and a plan-course binding makes no sense without a plan, so no need to track status separately. I.e. OK to hard-delete map_plan_course records.
Please note rules in map_plan data dictionary re saving a copy when a plan is modified by a non-originating user.
The field copy from the external model into map_plan_course is potentially confusing. E.g. what value for credit_hours should be included in an API response? External or operational? In general the rule should be to trust the operational value. In this case that means whatever is stored on the map_plan_course record. So if a user suspects credit_hours is out of whack, just remove the course from the plan and re-add it.
Likely indices:
map_plan.person_idmap_plan_course.plan_id
Phase 2 - Plan Annotations
Add operational data to plans. Notes, elective type, etc.
Phase 2 External Data Model
Phase 2 External Data Model Schema
No Changes.
Phase 2 External Data Model Dictionary
No Changes.
Phase 2 External Data Model Notes
No Changes.
Phase 2 Operational Data Model
Phase 2 Operational Data Model Schema
Phase 2 Operational Data Model Dictionary
map_plan - New columns.
| Column | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| contact_* | varchar | Collected via text fields in the /wiki/spaces/SSP/pages/103986449 dialog. Note that contact_notes are supposed to be hidden except to privileged roles. |
| student_notes | varchar | Collected via text field in the /wiki/spaces/SSP/pages/103986449 dialog. |
| is_financial_aid | bool | Collected via checkbox in the /wiki/spaces/SSP/pages/103986449 dialog. |
| is_important | bool | Collected via checkbox in the /wiki/spaces/SSP/pages/103986449 dialog. |
| is_f1_visa | bool | Collected via checkbox in the /wiki/spaces/SSP/pages/103986449 dialog. |
| academic_goals | varchar | Collected via text field in the /wiki/spaces/SSP/pages/103986449 dialog. |
| career_link | varchar | Collected via text field in the /wiki/spaces/SSP/pages/103986449 dialog. |
| academic_link | varchar | Collected via text field in the /wiki/spaces/SSP/pages/103986449 dialog. |
map_plan_course - New columns
| Column | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| student_notes | varchar | Collected via UI text field. See /wiki/spaces/SSP/pages/103987058 |
| contact_notes | varchar | Collected via UI text field. See /wiki/spaces/SSP/pages/103987058. Note that value is supposed to be hidden except to privileged roles. |
| is_important | boolean | Collected via UI checkbox. See /wiki/spaces/SSP/pages/103987058 |
| is_transcript | boolean | Calculated at record creation |
| elective_id | uuid | Pointer to elective.id. Optional. Formal FK. If set, marks the planned course as an elective of a particular flavor, where those flavors are configured as operational reference data. |
map_term_note - New table. Stores notes at the plan+term scope.
| Column | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| id | uuid | Standard |
| plan_id | uuid | Pointer to map_plan.id. Formal FK. Required. |
| term_code | varchar | Pointer to external_term.code. Informal FK. Required |
| student_notes | varchar | Collected via UI text field. See /wiki/spaces/SSP/pages/103986445 |
| contact_notes | varchar | Collected via UI text field. See /wiki/spaces/SSP/pages/103986445 |
| is_important | boolean | Collected via UI checkbox. See /wiki/spaces/SSP/pages/103986445 |
| {audit-fields} | -- | Standard |
elective - Standard operational reference data type. For configuring up arbitrary flavors of "electiveness"
| Column | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| id | uuid | Standard |
| name | varchar | Standard |
| code | varchar | Want to start adding this to all reference types. Stable unique key (across all entities of this type regardless of status) suitable for reference from external data/applications. Often mnemonic. See SSP-526 |
| description | varchar | Standard |
| object_status | int | Standard |
| color_id | uuid | Pointer to color.id. Required. Formal FK. Corresponds to color selection pull-down in admin UI. (No wireframe at this writing.) |
| {audit-fields} | -- | Standard |
color
| Column | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| id | uuid | Standard |
| name | varchar | Standard |
| code | varchar | See elective |
| description | varchar | Standard |
| object_status | int | Standard |
| hex_code | varchar | Hex color code suitable for injection into CSS via Javascript |
| {audit-fields} | -- | Standard |
Phase 2 Operational Data Model Notes
UI is expected to pre-populate contact_* form fields with the currently authenticated user's attributes. We intentionally take copies of those values into map_plan at Russ's direction. Advisors are sometimes reluctant to expose certain attributes to students. We choose to accept the potential for out of sync attributes as a result.
Uncertain how frequently map_plan_course.is_transcript should be recalculated. Since this needs to be stored on the plan as data that will survive external data loss, we will assume it is handled just like all other such fields and is only calculated/copied at map_plan_course record creation time. If you want it recalculated, you need to remove/readd the course. Expect this behavior to change since transcription state should be expected to change over time. DM: Or might just not persist this at all. Awaiting word from Russ.
object_status intentionally left off of map_term_note. No soft-delete requirements there.
Restricted access to the various contact_notes fields must be handled server-side. I.e. the API can't just always return contact_notes whenever looking up a plan and hope the UI enforces permissions correctly. Same for writes, but in the other direction.
Phase 3 - Enhanced Search
Phase 3 External Data Model
Phase 3 External Data Model Schema
Phase 3 External Data Model Dictionary
TBD
Phase 3 External Data Model Notes
We don't need a list of programs without courses to support search features, but we require external_program anyway b/c we know we need that feature for plan templates (Phase 4). The denormalization of program names into external_course_program is an optimization to help search, though, which really only does need the list of programs having at least one required course. This lets that lookup avoid one join. And denormalization in external data is OK as a general rule.
More TBD
Phase 3 Operational Data Model
Phase 3 Operational Data Model Schema
Phase 3 Operational Data Model Dictionary
TBD
Phase 3 Operational Data Model Notes
TBD
Phase 4 - Templates
Phase 4 External Data Model
Phase 4 External Data Model Schema
Phase 4 External Data Model Dictionary
TBD
Phase 4 External Data Model Notes
TBD
Phase 4 Operational Data Model
Phase 4 Operational Data Model Schema
Phase 4 Operational Data Model Dictionary
TBD
Phase 4 Operational Data Model Notes
TBD
Phase 5 - Course Details
Phase 5 External Data Model
Phase 5 External Data Model Schema
Phase 5 External Data Model Dictionary
TBD
Phase 5 External Data Model Notes
TBD
Phase 5 Operational Data Model
Phase 5 Operational Data Model Schema
No changes.
Phase 5 Operational Data Model Dictionary
No changes.
Phase 5 Operational Data Model Notes
We do not copy any of the new external_course fields onto the map_plan_course operational model, so no changes.