CMDP Development Update
By Will Bowman, CMDP Project Manager
CMDP Development Update – Sprints 1-3 and CMDP Webinar for LIMS Vendors and Laboratories
The purpose of this CMDP blog update is to inform you of the Compliance Monitoring Data Portal (CMDP) Sprint Team’s progress in developing the CMDP. Below are summaries of CMDP sprints completed to date and of the current sprint, a preview of future sprint content, and a description of the upcoming CMDP webinar for LIMS vendors and laboratories in late July 2015.
Completed Sprints
Sprint 1 – Prepare the CMDP Development Environment (ended May 15)
Around the time that we were wrapping up the DMUC conference in Denver, the INDUS development team was completing work to prepare the CMDP development environment that would support the EPA and state CMDP Sprint Team. INDUS’s effort (Sprint 1) included preparing internal systems for INDUS developer coding and for INDUS business analyst unit testing and validation of CMDP user stories, as well as setting up an external staging environment for CMDP Sprint Team SMEs to test the software.
Sprint 2 – Laboratory Profiles, Water System Profiles, and Dashboard Screens (ended June 22)
During Sprint 2 the Team confirmed the content and layout of the laboratory and water system “profile” screens, as well as the search criteria and display of search results for profiles of utilities and laboratories stored in the CMDP. For now, INDUS and the Sprint Team are using fictional laboratory and water utility data for testing purposes, but CMDP data flow pilots planned for the first two quarters of 2016 will include migrated inventory and legal entity data from SDWIS State pilot participants.
A CMDP profile for a lab or a utility includes basic administrative contact information. For a utility, it also includes a summary of a water system’s characteristics (e.g., source, population served, number and type of water system facilities), and for a lab, the certification status for federally required method-analyte pairings. Sprint 2 also focused on the basic layout of the user interface for each user type (lab, water system, state). In the production system, the profile data for labs and water utilities will be a copy of official state data about labs and water utilities as stored in state compliance databases (either SDWIS/Prime, SDWIS/State or a state-specific system). In Sprint 6 (November-December), the Sprint Team will work on developing profile change requests.
After evaluating the Sprint Team’s feedback during testing in the staging environment the week of June 15th, and as a result of SME consensus during the Sprint 2 retrospective meeting on June 22nd, the INDUS team is proceeding to develop the CMDP functionality for Sprint 2, based on the “go” decision from the Product Owner.
Current CMDP Sprint
Sprint 3 – Sample Result Preparation, Review and Submittal (June 23 through September 1)
Sprint 3 began this week with the first stand-up meeting on Tuesday June 23. During Sprint 3, the CMDP Sprint Team will focus on developing screens for a lab or water system user preparing to report sample results (called a “job”) using the CMDP web forms for all sample types (microbiological, chemical/radiological, and operational (e.g., monthly operating report) data. A “job” is a way of describing the draft or final CMDP file which contains the sample results that have been entered into the CMDP by a user. The final web forms will serve as the basis for Excel templates that users may download from the CMDP home page to populate locally. Sprint 3 will include job management functionality, which describes the user’s ability to view and search from within a list of previous jobs, to create new jobs, and to remove (draft) jobs.
Future CMDP Sprint Content
Looking ahead, Sprint 4 will focus on data validations, XML schema development, and screen content and functionality for CMDP job reviewers (users for a lab or utility acting as a “second pair of eyes” to find possible errors in a draft submittal) and job certifiers/submitters (lab or utility users with a CROMERR-related role to e-sign and submit data to a state on behalf of a water utility or private laboratory). Sprint 5 will focus on rendering XML files for sample results to the user in a human-readable format prior to CROMERR Copy of Record (COR) generation and storage, as well as screens for CROMERR authentication, certification statement, and digital signature. Sprint 6 will focus on laboratory and water utility profile change requests, state management of lab or utility profile change requests, and system administration tools for state, laboratory and water utility CMDP Administrators. I will provide more details about each of these sprints in future blog posts.
July 2015 CMDP Webinar for LIMS Vendors and Laboratories
On Friday July 24, EPA and INDUS will conduct a technical webinar for LIMS vendors (and their laboratory clients) who are interested to learn about the ReST APIs being developed to support LIMS-based reporting of drinking water sample results to state primacy agencies via the CMDP. Presenters will provide a PowerPoint overview of the CMDP project, as well as the technical details for LIMS vendors and laboratories that might need to make modifications to existing LIMS software for laboratory clients. More webinar details, including registration information, will be released once they are finalized.
Please send any general CMPD project questions, including sprint questions, to Will Bowman at bowman.will@epa.gov. Please send any questions about the CMDP Webinar for LIMS Vendors and Laboratories to Sabah Mirza at mirza.sabah@epa.gov. Thanks!
