How should assigning Xpress proposals to techniques and instruments work?

[simonfernandes]

This discussion should be used to track the design decisions we make for the Xpress technique/instrument relationship, the final decisions should be tracked in this top comment.

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Question

We will be asking users to submit their Xpress proposals for a particular technique and not instrument. How do we go about this?

Scientists need to receive notifications and have management controls for proposals within their technique. We already maintain a list of instruments and their scientists in the system so should we somehow map techniques to instruments?

Decisions

• Create "techniques" that can have instruments attached, via a separate area/tab.
  • Attach people to the call for who should receive the initial notification and potentially for some permission configuration (TBC see discussion in How do we define who can manage and which instrument they can assign to in Xpress #1079)
• Assign instruments to the call as we would normally do when using the instrument picker. We wouldn't need to assign techniques.
• User selects a technique in questionnaire via a new technique picker question.
• The technique picker question would display (unique) techniques based on the instruments attached to the call.
• In the new management page, only allow scientists to pick instruments that the technique is associated with. We can also filter out decommissioned instruments that are in the technique but weren't added to the call.
• The instrument is assigned to the proposal in the management page without the instrument picker.
• An Xpress proposal is required to have an instrument assigned to it.

Previous suggestions:

1. Have a separate call for each technique, and assign one of the technique's instruments to the call.
   • Would require some kind of new interface for picking Xpress proposals, to avoid loads of calls in a single list.
   • Flexibility to use a common questionnaire or use separate but similar ones.
2. Use the instrument picker question type with techniques.
   • We would need to add techniques as instruments and maintain the list of scientists associated with it
   • How is an instrument chosen?
3. Assign techniques to instruments.

[simonfernandes]

Discussion with Farai 30th May 2024:

Proposed solution:

• Create "techniques" that can have instruments attached, via a separate area/tab.
  • We may need to create new Xpress instruments if the list of Xpress scientists differs to normal. In that case we need to check whether the instrument can be named the same without conflict.
  • Leave the regular (non Xpress) instruments without a technique, only assign the Xpress ones.
  • The technique could optionally include configuration for permissions for who should be able to assign instrument
  • The technique could optionally include configuration for who should receive the emails, if that ever needs to be configured on a per-technique basis.
• Assign instruments to the call as we would normally do when using the instrument picker. We wouldn't need to assign techniques.
• User selects a technique in questionnaire via a new technique picker question.
  • The technique picker question would display (unique) techniques based on the instruments attached to the call.
• In the new management page, only allow scientists to pick instruments that the technique is associated with. We can also filter out decommissioned instruments that are in the technique but weren't added to the call.
• The instrument is assigned to the proposal in the management page without the instrument picker.

Other thoughts:

• An option in the call might be the best way to indicate when proposals in a call should be managed by the new instrument management page.
• If a user needs to know if the proposal was successful, we could either include it in the success email, or we may need to show Xpress proposal statuses on the user dashboard. Opened As an Xpress user, I would like to see the status of my Xpress proposal #1090

[simonfernandes]

Notes from design review:

• We shouldn't need separate Xpress instruments, but if do we need to make sure downstream software is configured to look at them. Or we can perhaps use the same short code and a different name for each instrument.
• Ideally for the first phase, the technique should have two lists of names attached to it: for 1) for who should receive the initial notification for the technique and 2) who has permission to assign an instrument.
• Worth talking to R&A about the option in the call, as they are doing similar for technical reviews.
• We do need to show users the status of their proposal within the software (extra info added to As an Xpress user, I would like to see the status of my Xpress proposal #1090)

[bolmsten]

Comments from ESS:

• We agree that adding a new tab with all the techniques and attaching them to instruments are a good idea.
• We suggest to make parts of the technical and management pages dynamic, to cater for the new needs of more fields.
• We suggest that the technique picker assigns the proposal to all the instruments that are applicable.
• We suggest to add a new status action "Remove instruments without technical review"
• Create new proposal status that allow for instrument scientist to approve proposals called "management decision by instrument scientist"
• Create a new proposal workflow which goes from technical review to "management decision by instrument scientist" that has the status action "Remove instruments without technical review"

[bolmsten]

Hi Simon,

I just spoke with Emma and maybe we are converging on a solution.

If we can avoid it we would like to not have a new role in the system, instead continue using the instrument role.

After listening to Emma, my suggestion would be to make instruments into instruments/techniques. When you create a new instrument/technique you also indicate via checkbox if it is a instrument or not. You then attach the instruments/techniques for the call and the user selects via the instrument/technique picker the one it wants. Then follows the normal flow with feasibility review etc ( with the feasibility review made dynamic (ELI working on)). You also open up a new page for the instrument scientist for proposals that has in the proposal workflow "enhanced feasiblity review", this page would allow them to change status and instrument. When ready the proposal can be assigned the final instrument and the feasibility review is transferred.

This solution would mean that we re-use the role and the review workflow.

/Fredrik

[mutambaraf]

This means we have to allow instruments/techniques to attach to another instruments/techniques. I also think keeping techniques and instruments as separate entities is a good idea given they are completely different and from the requirements techniques looks like a processes using a given instrument(s) , while instruments are physical objects. In addition we will still want to streamline the review process to be as simple as possible so we may want to avoid using feasibility review but use simple table. @simonfernandes

[simonfernandes]

Hi @bolmsten, apologies for the late update, I'm just back from leave. Here is what we decided:

• Keep a concept of techniques separate from instruments
  • Techniques have instruments attached to them
• Use a technique picker
  • Proposals are assigned to techniques on save/submission via the picker
• Use a separate Xpress management page (proposal table) hidden behind a feature flag, accessible to user officers and instrument scientists
  • Show extra information in the table via new columns, and hide many of the existing columns
  • Scientists can assign instruments to the proposal, limited by technique chosen
  • Scientists can change the status of a proposal (but only display a subset to choose from)
  • Scientists can filter proposals by date (possibly with Xpress-specific logic)
  • Scientists can export a spreadsheet (possibly with Xpress-specific logic)
  • Scientists can easily add comments to the proposal (possibly in-line in a table column)
• Add a call option to only show Xpress proposals in the Xpress management page

[bashanlam]

Proposed detail for 'Create an option to specify Xpress calls'
#1139

[bolmsten]

Feedback from ESS:

We think that we could leverage the work ELI has done but making it for technical review. For a XPRESS call you create a technical review template that allows for instrument and status action change by the instrument scientist. Adding new filters to the main proposal table should be possible and a new export.

If we need to pre-select columns this could be when setting up the call.