Skip to main content

Q2 2018 uPortal Open Source Support Briefing

The quarterly uPortal Open Source Support (OSS) Briefing is an opportunity to share the contributions performed on behalf of the OSS program, highlight Unicon's perspective on contributions, and share happenings in the community along with opportunities to engage further with Unicon. 

Discussions for the Q2 2018 uPortal OSS Briefing focused on Sustaining Engineering, uPortal 5.1, and Web Components.

On Wednesday, July 25, 2018, the Unicon OSS team held the uPortal OSS Briefing summarizing uPortal OSS activities for Q2 of 2018.

Community News

We kicked off the briefing by discussing dates for a summit in Gilbert, AZ. We are tentatively looking at January 29-31, 2019, for this summit and will send out more information as we have it. This is a great opportunity to have a check-in midway between Open Apereo events!  We encourage everyone to try to attend. 

Also discussed was the uPortal Annual Report for 2018, published by the Apereo Foundation and the uPortal Steering Committee. Highlights of the report include:

  • Induction of the uPortal Ecosystem Intake Process with four new software products entering the process
  • Almost 100 versioned releases of uPortal ecosystem software products (lifetime)
  • Seven new core contributors, one new core committer, 16 presentations, 1,350+ list posts, five calls/webinars, and two meetups
  • Community financial responsibility of the Apereo Foundation and the uPortal Steering Committee: Three sustaining subscribers and $26,000 recurring revenue with a $51,000 fund balance
  • Calls to action:
  • Engage on the lists
    • Enhance documentation, contribute a fix, or add a feature
    • Propose a new sub-project
    • Become an Apereo member
    • Become a uPortal Supporting Subscriber 
    • ** Continue your Unicon Open Source Support contract **

In other great news, the uPortal 5.2 release is coming soon! Stay tuned for more information.

Community Spotlight – Preview: FHDA – Portlet Free Portal

In the Q3 Briefing we will have representatives from Foothill-De Anza Community College District share with us their experiences with the Portlet Free Portal. The goals are to get away from tabs and say goodbye to Luminis. This is the first Portlet free portal that we are aware of and cannot wait to hear more about it during the next Quarterly Briefing!

Web Component-Based Content

As reviewed in our Q1 briefing, Web Components allow the creation of custom, reusable, encapsulated HTML tags for use in web pages and apps. Since that briefing, we have seen many examples of Web Components and their use in the community. Examples of this are:

  • Notification Icon – Cal Poly Pomona / Unicon
  • Notification Model – Oakland University / Unicon
  • Waffle Menu – Cal Poly Pomona / Unicon
  • Browse Carousel – Cal Poly Pomona / Unicon
  • Hero Carousel – Cal Poly Pomona / Unicon
  • Content Grid – GIP Recia
  • Content Card – Sorbonne University
  • Form Builder & FBMS – State Center CCD / Unicon (more to come on this in Apereo's Fall Webinar series!)

Sustaining Engineering

During Q2 there were 251.75 hours put towards furthering the Sustaining Engineering efforts.This resulted in 225 pull requests being merged, four new Web Components and many Releases (7 uPortal, 4 Portlet, 16 Web Component). Areas impacted by those releases include Notification Portlet, Simple Content Portlet, Announcements Portlet, Spring Portlet Contrib as well as uPortal Web Components. 

We also discussed that uPortal 5.1.0, 5.1.1 and 5.1.2 were released and included Flexible layout, OpenID Connect Endpoint, Improved Soffit data model handling and Significant Library updates.

Also, uPortal 5.2 milestone 1 is coming soon and will include Support for multi-value OpenID Connect claims, portlet publishing params in layout APIs, Portlet Registry supporting filtering, and more library updates.

Conclusion

We appreciate folks taking time out of their schedules to join us. Keep on the lookout for the uPortal 5.2 milestone 1 release and the Fall Apereo Webinar series, where we will be discussing Web Components: form-builder & FBMS (scheduled for September 19th). Please continue to be active in the community channels, and if you are a Unicon OSS subscriber, feel free to open an S5 ZenDesk ticket to help shape Unicon uPortal Sustaining Engineering efforts.

Click here (link is external) to view the recording of the briefing.

Alison DuBose

Alison DuBose

Director, Project Management
Alison DuBose is a Director in Project Management for Unicon, joining the team in 2001. Alison holds a Bachelor of Science in Management Information Systems as well as a Project Management Professional certification (PMI-PMP), a Project Management Institute - Agile Certification (PMI-ACP), a Certified Scrum Master certification (Scrum Alliance – CSM), and a Six Sigma Green Belt certification (PMI). Alison has over 20 years of professional IT experience working with clients including Fortune 100 corporations, non-profit organizations, leading publishing organizations, as well as higher education institutions. Prior to joining Unicon in 2001, Alison worked at Andersen Consulting/Accenture focusing on management consulting.