Configuring conMan: Track definitions

The Connectathon Management Tool (code named conman) is a tool that is intended to facilitate the running of FHIR based Connectathons. It can be used by anyone for any event, but does need to be setup for each event – contact David Hay if you want this to be done.

The overall design of conMan is that there are any number of tracks, each of which can have any number of scenarios. Each scenario can, in turn, have any number of actor roles (note that roles are shared across all of the tracks in the event – not confined to a single track or scenario).

Conman supports both technical and clinical connectathons.

• A technical connectathon is used for testing actual interoperability between systems. It involves exchange of FHIR resources between a client and a server (currently only two way exchange is supported), and has the ability to record whether the interaction between the 2 roles was successful or not.
• A Clinical connectathon is more about validating that a particular set of resources (and profiles on those resources) accurately represents the clinical scenario being tested.

Although the overall concept is the same between the two, there are a number of differences. This document focusses on the technical connectathon. See this page  for details of the clinical one.

Adding/Editing tracks

To create a new track, start conMan using the link to the specific event. For example, the following link will load the Australian Terminology connectathon:

http://conman.fhir.org/connectathon.html?event=austerm

or for the the HL7 May Connectathon:

http://conman.fhir.org/connectathon.html?event=cologne2018

(you might see the pattern here 🙂 )

If there any tracks already defined, they will be displayed in a row to the left – and they can be edited by clicking the edit link () in the display box. To add a new link, click the ‘Add a new Track’ link. This will display the Track create/edit dialog:

There are a number of fields you can enter on this form.

• The track name is the label that you see in the main ConMan display. Keep it short and descriptive – 2-3 words only.
• The track lead is the person who is managing the track. The person needs to have been entered into ConMan before the that track is created (though you can go back and add it later). The track lead is optional – but if entered then only they can make changes to the track. (Note that overall security is quite loose at the moment, it is gradually being tightened). It is generally a good idea to specify a track lead.
• The details page is a link to any external web page – such as a wiki. This enables you to have a lot more detail about the track that can (or should) be entered in ConMan. You can add other links as well, but this is the ‘main’ one for the track.
• The track type is used to distinguish between technical and clinical tracks as mentioned above. There is only a single technical option – the clinical tracks have 2 options:
  • Logical Model Review allows the user to enter sample data in a form generated from a Logical Model and make comments.
  • The Scenario type allows the user to assemble resources (and Logical Models) into a web of resources to represent the scenario being tested. It is very similar to the Scenario Builder in clinFHIR.

At the bottom of the screen is a tabset with 3 tabs:

• The description allows for more detail about the track – more than the name, less than the page in the wiki link. It is markdown enabled.
• The links tab allows you to enter any number of links to additional pages that are relevant to the Track. Each link has the Url and a description about the page. When the track is selected in the app, the users will be able to click on the pages to view the details (The links will open in a separate tab).
• The endpoints tab lists specific server endpoints that are relevant – such as a link to a FHIR server.

 

When you’ve entered the details of the track, click the ‘Save’ button to add it. Note that you also have a Delete option when editing a track. Be careful when deleting – the track cannot be restored after deletion! (If a track lead is specified, then only they can make changes – including deletions.)

Adding/Editing Scenarios

As stated above, a single track has any number of scenarios.

To add or edit a scenario, first select the track in the main app, then either add a new scenario or edit an existing one:

This is the scenario edit screen that is displayed:

 

• The scenario name is (like the track name) a short label for this track.
• The description (which is MarkDown enabled) has more detail. This field will automatically expand as you type to support as much detail as is required. It is markdown enabled.
• The review purpose allows you to be specific about the purpose of testing this scenario (it does make more sense in the context of a clinical track type).
• The links entry allows you to create linkages to external pages. This is very similar to the links feature for the track, and is useful for resources about the scenario – perhaps much more details about the scenario or reference information.

To the right is a tabset with 5 tabs:

• The ‘Pre’ tab contains any preconditions for this scenario
• The ‘Action’ tab describes the specific actions needed for the scenario.
• ‘Steps’ goes into even more details about the actual steps in the scenario (generally you would have either action or steps – not both – though the app doesn’t enforce that). Steps can be deleted and re-ordered, and can contain MarkDown. Currently you can’t edit a step – if you need to do this, then select & copy the text of the step to be edited, delete it, create a new one, paste in the text box, edit, save and move into position.
• ‘Success’ describes what a successful completion of the scenario would be
• ‘Roles’ lists all the roles in the Connectathon event, and allows you to indicate the ones that will be required for this scenario. You can also create new roles from this tab.