The Roadmap development team just finished a huge chunk of work that we rolled out to DMPTool users this week. Prior to launching the new version of the tool we focused on optimizing the primary user side: creating DMPs. With this new release, we’ve made significant improvements to the administrative side, specifically to overhaul the way admins create and version templates.
In the midst of this major refactoring effort, we did some additional maintenance, upgrades, and accepted the first new feature contribution from our French partners at DMP OPIDoR (many thanks to Benjamin and Quentin!). The full release notes are available on GitHub. Most of the magic takes place behind the scenes, but keep reading for a summary of changes that affect the user interface.
- Templates: You’ll notice some subtle changes as you create, edit, and update templates and customizations for funder templates. Previously, any changes you made to a template would trigger a new version. Now you can make changes to template details (Title, Description, update broken links) without versioning. Any structural changes, such as adding a new question or example answer or adding customized guidance to a funder template will create a new version. In the main templates table you will see a red editing icon (screenshot below) if you’ve made changes that created a new version. The icon includes a tooltip that alerts you to publish your changes (in the Actions menu) in order to make them available to users. You can always “Unpublish” templates and customizations at any time. You will only see the option to “Remove” (i.e. from the table/from view) a template that has not been used to create any plans (e.g. test templates) or a customization that has not been previously published. Detailed instructions are available in the Help for Administrators.
- Global notifications: Super Admins (me) now have the ability to create global notifications that will be displayed to all users. These appear at the top of the screen and alert users to important news items such as scheduled maintenance or updates to funder templates. Users can dismiss the notifications by clicking the ‘x’ on the right (if I configure them to be dismissable; there may be cases where you cannot dismiss the notification but I don’t anticipate using this frequently).
We appreciate the feedback we’ve received so far and encourage everyone to keep it coming. Specifically, let us know what additional improvements we can make to the templates and guidance areas as you test the newly released code. A note: many have reported issues with searching and sorting tables, which we’re addressing as part of the next sprint. Please report any new feedback via Github Issues or the helpdesk.
Upcoming events
- With this latest release, the timing is finally right for a templates and guidance webinar. We’re aiming for a date in early July (TBD very soon). The recording will be available afterward.
- For those who ordered outreach materials, you will receive them in the next 2-3 weeks. Thanks for your patience!