• Release versioning changes have now been implemented in both the International Edition and all derivative packages (including the "Z" suffix)
• Any issues experienced? NONE
• Any suggestions for improvement? NO
• If not, Andrew Atkinson to close down.

• Laterality refset now published in the International Edition - any issues experienced using it? YES - SEE BELOW
• Any suggestions for improvement? NO
• If not, Andrew Atkinson to close down.
• Andrew Atkinson TO ADD TO DOCUMENTATION TO a) ENSURE THAT PEOPLE KNOW TO ENGAGE ON THE REFSET WHEN THEY RE ADDING LATERALIZABLE CONTENT b) TO IMPROVE VISIBILITY OF USE CASES
• ALSO Andrew Atkinson TO SPEAK TO YONG ABOUT WHETHER OR NOT THE BLANKET APPLICATION OF LATERALIZABLE TO ALL CHILDREN OF LATERALIZABLE CONCEPTS IS ALWAYS ACCURATE..

• Perl script now separated from the International Edition - any issues experienced? NO
• Any suggestions for improvement? NO
• If not, Andrew Atkinson to close down.
  
  

• Release Notes now separated from the International Edition - any issues experienced? NO
• Any suggestions for improvement? NO
• If not, Andrew Atkinson to close down.
  
  

• Any new requirement for this feature?
• If not, Andrew Atkinson to close down.

• We are now ensuring that both dependencies are called out in ALL cases (as even though the dependency is inferred the TIG still requires us to state it)
• If no further issues/concerns, Andrew Atkinson to close down.

• This change was successfully implemented in the July 2017 International Edition.
• Did anyone have any issues with the volume involved? NO
• If not, Andrew Atkinson to close down.
  
  

• This was resolved in the September 2017 US Edition
• Any suggestions for improvement? YES - See Negative Delta file approach discussions below...
• If not, Andrew Atkinson to close down.

• Everyone agreed that this is a valid approach
•  Andrew Atkinson to send out early warning comms
• This will then be implemented in the Jan 2018 release

• ACTION POINT FOR EVERYONE: (Dion McMurtrie, Matt Cordell, Orsolya Bali, Suzy Roy, Corey Smith, Harold Solbrig, Mikael Nyström, Chris Morris)
  Everyone to take a look when they can and propose any refinements
• Andrew Atkinson to discuss with Michael Lawley to see if he would have time to design the replacement...

• Andrew Atkinson Document the proposed categories, and provide many examples of each level to at least start the discussion off.
  1. Segregate into technical and clinical issues
  2. Continue to communicate through the JIRA tickets, so there's a good audit trail
  3. Provide access to the JIRA tickets not just through Release notes at the end of the Release cycle, but also mid-cycle so people can see what we're discussing/agreeing...

•  Andrew Atkinson added the fact that the Delta should be populated into the Packaging conventions document (section 4.5)
• If the TRAG are in agreement with the final solution, we will send out comms accordingly. YES EVERYONE AGREED
• Andrew Atkinson to communicate the changes out
• Andrew Atkinson to discuss with E-learning dept to ensure Training courses are updated accordingly, along with potentially the definition in the TIG.

• Document updated by Andrew Atkinson in line with the recommendations from the last meeting, and then migrated to a Confluence page here: SNOMED CT Release Configuration and Packaging Conventions
• To be reviewed in detail by everyone, and all feedback to be discussed in the meetings. MOST PEOPLE STILL NEED TIME TO REVIEW THE DOC - Andrew Atkinson INFORMED EVERYONE THAT THIS DOCUMENT WILL BE ENFORCED AS OF THE JAN 2018 RELEASE AND THEREFORE WE NEED REVIEWS COMPLETED ASAP...
• ALSO we need to discuss Dion's point from the joint AG where he talked about nailing down the rules for derivative modules... - EVERYONE AGREED - Andrew Atkinson to discuss with Dion McMurtrie
• IN ADDITION, we should discuss both the File Naming convention recommendations in the Requirements section (at the top of the page), PLUS Dion's suggestions further below (with the diagram included).
• Andrew Atkinson to then agree all of the relevant changes that will be required as a result of this document internally in SNOMED International, and publish the document accordingly.
• Andrew Atkinson to then ensure all relevant sections incorporated in the TIG (or at least linked through)
• Once complete, the document should be published and opened up to anyone to view.
• Andrew Atkinson to discuss syndication options for MLDS with Dion McMurtrie - see hwat they've done (using Atom) and discuss with Rory as to what we can do. Suzy would be interested is this as well from an MS persepctive. UK also interested. This shouldn't hold up the publishing of the document.
• Reuben Daniels to raise a ticket to update the fhir specs accordingly
• Reuben Daniels to talk to Linda to get URI specs updated accordingly.
• URI Specs to be updated and aligned accordingly - Reuben Daniels to assist
• AAT to add in to the Release Versioning spec that the time stamp is UTC
• AAT to add the trailing "Z" into the Release packaging conventions to bring us in line with ISO8601
• AAT to add new discussion point in order to completely review the actual file naming conventions. An example, would be to add into the Delta/Full/Snapshot element the dependent release that the Delta is from (eg) "_Delta-20170131_" etc. AAT to discuss with Linda/David. Or we hold a zero byte file in the Delta folder containing this info as this is less intrusive to existing users. Then publish the proposal, and everyone would then take this to their relevant stakeholders for feedback before the next meeting in October. If this is ratified, we would then update the TIG accordingly.
• AAT to add in a statement to the section 4 (Release package configuration) to state that multiple Delta's are not advised within the same package.
• AAT to add in appendix with human readable version of the folder structure. Done - see section 7

Dion McMurtrie completed the Alpha release - did anyone have chance to review it? (I haven't had any requests for access to the remainder of the package)

The subject of Modularisation needs to be discussed between the various AG's who are considering the topic, before we can proceed with the Release-specific sections.

• Understand the Use cases thoroughly, and refine the proposal doc to provide people with more real information - Dion McMurtrie TO PROVIDE THESE USE CASES FOR Andrew Atkinson TO DOCUMENT
• Does the POC allow for concepts to be contained within multiple modules? NO - BUT DION CAN'T THINK OF ANY CONCRETE EXAMPLES WHERE THIS WOULD BE NECESSARY
• What about cross module dependencies? Michael Lawley's idea on having a separate Module purely for managing module dependencies
• IN THE FINAL PROPOSAL, WE NEED TO CREATE A NESTED MDRS TO MANAGE THE INTER-MODULE DEPENDENCIES (as per Michael's comments)
• NEED TO PROVIDE GOOD EXAMPLES AND WHITE PAPERS OF THE USE CASES FOR MODULARISATION IN ORDER TO ENGAGE OTHERS...

This document was reviewed in detail and all feedback was discussed and agreed upon - new version (v0.3) is available for review, attached to the IHTSDO Release Management Communication Plan review page.

AAT has added in details to state that we'll prefix the comms with "Change" or "Release" in order to distinguish between the type of communications. See version 0.4 now - IHTSDO Release Management Communication plan v0.4.docx

Once we've collated the feedback from the revised comms processes that we've implemented over the past year (in the items above), we'll incorporate that into the final version and discuss with the SNOMED International Executive Lead for Communications (Kelly Kuru), to ensure that it is aligned with the new overall Communication strategy. Once complete, the Release Management comms plan will be transferred to Confluence and opened up for everyone to view.

We have publicised the Release Management confluence portal to both NRC's and the end users to get people to sign up as and when they require the information. Do we know of anyone still not getting the information they need?

We also agreed last time that the community needs more visibility of significant, unusual changes (such as bulk plural change, or case significance change). These changes should be communicated out not just when they're assigned to a release, but actually well in advance (ie) as soon as the content team start authoring it, regardless of which future release it will actually make it in. I have therefore created a new Confluence page here: January 2020 Early Visibility Release Notices - Planned changes to upcoming SNOMED International Release packages

I've left the previous items up (from the July 2017 International Edition) because there are no examples yet from the Jan 2018 editing cycle - so please take a look and provide feedback on whether or not this is useful, and how it can be improved.

• ACTION POINT FOR EVERYONE: (Dion McMurtrie, Matt Cordell, Orsolya Bali, Suzy Roy, Corey Smith, Harold Solbrig, Mikael Nyström, Chris Morris)
  The final version of the communication plan needs to be reviewed by everyone and any comments included before we agree the document internally and incorporate it into our communication strategy
• Suzy Roy will discuss the end use cases of her users with them and come back to use with feedback on the practical uses of SNOMED CT and any improvements that we can make, etc 
  
  

Most NRC's (Australia, USA, Sweden, etc) were agreed that there was no longer any need for this Member Release period, as they only ever use the Member Release for preliminary internal validation, etc. However, Guillermo Reynoso expressed concerns that the removal of this phase would present a barrier to their support of members such as Netherlands, Uruguay, etc - and also with their translation of the Spanish edition.

The UK also need to confirm whether or not this would present them with a problem, given their release cycle timelines...

TRAG to discuss whether or not there are any new pro's/con's to removing the Member Release period?

Could we, for example, use the new Alpha release stage to remove the Member Release period (in order to gain an extra month of authoring)? This has resulted in us now having 5 testing phases to each International Edition:

1. On-going testing during the authoring cycle, both through front end validation, plus weekly issue resolution using the advanced notice provided by the Daily Build.
2. pre-Alpha testing
3. Alpha testing
4. Beta testing
5. Member Release period

We now have a well refined process, which has resulted in our having removed the issues from the Member Release period. This is because we are now catching most issues in the Alpha stage, instead of in the Beta stage, and therefore the Beta is now as it should be - as close to Production level as possible.

If we have a clean Member release period for say, 2 more release cycles, can we consider the Member Release period obsolete?

In order to make this plan work, we would need to all agree the following:

• We would need full, consistent cooperation of members in terms of allocating sufficient resource to implement thorough Alpha and Beta testing.
• We would need to ensure enough time between Alpha and Beta phases to ensure full feedback allowed.
• We would need to triage any Beta issues effectively to ensure that the release remains stable for all but critical issues found in the Beta period.

•  No-one had any problem with removing the Member Release period - even Chris Morris confirmed that the UKTC only take the release from the Production status onwards (31st Jan / 31st July), and therefore removing the Member Release period would have no impact for them
• Andrew Atkinson to discuss with Guillermo Reynoso, who is the only outstanding opponent to this proposal, and see if we can work out how to ensure that they can still meet their translation commitments...
• Andrew Atkinson to discuss with Rory and decide if it's better to just leave this one to expire naturally as part of the introduction of Continuous Delivery (as that will inherently remove the Member release period)?
• IF EVERYONE IN AGREEMENT, COMM IT OUT AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE TO GET FEEDBACK FROM ENTIRE COMMUNITY!!!

•  No-one is concerned about this, so Andrew Atkinson will close this down and run internal clean up at some point in future

•  NO! Everyone is decidedly uncomfortable with this solution! In particular Keith Campbell, Michael Lawley and Guillermo are all vehemently opposed to changing history.
• The consensus is that in the particular example of the US problem, we should have instead granted permission for the US to publish an update record in the International module, thus fixing the problem (though leaving the incorrect history in place). This would have been far preferable to changing history.
• ACTION POINT FOR EVERYONE: (Dion McMurtrie, Matt Cordell, Orsolya Bali, Suzy Roy, Corey Smith, Harold Solbrig, Mikael Nyström, Chris Morris
  We therefore all need to come up with potential scenarios where going forward we may need to implement a similar solution to the Negative Delta, and send them to AAT. Once I've documented them all, we can then discuss again and agree on the correct approach in each place, then AAT will document all of these as standard, proportionate responses to each situation, and we will use these as guidelines in future. If we have issues come up that fall outside of these situations, we'll then come back to the group to discuss each one subjectively, and then add them back into the list of agreed solutions.

1. Preference now is to retain EVERYTHING in the Full file, regardless of errors - this is because the Full File should show the state at that point in time, even if it was an error! This is because there is not an error in the Full file, the Full file is accurately representing the error in the content/data at that time.
2. The problem here is that the tools are unable to cope with historical errors - so we perhaps need to update the tools to allow for these errors.
3. So we need the tools to be able to whitelist the errors, and honestly document the KNOWN ISSUES (preferably in a machine readable manner), so that everyone knows what the historical errors were.
4. The manner of this documentation is up for debate - perhaps we add it to a new refset? Then we could use something very similar in format to the Negative delta, but instead of it actually changing history retrospectively, we simply document them as known issues, and allowing people to deal with the information in their own extensions and systems in whatever way they feel is appropriate.
5. Only situation we can think of where we couldn't apply the above gentle response, would be copyright infringement - whereby if we discovered (several releases after the fact) that we had released content that was in direct infringement of copyright, then we would potentially have to revoke all releases since the issues occurred. However, this would raise a very interesting situation where patient safety might be compromised - as if we remove all historical content that contravened the copyright, then we run the risk of patient data being impacted, thus potentially adversely affecting decision support. This is simple to resolve when the problem is in the latest release (simply recall the release), but if found in a 5 year old release for example, it could be very problematic to recall 5 years' worth of content and change it!

This should all be documented and disseminated to get confirmation of approval from everyone.

Pros

• Allows people to choose whether or not the users take one release every 6 months, or frequent monthly releases...
  
• Derivative maps wouldn't be a huge issue as just release them whenever we had a chance, dependent on whichever edition
• One of the plus points are that when we're still at 6 monthly releases, if the vendors miss a release its a big deal, whereas if they miss monthly releases then they have a smaller impact

Cons

• One drawback is for the non english speaking members, who need to keep up with translations - shouldn't really have an impact if they keep up with each smaller release.
• Could be painful for translations when a monthly release happens to contain a drop of a huge project like Drugs or something...
• What about interoperability issues, with some people taking each monthly release, and others still waiting for every 6 months? ADHA believe this hasn't caused a huge problem for them, just an addition to the existing problem even with 6 monthly releases...
• Also need to implement the metadata for identifying which dependent release each Delta is relative to...
• Refsets aren't too much work to keep up to date - however Mapping is a different ball game - this can take some time
• Maps that are still inherent in the int Edition (ICD-0 ICD-11 etc) are potentially problematic, and the workflow would need to be carefully worked out...
• If your projects happen to drop in-between the normal 6 monthly releases, then someone who might have taken Jan and July still, might miss out on the important big releases that happen in April and November!
• Also quality might be an issue - need to have the automated testing completely airtight before we move to continuous delivery! Thereafter you would run all major validation at input stage and ensure authors only ever promote to MAIN when everything perfectly clean. Then we run Daily builds with automated release validation every night, and provides a RAG status on release issues every morning. Then by the end of the month, we publish the last Green Daily build!

Andrew Atkinson to use all of this to continue internal discussions on whether or not moving to Continuous Delivery is feasible, and if so plan what the timelines would look like...

•  April 2018

• Andrew Atkinson to ensure that the generic service is flexible enough to fail gracefully if certain extensions don't contain some of the expected files, etc.
• We should also provide a standard Manifest to show what files they should include wherever possible (even if blank)

• April 2018 - This change was successfully implemented in the July 2017 International Edition.
• Did anyone have any issues with the removal itself?
• Did anyone have any issues themselves, or feedback from their community on how the communication went this time? We went further than normal to ensure that everyone had visibility of the changes, and understood all of the issues and rationale behind the decisions made - so any feedback would be great to see if we can improve even further next time? Any feedback to be fed into the IHTSDO Release Management Communication Plan review
• If not, Andrew Atkinson to close down.
  
  

• This change was successfully implemented in the July 2017 International Edition.
• Has anyone had any issues with the refsets? NO
• Has anyone had any feedback from their community on the refsets and their real world application? NO
• Has anyone had any feedback from their community on how the communication went? Any feedback to be fed into the IHTSDO Release Management Communication Plan review NO
• Andrew Atkinson to close down.

TRAG to consider the implications of the new scripts being compiled by the Modelling AG

Last time we all agreed to 1) Wait for the document to be completed by the MAG which defines exactly what SNOMED CT should look like in OWL 2) Ensure that both the old PERL and the new Python scripts work completely and document all caveats 3) Ensure when we open source them both, we clearly call out what kind of SNOMED packages each does/doesn't work with (eg) International + extensions, but not derivatives?

Harold Solbrig to provide an update on when the MAG the document to be available.

•  April 2018 - Harold to provide an update...

RVF has now been open sourced to allow people to contribute towards it more easily, so that Implementation issues can be reverse engineered into the assertions. All of the NRC validation systems should remain separate, in order to ensure as great a coverage across the board as possible.

However, it makes sense to ensure the critical tests are included in all systems, in order to ensure that if, say, one NRC doesn't have the capacity to run Alpha/Beta testing for a certain release, we don't miss critical checks out. We are working on this in the Working Group, and also in the RVF Improvement program, where we are including the DROOLS rules, etc. These are also being incorporated into the front end input validation for the SCA.

TRAG to therefore discuss taking the Implementation Load test forward, including the potential to incorporate key rules from NRC validation systems into the RVF. So we should discuss the tests that are specific to the Implementation of vendor and affiliate systems, in order that we can facilitate the best baseline for the RVF when agreeing the generic testing functionality in the Working Group.

• Matt Cordell will promote some useful new ADHA specific rules to the RVF so we can improve the scope...
• Chris Morris to do the same - get the RVF up and running and then promote any missing rules that they run locally.

•  Everyone is happy with this change, so we will keep this topic open for another 2 conferences to keep an eye on any unintended impact (as the first Spanish Edition containing the new namespace will not be published until the 31st October 2017), so people should continue to provide feedback.

•  April 2018 - Harold Solbrig to give an update on the MAG's plans?

•  April 2018 - Harold Solbrig to give an update on the MAG's plans?

•  April 2018

The short term proposal of precoordinating the numbers and measures as concepts (and therefore not changing the RF2 format) was generally well accepted, though there were concerns raised regarding the longevity of this approach, and whether or not this addresses the original target of the project (which was to allow a standardised approach across all extensions, instead of perpetuating distinct coding for different users). The other concern raised was that any solution needs to be implemented rapidly, as otherwise the various members will be forced to start/continue implementing their own solutions.

Peter G. Williams, therefore, will take this forward in the Modelling AG and further implementation. The functionality has been rolled in to the wider discussion of enhancing SNOMED’s DL capabilities.    The Modelling AG is planning a targeted discussion on this in June 2017, and will then produce a document which would then be reviewed by the MAG at the October conference.This Proposal document will be shared when complete.

Last update from Peter was that the OWL Refset solution allows us to classify with concrete domains. The thing we’re still discussing, is how to represent that in the release. The currently most popular approach suggested is to create a 2nd inferred file which contains concrete values in the destination column, rather than SCTIDs. This allows them to be added without impact to the current approach i.e. ignore it if you don’t want to use them. The new file would only contain concrete values.

Harold to give an update on the MAG's plans?

•  April 2018 - Harold Solbrig to give an update on the MAG's plans?

•  April 2018