Description of Enhancement Process, SBI Users Group

SUBMIT REQUEST ON-LINE

One of the primary goals of the annual meeting is to finalize the enhancement list that is submitted to a vote and given to SBI for consideration. In order to produce a list that is as clear and unambiguous as possible, the Board of Directors has agreed to the following general procedure. It assumes that the annual meeting will occur in mid-October, and that there will be an enhancement list coordinator assigned by the Board (this responsibility falls on the secretary/treasurer if the Board has not explicitly assigned it.) This procedure was approved in principle at the June, 1993 Board meeting, and agreed to by SRN.

May through July: enhancements are submitted by the SBI Users Group membership and collated by the coordinator. The new list starts off with no entries from prior years; i.e. entries from prior years that should continue to be on the current list must be re-submitted (see the enhancement request form for more details.) The Board wants to strongly encourage the membership to submit all enhancement requests during this period.

Mid-August: the coordinator forwards the enhancement list to the respective Module Representatives and SBI for review and questions back to the submitters for clarification. Duplicates and imprecise language are eliminated, as much as possible.

Mid-September: the enhancement review process is completed, and results are returned to the coordinator.

Beginning of October: the enhancement list is sent to the designated primary and module contacts at each site, as well as annual meeting registrants.

Mid-October, annual meeting: enhancement requests continue to be accepted through the end of the meeting, with continued emphasis on keeping enhancement submissions after mid-August to a minimum. Each module group will clarify and discuss the enhancement list. Module Representatives and SBI take all submissions with them from the meeting for the purpose of a final review cycle.

Beginning of November: final enhancement review cycle is completed and results are returned to the coordinator.

Beginning of December: full enhancement text and ballots go to the primary contact at each site. This person is responsible for coordinating the enhancement voting process at her/his site.

End of December (before holidays): ballots are due back to the enhancement coordinator. This deadline is intentionally aggressive to (1) ensure a timely response; (2) ensure a fresh recollection of enhancement discussions occurring at the annual meeting; (3) provide timely information to SBI to facilitate its quick response; and (4) most important provide the enhancement voting results and SRN's response before the next enhancement submission cycle begins.

Mid-January: results of the balloting are given to SBI for its analysis.

Mid-March: SBI forwards its detailed response back to the enhancement coordinator, who incorporates the response into the final enhancement report, working as closely as necessary with SBI to achieve accuracy.

Mid-April: enhancement voting results and SRN's response are sent to designated primary and module contacts at each site, and to annual meeting attendees.

<Intervening annual meeting, mid-October>

The enhancements that SBI agrees to do will generally be delivered in the following calendar year:

January/February: AID Enhancements submitted at the next-to-last annual meeting (i.e. the one 15 to 16 months earlier) that SBI commits to will be delivered.

June/July: Remaining IRIS enhancements (other than AID) submitted at the next-to-last annual meeting (i.e. the one 20 to 21 months earlier) that SBI commits to will be delivered.