Collaboration Services - ARCHIVED

Owned by Peter Monks
Last updated: Sept 09, 2020 by Gabriele Columbro
5 min read

Obsolete content

This is obsolete content, as this page is now hosted on https://odp.finos.org/docs/project-collaboration. 

All of the following services are freely available for use by the Foundation's Programs, Projects, and Working Groups, upon request.


GitOps (GitHub.com)

Teams across the world are often preferring to use/integrate/implement collaboration tools as close as possible to source code; this practice is often referred to as GitOps, and it's what FINOS is working towards, in collaboration with GitHub.com ; you can read how FINOS uses GitHub.com and which collaboration tools are made available on the Project Collaboration on Github page.


Web Conferencing (Webex)

Why WebEx

The Foundation has determined that most other web conferencing services (including, but not limited to, GoTo Meeting, Zoom, appear.in, RingCentral, and more) are blocked by some or all of the banks that participate in our community.  Webex is the only web conferencing system that is reasonably broadly supported by the banks, and in order to ensure equal access to all community members (and especially those employed by a bank), we strongly recommend using Webex exclusively for web conferencing.

That said, it doesn't have to be the Foundation's Webex account specifically - any Webex account will be equally accessible by the community.

The Foundation provides a Webex-based web conferencing facility to support online meetings.  We expect PMCs and Working Groups who don't have their own Webex service to make use of this infrastructure for their regular meetings. Please email help@finos.org or raise a HELP issue to request assistance with 

We're here to help!

For any request or question related to our Collaboration services, just drop us an email at help@finos.org or raise a HELP issue, including a description of your request / issue, and we'll get you set up.

Note that Confluence and Jira share a single account - there is no need to sign up for both separately.

Mailing Lists (Google Groups)

The Foundation provides mailing lists via the Google Groups service.  Email, as a lowest common denominator communication channel, is one of the best ways to reach the broadest cross-section of the community as possible.

Don't use email attachments

Many banks silently delete emails containing certain types of file attachment - notably executables (EXE files, etc.), source code files (JS files, etc.), and archive files (ZIP files, etc.).  For this reason we recommend using file attachments sparingly, limiting the use of archive files when sending attachments, and trying to stick to "safe" (content only) file formats such as PDF, Word, Powerpoint, etc.

Email Best Practices
  • Keep it clean - many members of the community participate from their place of employment, so please use professional tone and language at all times.
  • Treat people with respect and consideration - specifically, ensure you're familiar with the code of conduct.
  • Be helpful - be willing to jump in to answer questions.  Even if you aren't 100% sure of the answer, posting your understanding can help unlock a deeper conversation (and if you're unsure, briefly saying so is a good idea).
  • Stay calm - the written word is always open to interpretation, so give people the benefit of the doubt and try not to let emotions get out of control.
  • Be patient - people with the appropriate skills might not be around the moment you ask a question.  New community members will be asking "beginner" questions that may have already been answered previously - be gentle and polite in helping them navigate the Foundation's content.
  • Minimize "walls of text" - avoid emails containing large blocks of text.  A worthy aspiration is to try to craft emails that fit on a smart phone screen without swiping.
  • Prefer public mailing lists for all email communication - chances are that someone else in the community will be interested in the topic you're discussing, and by leveraging public mailing lists you create the opportunity for them to find that content themselves.

Most other open source initiatives rely heavily on mailing lists to support asynchronous collaboration, and we recommend the same for our community (especially given the restrictions most bank employees have in accessing internet services).

Wiki (Confluence Cloud)

The Foundation provides a Cloud-hosted instance of the Atlassian Confluence wiki for use by the community.  This software provides content collaboration features, for both web content, and document-based content.  We expect PMCs and Working Groups in particular to make extensive use of the wiki; for their meeting minutes, for published standards documents, etc.

Access to Confluence is available to the community for free - you can sign up for an account here.

Teams can also decide to use GitHub Wiki to document their project activity and publish documentation, you can read more on https://help.github.com/en/articles/about-wikis or see how some FINOS hosted projects, like the GreenKey Discovery SDK, are using it today.

Minuting Services

The Foundation offers a dedicated scribe who is available to capture the minutes of online meetings.  These minutes include:

  1. the list of attendees, provided a formal roll call is conducted by the host at the commencement of the call
  2. a summary of the discussion of each agenda item
  3. any decisions reached (i.e. using the Foundation's decision making mechanism)
  4. any actions identified during the meeting

To request scribe services, please raise a HELP issue or email help@finos.org and include the schedule of meetings you need assistance with.  The Foundation will then confirm whether the scribe is available at that time, and provide further instructions regarding booking their time.

Content will be added to the Confluence meeting minute page containing the agenda (which must exist prior to the call - see note below), or, if you're using some other system for meeting minutes, as a Word document attachment in an email (which you will then have to copy into that system yourself).

The provided minutes will be "raw", and will almost always require further editing by the host and/or attendees of the call to correct domain specific terminology (FinServ and technology acronyms, organisation names, etc.).

All meetings where minuting is requested must have a written agenda published prior to the commencement of the call, ideally here on Confluence.  Agendas are required by the Foundation's anti-trust policy.

Minuting services are available on a first-come, first-served basis; if the scribe is already booked for a meeting at the same time as yours, they will not be available.

We encourage PMCs and Working Groups to review the meeting schedules of their peers, to reduce the risk of such conflicts.

The scribe may also be unavailable periodically (for vacations, etc.).

We encourage PMC leads and Working Group chairs to delegate minute taking responsibilities on a rotating basis to participants in the call, in cases where the scribe is unavailable.

Need help? Email help@finos.org we'll get back to you.

Content on this page is licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license.
Code on this page is licensed under the Apache 2.0 license.