using drupal to build the va app store
DESCRIPTION
Session Description: Donna Rodriguez is a Web Manager at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. She will discuss the trials and tribulations of building the public VA App Store. The year-long process began with exploring commercially available enterprise App stores and moved on to partnering with the DoD's National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency to use its App store as a rapid prototype. In the end, VA settled on building its App Store in Drupal – the same CMS platform that was used to launch VA’s first Drupal-built website – http://mobilehealth.va.gov – in May 2013. The goal of the VA App Store is to create a seamless, online user experience for Veterans, their Caregivers and VA Providers to drive adoption of VA Mobile Apps. The session covers VA’s App Store journey, the Drupal modules used and the lessons learned along the way.TRANSCRIPT
mobile.va.gov | mobilehealth.va.gov | connectedhealth.va.gov
CAPITAL CAMP AND GOV DAYS 2014: Using Drupal to Build the VA App Store
Donna Rodriguez, Web Manager
The goal of the VA App Store is to create a
seamless, online user experience for Veterans, their
Caregivers and VA Providers to drive adoption of VA
Mobile Apps.
The session covers:
1.VA’s App Store journey,
2.the Drupal modules used, and
3.the lessons learned along the way.
Tasked with researching an enterprise mobile App store to publish/distribute VA mobile Apps
1. Build our own VA enterprise App store in-house
2. Research procurement options
Outreach to Drupal4Gov Forum for ideas for App store Drupal distro for managing App catalogs called OpenCivic: Andrew Hoppin (NuCivic)
DoD Version of App Store that can be given to federal agencies: Ben Hosmer (NGA now Mediacurrent):
Procurement Option Demos
1. Apperian: www.apperian.com
2. App47: www.app47.com
3. Airwatch: (VA already owned for Mobile Device Management) MDM
4. Good (AppCentral)
5. Others?
Apperian Enterprise App Store
App47 Enterprise App Store
Airwatch Enterprise App Store
See it live: Demo site at http://demo.opencivic.nuamsdev.com/ Live site at http://europecommons.org
Other live sites that use OpenCivic as its basis: http://EuropeCommons.org http://commons.codeforamerica.org http://hackforchange.org
Drupal Distro - OpenCivic
Drupal Distro - OpenCivic
Procurement no longer an option due to cost
Demo DoD App Store; Web team approves Fill out paperwork required to obtain sponsor to use DoD App Store
DoD transfers the code to Amazon cloud and helps VA set up the infrastructure and provides developer assistance
Begin development in November 2013
Need to remove required fields and logins
Meet weekly until all changes are completed to DoD Mobile App Store
Additional changes are required and completed to DoD Mobile App Store
For Veterans: An online portal through which Apps are made available in two ways:
1.For download by Veterans and their Caregivers by linking to consumer-oriented App stores, such as Apple's App Store and Google Play.
2.By linking to VA developed Apps that require secure logins required to access Electronic Health Record (EHR).
For Clinicians: An enterprise App Store:
1.An OIT-controlled portal that makes specific, approved business Apps available only to staff users. OIT can manage desktop, mobile, and Web App software licenses (EULAs) and maintain a level of control over security.
DoD Mobile App Store: Background
Geoint was built 3 years ago in-house by Dr. Tuttle, R&D Department of Defense/National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (DoD/NGA). His vision included:
Partnering with other agencies building App Stores and sharing App stores across the federal space
Releasing the App Store as Open Source for collaborating and jointly developing with other agencies
VA Benefits of installing and using the Geoint App Store on VA servers:
Allows VA to pilot and understand what requirements are needed for VA App store before acquisition or building in-house
Meets the needs of the VA in terms of cost [FREE]
Meets the needs of the VA in terms of timing [syncs with launch of the VA Apps scheduled for release in Fall of Fiscal Year (FY) 2014]
DoD Mobile App Store - Architecture
See it live: https://apps.nga.mil
Architecture:
Ruby/Rails based and required PostgreSQL as opposed to Drupal/MS SQL
DoD Mobile App Store
App details screen
as DoD for the App Store
Need to be clear by what we
App Store is unique?
1 2 3
Learn to love the command line using Secure Shell (SSH) to modify the DoD Mobile App Store to fit
Store use case
DoD Mobile App Store
VA Branded
App
details
screen
In March 2014, abandon the VA-branded DoD Mobile App Store
Not All DoD Technologies used in architecture diagram are approved on One-VA Technical Reference Model (TRM)
Rebuild with what we learned from DoD App Store in Drupal
DoD Mobile App Store serves as Rapid prototype for VA
Make plans to move from Moderate FISMA to High FISMA more secure environment in VA MAE (Mobile App Environment)
Filters
Disclose that some Apps will require credentials
Download (iOS/Android) vs. Launch (HTML)
VA App Store Feedback
“VA is way
ahead of the
curve – 95%
on the App
store
concept”
Drupal Modules used to Build the VA App Store
Fivestar Galleria
Token Views
Voting API Webform
App Content Type
Production & Performance
Web Application Security Assessment (WASA) scans
Performance Testing
Target: 10k to 20k users
Need to re-architect hardware configuration for redundancy and high availability
Our store must be able to handle large scale traffic when Apps are released
Apache vs IIS or MySQL vs MS SQL
Approved for WISP (Windows/IIS/SQL Server/PHP) vs LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) stack
MySQL is currently approved for use for Intranet only. Will changing to MySQL provide us with better module support and a more optimal experience?
VA Mobile App Store - Architecture
Windows / IIS 7.5
SQL Server 2008
R2
Web
Storefront
App Store Server
Drupal
Web Storefront
Po
rt 4
43
Environment
App Store/Dev Portal www.mobile.va.gov mobile.va.gov www.appstore.va.gov appstore.va.gov
Provider Portal/Pilots www.mobilehealth.va.gov mobilehealth.va.gov
Program Office
www.connectedhealth.va.gov connectedhealth.va.gov
Separate Drupal Instances / Content & Communication Strategy
Launch Burn Pit
2 URLs One for Veterans
One for Providers
Where do we launch App For Provider?
Not the Veteran facing App Store
Native apps (e.g., Apple or Android store apps), HTML 5 Apps
» Airwatch Store only for iOS and Android Apps
» Burn Pit is HTML5 App
Apps for internal staff with GFE and require VistA logon
Apps for clinical staff informational in nature
for Providers
1. Apps for external users (Veterans)
2. Apps for internal users (VA employees) requires VistA logon
3. Apps for external users (Providers) Informational Apps does not require VistA logon
4. Apps being Tested
How to plan, launch, and maintain App stores that serve these constituencies
Separate App stores for separate constituencies, or one App store to serve all?
Different use cases
Built with Drupal App Catalog Buenos Aires City Gov
See it live: http://www.buenosaires.gob.ar/aplicacionesmoviles
See it live: http://www.buenosaires.gob.ar/aplicacionesmoviles
Built with Drupal App Catalog Buenos Aires City Gov
See it live: http://www.hhs.gov/digitalstrategy/mobile/mobile-apps.html
HHS-sponsored Mobile Apps
Speaker Information
Donna Rodriguez Web Manager
Web and Mobile Solutions
Connected Health Office
Office of Informatics and Analytics
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
Been working with Drupal 7 since Jan. 2013
Launched 1st Drupal Internet Site in VA May 2013
https://www.linkedin.com/donnaadorianrodriguez
https://twitter.com/donnaador
Drupal Sites
http://mobile.va.gov
http://mobilehealth.va.gov
http://connectedhealth.va.gov