Rokwire Dictionary
Illinois App, Safer Illinois, Rokmetro (many third party apps based off of Illinois and Safer)
There are also building blocks within the App side of Rokwire. These provide functionality to multiple talents. Identified app building blocks are: Authentication, logging, notification
Details of Building Block properties is discussed in What is a building block?
A review of Building Blocks, Capabilities, and Talents is discussed in How does Rokwire work?
Backend: The Backend is the preferred terminology when referring to building block code, capability code and the infrastructure for a rokwire instance. This is distinct from the user device, the app running on the device.
Ecosystem: The platform is part of the Rokwire ecosystem, the ecosystem would also include external relations with vendors, data sources, partnerships, etc.
Capability: components that are built in the Rokwire system to provide users with some new ability (e.g. Housing and meal selection, Engineering Open House event and promotions, Sport news feeds for athletic events on campus, etc), that leverage building blocks in order to simplify the creation of that ability. Capabilities will typically be provided by 3rd parties for very specific instance/community needs. Each Capability has a version for tracking changes. Each capability includes at least one Talent. Capabilities are built up from collections of building blocks, so most building blocks have to interoperate with other building blocks. Wherever that is true, it is important that the interfaces to a building block are published and reasonably stable.
Events Manager Building block: A web application that will be used to fetch events from various existing calendars (both organizational and non-organizational), view fetched events, filter events / calendars for ensuring data quality, and populate Rokwire platform database with events after quality checks. This will also be used to update or delete existing events in the Rokwire platform database. Events manager will use the Events Building Block API to communicate with the Rokwire platform database. This application will be used by administrators who will be managing events data that flows into the Rokwire platform database. It will include a web interface for approvers to go live in the system.
Infrastructure Adaptive Layer: Adaptive layer between the platform Building Blocks implementations, Capabilities, and the underlying Infrastructure where the platform is deployed. This will be the layer where most customization between Rokwire instances occurs across organizations. This translates to site specific back end implementations. (i.e. Cloud services, databases, security services).
PII: Personally Identifiable Information.
non-PII: Non-personally identifiable information.
PID: Personal Identifier. This is a unique, immutable id provided by the Rokwire platform when a user logs into the client application. This is associated with a PII information. An association between UUID and PID is created to link the two identities and create ability to track activity across the platform.
Phone Number: Verified phone number for a class of users is as good as a netid for transactions which are not university specific.
Rokwall: A data security feature (capability) of the Rokwire platform. For anonymous information collected in Rokwire, individual records will not be allowed to leave the system.
Rokwire Building Block Catalog: A comprehensive listing with documentation and APIs of the building blocks, and their functionality which are provided as part of the Rokwire platform. Metadata about the building blocks including usage examples should be included for each entry. Every Rokwire instance must contain all the building blocks.
Rokwire Capability Catalog: The “App Store” like functionality of the Rokwire platform where 3rd parties can submit new capabilities for others to then deploy for user access. A Capability catalog entry is a complete authoritative source of information about a capability. Talent Selector: This is the system that utilizes data from the user, like users, to determine which talents from the instance admin approved Rokwire Capabilities Catalog should be presented at any given moment.
Rokwire Data Dictionary: The Data Dictionary is the authoritative source of information for data created by Talents, Capabilities, or the Platform. It is also a repository to describe data required for Talents, Capabilities or the Platform which is external to Rokwire. The dictionary contains entries for Rokwire created data as well as 3rd party data required by capabilities. It provides descriptions and attributes of data to allow data to be leveraged by Rokwire components or researchers. When a capability is added to Rokwire, it should update the Data Dictionary appropriately. .
Rokwire Platform: The union of Building Blocks and API interfaces to them allowing for 3rd party Capabilities to more easily be created, deployed, integrated, navigated, and leveraged by broad user communities. This encompasses the app and the backend code and infrastructure.
Service: We will avoid using the term “Service” throughout this document because it means different things to different people and tends to confuse the issue.
Talent: the interface and code on a user's device that allows interactions with the Rokwire platform. Based on personal settings specified by the user, various talents are enabled or disabled, allowing for a customized experience. Talents should be independent of each other, and can consist of either code natively implemented in the mobile application itself, or implemented via web-based talent. The web based talent allows for immediate release of the capability, whereas the native Flutter-based UI will have to wait for the next formal version release of whatever app it is associated with. While a single talent maps to a single capability, multiple types of interfaces (voice, API, web) may be available.
A talent is the interface and code on the user’s device that a person interacts with. Talents are what are enabled or disabled with the app based on what is known about the person. Talents should be independent of each other. (They may have 2 instantiations -native compiled code, and/or a web-based talent). The web-based talent allows immediate release of the capability, whereas the native Flutter based UI will have to wait for the next app release thru an app store. A Talent maps to one and only one capability. Multiple interfaces (i.e voice, API, web) may be available.
UUID: A Universally Unique Identifier. This is a unique, immutable id provided by the Rokwire platform on first interaction with the client application. This is associated with non-PII information. The UUID is used to track user preferences and is included with most if not all information exchanges with the platform.
See also: Event Categories