W3C OpenActive Community Group, 26 Oct 2022

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From YouTube: OpenActive W3C Community Group Meeting / 2022-10-26

Description

A public hangout for members of the OpenActive W3C Community Group.

Agenda: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1l3aGJG-vlkOPvWr0jPSceR8z-03kNdOIKVRiRNg_hEk/edit?usp=sharing

For more information visit: https://www.openactive.io/w3c-community-group.html

A

Hello, everyone welcome to the w3c working group community group um and we're going to talk today about an issue where certain types of sessions are are appearing in high frequency in the um in the data feeds and some of the problems that that can cause and but before I start I just need to quickly just whip around and say because Steve Winfield from tll myself, Tim Colby and Chris Bancroft from the ODI Andrew Marshall from Gladstone I'm right, Sam, Patton from open, Play, Nathan solder from playing play, find a book and Debbie from everyone active as well and Nick from Island.

A

So that's making the quiz completed for stage one um so just to move on. um We we've got an issue, it's appearing in the data, the um a certain type of session and it's kind of emerged or committed prominence, perhaps after kovid, where regular sessions now need to be booked, and so there's a lot of um Lots or opportunities in the data that um that are. You know, high frequency, many many uh opportunities and it's kind of confounding, the uh somewhere between facilities, uh facility slots and the session and session Series.

A

So that's a very crude intro. Can anyone describe it better, Nikka or I've got some examples? Also.

B

Yes, I can, um if I, if I, look like I need to move it's because I'm a Noe work which is absolutely random. What happened to Wednesday everyone just saw it. Yeah I'm gonna come to London I've, usually like this on a Wednesday anyway, um so uh yeah the example here. I suppose, would be that um there's two different, so we've got facilities, which is like a squash court and you've got like maybe squash short.

B

One squash got two or tennis court, One tennis court, two um and then you've got this kind of um some people, call it density bookings or um so like an ice rink. So an ice rink has or a swimming pool. um You've got a 10 o'clock slot a 10 past 10 start 20, past 10 slot and with the ice cream consuming, for example, you can have 100 something people in that space at that time, um or rather booking the ticket at whatever.

B

On the hour 10 past 20, past Etc, um with a tennis court, you can only have one person on the tennis court while booking the tennis score. Should we say um so with the tennis court example, um uh which is how the stuff is currently structured to have got in the specs, something that handles that well, facilities in individual facility use um that is, you've got five tennis courts.

B

We want to book them um so which tennis court do you want to look one or five or one or two or three or four or five, um and the ice skating is a slightly different thing because you might say I want to book five people. You know I want to put my family on so I'm, going to book them all on to about one time um and so there's maybe multiple tickets, maybe there's a adult, a junior.

B

Maybe you know at that time that you can book on, um and so that's the distinction, and so we've been calling the the latter thing there high frequency sessions, um which is this you know well trying to be self-explanatory with that term. But it's the idea that there's their sessions, you know because you can, you can do a yoga class in exactly the same way as ice skating class as described, but several people on Etc. It's just that. The yoga classes tend to happen.

B

You know three or four times uh in a day um right, absolutely, um whereas the ice skating happens at very high frequency, so you can see there yeah every 10 minutes um and the way that you'd want to display. This I suppose is the crucial thing.

B

So in a an app that's consuming the data displaying the timetable for a um for a tennis court and the way that you'd present that with court one two three four alongside each other potentially um has some interfaces have it, and so you can see which slots are available, um that's quite different to how you'd want to display high frequency sessions. Now it happens to be the case that in flow those two things are presented in a very similar way. So in this particular interface it doesn't look that different.

B

It's just that the problem says public skating and the other one says um you know um whatever it says you know 10s or something, um but obviously in in other front ends. It might be- and it is the case that there are there's a different look and feel to those Journeys um and therefore um the usefulness and having those two bits of data defined uh is from a user perspective. That's why and then from a data model perspective. There's the what like. We should use the data model to describe things that it describes.

B

So a facility use is a facilities because- and that's like a tennis court- and then you know a session is a session because it's like a yoga class um in the same way as we wouldn't have um you can you know, we've got a people object and we've got a play subject and you could um uh you could call a place um King, Charles III as a place. You could also have a person King Charles III, um but you wouldn't expect and you you might name them the same right.

B

But you need to know what type of thing it is so that you can distinguish whether it's the person or the thing um and that's why modeling is important. So, um even though you could in theory um you know if there was a list of places, you can theoristically the people's names in there.

B

If you want to describe people, it wouldn't be very helpful if you were designing an application that was displaying places in a way that you'd expect to see them, and then there were a lot of people that showed up in that part of the application if that kind of makes sense. So it's it's that thing about describing things how they are. Hopefully that's. That's a good summary there Alice yeah.

A

No, that's that's helpful and true I think so. We've got um two two kind of issues or impacts emerging from that.

A

um One is how things look, and you know, and last time we spent some time talking about the user experience and data quality and that um and not Arena, and how how the data feeds can have an impact on on that end, user experience.

A

So it you know, that's potentially one issue here where we're seeing um a great many um time slots for the same kind of session and that that means that the end, the user experience is affected there um and then the other side is the you know, calling a a place, a person or other way around. So like a session or a facility.

A

Those are the kind of things that we've described in the data specifications and we want to um you know, there's a reason: they're different um and- and we want to kind of it, helps if things are consistently used. So those are two two different issues. I think that also uh someone mentioned the third one that where you have these.

A

A great many um slots, or this this high frequency sessions, that the the timetabling or in Json in the actual data is being shared, can can be hugely bloated to kind of account for all those different time slots or things. So so that's a kind of performance issue, potentially as well uh in the sharing of the data in that format.

B

um Oh yeah yeah. We should say that that absolutely um be picked up, but there's a a challenge with using high frequency sessions with the event schedule field which we don't need. So we can drop that and that reduces that that kind of solves that problem as a very isolated thing. um But that's not a kind of wider data model problem. That's just uh we've got the event scheduled property in there.

A

So that that is not a problem, I made that one or it's a solvable problem, so um does anyone want to give it a different view, or you know, an alternative view or another kind of real life experience of this. This position.

C

I guess my my first question would be: what kind of problems does it cause because you kind of highlighted, so it doesn't necessarily model the data when you've got um kind of thousands of sessions a day or whatever. However many so it's the issue in that we basically have a model halfway between a facility and a session. So if we count the session of something that happens infrequently and a facility slot is something that happens very frequently is the issue we have something kind of in the middle.

B

Well, supposedly, um the model is describing the thing rather than the kind of frequency of the thing. So there's we've got events, we've got courses, we've got sessions um and we've got facilities and they're all different types of you know a thing that happens at a place that you can book onto um so this yeah. This new thing is, is the problem? Is that you could? You could say technically it's a session, because it follows some of the session nus from that, but the problem with that is that it's so high frequency.

B

So, as you say, we kind of create there's a new category of thing that the session respect didn't really account for which is yeah high frequency sessions or something which blows up the user interface. That's the problem is you? Can you can do it? You can use it use it like the same as it is currently specified.

B

But if you don't have a little marker that says this is a high frequency session, then someone could and and has and we've had that's why we introduced the beta field and now high frequency sessions to filter out the stuff. That's just loads and loads of of things, because if you're expecting to put three yoga classes on a user interface, and then you get you know 100, then obviously your scroll bar blows up and all the stuff that you design doesn't really um work for.

A

That, because so there's there's one of the another of the impacts that are coming out. The data um on opportunities is being filtered out and not being presented because of the challenge caused by this. You know the number of rules. You know, that's that's kind of one.

B

Another interface so, for example, in the Manchester project, there's two views: there's the high frequency view, which shows stuff as a timetable. What about a timetable?

B

But you know, as you'd, expect it to be if you're booking high frequency very small little times that you can press and then there's a different view, which is your yoga classes, which are much more fully described as full sessions with some details in them, um and so you, if you've, got high frequency stuff, you display as that one, and if you you know, um if you want the other view displays the other one. Some some finders you're, absolutely right haven't built that view yet for the high frequency stuff, so they're just filtering it out.

B

So that's definitely the case because they haven't figured out how to deal with the volume. It's just quicker to filter out and worry about it later. um A.

C

Lot of the terminology we're using is about sessions, but to me I mean if we can come up with some counter examples. That would be great. But to me it feels more like just a a shared use of a single facility.

C

Rather than necessarily sessions, so I'm not sure if that counts, because like swimming and ice rinks are the obvious example where there is a facility, and there are just multiple people using it at the same time, so I'm wondering if it's going to be easier to model it by leaning more towards it's a facility that has multiple people on it at the same time or is it going to be multi-session because you're not actually booking kind of one thing, you're booking time in a space? For all of the examples.

A

Which follows that same pattern, yeah yeah, so.

B

I don't know Howard, do you want to bring up the issue um and there's a table in it, which is, might be quite helpful at this at this point, um because that's a really good, that's a really good point. Nathan! Absolutely! You could go either way with this. It could be a facility or a session. If you wanted to you, know I suppose it's a cement semantic question.

A

So this is 301 issue 301. Is that that's the one you.

B

Mean yeah and there's a table somewhere down.

A

There page, hopefully you can now see that screen.

B

Yeah, that's it.

A

uh So if it is it big enough for everybody, do I need to zoom in um is this the table we talked about or is it there? Isn't it no.

B

That's right, yeah! No, no, that's the one! That's the one, yeah yeah, so yeah! Absolutely so so, Nathan! Absolutely to your exact question. uh You know what is what is this? Is it? Is it a session or is it facility another way of, because obviously there's a semantic thing which we could argue either way and then there's the um there's, the kind of what is it by what it how it's described like what attributes are going to be associated with it?

B

You know what are the useful things to say about the the thing that you can attend and what what's listed here is um the properties that are currently defined on a session and the properties that are currently defined on the facility kind of next to each other.

B

So we can kind of compare and contrast what it is that is already in one versus the other, and the interesting thing about this list is that, although we could make an argument for session or facilities from just a very high level kind of conceptual perspective, the stuff that you want to say about it like age restrictions or um the uh what's further down the leader.

B

If there is one um the uh level uh that session the what's the other ones on here, attendee instructions, uh the activity versus the facility type, so it would probably draw from the activity list um as your your booking ice skating or swimming rather than a swimming pool or a um I. Don't think ice skate ice, rink um you're, not looking ice, rink, you're booking ice skating, you could book an ice rink! That's the other interesting thing about this.

B

You could book a nice ring Crown, you could book the swimming pool, but that would imply you booked the whole ice rink in the same energy book, the whole tennis court- um and that would be you know the facility type ice, rink and I suppose there. If there are examples of you know, I, don't you wouldn't book a whole gym?

B

Would you or a whole golf course I mean if you would look I'll go across um it's a competition or something um that that's more kind of on the facility side, um so I, don't know what hand does that? What do people reflect on that Nick.

D

Just a couple of comments on that one. Realistically, the last couple examples you gave aren't particularly realistic because you wouldn't expect anybody to look at whole golf course in the whole city via this route. There'll be different ways of looking at that, so we wouldn't expect anybody to go to use a a third-party third-party parking source to book the whole month.

D

Just not just wouldn't happen.

B

Absolutely right and so I suppose part of this is you know the model might not be it's. It's like. What's the accurate model, but also you know not, all of it is going to be bookable in the same way as you know, when we talk about people and places earlier, you know that we might want to book either of those things, but it's still useful to describe you know accurately using the terms in either case. If you see what I mean.

C

I think what you mentioned about age, range and restriction is quite interesting uh because yeah that makes a lot of sense for when you've got kind of like sections of time booked out for children. It's for example, which doesn't necessarily fit in the facilities, but maybe it's kind of pushing for the case, which I think is what we're vaguely kind of leaning towards is having another model between session series and facility use. It does have these properties and can potentially have all of the items on both lists.

B

Anyway, absolutely right, so that's yeah, so um that's actually um I guess where we get to it, which is further down. um If we carry on scrolling but I guess before we get there. Does anyone else have any comments on on what we just kind of to kind of catch up with where we are with that as Nathan's kind of explaining.

E

um Yeah we use density and, and that sort of thing which I think this is what is being referred to here and so examples such as soft play, um there's one where we wouldn't restrict somebody to turning up at a particular time um like it's, not just 10 o'clock in the day, um they could turn up every five minutes throughout the day and for each hour there is of maximum capacity.

E

um So that's another sort, of example, of that design that you would be looking at I think.

B

It's really helpful soft play and is that similar to the ice skating in that you've got like? Is there a time you book on every 10 minutes, or do you just click on.

E

um Yeah you you it depending on how you set it up in a more um the frequency of the activity, could be it it. You can book to start every five minutes.

E

um It's it's a it's an activity which is the same as a facility, an mrm World, um but then you've also got the other option of where you what you talk about ice skating, um that's slightly different for us ice skating, our scheduled sessions in our world, but you can book multiple people into those scheduled sessions, so you can bring other individuals with you.

B

Interesting does the soft play? Oh sorry, I was going to say something.

B

A

B

The soft play have a have a kind of um is there like a leader for that day or uh or you know the main the main person running it that is named or anything like that kind.

E

Of instructor, this is this is the Realms of when you've got children Nick and you have to go and sit in a soft play on a Saturday afternoon, because it's raining, no there's no leaders or anything. It's just a big area of an open sort of oh.

B

I see what you mean.

E

Yeah, the big structures and they just go wild in them for three hours and then you take them home, exhausted and sweaty yep yeah.

B

Yeah yeah I'm thinking about that.

E

B

I was thinking like when that Sports Hall yeah.

A

E

A

um Another parameter there, though, that um but it's almost open-ended, you pay to go into yourself play and you you know when you go in, but there's no fixed, Lotto schedule, duration, you you pay.

E

D

I'm new to myself, I was going to say something um again, for everybody else is benefit I guess this. This problem has arisen for glm for open Play, because the way we schedule um have fast tickets and well they're, ad hoc sessions um and- and we we got fast example of fast tickets- works very well for us in that um they're Anonymous, um you can buy tickets for yourself and your whole family, and you can book into a session.

D

You can book into any one of the slots that we advertise um and there's no age restrictions. No gender restriction doesn't matter who you are. You just buy a ticket for yourself and for somebody else.

D

So so we don't need any restrictions behind that. We that's where we designed it with open, Play, It's, just something that customers can do really quickly and they can do for multiple numbers of users, um the the one that causes the problems is the attack sessions where you're you've got the high frequency activities, but you're buying it just for yourself.

D

So, therefore, you have to be recognized by the system you're going to be a customer's minimum, ideally a member, but you need to just be a customer and you're booking into a slot that other people can book into. But these are the high frequency ones, and these are the ones we've got the problem. We had a problem in Manchester with that.

D

We had to redo and reschedule everything in Manchester just to conform to the standard, um but we can't do that across the whole state because we didn't want to do it Manchester kind of forced down a pathway to achieve a requirement, um so we did uh and and that that's where this has come out, so I recognize what Nathan is saying actually and we've got to agree simply with Nathan's approach on this, um but um but I just thought. I'd just call it out of information as to where this particular problem stems from.

A

And can you just tell us at the moment um you know you had to re redesign or reschedule things from what to what you know to what what were the Alternatives that worked better.

D

um Yes, so we had a particular problem, the way we scheduled the gym and we had a particular problem with the way we scheduled the um swim for Fitness activities um because they were scheduled as what internally we call ad hoc sessions, and some will be familiar with that um and the ad hoc sessions didn't conformed, didn't fit into the right theme, as it's just been explained earlier, they fitted into the session speed, but they aren't true, they aren't pure sessions.

D

um So therefore we had to redo them and we had to redo them as as I think it was just them as as ad hoc's lost, fundamental I. Think that's what we're changing to so they do conform to one of the open feeds, foreign.

A

Slots so that the the conform as a as a facility use, um which is yes.

B

So, within the flow system, there's a specific thing where you can basically make a facility have more than one like Debbie was explaining kind of identities, um so that in within the Open Play system is a um is done on the facility side, and so that comes out of the facility feed um rather than out the session key, because that's where in the system you configure it um and I think I think well as as kind of a Nathan point out and others that's kind of allude to it.

B

The problem is: we've got something that's halfway between two things and so, depending on where the system is, you know how the system's been built. It will either come out one or come out the other, um and it's it's the conforming to the question is: do we pick one to pick the other, or do we have a third one? That's neither of those so that we can all you know everything can be aligned and.

F

Stan here from open, Play Justin um regards to the flow aspects here, just jumping in um obviously, we've tackled this in a certain way, which makes sense for gllr the clients and there's other parameters, I think which people don't might quite realize again around the concept of family and memberships and promotions and stuff, which also needs to be factored in further down the line but um I'm just looking at like potential solutions to this obviously, and I mean our stance is that the system is built.

F

This way, it's kind of the way it works, um the framework's really got to fit around. What we have in place in his life um obviously want to help and shape it in any way, shape or form at your end, but right, I, don't really know what the ask is here in terms of solution, so some clarity that would be useful.

B

Sure so I guess the I guess the the challenge with any standard I suppose is that obviously every system needs to do some work to to meet the standard. uh You know if we talk about USB ports on iPhones, you know the European commissions, just kind of said: everyone needs to use a USB, C Port. Obviously, Apple's now got to do that and that's not necessarily what they wanted to do, but in order to conform they have to they have to do something slightly different. So but this is this, isn't about changing your product?

B

This is just about changing the feed that the stuff comes out of, so the product stays the same, but there's the translation layer there, which is, how do we get from whatever's in you know, flow or Gladstone or whatever it is out to the feed and then what should the feed look like? So is it? You know high frequency session stuff, which is currently the the one? That's that's in that issue. Is it as Nathan's saying something about facilities? Is it or a third thing?

B

uh Is Nathan's also suggesting as something else which is another set of feeds and then obviously, whatever one we choose, there's some work necessary across the towards for everyone to do some work to change that. That's.

F

What challenge, obviously so, just start just to make sure I'm crystal clear, so the specific asks from open play and flow here is um the open, active, I guess comes up with solution. Open Play doesn't have to change its product, but does have to do work in order to conform to this new way of working and feed. So we we have to schedule it and develop a work in order to kind of adhere to this. Is that what you're saying.

B

As every as everyone would do, eventually, that's right, but that's, but that's the way the standards work. So if, if there's, if there's a change to the specs- and we all agree and you're part of the conversation.

F

Not to be not to be inflammatory here, but I can categically State, there's no resource for that.

F

There is no resource for this. I would love to there to be resource for this. um How do we find uh that go over that impulse, because that's obviously.

A

F

Just need to be realistic as to what I can get our team to do so.

A

F

A

I think is just to understand that the problem, the scare you know the impact on people like yourself to to do that. You know what what does it mean for the standard? um What happens if we can't? We can't fix this, you know and just to get a better, a better picture, and um you know this is the position we're in now.

A

um It says six months time when you're working on the next next situ next situation or the next implementation. You know you might have an opportunity to do it differently. We've got to be realistic and kind of Find A Way Forward, uh but it's as Nick.

G

A

You know: instead, we can't the idea of account of a standard is to kind of promote consistency in um to allow people to do to to do exciting things with the data and get people moving more. That's what we're all working towards the end of the day.

D

F

It's hard to get hard I fully understand the idea of the standard we'd be very supportive that we've done the uh phase one doing various tricks. We fully understand that, but this is a very, very complex area. Scheduling and you've got to imagine someone with jll size, 260 odd, centers, the parameters you have, the flexibility, there's a there's. Obviously, a way you build a system is the way it's designed we're not stopping here Innovation as well. There's things here, which I think are not that advanced from what I can see.

F

um If, if they ask, is that the framework doesn't Bend to systems like us, then I think that's a significant problem. That's I! Just I, don't want to be around the bush unless I want to highlight this, um that The, Stance and flow and open Play is that the this standard is going to have to fit around modern systems like ours, simple. As that.

A

So so what would that look like you know what you know is there looking at the table on that screen? um What what changes would you make to to reflect yeah? What what do.

F

You think that would have to go. They would have to go back to my team. It's too technical for me, I'm afraid, so it uh I could put that back to the team and try and find resource to help input. Obviously we want this to happen. So yeah, no problem.

A

Yeah- and we will we want to to gather all the views we want to you've mentioned resource. You know we want to use your resource wisely at the right times to to have an impact uh I, don't uh Andrew or or Nathan. Have you any any further thoughts on like where's Ford or how it worked? Might work in your systems.

C

Yeah I mean basically, we just need to work out a way: that's not gonna break any existing functionality and with the changes and allow us to implement new functionality at a time when we all have time to actually do that. So I'm very much in the kind of frame of mind that we should come up with a solution that is backwards, compatible.

C

I, know, we've not technically reached version, one of the spec yet, um but because we're starting to get to a point where quite a lot of systems such as other already in production being used by quite a lot of people. uh We have to be very careful not to kind of make any backwards compatible. Breaking changes.

C

um It's one of the reasons why I suggested this kind of like third option, because I believe that's kind of the simplest thing to then add into a system um to change the current system, um whereas kind of additional flags, and things like that, although quite easy to change, do- require a change rather than kind of like a consistent, fairly well-defined development.

B

Okay yeah, so it might be worth us in a second I guess, moving on to just looking at pros and cons of those, because that does sound like a really good place to get to and then I guess. If in Sam uh mentioned, though, if there's time and resource on the open, Play side, it might be worth them reviewing the video, and we can you know.

B

Obviously they might have a view on what we're talking about here from a kind of technical perspective, and that might be a good way of um feeding back into the issue or something like that.

G

I'd probably say probably in line with what Sam's saying as well. You know we we're all pretty much heads down with full-up development roadmaps for the next couple of years, so it's kind of work. You know we want to work with our partners and we want to make it. You know work for work for the industry, but it's kind of I'm still struggling to see what, where the gaps are, with the evidence that the bits that we would need to develop would actually make a difference.

A

In this specific case, you know what changes would make yeah.

G

I mean: are we pushing too far already that you know we're trying to do things like crash, and things are, is that you know have we got? Have we got evidence that that's actually a high priority.

B

Stephen could.

D

Answer that question essentially.

B

B

So Stephen and what I was referring to there is when we spoke before about opening up data, and there was some um questions about gll opening up data from all the Estates from the whole estate. Sorry um because of the data not all coming through, um and there was a there was a question about the priority of that, and that's that's partly what I think well I know it's driven the kind of urgency of this call. um Do you think, is that still a challenge for gll or are you kind of took it away.

D

Around that, no it's not necessarily a challenge for us. uh We we've started to um enable all our facilities since open active, enabled, and we started that process working with somebody's team, um doing it in a um a bit of a triple feed fashion.

D

So um we had a couple of drivers for that early on this year, um we've achieved those, so we've got about 130 locations which are now open-active, enabled um predominantly London and across the Manchester um project that we've been working on Nick, so um so that that's done, but with a caveat um outside of Manchester that not all of our data is visible and that's because we haven't rescheduled the activities that don't conform to one of the four data feeds.

D

So therefore, you're not seeing all the GLS data, despite the fact, we've made the facilities and all the activities open, active, enabled.

B

So I suppose the question is well in terms of. Is that something that we want so there's? Obviously some steps here like if we came up with a solution in these calls Maybe not today, but over the course of one or two more and some other technical people that got involved then there'd be a way to actually Implement that fix and then that would obviously be fixed. So there's a kind of there's steps here to to do that um and I suppose.

B

The question is: is it something that we want to do to fix this problem so that we can get that particular type of data out to, as you say, have a complete timetable from gll's perspective? Is that something um worth pursuing.

F

As it currently stands, there isn't resource allocated to this area. We there is a resource allocated to amending some of the uh phase. One feeds for open, active, I, think there's some tweaks coming through and just been scheduled in, but like I think what does Gladstone just said as well: Andrew, um very full roadmap for the next couple of years, so to to it'd, be fantastic.

F

If you came out with a solution to this which our team can review, but I can't turn around and promise that there's gonna be work on this, because um I think I can speak on behalf of many operators and gll when I say, there's a massive crisis at the moment, they're facing huge gas bills, electricity bills, many many million pounds elevated so anything which increases um or reduces costs or increases Revenue has to be prioritized.

F

So there's you can probably understand why there's such a difficulty in bringing some of this stuff ahead of other bits, um I think that context needs to be presented as well, but if a solution can be found which we can then review, then fantastic, we'll look at it, but I can't give any timelines or promises as to when that is because that's not that that simply isn't the case with how our development works. I hope, that's hope that helps.

A

And I think yeah, you know I mean the language Nick used there about. uh You know it's broken uh from your point of view. It's not broken, you know. Presumably you, the the system works.

F

Absolutely it's doing many many bookings as you can imagine, and um not just that we've scheduled in further modules and things which, into time with this you know on a very, very firm, strict road map really for 2023. So there's if you're asking, if the ask is for us to mend that to this, you can see the challenge we have, especially with the context of the what the operators are going through. I mean it's, it's really significant um I can't be forgotten.

A

B

On well yeah, so just to kind of trying to pull out somewhat was Stephen was saying. Well, someone's time was saying that there's sounds of two things: there's the system working which obviously flows down an incredible job in a very short space of time and created something really great and that's working very well for gll as a platform for people who use the gll app or website to make bookings, um and then there's the open data feed and what's currently coming out of the feed and is a new spot. And that's where the Gap is.

B

The gap is I'm not saying the flow system is not broken. It's not to my knowledge, it's the Gap in the data feed and that's the question, which is a um how much of a concern is that and it sounds like Stephen's saying not much. Actually, it's not blocking them from opening up data. No.

F

But it's not just it's not just that, because you've got also we've got other clients live, not just gll, and you have certain clients where the last thing they want to do is an open data feed literally. The very last thing take eat in college. The last thing you want to be doing is open up that facility, wider, the hurlingham club, the same so mother perspective. We have to cater for obviously for gll here, but yeah. We have to cater for these other ones.

F

Who don't want anything to do with this and I'm sure it's the case for Gladstone and all the other systems as well like you have some actually, some very close facilities. I wish it was otherwise, but that's not how they operate.

B

Sure, but that, but that's a separate uh yeah, it doesn't necessarily undermine the need for this to exist for the sector, but I suppose it just speaks to the mixed priorities of the systems. Etc.

F

Yeah, precisely because it's what drives Revenue to our business yeah.

D

Yeah can I just answer the question of um Andrew and maybe Debbie as well is. This is just a GL problem with the data tree it follows, is um W having an issue, uh you know it's all your data uh available through the subsequent feeds and displays have been consumed by whoever, as you expect it to be honestly in this situation, to the jail.

A

Finds itself I can't see Debbie on screen, Debbie did say she had to leave it halfway. So sorry, Stephen I.

B

Can I might be able to help with that one actually yeah.

D

B

Yeah there we go.

G

Yeah I I mean obviously Nick's aware of this as well, but um you know a part of this that that keeps coming back. To my mind, as well is, is, is is you'll appreciate. Stephen is, is how a lot of these things are actually configured in the system.

G

The the flexibility that we've had to build into Leisure Management Systems means that you know you could have gll configuring badminton quarters per person where everyone actually could have it per Court, and suddenly the the feed is completely different and the rules and regulations that sit behind it.

G

Just for what most of us on this call would think is exactly the same activity you're going to get two completely different feeds of data.

B

So speaking from a data consumer perspective, the um the data coming in currently coming out of Gladstone everything's, a necessity, and so um what we're doing to solve that right now as I'm in is we're manually tagging high frequency on the sessions in Gladstone that are high frequency to filter them out. Absolutely we're doing, but it's all coming through the session speed, but that's very relatively small thing to do, because high frequency sessions are one sessions.

B

um So there is a little bit of work going on, as in we've, we've done a little bit of work there to make it work with that stone, not needing to introduce the hyper frequency flag um to solve that problem um yeah. But it's only because they're all sessions anyway, I guess is the thing, whereas in flow they're, split between sessions and facilities and flow has the high frequency flag in sessions and obviously it works for some high frequency stuff, but, as we've just discussed, there's some stuff which ends up in facilities and so hello.

B

It's actually split between key feeds. Right now,.

D

A

D

Makes sense, thank you so.

A

I mean and the fourth option, which isn't there we and it's not one. We want to go down, but you know, like Nick, says it's possible to manually, intervene um and and translate the data into a different format. So um foreign.

A

Adapter some kind of um in the data pipeline that can improve the consistency of these feeds between feeds.

B

Yeah so I think that's an interesting one. So, basically, if that's that's just speaking to the implementation question, let's say we come up with a solution here, whatever we decide and there's some features that don't conform, it could be that you know in organizations like I'm in do extra work to you know if that's the thing that makes sense to conform that data to like make it look like the right type of data, um I mean it's just who does the work right? It's like he's got the biggest backlog.

B

Who can you know make make that point about backlogs and and I? Guess it's down to clients like Manchester to figure that question out across all the organizations that are engaged? Who should do that work.

F

um No I think I think jumping on that who should do the work is whoever's profiting commercially from that work and I. Believe that's what I'm in so I think this. It makes complete logical sense for you to do that. Work and not us.

B

So I'm in wouldn't be profiting from the the data being fixed. That's just that's just a that's just a cost of, so that's it well. I suppose. If I'm into that fix, but then I guess play father would do that fixed separately and then Sports. It would do that exactly if we go if everyone doing the if everyone consuming the data is, is kind of.

F

Doing a work sound separately, yes, I would put it onto that end to fix and um change it into your own workflow.

B

Yeah and then then we have a wider question which Howard will be aware of, which is how difficult the ecosystem is to plug into, and everything that goes into that bucket of things that you need to do to use the data that are word programs or whatever makes open, active, more difficult for a new player to come in and engage with, because they're they're. Another barrier totally understand why we might want to create those barriers.

B

It's actually good for I mean you know in other businesses that are already doing what we're doing to make that more complicated.

A

B

Know exactly we're.

A

Trying to remove those bows, but uh right.

F

Absolutely we all want to remove the barriers, complexity, we're complexity of scheduling as well. If we get back to that is very, very difficult when you've got it at Enterprise level, with someone on a gll site, so there's a certain way of tackling it.

F

um As I say like it, I mean an open place standpoint we are making our own API anyway, that's within our plans and that should provide the ability for people to kind of manipulate the data accordingly anyway, as for any system for that matter um within reason, so um we're certainly support of this, but I think, as I said, the work I would say has to set the likes of Iman and those front-end Porters where the revenue model there is whether to commission or charging people like Manchester actor active.

F

That's where surely the work's got to be done, I, don't think it's fair to put it on to someone here in this regards, because there's no commerciality here for open player flow I, don't believe there is for class. Neither.

B

Well, I mean basically, what we're speaking to there Sam is: is an open ecosystem versus closed, because you know, let's, let's just take the extreme example.

B

If we didn't have open, active and I'm just integrating directly to open play, and you know there was a completely closed solution there, which only worked because I'm in a Donald work to integrate with open Play, then that would be great for I mean and for others that did that extra work to do that, and obviously that adds up over a number of systems, number Integrations, Etc and that's what adaptive is trying to solve is that burden of integration across all the systems in the sector is so enormous that it's preventing new organizations from joining and doing the stuff that that we want them to innovate in the space in the sector and so open active is trying to solve that Innovation Challenge.

B

So we definitely can get around this by I'm in doing a lot of custom work at the extreme end right. We don't even need openactive, then, and you know we just we just park that whole idea, but I think the bigger vision and I suppose what this call is supporting is that we lower the barriers so that you don't need them I'm in in the middle, to make foreigners that want to plug in and not build certain functionality themselves, it's not necessary, but it becomes necessary if we over complicate the specs, which doesn't mean I.

F

Don't agree with that and I think as I said it's the system, the system does what it does. It's been tackled in a certain way. We've got our roadmap and I'm talking about flow here, I believe I'm talking for some of the others as well on their behalf at the more complex Center, the Enterprise levels. I think this is for I'm in and to find a solution to this and open active.

F

Our system is I'm just being practical on this, there's not we're not in a position where we're going to be able to amend this to fit this framework I'm repeating the same things I have since the beginning of the call. So I just want that to be very clear. Yeah.

A

So, just to just to make it super clear, then you're saying it's up to Ivan or open active data in you know, someone in the media is basically so between the data purposes and data consumers. That's that's! That's your! Your point um is.

B

This is, this is still in the category. Sorry, that's still in the category.

B

Who does the work to make the thing work when we come up with the solution, whatever the solution is so they're still separate problems, and we would hope I mean I, don't know what your view on this sound is but we'd open five years time when you've got your, you know, various clients under control that you might be able to you know make changes necessary to make it easy for the sector to move forward and we want to make sure the sector is accessible in the longer term.

B

It's just that you're talking about a short-term blocker here, which maybe I'm in, could help with and others might one two for one or two years, but we want the long views, surely to be standardized sector which is easy for innovators to come in and access absolutely.

F

It's a long-term View and that's why we're creating our own apis I've said since you're beginning the source. It's totally like that, but as I said, the sector is going through a crisis. There's certain things which have to be done. um We did a major from an open Play standpoint. We did a huge launch of GL earlier in March.

F

You can imagine how busy things are so trying to find a solution to this, but it's like where's that going to come from in terms of resource, because there's just a massive constraint for us as as I guess there would be for anyone else. um It's not easy times Nick. Is it.

A

B

Know but you're talking I mean the thing is I mean, doesn't have any more resources there than you do right. It's not like. We have like magic. This is the thing it says we can have the resource Challenge and everyone's got no resources, we're all stuck it's a recession. What do we do? Absolutely right? No one's got resources who pays for it? No one's got money right.

B

These are all the same problems everyone has, but but that's a different question: who does it and I think that should be Case by case based on you know, whatever the negotiations are in separate commercial lands, because it's also not really the scope of this call to talk about. Who does the work? Who can cry? You know the loudest about resource challenges right which I fully respect and feel myself? Don't worry.

B

We all have that same problem, um but the, but the other side of it I suppose, is that what do we do and I think that's the focus on this course? What's the solution to it, rather than obviously, who does it, which maybe a separate problem before.

A

We get on to the solution and those options in our last few minutes. I just want to ask someone, so we have um is all the data and this the answer is no I, think we've talked about already 130 or so uh some of those uh activity providers do not want to open up. You gave a few examples: okay, yeah. No, no understood of the rest.

A

You know what is stopping the data from coming out, even if it's in a format in your own format, if you're like not um the compliant format you know is, is that happening.

F

Original thought was that this it would just be Manchester, so we agreed recently that it would go across London and we'd monitor the impact of that and various others. um You've got to understand it's a cost um when our servers get hit hosting support. There's a cost here.

F

um So if we're going to open up the whole estate, it potentially, if it's not going to have too much of an impact on cost or it's something that open Play can absorb, but I can tell you, as I said to you it's hard times. So it's not yeah I. Don't think people realize at times that when you are on this side, as on the Gladstone side, extends to various others.

F

Obviously you do your best to do all the work you can, but you do have to support this, um and there is a true cost to that. When you do that um so yeah there are two highlighting about challenges.

A

Yeah, so we have um for Manchester and London you've done that work, to transform your internal scheduling systems into something that um you know is coming out as high frequency sessions, um but for the rest of the country. You have not yet no and that's the cost you're talking about. So yes, okay and you know, from the point of view of understanding the problem I'm in a much much better position.

A

So so that's really helpful um for the last couple of minutes, we're just I'm just going to put these options out there, although I don't think we'll get much discussion, but we may have covered them all already so um option one uh presenting this, this kind of information as a session series with a high frequency flag.

A

So those people building user interfaces to present the activities can handle them slightly differently, and you know remove some of that duplication that uh when they present them- and there is a flag I think that's that's already been produced uh in beta. The same option.

A

Two is to use the facility side of it, which is missing some of those feeds, uh some of the things like age, restriction, Etc um and then the third option, which Nathan mentioned earlier on, is to create something that matches the reality that that this this case represents and and use that the fourth option is.

A

Some kind of transformation, which is what you're doing internally and bearing the cost.

B

Sorry and how how that's not a fourth option? That's that's the whatever the! If there's that's an implementation question, so whoever does the translation needs to translate it into something? The question is: what is that something? And so there are three options here that we need to decide on a spec perspective and then there's obviously a lot of um these kind of fractious commercial conversations, because no one's got money or time to figure out how we get it done.

A

Thank you for that clarification.

A

I think, unless anyone has any anything else to want to add, we could possibly leave it there. We've got a explored the problem in its many forms so um and the impact so there's an impact on you to experience. There's an impact in that it's preventing dll from opening up a chunk of data um and that opening up in the way that they have for Manchester and Westminster London has caused grief on their side and cost in and that gll are not the only ones facing this problem. So it's density.

A

You know, bus tickets density bookings, so we need to kind of move towards a solution.

A

And there are three there on the screen: I, don't it thank you. Let's leave it, there I think uh and kind of give it some thought if there's any any thoughts, final thoughts, any any kind of follow-up actions that um that we can take it essentially to kind of.

B

Well, it might be worth um it might be worth us thinking about next call and if we wanted to have you know any technical representation from any other organizations here to discuss which of those three as I mentioned. If we I think it's been good for people to air their commercial, let's say grievances in this discussion, so we've got an opportunity for everyone to understand the kind of context we're operating in, and that's probably quite good for this whole phase. To be honest, to understand that, that's you know, that's the reality here.

B

We're gonna have to work with that as we go go forward um and obviously, obviously that's constraining some organizations more than it is others um relative to you know how much they're impacted, and so um is it worth us thinking about for the next call who we can get on here to basically bottom out the technical solution, one two or three or another one.

B

If we come up with another way of modeling it um so that we can then have what we you know again to and then the commercial conversations can start within all the various places that need to happen, and some of those will be gll and and everyone active and um and Gladstone Etc and flow, but some of them will be um with smaller systems that might just be able to get on with it and do it you know, um depending on their time scales.

B

So we've got to remember that, although this call, because of who has been available today, is skewed towards Big operators, there are a number of systems engaged in this that are not the big operating systems and they might have capacity um because obviously everyone's got their own road maps. Everyone's got their own challenges.

B

um So um we've got to be mindful to move this forward, to unlock it for the ecosystem, uh so that we can then all work separately to figure out how we do our bits.

A

A

um I think I will share an agenda, but it's likely to be a month from from today. You know to fortnights uh for a session or we can explore having a you know, an additional, a technical session to kind of dive into this. If, if the timing doesn't work um but I'll follow up by email, but just to say, thank you all for you for your input, um quite a challenge, uh but at least I've got a much better understanding of where we are. Thank you very much. Everyone excellent.