SPIKE: Where do we cut VBA names? What can we do without lighthouse?

[davidmpickett]

User Story or Problem Statement

Follow up from #15752 (VBA IA)

What can we do without lighthouse?

• Confirm that option 1a is the desired path forward
• Front end exploration of querying Drupal directly for Facility Locator results?

Once lighthouse is ready to accept new fields

• Do we initiate conversation with Lighthouse now?
• Do any of the paths above make this future state harder to reach

Acceptance Criteria

• [x] Determination is made and findings are documented for:
  • [x] Technical feasibility and decision for storing VBA condensed name
  • [x] Future-proofing concerns with eventual Lighthouse architecture / plan (consider long-term impact of any proposal given the eventual integration with LH)
  • [ ] Review with PM / PO / Content strategy
• [ ] Update these tickets with any relevant findings
  • [x] #17353
  • [x] #17355
  • [x] #17356

[davidmpickett]

Copy and pasting this comment https://github.com/department-of-veterans-affairs/va.gov-cms/issues/15752#issuecomment-1959742070

For the engineering conversation, there are four locations which have shared vha locations which are not reflected in the name

Current name	vha shared location id	vha shared location name
White River Junction VA Regional Benefit Office	vha_405	White River Junction VA Medical Center
Cheyenne VA Regional Benefit Office	vha_442	Cheyenne VA Medical Center
Muskogee VA Regional Benefit Office	vha_623	Jack C. Montgomery Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center
San Diego VA Regional Benefit Office	vha_664BY	Kearny Mesa VA Clinic

and a few examples with non-VA shared locations which are not reflected in the name (one is an MVP location) Current name	non-VA shared location name
Cleveland VA Regional Benefit Office	Patrick V. McNamara Federal Building
Detroit VA Regional Benefit Office	Anthony J Celebrezze Federal Building
St Paul VA Regional Benefit Office	Henry Whipple Federal Building
Albuquerque VA Regional Benefit Office	Dennis Chavez Federal Building

The rule about having either a shared non-VA location or a shared VA location but not both is not accurate: Manila VA Regional Benefit Office at U.S. Embassy in Manila is associated with a non-VA building (U.S. Embassy in Manila) as well as a shared VHA location (VA Manila Outpatient Clinic). Both are true: the Clinic is on the Embassy campus.

Questions

• How might we ensure the names of shared VA locations are accurate?
  • Database currently has 10 locations with shared vha locations which have had name changes and the official name still uses previous name
  • One location has the shared location name for a completely different facility than the name affiliated with the shared vha ID

[jilladams]

I originally pulled this ticket into Next Refinement because it's a part of the VBA National epic and because we talked about #15583 in relation to it this week.

However: I'm not actually 100% certain on priority relative to other Q3 / VBA things. It might be best to let @Agile6MSkinner work through the VBA National epic priorities with Michelle before we try to dive in here, since that will be happening imminently.

Moving back to Backlog.

[jilladams]

This is a Drupal-first question, and then we can figure out how FE works.

[omahane]

Of the 489 VBA sites in prod, we have many that are only distinguishable by a combination of

• [Type] at [Location]

These include the facilities that begin with the following:

• VA Regional Benefit Satellite Office
  • Example: VA Regional Benefit Satellite Office at American Samoa Vet Center
  • Variation: VA Regional Benefit Office
• Veteran Readiness and Employment Office
  • Example: Veteran Readiness and Employment Office at Augusta VA Medical Center - Uptown
  • Variation: Veteran Readiness and Employment
  • Variation: Veteran Readiness and Employment Office and Pre-Discharge Site
• VetSuccess on Campus
  • Example: VetSuccess on Campus at American River College
• Integrated Disability Evaluation System (IDES) Site
  • Example: Integrated Disability Evaluation System (IDES) at Beaufort Naval Hospital
  • Variation: Integrated Disability Evaluation System (IDES)
  • Variation: Integrated Disability Evaluation System (IDES) and Pre-Discharge Claims Intake Site
• Seamless Transition Integrated Care Clinic (STICC)
  • Example: Seamless Transition Integrated Care Clinic (STICC) at Richard L. Roudebush VA Medical Center

@mmiddaugh (cc: @davidmpickett) Am I right in assuming that these are not up for the same kind of copy and bifurcation of the name that we are spiking in this ticket?

If that's the case, it's looks we are only looking to change the name of a dozen or so:

• Anchorage VA Regional Benefit Office at Colonel Mary Louise Rasmuson Campus of the Alaska VA Healthcare System
• Fargo VA Regional Benefit Office at North Fargo VA Clinic
• Fort Harrison VA Regional Benefit Office at Fort Harrison VA Medical Center
• Fort Harrison VA Regional Benefit Satellite Office at Benjamin Charles Steele VA Clinic
• Fort Harrison VA Regional Benefit Satellite Office at David J. Thatcher VA Clinic
• Hartford VA Regional Benefit Office at Newington VA Clinic
• Honolulu VA Regional Benefit Office at Spark M. Matsunaga Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center
• Knoxville Veteran Readiness and Employment Office at J.D. Duncan Federal Building
• Little Rock VA Regional Benefit Office at Eugene J. Towbin Healthcare Center
• New Orleans VA Regional Benefit Office at New Orleans VA Medical Center
• Salt Lake City VA Regional Benefit Office at George E. Wahlen Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center
• Salt Lake City Veteran Readiness and Employment Office at George E. Wahlen Department of Veterans Affairs Medical - Center
• Sioux Falls VA Regional Benefit Office at Royal C. Johnson Veterans' Memorial Hospital
• Togus VA Regional Benefit Office at Togus VA Medical Center

Am I reading this right? Please correct me of I'm mistaken.

[davidmpickett]

@omahane, because only Regional Offices and Satellite offices are in scope for MVP, my previous work focused only on those two types. We aren’t solving this for all VBA facility types.

This spreadsheet was my working doc for tracking any facilities that might be edge cases https://dvagov.sharepoint.com/:x:/s/SitewideFacilitiesTeam/ESGDTL0pkqdDiKT3oqcFoZEBuEtSx0NdGZIbvUwY7TwQ9w?e=9amPaQ

[davidmpickett]

Note also that for Satellite Offices that don’t currently have a geographical region prefixed before the office type, we have a ticket for @mmiddaugh to discuss those with stakeholders so that we then could cut off the shared location

https://github.com/department-of-veterans-affairs/va.gov-cms/issues/17358

[omahane]

@omahane, because only Regional Offices and Satellite offices are in scope for MVP, my previous work focused only on those two types. We aren’t solving this for all VBA facility types.

I was looking at all VBA facility names and found that any solution to the problem identified in this ticket appears to apply to dozens (among the hundreds). Can you confirm that we are only concerned right now with the list I posted above? I am trying to both get an understanding of the problem set and conceive of viable solutions for that set.

[omahane]

After talking looking at the naming conventions and talking to @davidmpickett, I have the following suggestions:

VBA Facility content type and migration changes

• Create an "official name" field in VBA
• Change the VBA migration to set the name from the API to populate the official name field
• Copy the official name field to the title (if the title is empty [as we do with Vet Center in the va_gov_migrate.module])
• Manually change the title for the Regional benefit offices that need to have a condensed name
  • The lack of a consistent naming convention for these makes is unlikely that a programmatic solution will be dependable
• content-build can use the Shared VHA Location field to create the "Located at ..." information under the name.
• Run another VBA DB extract migration

VBA facility workflow changes

Other changes to the workflow could include:

• Updating the following information in the CMS, instead of Sandy's DB
  • District
  • Non-VA Location Name
  • Non-VA location URL
  • Shared VA Location
• Doing so would mean that we would no longer have to run a VBA DB extract migration

Lighthouse changes (longer term)

• Add "Common name" to both VBA Facility and Vet Center

[omahane]

@davidmpickett Do you have any additional thoughts?

[davidmpickett]

Legend of different names for names

Machine name	Nickname	Meaning	Notes
name	API Name	What Lighthouse API lists as the name of a given facility	Source of truth is actually Sandy's DB
title (now )	Drupal name	The title of a node in Drupal drives URLs, breadcrumbs etcetera	Right now this is populated with API Name
official name	Official name in Drupal	This will be a new field that will match the API name	Won't actually do much, aside from hold the API name in case we need it for something
title (future)	Common name / Condensed name / Drupal name	After creating official name, we will make it so this Drupal property can be overridden to shorten names in Drupal only	Follow Vet Center pattern

[davidmpickett]

@davidmpickett Do you have any additional thoughts?

I added a legend of the different terms you are referencing in your proposal to hopefully make it a little easier for others to understand. Otherwise my only thought is "good work" :)

[omahane]

Oh, I noticed that we don't have an alias pattern for VBA Facility Services, but I think we should also follow the Vet Center approach here, too. I made the ticket.

[jilladams]

@mmiddaugh @Agile6MSkinner ready for final signoff from Product.

[omahane]

Product decided during the 12 Sept 2024 Sitewide UX sync to proceed with the recommendations I made in the above comment. I am writing up a ticket to capture the recommendation. This ticket is now closable.