Desktop Agent Bridging Discussion group

kriswest commented 2 years ago

Group overview

Discussion group for developing proposals for producing bridges between FDC3 implementations (aka Desktop Agents), allowing applications running on one Desktop Agent, to integrate with FDC3 applications running on a second Desktop Agent for the same user.

The interop between applications running on different Desktop Agents aka Platforms would ideally cover

Channels
Raising and resolving Intents
Launching Applications

Relevant issue tags

Current open issues that relate to the above concepts with the label:

Meeting Date

Wednesday 8th December 2021 - 9am EST / 2pm GMT

WebEx info

Meeting Link Meeting number: 2553 223 3803

More ways to join

Join by video system:
- Dial 625532233803@finos.webex.com
- You can also dial 173.243.2.68 and enter your meeting number
Join by phone
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Access code: 2553 223 3803

Meeting notices

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Agenda

[x] Convene & roll call, review meeting notices (5mins)
[x] Group goals, deliverables and description of process (5mins)
[x] Introductions from attendees, to include a description of known use-cases (10mins)
[x] Presentation of proposals from Citi and Natwest Markets + Q&A (30mins)
[ ] Arrange Future meetings (5mins)
[x] AOB & Adjourn (5mins)

Minutes

Introductions
- Aaron Haines: Product manager @ NWM overseeing projects that work with FDC3 implemented in multiple containers/Desktop Agents and non-container legacy apps.
- Manish: Developer @ NWM working on the Backplane (NWM desktop agent bridge) and FDC3 use in aps.
- Georgi Georgiev @ Glue42: FDC3 maintainer, keen to explore bridging opportunities in support of clients.
- Hugh @ Factset: Software engineer working on FDC3 integrations and expanding usage in platform agnostic way.
- Jane Gavronsky @ FINOS (CTO): Spends a lot of time talking to firms about their needs and technology solutions @ FINOS that can help solve for them.
- Mike McClung @ Cosaic: Works on FDC3 support @ Cosiac and keen to understand client use-cases.
- Qiana Chen @ Citi: Working on adoption of the FDC3 standard at Citi.
- Randall Dang @ Citi: Development manager responsible for FDC3 community and app directory at Citi.
- Sarah Stone @ Cosaic: Product manager for Finsemble at Cosaic
- Saurabh Gupta @ NWM: Engineering lead for desktop engineering platform, where FDC3 is an important part of automating workflows through app interop.
- Late joiners:
- Benjamin McBride @ Wellington
- Michael & Pierre @ OpenFin
- Andrew Hampshire @ UBS
Use-cases / situations:
- Natwest markets
- We have users working in applications across both multiple PCs, multiplier containers (Finsemble, OpenFin), non-container legacy C# applications and Symphony applications
- Our direction of travel is towards a web-technologies - but our journey to get there will be long hence we need to support all these application types
- Citi
- Similar situation: Finsemble, OpenFin and Symphony applications + some apps running in a web browser that need to share context.
Citi Proposal for bridging (images reproduced with permission)
- Connection between agents is largely via connecting to their app directories, with knowledge of the fact that an a particular appD relates to a particular other agent.
- Current relationship between AppD and Desktop agent is under discussion
- Can't provide detail of app instances where Desktop Agent API can.
- Citi has an extensive app directory and an Intents and Context data repository that's integrated into that AppD
- Used in multiple containers
- Uses a set of adapters to connect other environments (often non-desktop agent based) into a their Finsemble based desktop
- disadvantages:
  - need to implement an adapter for each new container/environment
  - depends on one of the desktop agents always being running (centralised)
  - requires knowledge of what channels and intents to listen to - non-system channels are not discoverable, many intent listeners to add
- Proposal for a better bridging solution:
  - Extend the FDC3 Desktop Agent API to support direct connections between implementations
  - Each connects to all of the others
  - Uses a new getOrEstablishConnection function
  - Summary: A Desktop Agent connects to another, both end up with a connection object, they add a handler to it to receive messages, they can call sendMessage to send on to the other agent.
  - Some revisions to existing FDC3 API calls suggested:
  - add a target agent - suggested that this actually goes under AppMetadata
- Problems to resolve
- System channels differ between Desktop Agents
- Need to add a handler to notify a desktop agent that a connection was received so it can also receive the Connection object, without this the receiveMessage handler won't get added unless/until the remote container connects back.
  - We may or may not also need to add an additional event or status field indicating connection is ready (i.e. the receiveMessage handler has been added by the remote Desktop Agent)
- Need to define Resolution, response from sendMessage, needs to support a variety of different response types so that these can be routed back to the caller (e.g. raiseIntent that ends up on a remote container needs to route an IntentResolution and possibly also subsequent result back to the container that raised it).
- Need to figure out discovery of desktop agents and/or however connections between them would be configured.
Although the Natwest and Citi proposals are based on different topologies (container <-> backplane <-> container vs. container <-> container) the needs of the connection interfaces are similar and could be supported by a similar API.

Action Items

[ ] (all interested parties) Document high-level use-cases for connecting containers on issue: #453
[ ] (all interested parties) Document detailed use-cases and workflow description (what it looks like to the user) for cross-container functionality on specific API calls
- e.g.
- raiseIntent targeting an app instance on another container,
- findIntent returning app details from multiple containers
- broadcast on a system channel being delivered across multiple containers
- broadcast on a user channel being delivered across multiple containers
- joining a channel created on another container.
[x] @kriswest Propose some slots for a next meeting in January (same day of week/time) and post a survey
[x] @kriswest Next meeting agenda
- Discuss documentation of detailed use-cases (how should this look to the user)
- Discuss API proposals
- Discuss security / where API should be implemented

Untracked attendees

Full name	Affiliation	GitHub username

ggeorgievx commented 2 years ago

Present ✅

Julia-Ritter commented 2 years ago

Julia / FINOS

kriswest commented 2 years ago

Kris West / Cosaic

jgavronsky commented 2 years ago

Jane @ FINOS here

hughtroeger commented 2 years ago

Hugh / FactSet

agitana commented 2 years ago

Aitana Myohl / FINOS

RandallDang-Citi commented 2 years ago

Randall / Citi

pbaize commented 2 years ago

Pierre / OpenFin

MichaelMCoates commented 2 years ago

Michael Coates / OpenFin

sarahaislinnstone commented 2 years ago

Sarah Stone / Cosaic

Qiana-Citi commented 2 years ago

Qiana / Citi

kriswest commented 2 years ago

Options for a next meeting of the group:

🎉 Wednesday 5th Jan 2pm GMT / 9am EST
❤️ Wednesday 12th Jan 2pm GMT / 9am EST
🚀 Wednesday 19th Jan 2pm GMT / 9am EST
👎 Need a different option!

(click the emoji for those that work for you)

Vote closed 14th Dec: Selected: Wednesday 12th Jan 2pm GMT / 9am EST

Julia-Ritter commented 2 years ago

Untracked attendees:

Manish Bhutani / NWM
Mike McClung / Citi
Saurabh Gupta / NWM
Benjamin McBride / Wellington
Andrew Hampshire / UBS

manishbhutani commented 2 years ago

Manish / NWM

RandallDang-Citi commented 2 years ago

These time slot are all good for me.

How about you, Qiana?

From: [github.com] Kris West @.***> Sent: Thursday, December 9, 2021 12:01 AM To: finos/FDC3 Cc: Dang, Yunfeng Randall [ICG-IT]; Comment Subject: Re: [finos/FDC3] Desktop Agent Bridging Discussion group (Issue #523)

This Message is From an External Sender

This message came from outside of your organization.

Options for a next meeting of the group:

🎉 Wednesday 5th Jan 2pm GMT / 9am EST
🚀 Wednesday 12th Jan 2pm GMT / 9am EST
❤️ Wednesday 19th Jan 2pm GMT / 9am EST

— You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHubhttps://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/github.com/finos/FDC3/issues/523*issuecomment-988943897__;Iw!!Jkho33Y!3wirgshk811ByRdmUHltHMesZr60Xr588Ogse1imC5kvMPelNmXJTxr5Ld8cR1vsO2pBa_4$, or unsubscribehttps://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ATSWCYANUIB5HQQEPO4I55DUP56KJANCNFSM5JOXDV4Q__;!!Jkho33Y!3wirgshk811ByRdmUHltHMesZr60Xr588Ogse1imC5kvMPelNmXJTxr5Ld8cR1vsmtLVVVY$. Triage notifications on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOShttps://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1477376905?ct=notification-email&mt=8&pt=524675__;!!Jkho33Y!3wirgshk811ByRdmUHltHMesZr60Xr588Ogse1imC5kvMPelNmXJTxr5Ld8cR1vsM__NBok$ or Androidhttps://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.github.android&referrer=utm_campaign*3Dnotification-email*26utm_medium*3Demail*26utm_source*3Dgithub__;JSUlJSU!!Jkho33Y!3wirgshk811ByRdmUHltHMesZr60Xr588Ogse1imC5kvMPelNmXJTxr5Ld8cR1vsQmw_am8$.

RandallDang-Citi commented 2 years ago

All the options work for me as well.

Thanks, Qiana

From: Dang, Yunfeng Randall [ICG-IT] @.***> Sent: Thursday, December 9, 2021 3:55 PM To: finos/FDC3; finos/FDC3; Chen, Qia Qiana [ICG-IT] Cc: Comment Subject: RE: [finos/FDC3] Desktop Agent Bridging Discussion group (Issue #523)

These time slot are all good for me.

How about you, Qiana?

From: [github.com] Kris West @.**@.>> Sent: Thursday, December 9, 2021 12:01 AM To: finos/FDC3 Cc: Dang, Yunfeng Randall [ICG-IT]; Comment Subject: Re: [finos/FDC3] Desktop Agent Bridging Discussion group (Issue #523)

This Message is From an External Sender

This message came from outside of your organization.

Options for a next meeting of the group:

🎉 Wednesday 5th Jan 2pm GMT / 9am EST
🚀 Wednesday 12th Jan 2pm GMT / 9am EST
❤️ Wednesday 19th Jan 2pm GMT / 9am EST

— You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHubhttps://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/github.com/finos/FDC3/issues/523*issuecomment-988943897__;Iw!!Jkho33Y!3wirgshk811ByRdmUHltHMesZr60Xr588Ogse1imC5kvMPelNmXJTxr5Ld8cR1vsO2pBa_4$, or unsubscribehttps://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ATSWCYANUIB5HQQEPO4I55DUP56KJANCNFSM5JOXDV4Q__;!!Jkho33Y!3wirgshk811ByRdmUHltHMesZr60Xr588Ogse1imC5kvMPelNmXJTxr5Ld8cR1vsmtLVVVY$. Triage notifications on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOShttps://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1477376905?ct=notification-email&mt=8&pt=524675__;!!Jkho33Y!3wirgshk811ByRdmUHltHMesZr60Xr588Ogse1imC5kvMPelNmXJTxr5Ld8cR1vsM__NBok$ or Androidhttps://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.github.android&referrer=utm_campaign*3Dnotification-email*26utm_medium*3Demail*26utm_source*3Dgithub__;JSUlJSU!!Jkho33Y!3wirgshk811ByRdmUHltHMesZr60Xr588Ogse1imC5kvMPelNmXJTxr5Ld8cR1vsQmw_am8$.

kriswest commented 2 years ago

@Julia-Ritter could you book the next meeting in for Wednesday 12th Jan 2pm GMT / 9am EST, please?

Julia-Ritter commented 2 years ago

Hello everyone,

The new FDC3: Desktop Agent Bridging Discussion Group meeting has been scheduled for Wednesday 12th Jan 2pm GMT / 9am EST and a meeting invite has been sent out. Please let me know if you did not receive the calendar invite and need to be added.

Thank you for sharing your meeting preferences- and we look forward to speaking then in January, Julia

finos / FDC3