TESTING of new BCH platform - First Phase

Dear Forum Participants,

Thank you very much for performing the first test and thank you for all your feedback! The Biosafety Team is looking into all your comments and we will be implementing  the recommendations.

Thanks to your comments, a few bugs that were discovered by you in the process of testing, have been fixed already. One common comment was about the “Processing” time for loading the application, publishing/deleting records. We have made some changes, so the system should be operating faster now. Advise: please try using different browsers like Google Chrome, Firefox, IE. Some of you mentioned that Google Chrome worked best. We will continue making further changes in this regard.

This time, we would like to ask you to perform TWO other simple test similar to CNA. These tests are for focal points only – BCH, CPB focal points and National Authorised Users (NAUs) - because it has to do with National Records which only you have access to.

DESCRIPTION OF TEST:

ASSIGNMENT: In National Records, create an publish a “Supplementary Protocol Competent Authority (SPCA)” and “National Biosafety Website or Database (NDB)”.

Please note that the “Supplementary Protocol Competent Authority (SPCA)” is not currently available in old BCH. It is a new record type that will be implemented in the new BCH. The role of this competent authority is to perform the functions set out under Article 5 of the Nagoya – Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol on Liability and Redress. The SPCA you create on the test site will NOT appear as your national record in the old/current BCH!

The submission of the “Supplementary Protocol Competent Authority (SPCA)” is very similar to the creation of a CNA but has its specificity. It is important for us to know your experience with publishing this type of record.

INSTRUCTIONS:

IF YOU are a BCH FOCAL POINT, perform the following:

1. Log in to https://bch.cbddev.xyz/.
2. Click on SUBMIT tab (on the bar on top).
3. Create and publish a new “Supplementary Protocol Competent Authority (SPCA)”.
Remember, this is a test data and will not affect any current national records of your country and will not appear in the old/current BCH. The SPCA you create will NOT appear as your national record in the old/current BCH.
4. Once you see that the record is "Published", click on SEARCH tab (on the bar on top).
5. In the SEARCH interface, search for the SPCA you have just created.
6. Go back to SUBMIT section and try to edit (or delete) and re-publish the same record.
7. Go back to SEARCH, find the edited record and verify the changes made.

REPEAT the same steps above for “National Biosafety Website or Database (NDB)”.

Please use the “?” mark at the bottom of the screen to ask questions (if need be) online during the process. During the above process, you can also save the record as a draft and come back to it later. After this test, please send us your feedback with your experience with the above process by Monday - 6 April.

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IF YOU ARE a CARTAGENA PROTOCOL FOCAL POINT (CPB FP) or a NATIONAL AUTHORIZED USER (NAU), perform the following:

1. Log in to https://bch.cbddev.xyz/.
2. Click on SUBMIT tab (on the bar on top).
3. Create a new “Supplementary Protocol Competent Authority (SPCA)”.
Remember, this is a test data and will not affect any current national records of your country and will not appear in the old/current BCH. The SPCA you create will NOT appear as your national record in the old BCH.
4. Click on "Publish". Your request will be sent to the BCH Focal Point who will need to approve and publish the record you just entered.
5. After the record is published by the BCH FP you will see its status as "Published". Click on SEARCH tab (on top bar) and, in the SEARCH interface, try to find the record that you have created and that has been published.
6. Optional: you can go back to SUBMIT and try editing or deleting your record. But, only the BCH focal point will have the right to validate your changes.

REPEAT the same steps above for “National Biosafety Website or Database (NDB)”.

Please use the “?” mark at the bottom of the screen to ask questions (if need be) online during the process. During the above process, you can also save the record as a draft and come back to it later. After this test, please send us your feedback with your experience with the above process by Monday – 6 April.

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DEADLINE: Monday – April 6. Please send us your feedback by that date.

Thank you again for all your support!

Kind regards,

Anastasia

Dear Forum Participants,

Thank you for responding to our test requests and thank you for all your feedback. We are working on implementing your recommendations.

Before we move to testing more complex records, we would like ask you to perform a few more simple tests using the record types that you are already familiar with: CNAs, SPCAs, Websites and Databases.

The purpose of these tests is 1) to test the SEARCH interface by using a combination of various filters; 2) to help you get better familiarized and used to the new SEARCH interface as it is quite different from the old BCH.

Please note, that the SEARCH interface is accessible to all users and no log-in is required. Thus, anyone can perform the tests below.

Feel free to use your own combination of filters. But to help you, please see below some scenarios that you can follow. Using a combination of filters can narrow your search in finding the required record. You can also use variations of scenarios below.

Again, please note that we are testing a test site with data consisting of some real and some test (fake) data. Not all data has been imported from the old BCH.

NOTE: As you select more and more filters, observe as the number change next to record types; selected main filters appear on to; results change/narrow with every new filter selected. To have easy access to the Sub-filters: scroll down or click the (X) icon on the top right side. I am re-attaching the quick SEARCH guide to assist you.

Let’s begin!

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TEST SCENARIO I: Find CNAs by region, then by a specific country, then by specific “Types of organism(s) under its responsibility”.

1. Go to https://bch.cbddev.xyz/.
2. Click on SEARCH tab (on the bar on top).
3. In National Records, select “Competent National Authority (CNA)”.
4. Select a region in the Region filter on top: for example “Central and Eastern Europe”. See results below (scroll down or click "x" on the right).
5. Perform one of the following:
        --Select a country in the Country filter on top: for example - “Belarus”; OR
        --TYPE “Belarus” (without quotation marks) in the “Search the Clearing House” text box on top.
        See results below.
6. Go to Sub-filters. In “Types of organism(s) under its responsibility”, select some option(s). For example “Crops” and “Mammals”.
7. See results. Open the record to view how it is displayed.
8. Clear filters.

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TEST SCENARIO II: Find CNAs of Parties to the Protocol only for WEOG Region; then for a specific country.

1. Go to https://bch.cbddev.xyz/.
2. Click on SEARCH tab (on the bar on top).
3. In National Records, select “Competent National Authority (CNA)”.
4. Select “Party to the Protocol”.
5. Select Region in filter box on top: “Western Europe and Others”. See Results below.
6. Go to Sub-filters. In Free Text: type a country name (for example: Germany). Press ENTER. See results.
7. Remove “Germany” as a sub-filter (click on “x”). Do not clear any other filters, stay in the same search. Type another country: “France” (without quotation marks) and press ENTER. See results.
8. Remove Filters one by one. Watch results change.

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TEST SCENARIO III: Find all CNAs and SPCA records published for a specific country and within a certain DATE RANGE.

1. Go to https://bch.cbddev.xyz/.
2. Click on SEARCH tab (on the bar on top).
3. In National Records, select “Competent National Authority (CNA)” and “Supplementary Protocol Competent Authority (SPCA)”.
4. Select a Country. For example “Kenya”.
5. In Date filter, select records Published in “Last 7 days” (click on little calendar icon, select “Last 7 Days”). The system should filter. If not, click the Apply button inside the pop-up box. See results.
6. Remove the Date filter used ONLY. Leave all other filters.
7. In Date Filter, select a date period. For example, we want to see all records published for  the selected country from “1 January to 31 March 2020”. Perform the following:
    1) Click on the small “calendar icon”. A pop-up dialogue opens.
    2) Select “Custom Range”.
    3) In the calendar box on the left, find “1 January” and click on it. In the calendar to the right, find and select “31 March”. If you scroll through both calendars using the arrows, you will see that all dates between “1 January and 31 March” have been automatically selected (highlighted).
    4) Click Apply.
    5) See the results.
8. Clear filters one by one or all at once.

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TEST SCENARIO IV (simple): search by Record ID number. In old BCH, you can search by Record ID in the “Go to record ID” box. This was one of your comments/recommendations.

In new BCH, the Record ID looks like this, for example:  BCH-CNA-CA-249546-4. You see it clearly in the title of the record. If you open the record, it is displayed at the bottom. Clicking on it will open the record in a bigger, separate tab.
In BCH-CNA-CA-249546-4, for example, CNA is an acronym for record type “Competent National Authority”; CA stands for country code (Canada); 249546-4 – unique record number.

Two ways of searching by Record ID:
1) Type Record ID in the “Search the Clearing-House” free text box on top.
2) Type Record ID in the Free Text of a specific record (in Sub-filters area). For example, select CNA in National Records, then type Record ID.

TIP: You can type (or copy/paste) the whole complete ID number or part of it (e.g. just, the last numbers). If you just type the last numbers, the system will look for all records that have that number, including the ones that are reference to it, and the result will be wider. Advise: enter the whole ID or you can omit the “BCH” part.


DEADLINE: Friday – 17 April. Please let us know of your impressions of the SEARCH and testing results by Friday – 17 April.

Thank you and kind regards.

Anastasia

Dear Forum Participants,

I would just like to provide some more information regarding the new Date filter. I realize that it might not be very obvious at first as to how to use it.

The Date filter in new BCH is different from the old /current BCH. The main difference is that in the new BCH, besides selecting a pre-determined date range (e.g. “Last 7 Days”), you can also specify a date range and also select a specific date.

Thus, I have prepared two very simple tests. Please open the attachment (I have included screen shots that is why it is an attachment). I hope this will help you better understand how the Date filter works in case you are experiencing difficulties with this filter.

Kind regards,

Anastasia

Dear Forum Participants,

A small request to all of you.

While performing the testing of the new BCH platform, if you encounter any errors and see error messages on your screen, we would appreciate if you could take screenshots of the errors and send them to us. Please also describe the the steps you have followed. This will help use debug and resolve issues.

For guidance on what to test, please see my message on the forum entitled "Simple Test Assignment".

Thank you and kind regards,

Anastasia (on behalf of the IT team)

Dear Forum Participants,

Further to my previous messages, to assist you with the testing of the new BCH platform, we would like to ask you to perform the following SIMPLE TEST (PLEASE REFER TO YOUR RESPECTIVE ROLE BELOW):

IF YOU are a BCH FOCAL POINT, perform the following:

1. Log in to https://bch.cbddev.xyz/
2. Click on SUBMIT tab (on the bar on top).
3. Create and publish a new COMPETENT NATIONAL AUTHORITY (CNA). Remember, this is a test data and will not affect any current national records of your country and will not appear in the old/current BCH.
4. Once you see that the record is "Published", click on SEARCH tab (on the bar on top).
5.     In the SEARCH interface, search for the CNA you have just created.
6. Go back to SUBMIT section and try to edit (or delete) and re-publish the same CNA record.
7. Go back to SEARCH, find the edited record and verify the changes made.

Please use the “?” mark at the bottom of the screen to ask questions (if need be) online during the process. During the above process, you can also save the record and come back to publishing it later. After this test, please send us your feedback with your experience with the above process by March 25th.

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IF YOU ARE a CARTAGENA PROTOCOL FOCAL POINT (CPB FP) or a NATIONAL AUTHORIZED USER (NAU), perform the following:

1. Log in to https://bch.cbddev.xyz/
2. Click on SUBMIT tab (on the bar on top).
3. Create a new COMPETENT NATIONAL AUTHORITY (CNA). Remember, this is a test data and will not affect any current national records of your country and will not appear in the old/current BCH.
4. Click on "Publish". Your request will be sent to the BCH Focal Point who will need to approve and publish the record you just entered.
5. After the record is published by the BCH FP you will see its status as "Published". Click on SEARCH tab (on top bar) and, in the SEARCH interface, try to find the CNA you have created and that has been published.
6. Optional: you can go back to SUBMIT and try editing or deleting your record. But, only the BCH focal point will have the right to validate your changes.

Please use the “?” mark at the bottom of the screen to ask questions (if need be) online during the process. After this test, please send us your feedback with your experience with the above process by March 25th.

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IF YOU ARE A REGISTERED BCH USER (NOT a focal point) and would like to CREATE A RECORD:

1. Log in to https://bch.cbddev.xyz/
2. Click on SUBMIT tab (on the bar on top). 
3. Create and publish a new CONTACT. Remember, this is a test data and will not affect any current records and will not be reflected in the old/current BCH.
4. Optional: try editing or deleting your record.

This "Submit" process is the same for all types of records in the new BCH.

To simply SEARCH:

1. Click on SEARCH tab (see top bar) and, in the SEARCH interface, try searching for any type of records to see how the new search works, as well as to see the new display of records.

Please use the “?” mark at the bottom of the screen to ask questions (if need be) online during the process. After this, please send us your feedback with your experience with the above process by March 25th.

I am re-attaching the short graphical overview of the new SEARCH interface for ease of reference.

We look forward to receiving your comments.

Thank you and kindest regards,


Anastasia Beliaeva (Ms.)
Programme Management Assistant (Biosafety Clearing-House - BCH)
Biosafety Unit
Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity
World Trade Center
413 St. Jacques Str. Office 800
Montreal, QC H2Y 1N9
Canada
Tel.: +1 514 287 8713
Fax: +1 514 288 6588
E-mail: anastasia.beliaeva@cbd.int
Website: http://www.cbd.int/

Dear Forum Participants,

The migration of the BCH to its new platform is ongoing. There are still tons of things to do and we, at the Secretariat, are trying our best to keep up with the chronogram (see BCH home page at http://bch.cbd.int).

In this respect, we are now starting the testing of the new platform which we are hoping to do in several phases – starting from now until, approximately, the end of May. The plan is to start testing the DEVELOPMENT SITE of the new BCH platform and the record types that become more or less ready as we move ahead.

The PURPOSE OF THIS MESSAGE is to invite you to the First phase of the testing of the new platform. Please see details below.

DETAILS and IMPORTANT POINTS:

1. DEVELOPMENT (TEST) WEBSITE ADDRESS. The address of the development test site is: https://bch.cbddev.xyz/. Please note:

    • It is a development site in a very rough state, which changes on a daily basis depending on the work done by our IT colleagues.

    • It contains REAL DATA and records, as well as TEST DATA.

    • The site is only available in English.

    • Any records you create and publish will NOT affect the current BCH. Do not be afraid to create/edit/delete records. This site is for testing purposes only!!! Please continue to use the current BCH site (http://bch.cbd.int) for publishing and maintaining your countries’ actual/real records. The current BCH is and will continue to be operational all the way until the migration process is complete.

2. LOG-IN. The log-in process to the development site is the same as to the current BCH. Note that NO log-in is required if you want to browse and perform the search. Log-in with registered BCH user account is required only if you need to submit and publish records.

Those of you who are focal points and NAUs, you have the same type of roles for the development test site as for the real BCH.

• If you are a Cartagena Protocol Focal Point - you can enter information online, save it, request to publish it but you cannot publish it yourself. Request for publishing will be sent to the BCH focal point.
• National Authorized Users (NAUs) - you can enter information online, save it, request to publish it but you cannot publish it yourself. Request for publishing will be sent to the BCH focal point.
• BCH Focal Point -  you can enter the information online and publish it.

If any of you would like to have specific roles for testing purposes, please let us know and we will assign them to you accordingly.

3. TABS: Not all tabs on the development site are ready.  The ones that need to be tested, especially, are the SUBMIT tab (new interface for submitting and publishing records) and SEARCH (new interface for searching).

4. HELP MATERIALS: there are no help materials yet, of course, BUT:

        •    SUBMIT (submission and publication of records) section: the process is different from the current BCH. However, it is the same as the one you followed to submit the Fourth National Reports online. You may wish to consult the FAQs at:  https://bch.cbddev.xyz/articles/5d2cdcd0620471000183573f (see Question 3). The FAQs contain detailed explanation on how to submit a national report online. But this SUBMIT process applies (is the same for) to all types of records.

        •      New feature: There is a (?) - question mark - at the bottom right corner which is a new feature and is functioning already, sort of like an instant chat.

• SEARCH tab/section: completely new interface. Have a look. If any questions, please write to us.

5. TYPES OF RECORDS TO TEST IN THIS PHASE: Records ready to be tested in the SUBMIT section (where you submit and publish records) and SEARCH of the first phase are:

       •  CNAs (Competent National Authorities)
       •  SPCAs (Supplementary Protocol Competent Authorities)
       •  Website and Databases
       •  Contacts

Those are the simplest record types that are more or less ready.

6.  DEADLINE for the first round of testing – from today until 25 March.

7.  WHERE TO SEND FEEDBACK: Please send your comments to this forum or to bch@cbd.int. You can write in any of the 6 official languages of the UN.

Please send us your impressions and feedback.

Thank you for all your support.

Kind regards.
 
Anastasia Beliaeva (Ms.)
Programme Management Assistant (Biosafety Clearing-House - BCH)
Biosafety Unit
Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity
World Trade Center
413 St. Jacques Str. Office 800
Montreal, QC H2Y 1N9
Canada
Tel.: +1 514 287 8713
Fax: +1 514 288 6588
E-mail: anastasia.beliaeva@cbd.int
Website: http://www.cbd.int/

Dear Forum Participants,

Further to my message of yesterday, please refer to the ATTACHED FILE which provides a short overview of how to perform SEARCH in the new BCH.

I hope this will help you in your testing.

Just a reminder:

DEVELOPMENT (TEST) WEBSITE ADDRESS is: https://bch.cbddev.xyz/.

TYPES OF RECORDS TO TEST IN THIS PHASE: Records ready to be tested in the SUBMIT section (where you submit and publish records) and SEARCH of the first phase are:

       •  CNAs (Competent National Authorities)
       •  SPCAs (Supplementary Protocol Competent Authorities)
       •  Website and Databases
       •  Contacts

DEADLINE for the first round of testing – until 25 March.


Kindest regards,

Anastasia