Roadmap - August 2023
- Matt Lynch
This section contains the roadmap setting out our plans for future Lawmaker development. This is a living plan which is updated regularly in light of user feedback and the strategic direction approved by Lawmaker’s steering group.
This roadmap was last updated in August 2023.
See Feature and improvement requests for the current full list of suggested new features and improvements that may feature on the roadmap as it is updated over time.
Key
11B - feature referred to in 2021 paper proposing de-prioritisation of certain features from version 11
REUL - feature or improvement that will be delivered through Retained EU legislation funding
PSIP - feature or improvement mentioned in the Performance and Stability Improvement Plan
Timeline and releases | Q1 2023 Version 14 | Q3 2023 Version 15 | Q4 2023 Version 16 | Q1 2024 Version 17 | 2024 Future versions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Document types and specific document featuresAdding the ability to handle new document types and specific features that only occur in certain document types; refining existing features. |
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| Tables of origins and destinations (11B) Automatically generate citations in SI/SSIs (REUL) | Church measures (11B) Table notes (11B, REUL) | Update numbering sequence for UK bills to include 'O' |
AmendmentsEnhancements and refinements to the functionality for creating, editing and managing amendments and amendment lists, including ping pong, creating amendments inline and automatically applying amendments to a Bill. | Improve handling of multiple users in Amendment preview and comments (v.13.2) Permissions on individual amendments and lists (11B) Insert headings before ping pong amendments Display content of ping pong amendment in structure view Improve handling and flexibility around Commons programme (and related) motions Bulk update status/outcomes of selected amendments | Improved amendment numbering logic for Lords Improved sorting of Ping Pong motions | auto-apply amendments - improvements from feedback Inline/auto-apply - preamble and long title in UK Bills (11B) Improve sorting of Lords amendments to amendments Specify an order of consideration for ping pong stages Improved error checking for Orders of Consideration | Notification of new amendments (11B) Delete amendments from Amendment Manager tab (and PDR) Manage amendments by stage instead of Bill version Inline/auto-apply - move amendments (11B)
| Amendment preview enhancements Inline/auto-apply - divide amendments (11B) X-refs to children of unnumbered sections Refine paste amendment logic Update 'update list' feature so it works for Ping Pong lists |
Robustness, resilience, performance, accessibility, data qualityMaking the overall experience better for users by making the system more intuitive/accessible, harder to break and less likely to generate invalid XML, e.g. improved validation, improvements to paste logic, progress bars on slow tasks | Improved Schematron validation
| Improved Schematron validation Improve folding functionality (PSIP, REUL) Data quality improvements (inc. improved whitespace handling) Optimise session management for performance (PSIP) Additional stability improvements (PSIP, REUL) Improve Editor performance under load (PSIP, REUL) | Enable actions (e.g. PDF generation, list publishing) to complete in background to improve performance (PSIP) Improved approach to validation and document checks (REUL, PSIP) Data quality improvements (REUL)
| Handle "quoted text" in XML like quoted structures (REUL) | Implement new colour scheme/branding throughout application (11B) Refine tracked change behaviours |
Authoring and editingAdding new capabilities related to creating and editing content that will improve productivity or content quality. For example, user-generated templates, importing from http://legislation.gov.uk , improved table functionality |
| Import data from http://legislation.gov.uk (11B, REUL) | Automated tagging of external cross-references (REUL) |
| User-defined text templates (11B) Table formatting - row height and text alignment (11B) Table formatting - custom borders (11B) Refine 'Update x-ref' to work with converted section/schedule elements Refine smart paste Improve logic for cursor placement and Editor view after action Enable x-refs inside quoted structures to other doc types |
User, project and document managementAdding new capabilities and refining existing features to help manage and interact with user accounts, projects and document versions within projects. For example, user management by org admins, permission/access control, archive/deletion tools | User Admin dashboard (create, reset, deactivate, delete) (11B) Extend Finalise Document to SIs (11B)
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| Document Admin dashboard (archive, delete, download) (11B) Set project to inactive (and reactivate) (11B) Improved labelling of snapshots and significant versions (REUL) Change project title manually |
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Print outputFeatures relating to the generation of print-ready PDFs of documents. For example, user-controlled page breaks, hyperlinks, including comments, multi-volume PDFs. | Add "Draft" watermark to PDF documents |
| Generate PDFs with landscape-orientated tables (11B, REUL) Generate large print PDFs (REUL) | Generate multiple-volume PDFs (11B) |
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APIAdditional endpoints and enhancements to existing endpoints to provide data required by external systems and to enable other interaction between those systems and Lawmaker. For example, paging of large responses, enabling external systems to create amendments or update amendment statuses. |
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| API updates for TNA publishing system integration (11B, REUL) API - images in amendments |
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Infrastructure and software componentsChanges to cloud infrastructure and software components that make up the Lawmaker service for security, scaling, performance, resilience etc. For example, work on Disaster Recovery environment, patching of software components to up-to-date, supported versions. | Additional health check+auto-restart for PDR | Oxygen upgrade preparation (PSIP) Redesign infrastructure for multiple instances (PSIP) | Implement new infrastructure design (PSIP, REUL) Oxygen 25 upgrade (PSIP) | Implement AWS Shield Advanced (additional cybersecurity protection) |
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