Roadmap

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 July 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 features

Adding the ability to handle new document types and specific features that only occur in certain document types; refining existing features.

Tables of origins and destinations (11B)

Automatically generate citations in SI/SSIs (REUL)

Update numbering sequence for UK bills to include 'O'

Church measures (11B)

Table notes (11B, REUL)

Amendments

Enhancements 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

Improve amendment numbering logic for Lords

Improve sorting of Ping Pong motions

Inline/auto-apply - preamble and long title in UK Bills (11B)

Inline/auto-apply - misc. improvements from feedback

Improve sorting of Lords amendments to amendments

Specify an order of consideration for ping pong stages

Notification of new amendments (11B)

Delete amendments from Amendment Manager tab

Manage amendments by stage instead of Bill version

Amendment preview enhancements

Inline/auto-apply - move amendments (11B)
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 quality

Making 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

Improve 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)

Refine tracked change behaviours

Implement RelaxNG data validation (REUL)

Handle "quoted text" in XML like quoted structures (REUL)

Implement new colour scheme/branding throughout application (11B)

Authoring and editing

Adding 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)

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 management

Adding 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)

Document Admin dashboard (archive, delete, download) (11B)

Set project to inactive (and reactivate) (11B)

Improved labelling of snapshots and significant versions

Change project title manually

Print output

Features 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

Generate multiple-volume PDFs (11B)

API

Additional 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.

API updates for TNA publishing system integration (11B, REUL)

API - images in amendments

Infrastructure and software components

Changes 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

Redesign infrastructure for multiple instances (PSIP)

Implement AWS Shield Advanced (additional cybersecurity protection)

Implement new infrastructure design (PSIP, REUL)

Oxygen upgrade