PopMedNet Request Cycle v5.0

This documentation references PopMedNet 5.0 +

For version 4.0.3 documentation, please see PopMedNet User's Guide Version 4.0.3

PopMedNet User's Guide

Based on version 5.0


PopMedNet Request Cycle

The PopMedNet request cycle refers to any exchange of queries, their results, files, and programs in the PopMedNet system. The request cycle can be customized to send a request to a single endpoint or many. PopMedNet also has various auditing and data reviewing (e.g. /wiki/spaces/DOC/pages/8880343 and approving requests/results) capabilities that can be used to build additional workflow around the basic request cycle.

Request Cycle and Structure Overview

  1. An investigator creates a request draft on the web portal. She/he will choose the request type, request metadata, query parameters and /wiki/spaces/DOC/pages/8880284 (if applicable), and where to send it. Deciding who has access to this functionality is highly flexible and tends to rely more on individual network governance.
  2. The investigator submits the request to their desired destination(s) (referred to as DataMarts within PopMedNet). It is transferred securely to each DataMart, and each respective DataMart administrator can be notified upon the request's arrival.
  3. The DataMart administrator can open the request, view the request metadata,  download programs/files that were sent, run queries, and export query results in their local installation of the DataMart Client without sending any of their data back to the web portal.
  4. Each site can review the request and its results internally. A request can ultimately be approved with its results sent back to the web portal, rejected with no results sent back to the web portal, or put on hold to be reviewed at a later date.
  5. Upon approval, results are sent back to the web portal manually by the DataMart administrator in the DataMart Client. This can be accompanied by a written message from the administrator with any important information about the results (e.g. errors encountered or data anomalies).
  6. The results return to the web portal and can be viewed by the original investigator and anyone else with the correct permissions. Similarly to creating requests, deciding who can view results typically depends on network governance.

Conditions every request type follows in the request cycle:

  1. Requests always start and end at a network's web portal. This includes when querying your own data using PopMedNet.
  2. Responding to a request always requires the use of the DataMart Client. Once a request has been responded to by a given user, he/she can always review it and its results on the web portal as well as re-run and/or re-download a query or file from the DataMart Client.
  3. Menu-driven and SQL distribution queries (see: Request Types) run against a data source directly from the DataMart Client. This requires the Client to be connected to a data source.
  4. The DataMart Client requires an internet connection to communicate with the web portal.