Interview with Fabian Schwanitz: Comprehensive improvements for the ECLASS Content Development Platform

Fabian, as Release Manager, we already asked you last year about the developments surrounding the content release ( ➤ previous interview). How are the preparations for ECLASS Release 15 going?

The deadline for Change Requests for the ECLASS 15 Alpha Release is April 30, 2024, which means that I am currently checking the incoming Change Requests for technical correctness and at the same time answering a particularly large number of inquiries about the Content Development Platform. For this reason, we improved and further automated all technical checks at the beginning of this year in order to be able to check the more than 200,000 incoming Change Requests per year even more efficiently. If, for example, inconsistent Change Requests are submitted, the necessary corrections are implemented in the data.
 

A lot has happened on the Content Development Platform (CDP), where the Change Requests for the ECLASS Releases are submitted. What has been done and what are the plans for the future?

Together with our Software Service Provider Paradine, we developed a development roadmap for the CDP for the year 2024 back in November last year. There will be software releases on fixed dates in which important innovations will be implemented. The first CDP Software Release this year was at the end of February, the next one will appear in mid-July and a further software release is planned for November 2024. To remain flexible, minor enhancements or corrections will be fixed in the meantime with patches.
 

What is the aim of the software releases and what improvements are there to the Content Development Platform?

First of all, user requirements are constantly evolving, so software solutions must be provided that meet these requirements. New and useful functions are therefore constantly being offered to users with the software releases. The overriding aim is always user-friendliness in order to make it easier to get started with ECLASS. The focus is also always on improving the performance of the software, e.g. reducing loading times.
 

What specifically has changed and improved?

CDP 8.1 was released at the end of February 2024 and many new functions have been available in CDP since then. Among other things, it is now possible to replace the Value List structural element with a single CR (Replace VL). Previously, this required several steps. Another new function is the ability to use generated Application Classes multiple times. Up to and including Release 14, an Application Class could only be used once. This has made working in the CDP more user-friendly, although more complex options are available.

Another important change was released with Software Patch 8.1.1. Nine additional (mainly European) languages have been implemented in the CDP, including Greek, Norwegian and Ukrainian. This means that it is now possible to create Change Requests in the CDP in almost all official EU languages and to produce ECLASS versions in these languages.
 

What other changes are planned?

There are many projects in ECLASS that will also be incorporated into the CDP in the future. For example, we are working on restructuring the workflow in the CDP with the aim of making the checks and responsibilities in the Change Management and Release Process even faster and more efficient. This improvement is to be implemented this year. There are also concepts for using artificial intelligence to generate missing definitions of structural elements. So there is a lot for users to look forward to. We will inform ECLASS users regularly via our newsletter or our LinkedIn channel as soon as the technical innovations have been successfully implemented.