Session Description: Donna Rodriguez is a Web Manager at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. She will discuss the trials and tribulations of building the public VA App Store. The year-long process began with exploring commercially available enterprise App stores and moved on to partnering with the DoD's National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency to use its App store as a rapid prototype. In the end, VA settled on building its App Store in Drupal – the same CMS platform that was used to launch VA’s first Drupal-built website – http://mobilehealth.va.gov – in May 2013. The goal of the VA App Store is to create a seamless, online user experience for Veterans, their Caregivers and VA Providers to drive adoption of VA Mobile Apps. The session covers VA’s App Store journey, the Drupal modules used and the lessons learned along the way.

1. CAPITAL CAMP AND GOV DAYS 2014:
Using Drupal to Build the VA App Store
Donna Rodriguez, Web Manager
mobile.va.gov | mobilehealth.va.gov | connectedhealth.va.gov

2. The goal of the VA App Store is to create a
seamless, online user experience for Veterans, their
Caregivers and VA Providers to drive adoption of VA
Mobile Apps.
The session covers:
1.VA’s App Store journey,
2.the Drupal modules used, and
3.the lessons learned along the way.

3. Tasked with researching an enterprise mobile App store
to publish/distribute VA mobile Apps
1. Build our own VA enterprise App store in-house
2. Research procurement options
Outreach to Drupal4Gov Forum for ideas for App store
Drupal distro for managing App catalogs called OpenCivic:
Andrew Hoppin (NuCivic)
DoD Version of App Store that can be given to federal agencies:
Ben Hosmer (NGA now Mediacurrent):

4. Procurement Option Demos
1. Apperian: www.apperian.com
2. App47: www.app47.com
3. Airwatch: (VA already owned for
Mobile Device Management) MDM
4. Good (AppCentral)
5. Others?

5. Apperian Enterprise
App Store

6. App47 Enterprise
App Store

7. Airwatch Enterprise
App Store

8. Drupal Distro -
OpenCivic
See it live:
Demo site at
http://demo.openc
ivic.nuamsdev.co
m/
Live site at
http://europecom
mons.org
Other live sites
that use OpenCivic
as its basis:
http://EuropeCom
mons.org
http://commons.c
odeforamerica.org
http://hackforchan
ge.org

9. Drupal Distro -
OpenCivic

10. Procurement no longer an option due to cost
Demo DoD App Store; Web team approves
Fill out paperwork required to obtain sponsor to use DoD App Store
DoD transfers the code to Amazon cloud and helps VA set up the
infrastructure and provides developer assistance
Begin development in November 2013
Need to remove required fields and logins
Meet weekly until all changes are completed to DoD Mobile App Store
Additional changes are required and completed to DoD Mobile App Store

11. For Veterans: An online portal
through which Apps are made
available in two ways:
1.For download by Veterans
and their Caregivers by linking
to consumer-oriented App
stores, such as Apple's App
Store and Google Play.
2.By linking to VA developed
Apps that require secure logins
required to access Electronic
Health Record (EHR).
For Clinicians: An enterprise
App Store:
1.An OIT-controlled portal that
makes specific, approved
business Apps available only to
staff users. OIT can manage
desktop, mobile, and Web App
software licenses (EULAs) and
maintain a level of control over
security.

12. DoD Mobile App Store: Background
Geoint was built 3 years ago in-house by Dr. Tuttle, R&D Department of
Defense/National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (DoD/NGA). His vision
included:
Partnering with other agencies building App Stores and sharing App stores across
the federal space
Releasing the App Store as Open Source for collaborating and jointly developing
with other agencies
VA Benefits of installing and using the Geoint App Store on VA servers:
Allows VA to pilot and understand what requirements are needed for VA App store
before acquisition or building in-house
Meets the needs of the VA in terms of cost [FREE]
Meets the needs of the VA in terms of timing [syncs with launch of the VA Apps
scheduled for release in Fall of Fiscal Year (FY) 2014]

13. DoD Mobile App Store - Architecture

14. DoD Mobile
App Store
See it live:
https://apps.nga.mil
Architecture:
Ruby/Rails based
and required
PostgreSQL as
opposed to
Drupal/MS SQL

15. App details screen

16. as DoD for the App Store
Need to be clear by what we
App Store is unique?
1
2
3

17. Learn to love the
command line
using Secure Shell
(SSH) to modify
the DoD Mobile
App Store to fit
Store use case
DoD Mobile App Store
VA Branded

18. App
details
screen

19. In March 2014, abandon the VA-branded DoD Mobile
App Store
Not All DoD Technologies used in architecture diagram are
approved on One-VA Technical Reference Model (TRM)
Rebuild with what we learned from DoD App Store in
Drupal
DoD Mobile App Store serves as Rapid prototype for VA
Make plans to move from Moderate FISMA to High FISMA more
secure environment in VA MAE (Mobile App Environment)

23. Filters

24. Disclose that some Apps will require credentials

25. Download (iOS/Android) vs. Launch (HTML)

26. VA App Store Feedback
“VA is way
ahead of the
curve – 95%
on the App
store
concept”

27. Fivestar Galleria
Token Views
Voting API Webform
Drupal Modules used to Build the VA App Store

28. App Content Type

29. Production & Performance
Web Application Security
Assessment (WASA) scans
Performance Testing
Target: 10k to 20k users
Need to re-architect
hardware configuration for
redundancy and high
availability
Our store must be able to
handle large scale traffic
when Apps are released
Apache vs IIS or MySQL vs
MS SQL
Approved for WISP
(Windows/IIS/SQL
Server/PHP) vs LAMP
(Linux/Apache/MySQL/PH
P) stack
MySQL is currently
approved for use for
Intranet only. Will
changing to MySQL
provide us with better
module support and a
more optimal experience?

30. App Store Server
Windows / IIS 7.5
Web
Storefront
SQL Server 2008
R2
VA Mobile App Store - Architecture
Web Storefront
Drupal
Port 443

31. Environment

32. App Store/Dev Portal
www.mobile.va.gov
mobile.va.gov
www.appstore.va.gov
appstore.va.gov
Provider Portal/Pilots
www.mobilehealth.va.gov
mobilehealth.va.gov
Program Office
www.connectedhealth.va.gov
connectedhealth.va.gov
Separate Drupal Instances / Content & Communication Strategy

33. Launch Burn Pit
2 URLs
One for Veterans
One for Providers
Where do we launch App
For Provider?
Not the Veteran facing App
Store
Native apps (e.g., Apple or
Android store apps), HTML
5 Apps
» Airwatch Store only for iOS
and Android Apps
» Burn Pit is HTML5 App
Apps for internal staff with GFE
and require VistA logon
Apps for clinical staff
informational in nature
for Providers

34. 1. Apps for external users
(Veterans)
2. Apps for internal users (VA
employees) requires VistA
logon
3. Apps for external users
(Providers) Informational
Apps does not require
VistA logon
4. Apps being Tested
How to plan, launch, and
maintain App stores that
serve these constituencies
Separate App stores for
separate constituencies, or
one App store to serve all?
Different use cases

36. Built with Drupal
App Catalog
Buenos Aires City Gov
See it live:
http://www.buenosair
es.gob.ar/aplicaciones
moviles

37. Built with Drupal
App Catalog
Buenos Aires City Gov
See it live:
http://www.buenosai
res.gob.ar/aplicacion
esmoviles

38. HHS-sponsored
Mobile Apps
See it live:
http://www.hhs.gov/
digitalstrategy/mobil
e/mobile-apps.html

39. USA.gov
Mobile Apps Gallery
See it live:
http://apps.usa.gov/

40. Speaker Information
Donna Rodriguez
Web Manager
Web and Mobile Solutions
Connected Health Office
Office of Informatics and Analytics
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
Been working with Drupal 7 since
Jan. 2013
Launched 1st Drupal Internet Site
in VA May 2013
Donna.Rodriguez@va.gov
https://www.linkedin.com/donnaadori
anrodriguez
https://twitter.com/donnaador
Drupal Sites
http://mobile.va.gov
http://mobilehealth.va.gov
http://connectedhealth.va.gov