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As the largest particle physics laboratory in the world, it is no surprise that CERN has a vast network of thousands of collaborators spread globally. Among CERN’s experiments, ATLAS stands out with over 6,000 active members and 300 associate institutes. This extensive community must go through the standard registering and maintenance procedures within CERN’s human resources database, called Foundation. Simultaneously, the Glance system, among other specific functions, also aims to fulfill the same objectives within the context of different CERN experiments, such as ATLAS, LHCb and ALICE. It achieves that by having its own database. Since members need to exist in the two databases, a lot of data was being duplicated. Manual updates by the ATLAS secretariat became necessary to maintain consistency over members and institutes data, such as names, employment information and authorship status. Today, the Glance system undergoes a transformative process to redefine its relationship with Foundation. The goal is to eliminate duplication of data by establishing a single source of truth. At the same time, the automation of a series of internal processes will be made to ensure synchronization between the two databases at all times, thus removing the need for manual intervention from the ATLAS secretariat. This requires some restructuring to Glance’s database, updates to the code and overall implementation of new tools that facilitate seamless communication with Foundation.

The ATLAS experiment is a particle physics experiment situated at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. It involves almost 6000 members from approximately 300 institutes spread all over the globe and more than 100 papers published every year. This dynamic environment brings some challenges such as how to ensure publication deadlines, communication between the groups involved, and the continuity of workflows. The solution found for those challenges was automation, which was achieved through the Glance project, more specifically through the Glance Analysis systems, developed to support the analysis and publications life cycle in 2011. Now, after twelve years, in order to satisfy the experiments’ most recent needs, the systems need code refactoring and database remodelling. The goal is to have only one system to accommodate all the analysis and publications workflows, the so-called ATLAS Publication Tracking system, an evolution of the current Analysis systems. This project includes a database remodelling that reflects the hierarchical relation between analyses and publications; a code base that supports non-standard workflows; the expansion of the current API so all the authorized ATLAS members can access ATLAS publication data programmatically; a service-oriented architecture for integration with external software, such as GitLab; the creation of an automatic test environment, which assures the quality of the systems on each update. The ATLAS Publication Tracking system is a long-term project being developed with an iterative and incremental approach, which ensures that the most valuable tools are implemented with priority while allowing a smooth transition between the old systems and the new one.