August 2008 Chicago Conference - Technical Focus

RESO/RETS Conference

Technical Focus Agenda (tentative)

August 6th - 8th, 2008

430 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL

RESO/RETS Conference Registration

General Information

Breakfast

Breakfast will be provided on Thursday and Friday.

Lunch

Lunch will be provided all three days of the meetings.

Dinner

Attendees are responsible for their own dinner arrangements. Typically, attendees gather in the hotel and groups head out to try the various restaurants in the host city. Don’t be shy.

Accommodations

NAR negotiated a group discount rate for a block of hotel rooms. Attendees are responsible for the cost of the hotel room and any other costs.

Travel

Attendees are responsible for their own travel arrangements.

Reception

NAR will again host a Welcome Reception on Wednesday night for the attendees to the RESO/RETS Conference. It is an excellent opportunity to meet new people in the community as well as put a face to the email name that you may be working with.

Compliance Testing Debug Support

There are 30 minute slots for either server or client compliance. These slots are assigned on a pre-attendance registration form. Walk-up compliance may be handled if there are open times. Participants should be on-site 30 minutes prior to their assigned time slot to set up. Client compliance tests must bring their client software already loaded on their laptops.

Additional slots may be added if demand exceeds the number of available slots.

Plugfest

The Plugfest is an open workshop for client vendors and server vendors to test their inter-operability. This is a popular event where some of the best technical staff from the industry meet to help each other connect using the RETS specification.

Server vendors will sign-up before the event to provide clients with an idea of who will be there to help.

Day 1, Wednesday, August 6th

10:30 - 12:00

Technical Track 1

• New to RETS - A session where people, especially MLS staff learn about the meeting and RETS in general from peers. The second half of the session will be a working session to improve the introductory session.

Technical Track 2

• RETS Data Mapping Tools - A session where tools and techniques for mapping between existing or new data repositories and the RETS Schemas are discussed. Attendees will be expected to have some familiarity with both the RETS Schemas and the concepts behind relational databases. This session will be presented by Paula O'Brien and Gina Accawi.

12:00 - 1:00 - Lunch

1:00 - 2:30

Technical Track 1

• RETS Data Mapping Tools - (continued) - A continuation of the morning session.

Technical Track 2

• Compliance Testing and Plug-fest - If necessary, a session will be provided for compliance testing. See description above.

2:30 - 2:45 - Break

2:45 - 4:15

Technical Track 1

• RETS Solutions - A session to provide attendees with presentations and information on interesting and current RETS solutions in production now. Invited Speakers TBD.

Technical Track 2

• Compliance Testing and Plug-fest (continued) - See description above.

4:15 - 5:15 - All

• RETS Exhibition -Developers are given the opportunity to provide a short demonstration and talk about applications related to RETS. Unlike previous years, this session will be the elimination round to narrow the field to two or three interesting applications that will be presented to the entire RETS-WG meeting for final voting for the most interesting application.
• As in previous years, a small prize will be awarded to the application deemed most interesting by your peers.
• A sign-up form will be provided to assist the presenter in organizing this event. Please check the appropriate box on the RETS registration form. Developers should expect 5 – 10 minutes to describe their application and to demonstrate the application running. This typically involves 3 – 10 PowerPoint slides and a few minutes of the application running.
• An LCD computer output projector and an internet connection will be provided.

5:30 - 7:00 - Wecome Reception

• An open Reception will be hosted by NAR for all attendees of the RESO/RETS Conference.