Use cases

Background

Alice is a researcher at a lab and she is in the process of starting a new project. She is trying to recruit people to join her research team to work on her new project. Alice thinks that her friend Bob who is a researcher at a different lab might be interested in joining her team.

Use case A - Alice wants to invite Bob to join her Synapse team.

Goal	Alice wants to invite Bob to join her Synapse team.
Primary actor	Alice
Secondary actor	Bob
Precondition	Alice has created a team and she is at her team's page.
Postcondition	Bob receives an email invitation to join Alice's team.

Workflow

Main success scenario

Step 1. Alice invites Bob to join her team by entering his email address and an optional invitation message.

Step 2. System sends Bob an email containing an invitation link to join Alice's team.

Error scenarios

Replacing step 2.

1. The email address entered by Alice doesn't exist.
2. System sends an email to Alice to notify her of the problem.
3. Alice tries again with a different email address.

Mockup

Use case B - Alice wants to invalidate the invitation she sent previously.

Goal	Alice wants to invalidate the invitation she sent previously.
Primary actor	Alice
Secondary actor	Bob
Preconditions	Alice has sent an email invitation to Bob. Bob hasn't accepted the email invitation yet.
Postcondition	The invitation link Bob received is no longer valid.
Main success scenario	Step 1. Alice retrieves the pending invitations to her team and removes the one associated with Bob. Step 2. System invalidates the invitation link sent to Bob.

Use case C - Bob wants to create a Synapse account and accept Alice's invitation.

Goal	Bob wants to create a Synapse account and accept Alice's invitation.
Primary actor	Bob
Secondary actor	Alice
Preconditions	Alice has sent an email invitation to Bob. Bob doesn't have a Synapse account.
Postcondition	Bob is part of Alice's team.
Main success scenario	Step 1. Bob clicks on the invitation link in the email he received and is directed to the Synapse web client. Step 2. The web client presents Bob with the option to create a Synapse account or sign in with an existing account. Step 3. Bob creates his new Synapse account. Step 4. The web client displays Alice's invitation to Bob. Step 5. Bob accepts Alice's team invitation. Step 6. System sends a notification email to Alice saying that Bob has joined her team.

Use case D - Bob wants to sign in to his existing Synapse account and accept Alice's invitation.

Goal	Bob wants to sign in to his existing Synapse account and accept Alice's invitation.
Primary actor	Bob
Secondary actor	Alice
Preconditions	Alice has sent an email invitation to Bob. Bob has one or more Synapse accounts.
Postcondition	Bob is part of Alice's team.
Main success scenario	Step 1. Bob clicks on the invitation link in the email he received and is directed to the Synapse web client. Step 2. The web client presents Bob with the option to create a Synapse account or sign in with an existing account. Step 3. Bob signs in with his existing Synapse account. Step 4. The web client displays Alice's invitation to Bob. Step 5. Bob accepts Alice's team invitation. Step 6. System sends a notification email to Alice saying that Bob has joined her team.

Use case E - Bob wants to create a new Synapse account but doesn't want to accept Alice's invitation yet.

Goal	Bob wants to create a new Synapse account but doesn't want to accept Alice's invitation
Primary actor	Bob
Secondary actor	Alice
Precondition	Alice has sent an email invitation to Bob. Bob doesn't have a Synapse account.
Postcondition	Bob has a Synapse account with a pending invitation to join Alice's team.
Main success scenario	Step 1. Bob clicks on the invitation link in the email he received and is directed to the Synapse web client. Step 2. The web client presents Bob with the option to create a Synapse account or sign in with an existing account. Step 3. Bob creates his new Synapse account. Step 4. The web client displays Alice's invitation to Bob.

Flow Diagram

Synapse Platform > Invite a new user to join a team > flow-diagram.png

Discussion about the rationale behind some design decisions

We always want to allow Bob to choose the account he joins Alice's team with. This led to the following design decisions:

In earlier versions of the design, if the email entered by Alice was already associated with an existing Synapse account, a membership invitation to that account would be created instead of sending an email invitation. The current design changes this behavior and instead, the system always sends an email invitation to Bob and the membership invitation to the Synapse account isn't created.
Even if Bob is already signed in to Synapse in his browser, clicking on the invitation link should always ask Bob to sign in again. This avoids the case where Bob accidentally joins the team with the account with which he is currently signed in.

Bob should not be automatically added to the team after registering a new account / signing in to his account, but instead he should need to manually accept the membership invitation. This separates the process of registering for a Synapse account and joining the team, giving Bob the chance to explore Synapse without committing to join Alice's team.

API

In progress