Y24-158 - Slow loading of the location tree occurs when pressing the root node

[seenanair]

Description
The locations page in Labwhere displays a location tree. The page takes a while to load when user clicks a node.
It need to be investigated further on how it can be improved.

Who the primary contacts are for this work
Tristram Bellerby

Additional context or information
Considering the fact that it is using an old style Rails UI, the performance issues might be related to that.
Some alternatives to consider

• There is no indication that it is loading, making user unsure whether they have successfully clicked the icon. It would be good to have some visual indication (such as a loading progess icon) to show the loading process
• Also, as the location and labware are searchable, it is good to ask the stakeholder whether that can be considered as an alternative option

**Acceptance Criteria
To be considered successful the solution must allow:

• If the ‘nodes’ loading speed can be made to be instant (within a second or two), then great.
• If the underlying infrastructure cannot be fixed to speed up loading times, then an ‘egg timer’ or something to reflect that it is progressing so we are not left wondering whether we’d clicked or not.

[KatyTaylor]

I think a slow one that Tris showed us was when the 'Ogilvie' node was expanded.

Steve thought it would be quite an undertaking to improve this due to how the UI is designed.

Part of the problem was that the slow loading made the user unsure whether they had successfully clicked the button - perhaps adding a buffering icon would be another improvement.

[TWJW-SANGER]

I believe there was an action to show the users the What's in LabWhere report in Tableau to see if that answered their needs.

The question to be answered is really "What use cases are being impacted by the slow performance?"
If this is around searching or reporting then LabWhere is not the only route to a solution.