pwalsh/openbudgets

[DEPRECATED, but maybe stuff here to use] A web app and web API for storing, accessing, visualizing and comparing budgetary data.

openbudgets's Issues

Extract a workable generic data model for budget data, from given source data

Collect all sources for municipality budgetary data, as they exist

All original sources of data, for each municipality, for whatever years are available, in any and all formats possible.

Sharing objects

The widget can in theory be used on any object representation:

• server-rendered pages
• visualizations

The representation can be shared as follows:

• Email (Emails a link to the representation, sent on behalf of the sharer)
• Facebook (Share's the representation to the sharer's wall)
• Twitter
• Embed (get an embed code)
• PNG/PDF

Following objects

The code for following is partially done. Following is not a feature in scope for the current project, but I'd like to implement it in any event. Below I describe what is done, and what is remaining

Use case

Any authenticated user can Follow an object. Following implies that the user will get notifications for any and all changes/updates to the "object". (IMPORTANT: when we say "object", I am referring to the whole "relational map" on an object - I get into this below.).

This is different from Starring an object - which is more like a bookmark, so the user can see her/his starred objects on her/his account page.

Following occurs through explicit, voluntary actions (user clicks the follow button on an object view), and also through other indirect actions (For example at this stage, commenting on an item also puts the commenter as a follower).

When a user is following an object, changes to the object trigger notifications to the user, describing the change.

Notifications are emails to the user. An email explaining the change, a link to the object itself, and a link to the user's account page where the user can, optionally, stop following.

Implementation

Explicitly, what would trigger a notification? How about:

• Any change the the object
• Any change to direct children of the object (eg: items in a budget)
• Any comment on a child of the object, or on the object itself

In addition, the user need to be able cancel notifications, meaning, to stop following. This would be done from the user account page.

We have an app in the project called "interactions". It contains the existing code for following, as well as code for starring and commenting. We want to keep all follow functionality tight, and generic, inside the interactions app. The goal being, that interactions can be extracted out to become a pluggable django app for use in other projects.

Consider implementing django-treebeard for SheetItem and TemplateNode

It should have significant performance improvements, and can give us built in versions of the methods we use for ancestors and descendants, amongst others.

UI for the "official" or "blueprint" templates

The code from the early development versions has views for the user/visitor to see the whole official template(s), and to download it.

We should treat this some way.

Detailed scenario of municipality worker use case

We need at least one scenario of who such a person is, what they do daily, and how they would use the application to solve a problem or gain new understandings.

Can be added to/collaborated on in the Scenarios doc:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rY4N7rFSi0TXCgerkDbiO-nPh1lbkGrhcc9WGdvG6no/edit

Detailed scenario of social activist use case

We need at least one scenario of who such a person is, what they do daily, and how they would use the application to solve a problem or gain new understandings.

Can be added to/collaborated on in the Scenarios doc:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rY4N7rFSi0TXCgerkDbiO-nPh1lbkGrhcc9WGdvG6no/edit

Reimplement django-modeltranslations

But only access additional languages when they are requested on their language subdomain.

Create skeleton GAE + CloudSQL app

Make our divisions compliant with Open Civic Data division ids

https://github.com/opencivicdata/ocd-division-ids

Local government budgets from other countries

The aim would be to identify other local government systems that also have a fairly structured system for declaring budgets, and them work with the data and create a new instance of Open Muni Budgets for it.

I ( @pwalsh ) have already taken several steps in this direction in Australia - I am in contact with several people trying to find out real information on how I could work with either (a) State budgets (Australia is a federated system of government), and/or (b) local council budgets. Still working on that.

Any other similar directions would be great.

Mapping of budget codes to department/type of expenditure

Research XBRL format, see if/how it is relevant

Should we design a data importer based on such a format? Other uses?

See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBRL

Article from Marc Joffe:

http://tabbforum.com/opinions/the-case-for-muni-xbrl-bringing-municipal-financial-disclosure-into-the-21st-century

http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/openspending/2013-September/001947.html

and:

http://standards.data.gov.uk/challenge/publishing-data-government-spending

Taxonomies

Another idea that is with us from the beginning, but needs serious work done to understand and implement correctly.

There is currently a server implementation of taxonomies in the codebase, which may or may not serve as the basis of a future feature. Also, the template system itself is a kind of taxonomy, so perhaps that can also serve as the basis.

A system for tagging, possible use cases for both professionals and normal users.

Detailed scenario of concerned citizen use case

We need at least one scenario of who such a person is, what they do daily, and how they would use the application to solve a problem or gain new understandings.

Can be added to/collaborated on in the Scenarios doc:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rY4N7rFSi0TXCgerkDbiO-nPh1lbkGrhcc9WGdvG6no/edit