analysis-engine 2

Analysis for the UK Department for Transport's major projects portfolio

analysis_engine

Software for portfolio management reporting and analysis in the UK Department for Transport, operated via command line interface (CLI) prompts.

Installing

Python must be installed on your computer. If not already installed, it can be installed via the python website here. IMPORTANT ensure that Add Python to PATH is ticked when provided with the option as part of the installation wizard.

Open the command line terminal (Windows) or bash shell and install via pip install analysis_engine.

Directories, file paths and poppler.

In order to operate the correct directories and files must be set-up and saved on the user's computer. analysis_engine is able to handle different operating systems.

Create the following directories in your My Documents directory:

|-- ipdc
    |-- core_data
        |-- json
    |-- input
    |-- output
|-- top250
    |-- core_data
        |-- json
    |-- input
    |-- output

Each reporting process e.g. ipdc and top250, respective core_data directorates require:

1. excel master data files;
2. excel project information file; and,
3. A confi.ini file. This file lists and master data and project information file names.

As a minimum the input folder should have the following documents summary_temp.docx, summary_temp_landscape.docx. In addition ipdc\input should have the dashboards_master.xlsx file.

All outputs from analysis_engine will be saved into the output directory.

The json folder is where analysis_engine saves master data in an easily accessible format (.json) and after setup can be ignored by the user.

Unfortunately there is one further manual installation, related to a package within analysis_engine which enables high quality rendering of graphical outputs to word documents. On Windows do the following:

1. Download zip of poppler release from this link https://github.com/oschwartz10612/poppler-windows/releases/download/v21.03.0/Release-21.03.0.zip.
2. unzip and move the whole directory to My Documents.
3. Add the poppler bin directory to PATH following these instructions https://www.architectryan.com/2018/03/17/add-to-the-path-on-windows-10/
4. Reboot computer.

Mac users should follow instructions here https://pypi.org/project/pdf2image/

Most Linux distributions should not require any manual installation.

Operating analysis_engine

To operate analysis_engine the user must enter the initial command analysis followed by a subcommand to specify the reporting process e.g ipdc or top250 and then finally an analytical output argument, the options for which are set out below.

NOTE the --help option is available throughout the entire command line prompt construction process and the user should use it for guidance on what subcommands and arguments are available for use.

analysis_engine currently has the following arguments:

initiate The user must enter this command every time master data, contained in the core_data directory, is updated. The initiate checks and validates the data in a number of ways.

dashboards populates the IPDC PfM report dashboard. A blank template dashboard must be saved in the ipdc/input directory. (Not currently available for top250.)

dandelion produces the portfolio dandelion info-graphic.

costs produces a cost profile trend graph and data. (Not currently available for top250.)

milestones produces milestone schedule graphs and data.

vfm produces vfm data. (Not currently available for top250.)

summaries produces project summary reports.

risks produces risk data. (Not currently available for top250.)

dcas produces dca data. (Not currently available for top250.)

speedial prints out changes in project dca ratings. (Not currently available for top250.)

query returns (from master data) specific data required by the user.

The default for each argument is to return outputs with current and last quarter data.

Further to each argument the user can specify one or many further optional_arguments to alter the analytical output produced. There are many optional_arguments available, which vary for each argument, and the user should use the --help option to specify those that are available.