feedback-tool 1.0.0

A platform for managing peer-to-peer feedback within an organisation.

feedback_tool - Simple peer-to-peer feedback platform

feedback_tool is a platform for managing peer-to-peer feedback within an organisation.

Docker Quickstart

1. Install source-to-image

2. Run the application on local Docker

cd frontend
s2i build . centos/nodejs-8-centos7 feedback-tool-dev-frontend
cd ..
s2i build . centos/python-36-centos7 feedback-tool-app 
cd docker/dev
docker-compose up -d

3. Setup a dummy template, 3 question and period data to carry out a feedback cycle.

cd ../..
python setup.py develop
pip install faker freezegun webtest mock 
python tests/scripts/configure_db.py --config host_example.ini add-test-periods

4. Once fully started, open http://localhost:4200. Refer to docker/shared/ldif/01-data.ldif for credentials for dummy users. Use the following commands to change phases.

python tests/scripts/configure_db.py --config host_example.ini --subperiod enrollment adjust
python tests/scripts/configure_db.py --config host_example.ini --subperiod entry adjust
python tests/scripts/configure_db.py --config host_example.ini --subperiod approval adjust
python tests/scripts/configure_db.py --config host_example.ini --subperiod review adjust

Configuration values

feedback_tool.db_url

Follow http://docs.sqlalchemy.org/en/latest/core/engines.html#database-urls

feedback_tool.business_unit

Displayed in the frontend beside the logo. Useful for multi-tenant setups within larger companies.

feedback_tool.displayed_hostname

If set, this will override the use of /etc/hostname as the hostname displayed in emails to the set string.

feedback_tool.enable_send_email

If set to true, it will cause emails to be sent. This happens:

• When a talent manager uses the management panel to manually send them
• Automatically according to the email schedule if feedback_tool.run_email_interval_job config value is set to true

feedback_tool.production_hostname and feedback_tool.production_user

If these values match the what the application sees on the host, then this will enable:

• Loading of all user emails for the given business unit unless feedback_tool.load_user_email_list is set, which then will only load the subset of the user emails in the list.

feedback_tool.homebase_location

The datetimes set in the Period table are technically not UTC. Those times are coupled with this configured value, the location. The phase shift will occur when a particular datetime is passed at this configured location.

Here are the available choices:

• London
• New York
• Oxford
• Shanghai
• Hong Kong
• GBR
• Boston
• Pfäffikon

feedback_tool.talent_manager_usernames

Set this to an array of strings containing the LDAP usernames of who you would like to be able to login with the talent manager role. e.g. ["lcarty", "chasmith"]

feedback_tool.reload_users_on_app_start

This is normally set to False as we now rely on talent managers uploading the user hierarchy configuration CSV into the application.

feedback_tool.load_user_email_list

In non-prod environments, we don't save emails within the User database. If this is set, we will save the emails of the following list of users identified by their LDAP username, allowing them to be emailed (if emailing is turned on). e.g. ["chasmith"]

feedback_tool.allow_passwordless_access

A useful development flag for impersonation. This should be set to false in production.

feedback_tool.run_email_interval_job

If true, run a job in the background that checks the email flags for the current period and if not set, send out the relevant emails and set.

feedback_tool.display_name

Normally the company name, that will be displayed in the frontend.

feedback_tool.support_email

Email that will be displayed to users when they are denied access to the tool or there is an unexpected error.

feedback_tool.reply_email

Email that will be displayed to users that they receive from the automated notification system (notifications sent by email).

feedback_tool.login_username_msg

Help message for the login input to remind users what username to use.

feedback_tool.login_password_msg

Help message for the login input to remind users what password to use.

feedback_tool.tm_upload_new_population_msg

Help message for talent manager on how to populate the CSV that is to be uploaded.

feedback_tool.tm_generate_population_msg

Help message for talent manager on how to generate the population CSV.

feedback_tool.ldap_uri

URI to LDAP instnace

feedback_tool.ldap_username_key

LDAP field name for what to bind to the username User model variable.

feedback_tool.ldap_user_bind_template

Template used to generate the bind DN for a user. Refer to the example config.

feedback_tool.ldap_manager_key

LDAP field name for what to bind to the manager User variable.

feedback_tool.ldap_location_key

LDAP field name for what to bind to the location User variable.

feedback_tool.ldap_uid_key

LDAP field name for what to bind to the uid User variable.

feedback_tool.ldap_department_key

LDAP field name for what to bind to the department User variable.

feedback_tool.ldap_business_unit_key

LDAP field name for what to bind to the business_unit User variable.

feedback_tool.ldap_search_bind_dn

Bind DN which should have permissions to search for users.

feedback_tool.ldap_search_password

Password for the search bind DN.

feedback_tool.ldap_base_dn

Base DN to perform the user search upon.

feedback_tool.ldap_dn_username_attribute

Attribute that the username is assigned to in a DN

feedback_tool.ldap_dn_username_regex

Regex for extraction of a username from a DN

feedback_tool.logo_filename

If the file exists in the assets folder on the backend, serve this up to the frontend.

Design

This section will explain how the application is designed in terms of strucutures and processes, and some reasons why it is done this way.

Architecture

We use:

• Backend - Pyramid
• Frontend - Angular
• Database - Agnostic due to use of SQLAlchemy library

The choices of these were simply because this was a hard requirement to match the internal technology stack at inception of the project.

The backend is a just an API service that also serves the productionised HTML/CSS/JS Angular frontend plus other static assets such as images.

Refer to below for why LDAP is only used for authentication and NOT authorization.

Staff list generation process

The available users in the feedback tool are statically generated and fixed until manually updated. This is desired despite having active access to the LDAP server. The reason for this is that during a feedback cycle, we do not want to have users entering or leaving the feedback cycle unintentionally, which would happen if we used LDAP as a source of truth.

On top of this, the reporting structure in LDAP doesn't necessarily match the real world, and may change temporarily due to transient staff issues. Putting the power into the talent manager's hands makes dealing with such situations easier, without required developer intervention.

Therefore, the process as is follows:

The CSV lists the relationships between staff member, therefore marking who is a staff member and who is a manager. This information is used for authorization.

Documentation

Graph source are in the *.dot* files. To regenerate graph PNGs.

1. Install graphviz
2. Run

   dot -Tpng architecture.dot -o architecture.png
   dot -Tpng population.dot -o population.png