Capstone Project
Capstone Project Requirements
Welcome to the Capstone Project! This marks the final project for the Coding Foundations course. This is an opportunity to put into practice all of the skills you have learned throughout this course and even to possibly learn some new ones.
This project is designed to be challenging and will likely require some review and studying on your part. Your goal with this project should be to producequalitycode andprofessionaloutput.
The requirements are likely more open-ended than you are used to. This is on purpose. This will allow you flexibility to produce a solution that you can design on your own. However, make sure that your solution meetsallof the requirements.Please feel free to ask clarifying questions so that you fully understand the requirements.
Hint: This project is sizable and can seem overwhelming. This is true of almost any project we will encounter "in the wild". Start bybreaking the project down into smaller pieces, like classes, functions or smaller snippets of code. This will help you keep moving forward and not being stuck.
Hint 2:Start with what you know.There may be some parts of the project that you are struggling to know where to start. Start by working through the parts that you do know. It will most likely help you understand the parts you aren't as familiar withandit always feels better to accomplish something than to become frustrated with what you don't yet know.
Competency Tracking Tool Overview
The company you work for is interested in continuous learning for all it's employees. The end goal is for all the team members to gain valuable skills, or competencies, which will lead to happier and productive employees. You company is looking for you to build aCompetency Tracking Tool.
This software will track competency levels, or skill levels, for each competency for individuals at the company. Competencies are measure through variousassessments, which can be tests, interviews, project reviews, etc.
The CEO wants the tool to be secure. She wants to make sure that only the managers can add or change the data, though she does want individuals to be able to view their own competency and assessment data.
The CEO also doesn't know much about designing software, so she isn't much help in designing database schemas and workflow diagrams. She is leaving that up to you, however, she has provided the descriptions below to guide your development.
Please refer often to the requirements as you design and develop your application.
Features
The tool will be a console application and will support the following features:
- Loginandlogout. The tool should keep track of user emails and passwords to allow for secure login. The passwords should behashedso that they are not stored in the database in plain-text.
- Two User Typesand their access to features.
- Auseris an individual that can only view their own competency and assessment data. They should have the ability to edit their own user data such as changing their name and editing their own password.
- Amanageris an individual that can manage users. They should be able to:
- view all users in a list
- search for users by first name or last name
- view a report of all users and their competency levels for a given competency
- view a competency level report for an individual user
- view a list of assessments for a given user
- Add
- add a user
- add a new competency
- add a new assessment to a competency
- add an assessment result for a user for an assessment (this is like recording test results for a user)
- Edit
- edit a user's information
- edit a competency
- edit an assessment
- edit an assessment result
- Delete
- delete an assessment result
- Export reports to CSV
- Competency report by competency and users
- Competency report for a single user
- Import assessment results from CSV
- The ability to import assessment results from aCSV file
- TheCSV filewould contain columns
user_id,assessment_id,score,date_taken
These features are described in more detail below.
Entities
The entities, or objects, that we want to store in the database would be:
Users- The users that we are tracking and/or are logging into the system
Competencies- The competencies we want to track. SeeCompetenciesandInitial Competency Listbelow.
Assessments- The tests or measurement tools that we use to measure competency levels. SeeCompetency AssessmentsandCompetency Scalebelow. Each assessment relates to a single competency, however, each competency may have several assessments.
Assessment Results- The results of the tests or measurements for individual users on specific dates. Users may take each assessment multiple times, so there will likely be multiple Assessment Results per user, however, each Assessment Result relates to a single user.
Deliverables
For this project, you will need to provide:
- A database schema design document, like an Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD). These are the same diagrams we have been creating in class that show the entities, their columns with their respective data types and keys and constraints (PRIMARY, FOREIGN, UNIQUE, NOT NULL, DEFAULT), and any relationships between tables.
- A working applicationthat meets the requirements in this document. It should be a working console application (terminal app).
- ACSV filethat can be imported into the application to add assessment results
- A database file (SQLite)that contains the data from your executions of the application. You should have plenty of test data in here for testing your application as well as for grading.
- Instructions on how to use your application. This doesn't have to be fancy, just a text or markdown document (README.md) that describes how your application should work.
- A GitHub repository that you can push all of the above code and documentation to. This is how you will turn in the assignment.
Competencies
Competencyis a skill or demonstration of having sufficient knowledge or ability in a particular subject. The competency data should at least be:
- name- the name of the competency as shown in the list below underInitial Competency List
- date_created- the date the competency was added to the application
Competency Scale
Competencies are measured and tracked on a scale from0-4:
0- No competency- Needs Training and Direction
1- Basic Competency- Needs Ongoing Support
2- Intermediate Competency- Needs Occasional Support
3- Advanced Competency- Completes Task Independently
4- Expert Competency- Can Effectively pass on this knowledge and can initiate optimizations
Initial Competency List
The CEO wants to start with the list of competencies below:
Computer Anatomy
- Data Types
- Variables
- Functions
- Boolean Logic
- Conditionals
- Loops
- Data Structures
- Lists
- Dictionaries
- Working with Files
- Exception Handling
- Quality Assurance (QA)
- Object-Oriented Programming
- Recursion
- Databases
Competency Assessments
A competency assessment is a tool used to measure one's mastery level of a particular competency. It could be an online or written test. It could be the result of an interview. It could be a grading of a programming assignment. Whatever the assessment is, it is designed to produce a single number that is a rough indicator of an individuals level of competence in a given area (seeCompetency Scaleabove)
For example, Bob would like to know how well he is doing in theData Typescompetency. There happens to be an online test he can take calledData Types Competency Measure. Bob takes the test (assessment) and it tells Bob that his competency level is2(Intermediate Competency - Needs Occasional Support). This let's Bob know that he still has some work to do to raise his competency to a3, where he wants it to be.
Let's say that Bob studies and works hard to increase his understanding ofData Typesand he wants tore-test. So, he retakes theData Typesassessment a month later and his score is now3. Good job, Bob!
The software should track each of those assessments with the date they were taken and the result of the assessment (0,1,2,3or4).
Competency Assessment Data
The software should store the following information about an assessment:
name- the name of the assessment, likeData Structures Competency MeasurementorVerbal Communication Interview
date created- the date the assessment was added to the database
Competency Assessment Results
When a user takes an assessment, it should be recorded as aCompetency Assessment Result, which should record:
user- the user that took the assessment (probably a user_id in the database)
assessment- the assessment that the user took (probably an assessment_id in the database)
score- the resulting score (0-4)
date taken- the date and time the assessment was taken
manager- the manager,if any, that administered the test. (probably a user_id in the database)
Users can retake competency assessments as many times as they would like, so they may have multipleAssessment Resultsfor any given assessment.
Users
A user is an individual that will be taking competency assessments. This could be an employee or even a manager.
The software should keep track of the following data for users:
first name
last name
phone
email- this will also be their login username
password- this should be hashed (never stored in plain text)
active- whether this user is active or not (inactive users cannot login)
date created- the date this user was created in the system
hire date- the date this user was hired
user type- Either auseror amanager. This would be used to determine the access the user has to the system.
You will probably also want to keep track of a user id of some sort.
Reports
There are two primary reports this application should provide:
- User Competency Summary
- Competency Results Summary for all Users
User Competency Summary
This is a summary of all the competency scores for a user. It should contain:
- User information like name, email
- List of all competencies with their corresponding scores, if the user has one.
- If the user has more than oneassessment resultfor a given competency, use the most recent as their score.
- Average competency score, across all assessment results.
- This is a simple average, so, add up all the assessment results, divide by the number of competencies and you get the overall average competency score
- If a user doesn't have a score for a given competency, use 0 for that competency score.
Competency Results Summary
This is a results summary for all users. It is a bit like the opposite of the User Competency Summary. This report is for a single competency, likeData Structures, and will list alluserswith their competency scores for that competency. This should provide:
- Competency information like
name
- Average competency score for this competency across all users.
- Add all competency scores from the most recent assessment results for each active user and divide by the number of active users.
- List of Users with the following information:
Name
Competency Score- The score from the most recent assessment result for this user and this competency. Write0, if never taken.
Assessment- the most recent assessment taken, if any. blank, if none.
Date Taken- the date the most recent assessment was taken, if any.
CSV Export
Your application should allow for CSV export of at least two lists. For example, you may want to export the User list or the Competencies list. You will produce a validCSV filecontaining the information from the list.
Include a Header Row with field names in yourCSV file.
CSV Import
Your application should provide the ability to import aCSV filefor Assessment Results. ThisCSV filewould contain the following columns:
user_id
assessment_id
score
date_taken
and any others you think might be helpful.
This import will read theCSV fileand add records to the Assessment Results table in the database.
Error Handling
Keep in mind that your CEO is wanting this application to be production quality. Your job is to create the Beta version which will be tested by users, so it should handle errors gracefully. Make sure you are checking for errors with conditionals and/ortry-exceptblocks. You don't want it to crash do you?