April 24th - "Folder View" Interface Completed

Team members involved: Michael Del Fante, Eric Oltean

This week we focused on completing the "Folder View" interface. The Folder View was implemented to solve two problems: to be able to take a quick glance and recognize which locations have problematic devices, and how to organize devices by location. The Folder View allows the user to be able to add refrigerators to a particular refrigerator, which solves the organization problem. The Folder View also allows the user to be able to quickly glance at each folder and see if there are any devices that have warnings or errors. In addition, we added tabs at the top of the folder view to make it even easier for the user to scan and see if there's any problems, instead of having to look at each folder. We added this feature because we had received feedback that it would be time consuming to look at each folder if there's a lot of different folders.

Completing this milestone took a lot of re-working the way the back-end was implemented. Eric and I divided up the work by choosing distinct parts of the folder view to work on so each part doesn't conflict with each other. For example, Michael started working on the front-end, while Eric started re-organizing the back-end in Backbone. This way both of us were able to continue working independent of each other and doesn't have to wait to complete the next step. Using this strategy, we learned a better way to collaborate and work on development together, since earlier in capstone we would find that one of us would be stuck waiting for the other to complete their part of the project before continuing.

Completing this deliverable is a huge advancement in our overall project because it is one of the two different ways a user can get a quick overview to see if there's anything wrong with a device and which location the device is located. Our next steps is to complete the "List View" interface, which is going to be a different way for users to accomplish the same goals that the "Folder View" accomplishes.

Our screenshot currently has different icons because Ombitron wanted to see what it would look like if they were to customize their platform to devices other than refrigerators. Take a look at the folder view implementation below.

April 17th - Design Interfaces for Secondary Features

Team Members Involved: Micheal Seng and Jonathan Wai

The goal for this Milestone was to draft designs and concepts for some of the secondary features of the dashboard. Unfortunately, we got sidetracked by thinking deeply about many new assignments to come, namely the Poster Design, the rewriting of our Abstract, and potential video pitches. Because of this shifted focus, we weren't able to go over the designs in detail as originally planned.

However, we did make a list of improvements to make with our site's secondary features, such as:

• Making the ADD button larger and more prominent (a longstanding complaint of the system)
• Shifting around the layout of User Settings to facilitate better flow and grouping of options
• Potentially creating more intuitive ADD forms for Folders and Devices

As for our sidetrack goals, we got a good number of ideas on the table for the following:

• Poster Design: A Color Inventory was taken of our existing Dashboard design, and this color scheme will most likely be used in our poster design. Actual layout pending.
• Abstract: Given the feedback in lecture today, we took a new look at our abstract. We only got one coherent sentence down, but it's a much stronger pitch than our original abstract. The new first sentence is "Modern companies rely on an increasing number of devices that they cannot effectively manage." More tweaking is required to reduce vagueness, but it's a good start.
• Video Pitch: We wanted to make our excitement known about our product, and Michael (Del Fante) jokingly mentioned "Is your refrigerator running?" The idea of using a joke for lightheartedness, while being able to accurately answer the question, really resonated with me, and I would like to use it for our pitch moving forward.

So while this milestone didn't exactly get the stated goal completed, we got a few thoughts for moving forward with our project in other areas. Micheal (Seng) will update this entry later when he's sketched up some of his ideas for the secondary features.

Team Members Involved: Micheal Seng and Jonathan Wai.

Here are the design interfaces for secondary features.

3 options on the menu - Profile, Group Management, and User Management

Profile - landing page (possibly change in the future)

Profile - edit

Profile contains information pertaining to the user, which are name, email, phone number, and notifications settings (email and phone)


                           

Group Management

Group Management - add

User Management

User Management - Add

There are two types of actions that can be taken when user hover over specific group / user, either edit or delete. Currently, you can see there are two types of actions UI: only text mode or icon+text mode. I'm afraid the icon is not intuitively to all user and also the text edit and delete only shows up when user hover over it.

Currently, permission settings is sets by Ombitron. But, there are possibilities that this will be more flexible, where client could have the flexibility to name and set settings for each permission.

Under Permission Settings: Super Admin, Group Admin, Admin and Basic.

Super Admin: Delete groups, users, folders, and users. Add group, users, refrigerator, and folder.

Group Admin: Add+Delete group and user. Add refrigerator and folder.

Admin: Add+ user, refrigerator and folder. 

Basic: View folders and refrigerators

April 17th - Implement Secondary Features

Members involved: All

Based on Micheals new designs Michael and Eric have started to implement some more of the additional features. As of right now we only have one of the features fully implemented. User profile settings. This profile page is a page under user settings that allows the user to alter there profile information.

This was implemented using the flask security framework to edit the user and his settings and information. It is a single page that shows the users information and what they can edit. This taught Eric and Micheal how to better utilize the flask security framework.

This is a very important page to have in a user based system. As users often want to change there information and settings.

April 17th - Make Site Live for Testing

Team members involved: Michael Del Fante, Eric Oltean

This week, Eric and Michael worked with Ombtiron's employees to migrate our current implementation of the site from our local git repository to Ombitron's production servers. We also gave them a quick demo of the remote monitoring system.

By making the site live, Ombitron can now test out our application to ensure that it is working properly and performs the desired functions. They will then get back to us with any changes that they would like to see made to the monitoring system.

This was an important step in the process because this is the first time that Ombitron has full access to a working implementation. It brings us one step closer to having a product ready for them, and allows them to demo the software to their clients. Our deliverable for this milestone is the url to the live implementation. Feel free to take a look at the site for yourself below.

http://monitor.stg.ombitron.net/login?next=%2F

April 10th - Group System Interface Completed

Member's involved: Eric, Michael, Micheal, Jonathan

We Worked on setting up and completing a system for group creation and management. This system allows an admin user to create groups and users for a given group. This allows for better control of user permissions and what a user can see. It also allows one Admin user to manage multiple groups which could represent multiple companies or organizations ect.

Our team brainstormed the best way to manage group settings we also talked to our client Ombitron. we came up with a conceptual design and Eric and Micheal implemented it on the site

This adds a lot of value to the site it allows for more control of user privileges and makes for a more customizable user experience.

Picture of how you can add groups as an administrator

Picture of how you can add users to a given group

April 10th - Bugfixes, Tweaks, Demo Progress for Client

Team Members Involved: All

When the group returned from Spring Break, Eric had made some more adjustments to the Dashboard based on feedback from our client, Paul. He managed to find a meeting time a week or so before its actual due date, which puts us ahead in terms of this milestone. These changes were well thought out and designed as well. However, the rest of the team was unaware of these changes until after our first meeting. As a result, we had to readjust our expectations to the new layout, and the milestone order has been adjusted as well.

I've asked Eric to compile a list of all the feedback he received from Paul's testing session, and here is what Paul wants:

• Client wants a list view for an alternative way to view same information as the folder system interface
• Added a summary page of all devices
• Added group settings for better administration control
• Add a way to export data into Microsoft Excel

We will be using this feedback to move forward with our design. In addition, we held another show-and-tell where we got good feedback about our secondary features.

Notifications: "Fridge Failure at Pod 1." No numbers.

Uncertainties to clarify with Eric/Paul:

• Is each device given a pod, and that pod transmists? Or can multiple devices be connected to a single pod (like a Router)
• What was Paul's feedback?
• What other constraints about this project do we not understand yet?