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Discover 58 Company Dashboard designs on Dribbble. Your resource to discover and connect with designers worldwide.

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Company dashboards are designed to be seen by everyone in the organization. They can help to build a common understanding of the company’s mission and their progress toward it.

Company Dashboard Examples | Geckoboard

I’ve experimented with the {flexdashboard} package for a couple of things after first trying out not so long ago. In particular, I found the storyboard format to be my favorite. I used it to create the storyboard that I wrote about in a previous post about tracking the activity ...

Thoughts on Using Flexdashboard | R-bloggers

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Turn your analyses into high quality documents, reports, presentations and dashboards with R Markdown. Use a productive notebook interface to weave together narrative text and code to produce elegantly formatted output. Use multiple languages including R, Python, and SQL.

Gallery

Discover 3 Work Dashboard designs on Dribbble. Your resource to discover and connect with designers worldwide.

Work Dashboard designs, themes, templates and downloadable graphic ...

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Dashboards with R&#x27;s HTMLwidgets and flexdashboards packages (and the crosstalk package) enable R coders to generate dashboards with linked reactive widgets (...

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Accelo&#x27;s Manager Dashboard allows you to easily monitor the stats of sales, projects, and the staff you manage.

My Work Dashboard Guide | Dashboards | Accelo

Examples and Alternatives · I’ve experimented with the {flexdashboard} package for a couple of things after first trying out not so long ago. In particular, I found the storyboard format to be my favorite. I used it to create the storyboard for tracking the activity of NBA team Twitter accounts

Tony: Thoughts on Using Flexdashboard

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Oct 29, 2020 - Explore Erin Tabor&#x27;s board &quot;Work Dashboard&quot; on Pinterest. See more ideas about dashboard design, dashboard, dashboard examples.

Work Dashboard

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Workflow Dashboardis in the Business Intelligence Industry

Workflow Dashboard

The was a strategy to transform Amazon’s inner piping by requiring all products and services to be consumable via a standardized API. In other words, Amazon’s internal system needed to be transformed into a . Once an SOA is implemented, information flows much more freely throughout an organization. A robust SOA (for both internal and third-party data sources) should be an engineering priority for teams that want to foster stable, secure internal application development. Bezos API Mandate Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) Like it did at Amazon, implementing an SOA across your products and data sources will unlock the power of internal tooling. An SOA allows developers to seamlessly and consistently build dashboards, workflow automation, asynchronous tasks, and more. Often, there are challenges associated with building a robust internal SOA. In this article, I discuss common challenges and strategies for architecting this type of system. What is a Services Oriented Architecture (SOA)? There are myriad articles and YouTube videos that detail SOA’s, so I don’t want to focus too much time here. For example, with SOA, an internal database has an API for reading / writing data to a particular table. So does a file storage system such as S3, Azure File Storage, or GoogleDrive. For the sake of this article, it is helpful to think of SOA as a standardized set of APIs for internal and third-party data sources used within an organization. Instead of writing code that directly interfaces with these systems, you are interfacing with internal APIs which handle credentials and interfacing with these services. Example of an SOA import boto3
@route('/upload_file_to_s3', methods=['POST'])
def upload_file_to_s3(bucket, file_name, file_bytes):
  #centralized permission check
  is_authorized = user_has_auth( request.get('api_key') ) 
  
  if is_authorized:
    # Consumer doesn't need to worry about keys/credentialing
    client = boto3.client(
      's3',
      aws_access_key_id=os.env.get('s3_access_key'),
      aws_secret_access_key=os.env.get('s3_secret_access_key'),
      aws_session_token=os.env.get('s3_session_token') )
    s3_client = boto3.client('s3')
    response = s3_client.upload_file(file_name, bucket, object_name)
    return 200
  
  return 404 With this example, a developer who needs to write to S3 would interface with this API instead of hard coding the s3 upload logic into their codebase. This architecture is powerful because: Developers can interface with various products and services without needing help from the product’s creator. Developers also don’t need to interface with the underlying service credentials (see code example above). The service centralizes this logic into a single location with appropriate error handling, permission checking, etc. Also, if this logic needs updating, this only needs to take place in a single location. The service can be leveraged by multiple programs, codebases, prog languages, etc., without repeated code (all the consumer needs is the URL and credentials). The service can scale up/down in isolation from the applications interfacing with it. It is much easier to set up observability and audit logging by monitoring a single endpoint. # Using SOA in my code:
customer_file_stored = requests.post(f'{api_url}/write_to_s3', data = data)

# No SOA in my codebase. This code plus setup, config, and credentials 
# would need to be repeatedly setup in separate codebases.
s3_client = boto3.client('s3')
customer_file_stored = s3_client.upload_file(file_name, bucket, object_name) With SOA, there is less overhead, fewer security risks (such as them hardcoding a password/credential), better observability, and general ease for the developer, which saves them time. With services set up for all data sources (both internal and external) — Developers in your organization are empowered to rapidly interface and access services when building internal tools. All the developer needs is their internal API key. For an engineering organization, the goal should be to set up services for all internal and third-party data sources with a single permission management layer. # Example SOA - Each item here is a service with an API to interface.
Internal
- MySQL
- Internal Processes (kick off a script, async task, etc.)
- DevOps / Deployments
Third-Party Data Sources
- Data Warehouse (snowflake, s3, etc.)
- CRM
- Slack
- Datadog / Monitoring
- GoogleDrive Architecting SOA Infrastructure for Internal Tools When architecting your SOA — there are some key areas that pose challenges. Permission and Credential Management For your services, you need to have a way to identify whether the client requesting data from a service route has the proper permissions. Ideally, this permission layer is a single level of abstraction which applies to all of your services. Having a single API key per person unlocks their ability to work with services instead of needing credentials for each data source they want to interface with. Generally, there are 2 types of permissions layers that will be required for a robust SOA. Service Level Permissions When an api_key / credential is passed, a validation takes place to verify that this user has permission to access the requested endpoint. Mainly, the service checks if the API key is valid. If the API key is invalid, a single set of error codes is returned, which doesn’t need to be coded in at the endpoint level. For larger orgs, API keys should auto-generate and sync with your active directory. Route Level Custom Permissions — User Groups As mentioned above, user metadata is passed to the endpoint being queried once funneled through the Permission Validation Layer. Here is an example of user metadata: user_a = {
  first_name: 'Steve',
  last_name: 'Wosniak',
  user_groups: ['devops','backend'],
  is_admin: false,
  ...
}

user_b = {
  first_name: 'Bob',
  last_name: 'Dylan',
  user_groups: ['marketing'],
  is_admin: false,
  ...
} With this user metadata provided, you can build custom logic into your services. With this, you can build custom logic in routes around users based on this metadata. As an example, let’s say we are writing a Service for a customer DB table. The most useful feature here is built-in User Groups. We want team members in marketing to be able to read data but not write data (read-only). # Write Endpoint
@route('/update_customer', methods=['POST'])
def update_customer(customer_id):
  #passed by permission validation layer
  user_metadata = request.get('user_metadata') 
  if 'marketing' in user_metadata.get('user_groups):
  return 'Unauthorized', 401
  ...

# Read Endpoint
@route('/get_customer', methods=['GET'])
def get_customer(customer_id):
  return sql.query.get(customer_id).json() #db query logic With these 2 levels of permission management, your organization can build robust permission and credential management. A user groups feature is a requirement here. A note, this paradigm requires constructing a way to add users into user groups within the organization. Other Considerations Documentation For your services, making sure that documentation stays up to date is crucial. One of the key purposes of SOA is to reduce friction and stakeholders for devs to interface with. If docs are out of date, this benefit is greatly diminished. If you have feedback on ways to ensure docs are kept up to date with any code changes, please feel free to leave them in the comments! 2. Observability A large benefit of SOAs is a single point of observability. Mainly, who is querying the data, what is the request, what was served back, etc. Moreover, this single point can be used to create a robust audit log. Like it did at Amazon, implementing an SOA across your products and data sources will unlock the power of internal tooling. An SOA allows developers to seamlessly and consistently build dashboards, workflow automation, asynchronous tasks, and more. In a future blog post, I’ll discuss how is helping dev teams set up and maintain SOAs for their products and services. WayScript X Also published here

An Intro to Services Oriented Architecture for Internal Tools

As we move into the cloud computing era, we've seen the floodgates open and waves of new development frameworks taking advantage of every opportunity that cloud computing technologies offer. To the non-technical audience, it can become overwhelming and sometimes confusing to navigate these waters into new frontiers. For that reason, we're going to break down the technical jargon into the real world benefits. Cloud Computing vs On-Premise Traditionally, organisations have become accustomed to building server facilities on site. Under the microscope, the indirect costs start to add up, significantly - floor space, security, fire suppressors, backup power and networking infrastructure, and the cost of highly talented staff to maintain and manage the infrastructure – to name a few. Add in the expense to duplicate all of this at a disaster recovery site, and it becomes an expensive and complicated business - only to manage your IT. Cloud computing takes away most of this burden, by moving much of this infrastructure into a specialist service provider’s premise, offering savings through economies of scale. Not only do you save on the like-for-like costs, but you also see efficiencies through on-demand pricing models (billing per hour). Some of the key benefits: Scale computing resources on demand. - You no longer need to have multiple servers sitting idle. Often these servers are only to be fully utilised for peak demand, such as month-end activities. - With the ability to scale in near real-time, you only get charged for resources as you use them. The service provider handles most of the infrastructure and operating system maintenance. The leading providers have invested significantly into redundancy, resilience and security. - When a server fails, you may never notice it, and it just works seamlessly. - Additional backup and replication services can often be configured in minutes, in various locations in your region, or internationally based on your preference or regulatory requirements. - The largest industries in the world, including banks and financial institutions that have the strictest data handling and uptime requirements, have been using these services for years. At the time of writing, the largest service providers include Amazon (AWS) and Microsoft (Azure), capturing 60% of the cloud computing market. Gartner predicts that by 2022, up to 60% of organisations will be using cloud technologies, signalling the industry shift from traditional to cloud-based infrastructure. Software Support Cloud computing comes in various configurations. You can create a dedicated virtual machine to shadow your existing servers and migrate most of your applications as is onto the cloud platform, or you can run a Software as a Service (SaaS) model that allows you to pick specific features as you need at the operating system level. Many of the SaaS features will enable you to take advantage of native capabilities available on the platform, in theory. Still, not every organisation or business unit has the need or the resources to re-develop for that level of configurability. While each cloud platform may offer unique features and plugins within their suite, it may require significant investment in training or even re-development of applications. The economics may not support every business case, specially customised back-office solutions or point solutions for a particular business unit. It may be more feasible to virtualise an existing server as is, on the cloud platform. Shifting to Low Code A good low-code development platform will aim to make it easier to build applications by removing as much of the hand-coding as possible. It consists of an intuitive drag and drop interface that can create software applications just as powerful as a conventional coding platform for most business applications. Low code platforms typically have short learning curves and support development by seasoned developers or technical business users with little coding experience. Forrester predicts that most developers will work outside of centralised IT functions, where technical business users become self-serving in the pursuit of automating business processes and introducing efficiencies without the long lead times and a dependency on central IT functions. The research further predicts that by 2024, three-quarters of large enterprises will be using at least four low-code development tools for both IT application development and citizen development initiatives. The Synergy Between Cloud Computing and Low Code The benefits of a low-coding cloud platform are numerous. Get your projects done faster, for any device, and roll out applications that make the most sense for your workflow. New dashboards, reports, processes and other functions can all be adjusted and fine-tuned together to deliver the right business solution faster, with security baked in from the start. These services enable faster prototyping and go-to-market solutions for web, mobile and SaaS apps than traditional development typically has before. Plus you can purchase abstracted IT capabilities while letting someone else deal with the hardware, or even the more complicated software elements (SaaS). A to Z Today, there is a tidal wave of providers who are packing increasingly large, varied chunks of IT into all-in-one plug-and-play offerings, mostly geared toward developers. In contrast, others require no coding knowledge at all. Their focus is consistent across the industry - minimise the amount of coding needed to build modern business applications, bringing an idea to market as quickly and cheaply as possible. This approach has proven useful for providing solutions for standard business tasks, wherein the developers of a low-code platform itself predicted the required functionality in advance. For example, every function in a CRM application can be implemented without writing a single line of code. However, in real life, businesses tend to have unique requirements that go beyond the scope of low-code platforms. Once you get knee-deep in development, you'll want to customise a specific component to meet your particular business needs. But instead of customising the system, you'll be forced to change your business to match the capabilities of the low-code platform. The ability to customise software applications has emerged as the driving force of friction when it comes to adoption, with many SaaS and iPaaS vendors. But there are always exceptions. If time is of the essence and you require the need for customisation - low-code platforms like or are best among the pack. Their visual design framework and lack of boilerplate makes these tools much quicker to understand and use. Add their ability to customise key elements to form part of a multi-cloud/multi-application strategy, giving the user the ability to quickly share data across different software applications, databases, and websites. Outsystems Linx Thanks to the ready-made functionality, there is no need to invent anything or program "from scratch." There are no hard limits on the system's ability, and developers don't have to sacrifice customisation flexibility and scope of their applications using low-code. Lastly, with vendors including easy deployment to their cloud of choice, developers can quickly test, monitor and deploy scalable applications in modern, dynamic environments. Perhaps low-code and the cloud are a perfect match?

The Real-World Benefits of Elastic Computing with Low-Code

Dashboard software has become a necessary tool for businesses. With all the information you must gather and monitor about your business, you may wonder how to get the most out of it. Actionable insight can help you gain a competitive edge, considering the gap between data and business value. In fact, in 2023, achieved measurable value from and analytics investments, which reinforces the need for data-driven decision-making. 91.9% of organizations data to ensure you understand your data and benefit from it. Dashboard software merges data from linked databases and provides a customizable and interactive platform for data visualization Additionally, it empowers everyone in your company, from a data analyst to a junior manager, allowing them to visualize, present, and use data in any way that makes sense to them. In this article, we’ll explore the most eminent benefits of dashboard software and how you can leverage them to get the most out of your investment. 1. Effective Data Visualization Businesses gather huge amounts of data. Understanding such amounts of data can be challenging and time-consuming, to say the least, necessitating the need for tools that can help organize your data in a manner you can comprehend. When this is not possible, your business may experience challenges in making decisions and executing them in time. How can you make decisions based on data communicated ineffectively? Similarly, . This leads to a lot of time wasted trying to organize and present huge amounts of data. without data visualization, your employees may not know where to focus their attention to improve productivity One of the benefits of dashboard software is its ability to transform your business data into easy-to-understand graphs, images, and charts, which are essential considering that the human brain processes visual information more readily than textual information. Actually, the use of visual language is proven to enhance effectiveness and efficiency, leading to 24% shorter meetings. It is safe to conclude that this statistic is only possible because visualization enables data to be easily communicated and understood. The software interprets and simplifies the data for you to help generate true value for your business. It becomes easier to make decisions, recognize patterns and errors, and improve data analysis. GenerationE is an IT solutions provider that captures and automates best practices for IT operations by up to 85%. InetSoft provided a visualization layer for GenerationE, helping the company and saving its team the effort of charting and analyzing log data in external reporting systems. monitor the performance of automated processes 2. Improves Decision Making Great data, when analyzed correctly, can help enhance decision-making. It is important to gather and analyze business data to understand key business metrics and your performance to help you make better decisions to upscale. Without good dashboard software, your business may experience challenges collecting and managing data as it is scattered across multiple databases. Even if you can access this data from siloed systems, moving and analyzing it manually takes time and can impede accurate reporting and fast decision-making. Slow and inefficient decision-making can negatively impact your business in 2024 by costing you missed opportunities, time, and money. Dashboard software merges data from different sources and provides immediate access to at-a-glance information, ensuring you make decisions quickly to avoid missing out on opportunities. Additionally, with clear, actionable insights, you can make more accurate data-driven decisions and create business-boosting strategies to give you a competitive edge. In fact, Insight-driven businesses are growing at an average of , according to a report by Forrester. 30% each year This figure summarizes the when it comes to decision-making. Data in the digital era is extremely critical, and it helps to have the right tools to help you leverage. benefits of dashboard software Kreditech is a financial company based in Germany that offers clients loans based on their creditworthiness. Data analysis and decision-making are therefore critical. After incorporating Datapine, Kreditech was able to decentralize decision-making and achieve faster and smarter data-driven decisions. Thanks to the software’s friendly interface, users were able to work with zero IT overhead. 3. Increases Business Efficiency Enhancing business efficiency can help grow your business. It is undeniable how critical business efficiency is to grow and survive in the current economic climate. Without dashboard software, your business risks inefficiencies due to siloed information, manual data entry processes, ineffective data organization, and presentation. To err is human, so inefficiencies can frequently occur without the right tools to streamline business intelligence operations. Manual processes can also lead to data errors that are more prevalent when dealing with large amounts of data. In fact, Gartner found out that organizations believe poor data quality to be responsible for per year in losses. an average of $15 million For starters, reducing manual tasks is a key component for successful business management and plays a huge role in increasing efficiencies. It is a no-brainer that automation technologies like dashboard software can achieve more than a human and deliver more efficient results through workflow automation. A dashboard software offers smart, autonomous data management solutions to help you save time and money by gathering quality insights. Additionally, dashboard software brings data from different sources into a central respiratory system, eliminating the need for multiple external solutions. Therefore, you can be able to take quick action on your data-driven insights to upscale your business. Parcero is a Columbian marketing agency that was looking for a solution to help save time on manual processes. After implementing Klipfolio, Parcero was able to automate client reporting and enhance efficiency. They recorded in repetitive advertising tasks and 73% in repetitive reporting tasks. 33% time savings 4. Empowers End-Users Dashboard software empowers your employees to be self-reliant. The amount of time wasted waiting for data analysts and IT teams to present and explain data is a lot. This is not to mention that it distracts them from focusing on their job to advance the business’s goals. Unfortunately, there remains a huge gap between having data and being able to use it. Even with huge amounts of data, most businesses need help to take action on the valuable insight because they cannot interpret it. In fact, struggle with utilizing their , according to Talend. 78% of executives data for decision-making Imagine how much you could achieve if your employees could access and interpret data on their own without relying on data analysts. Well, one of the in business intelligence is empowering end-users by providing a simplified and clear platform where they can access data and manipulate it in a way that makes sense to them. benefits of dashboard software This ensures enhanced productivity, prompt decision-making, and minimized costs thanks to the ability to get answers independently without needing help from the BI or IT team. This also allows your IT team to focus on their job without being distracted by frequent help requests. GMS is a leading distributor of construction products based in Georgia. The company was looking for an easy-to-implement solution to help users access valuable insights. Thanks to InetSoft, GMS users can based on data consolidated into interactive reports that are easy to read. make quick business decisions 5. Reduces Operating Costs Dashboard software can minimize business costs. Without a great dashboard software in 2024, data remains fragmented across multiple systems and databases, impeding prompt decision-making. Siloed data can result in expensive operational costs caused by inefficiencies, analysis, and manual data collection. . Without , your employees may spend hours fetching and trying to interpret data. Time is money, and when you are losing both, you could be laying a foundation for your business’s failure the right tools In fact, Airtable’s research revealed that knowledge workers reported spending nearly 29% of their week (11.6 hrs) searching for the key information they need to do their work. Conversely, implementing dashboard software provides a central repository that combines and organizes data from different sources to provide clear visibility of key metrics. . It also provides a unified view that lets you easily identify cost-saving optimization opportunities and budget allocation opportunities In addition to that, dashboard software capabilities such as automation help to eliminate manual and repetitive tasks that can be time-consuming. Consequently, this reduces the chances of inefficiencies and errors that could cost you money. Dashboard software significantly reduces operational expenses by identifying inefficiencies promptly, optimizing resource allocation, and making data-driven decisions, ultimately contributing to substantial cost savings. Just Spices is a German-based company that manufactures spices. The company had been investing a lot of time in extracting and analyzing data for a while. With Klipfolio, Just Spices as they could access and visualize key metrics that show different departments where help is needed instead of having people extract data. saved time and money Conclusion In the digital age, data is extremely essential for businesses. How you use the business data you gather can influence the success of your business. However, with vast amounts of data, it can be challenging even for experts to organize and leverage data to get the best out of it. Dashboard software benefits such as reduced costs, enhanced efficiency, and clear visibility into key metrics can set your business apart. Actually, according to Capgemini, say its company’s Big Data initiatives are profitable. 27% of business executives Investing in a great dashboard software in 2024 can empower small businesses with enterprise-level insight without exaggerated costs.

5 Benefits of Dashboard Software for Business Intelligence in 2024

This post covers how to measure a coder’s contribution to an organization, in a sensible & precise way. Code crafting, as any other job based on knowledge, is many times more art than science. Decision making is of a huge importance, and every decision, technical or not, has many side effects. So you can’t just “measure” a developer’s output in a numerical way, it wouldn’t be fair. Let’s start assuming you are using a version control system, as . The simplest way would be to measure code modifications (line or file additions, deletions) and commit frequency. Many readers will be familiar to ’s contribution activities chart. git github My contributions last year [https://github.com/jsdario] Which is a great way to measure and, why not, brute numerical output. But if you want to use this as a metric for “ ” within an organization you’ll be wrong. In fact, as soon as you try, you will encounter the following issues: activity productivity Bugs thrive on projects where code output is bigger than their quality assurance capacity. Also… but do need code output … Automated tests, per se, do not increase our code quality Commit frequency and line output of junior engineers is normally going to be higher than those of seniors, but can be of less relevance. As is the case of … … Choosing short term solutions over more thoughtful interfaces to solve a problem. It will usually require us to output more code in absolute terms but also add . technical debt From junior to project lead, 4 developer contribution profiles in a 30 day row Probably there are more points I am missing, this is just to mention a few. Many companies (and investors) do not measure “developer productivity”. Instead, it is derived from the product metrics. This approach is much better as of the resulting product –in terms of good customer reviews, or number of issues per week– . Even though you’d be including designers 👩‍🎨, support 💁‍♀️ and other team members, this approach is more correct than brute output. the speed to deliver and quality is no more than a reflection of the team performance However, we can’t improve the things we don’t measure. We would be missing a number of opportunities: We won’t be able to track the evolution of new team members. We won’t be able to prevent lack of motivation. We won’t be prepared to experiment ways to improve our productivity, without testing it to a hard framework. Yes, we can always use qualitative approaches. Indeed, they are far better than nothing. Nevertheless, there is nothing like hard data. To avoid reducing people to numbers, and keep the best of qualitative analysis, the better way to measure developer’s impact won’t be a ladder, but data visualization. Since every team and project are different, we must use tools that allow us to perceive the activity of the developers in a way that is meaningful to the organization. I’ve been investing some –very little– free time during the last months to create a Minimum Viable Product that would serve our team. The idea is and this article tries to explain why it works for us. 🔬 Scope Anatomy of the Netbeast Dashboard (https://github.com/netbeast/dashboard) The workflow The most part of the engineering team is working in a React Native app, that runs on both iOS and Android, on a single repo. In addition, we have a dozen other bots and services in the form of web APIs, each one on a separate repository. This article therefore will not focus to organizations that runs on , but can be easily adapted. Yeti Smart Home, monorepos Planning We try to apply Lean principles and agile development methods as possible, with all human good and bad practices, in our imperfect ways. Experiments, product features, enhancements and bug fixes are always divided in a set of (PRs). This is crucial, and a principle of . Startup shippable pull requests continuous delivery A PR represents the minimum unit of added value that transforms the current product into something better, therefore the . Such codebase modification must, therefore be able to be published to the store / deployed at a server. This encourages them to be the smallest possible, while keeping value. A feature might be (if necessary) split into several releases during various sprints. We can quantify the volume of work here (now yes) by files and modifications, because that will represent mechanical time investment into typing, searching and replacing, running etc. minimum unit of meaningful work codemods, Quality Every PR must be reviewed and tested before being merged. Both automatically and manually. Automatic tests may fail, but the PR can be still merged if the reviewer decides so. , where time spent is of importance for the company. They also are the biggest transfer of knowledge between developers. There we point out each other approaches to implement a feature or use the syntax. It’s another elegant way to teach and learn, without explicitly pair programming. A review, therefore is another minimum unit of meaningful work Example of scores of different work units We try only to write regression tests when bugs occur, to prevent them from happening again, or invest in integration tests only when they can cover a huge surface of the software use case. This means we mostly write regression tests for the app and integration tests for web servers, where we can achieve 100% coverage easily. We also have a , to test hard features and the interaction between services in production environment. diagnose suite There are several bots that test each PR automatically ( , and ). in a precise way: (1) whether the developer does not create regressions bugs, (2) coverage increases or decreases, (3) requires changes on the testing infrastructure because tests are failing, but –adds technical debt — needs to be merged. business model tests application build tests checks for good practices This gives the PRs other dimensions that are useful to measure Bots and automatic tests are important, they are a reactive, implicit, way to teach about the code base infrastructure. Just like peer reviews. About efficiency of contributions and measurement The ping-pong of rejecting a PR ⏭ commit to please the reviewer ⏮ on a single PR is not productive. A lot of time can be wasted in communication, especially when the reviewer is focused and could submit a hotfix to merge the PR in the moment. We want to encourage this behavior, so will consider these commits valuable on their own, as a . On the contrary to commits pushed to master, which we want to discourage, because they are not reviewed (thus no transfer of knowledge) and are net contributors of regressions. third unit of meaningful work Empty circles are hotfixes or commits on a PR created by another colleague Another fair point on quantitative measurement is that whether the algorithm we use to measure all these contributions (pull requests, reviews, hotfixes and independent commits) one thing is certain: . This means: (1) Don’t trust ladders and pure numerical scores, visualizations are the way to digest this kind of information. (2) On the long run, the algorithm is still valid, because the +/- shifts are a zero-sum game. This is of much importance every single time we are in front of any analytics system, when jumping to conclusions. Do. Not. Rush. we will overstimate some work units, and underestimate others The visualization algorithm As of September 2018 Links At the moment, it is rather simple. You can search for a number of repos you have push access to. Work units of the same repo (pulls, reviews, hotfixes) are going to be appear linked. Different chains mean that different work units have been performed across projects: more responsibility and impact for the organization. Different repos are not linked, thus are separate “islands” Links add to the global score, or “force” of each graph, and it’s calculated in the end. Reviews Review sizing is easy: they should amount for the 20%-40% of the PR weight, plus all the comments invested (to incentivize the share of knowledge and corrections). We also want to discourage “Looks Good To Me 👍” reviews, so it is important to emphasize that the workflow is (normally) respected in the company. PRs are reproduced locally, tested manually, read and reviewed. So it does imply a number of valuable steps. Pull requests Pull requests score is a function of (lines added + deleted), (the number of different lines after the PR is merged, can be 0 if the number of additions and deletions are the same) and changed files. The original idea was to also consider the number of commits of the PR, but I am still considering how to improve this. Again this is a question of more art than science. mods absolute mods PR weight is a function of mods and files plus a function of absolute changes I wanted to enter into detail on how to build the functions above, but they are yet being perfectioned, and part of the project’s core value. I’d like create a post on their own, on how to transform qualitative observations into quantitative values. Commits Everyone commits differently. What I try to teach the devs I mentor is to make such quantum steps that I could time travel to different stages of a PR that make sense on their own. Pretty much like “merged PRs must always be shippable”, but in a softer way. Committing more adds –maybe– more definition for a PR implementation, but I don’t think it should affect the size, or the quality of it. Some days you are more tired and either find that committing more is helpful, or creates fatigue. I wanted to reflect the impact of committing on the visualization, and so I started tinkering with opacity, or projecting different borders and shadows. Right now, commits are not reflected onto 🔬 charts. Scope The future may be inspired in Kim Albrech’s work http://meteorites.kimalbrecht.com/ Hotfixes In contrast, individual commits (hotfixes) for other colleagues’ PRs are sizable, and use the same approach than PRs themselves, mods, absolute mods and changed files. Corrections and achieving better accuracy When the number of files or mods is huge, the algorithm chooses to weight them logarithmically against their scalar value. This makes sense: automatic modifications as search and replace or codemod change a lot of lines, but do not add value themselves. They are normally the means to an end. Search and replace of a 1000 line mod should may not count as if 1000 were lines modified , but maybe it’s the equivalent of modifying 7 lines [Math.log(1000) = 7]. manually Abnormal number of lines modified automatically should not score as if manually At the same time, merge commits within PRs are punished heavily. We try to encourage , because it promotes a workflow that benefits all. rebasing over merging When rebasing, conflicts are very painful to resolve. This encourages smaller PRs and discourages working on the same folder / files as peers Rebasing encourages working with the last copy of master. Delaying so will cause conflicts from other peers refactors, that you want to avoid (1) History is readable. This is mainly a whim easily . If you go crazy just merge™ Rebasing is not panacea Other quality parameters of the submitted work Other dimensions of the PR that count to measure it have been mentioned already, but are not yet implemented on . These are: number of CI checks passed (full compliance should be rewarded, CI failures punished) and increment / decrement of test coverage. could https://scope.ink Scope 🔬 as a product It has been designed with a lot of restrictions: only developers, only GitHub’s API, requires a certain workflow to be meaningful… However it can give insights that are very valuable to many teams. Saving potentially thousands of man hours, and giving immediate feedback of processes that are obscure to other teams. Scope 🔬 preview prerelease This model of work analysis based on content, quality of the content, review and size, can be exported to other fields where APIs are available. Mailing / meetings, trello / jira projects. It would be interesting to mix different sources with parameters to reveal other hidden patterns from different teams (support, design, revenue) I am open to develop further into it, or releasing the source, depending on how things develop after this first release. Hope to get some valuable feedback from teams out there. Please visit and give some feedback https://scope.ink As future steps you may have fixed your attention in those cool graphs showing the directory structure. I am investigating the anatomy of pull request further to improve the algorithms. Please, to product updates. subscribe to stay tuned Anatomy of a PR on Facebook React · · 🐦 · Author of 🔬 · 🏡 Jesús Darío Twitter Scope Yeti Smart Home

Measuring Developer Productivity

As a freelance web developer and product maker, I have to constantly switch back and forth between editing code and mockups, managing to-do lists, executing command lines, checking email and Twitter, and analyzing user behavior. This requires doing lots of repetitive actions all the time. Launch the code or image editor and open project files. Open the web browser and navigate to a project board in Trello. Launch Terminal and type commands in it. Everything is accessed in different ways and stored in different places. That turns the into a real mess, especially when working on multiple projects. I thought that I could dramatically improve my by gathering everything I need for my work in a single place and organizing them by projects and workflows. Everything would have a right context and finding something I need in my work wouldn’t turn into a nightmare anymore. That’s how I came up with —the app that does just that. workflow productivity Freeter In this article, I’ll show how I boosted my productivity with with an example of a workflow I have when I work on it. Hopefully, this will help you see how you could enhance your workflow too. Freeter Workflow First, I analyzed my workflow, including all “sub-workflows” and anything I use often, to find what I need when I work on the Freeter project: When I develop an app or a website, I need to open the app/website files with the code and image editors, access my task manager, launch the file watcher, open the repository with GitHub, make backups, and build the app/website releases. When I discuss new features with the community, I need to access the Freeter Development Forum, the roadmap post, and my task manager. When I check emails, I need to access one of my Google Mail accounts. When I check mentions on Twitter and reply to tweets, I need to access notifications and Emojipedia. When I analyze users’ behavior in the app/website, I need to access reports in Google Analytics. Now it’s time to turn the workflows into dashboards in Freeter — one dashboard per workflow to keep everything organized and easily accessible. App/website development To have quick access to all things I need for developing the app/website, I set up a dashboard with the following widgets: File Opener, which opens the project folder with the code editor. File Opener, which opens the design mockups with the image editor. File Opener, which opens the project repository with GitHub. File Explorer, which helps to browse through the project folder and open files. Commander, which launches the file watcher (gulp watch). Commander, which builds the production version of the app/website. Commander, which backs up the project. Webpage, which embeds the Trello board into the dashboard. App Dev dashboard This dashboard enables me to immediately switch to the development workflow, launch all the development items with a simple click, and have quick access to my tasks. Community To discuss new features and bug reports with the community, add new features to the public roadmap, and turn them to tasks on the Trello board, I added a dashboard with three Webpage widgets on it: Embeds the Freeter Development page into the dashboard. Embeds the Roadmap post into the dashboard. Embeds the Trello board into the dashboard. Community dashboard With this dashboard, I can discuss new feature requests, add them to the roadmap, and add tasks to Trello from one window. Email To check emails, I added a dashboard with the Webpage widget embedding one of my Google Mail accounts. I’ve set Session = Project in the widget settings to access different Google accounts from each project. Mail dashboard This dashboard allows me to get quick access to a specific Google Mail account without the necessity of logging out and logging in if I previously used another account. Twitter To check notifications and tweet on Twitter, I added a dashboard with two Webpage widgets: Embeds Twitter’s notification page into the dashboard. I’ve also set Session = Project in the widget settings to access different Twitter accounts from each project. Embeds Emojipedia into the dashboard. Twitter dashboard With this dashboard, I can easily check notifications from Twitter and write a tweet with emojis. Analytics To analyze users’ behavior in the app/website, I added a dashboard with two Webpage widgets embedding Google Analytics. Analytics dashboard This dashboard allows me to see reports on both properties (app and website) at the same time. Switch between workflows like a superhero Now, when I need to work on something, I just push to bring Freeter to the front, open a dashboard having the things I need right now, and immediately start getting things done. No more hassle with searching for things in many different places! I can easily switch between workflows in my projects and stay focused at the same time. Ctrl+Shift+F

How I hacked my workflow

Let's be honest. Branding is awfully expensive. A logo design can cost you around $500 - $1,000 depending on you're hiring to do the job. A website can cost you up to $3,000 and branding materials such as pitch decks, proposals, can all sum up to $5,000. That's a lot of money to dish out if you're only just beginning your entrepreneurial journey. These were the estimates I got when I wanted to build my online identity. I then tried hiring resources on Upwork and Fiverr, but finding someone who could my vision was a real struggle. 'get' So what’s one to do when one’s picky but also poor? 😄 Well, you go DIY (do-it-yourself)! Lucky for people like me, the internet has some of the most fantastic tech DIY tools out there that can let you create your own logo, website, and branding materials literally for free or for a quarter of the cost of hiring someone. Know that DIY tools are just temporary solutions. Eventually, when your business brings in good money, you can then hire professionals to rebrand and redesign. But until you don’t have that ROI coming in, spending nearly $10K on branding isn’t recommended. Pro-Fact: And so I went on a hunt to try out several tools. I’m not going to review each of them, but I’ll give you a reason why I chose that specific tool over its competitors. So here goes! Logology for Logo Designs I’ve had my fair share of experiences with logo makers and they never live up to the hype. I didn’t have the time to find, brief, and wait for a logo designer and was on the hunt for something quick. I tried Canva, but I was afraid it would be too redundant. Then, as I was about to go on Twitter to ask for suggestions, I came across , the founder of y, who is quite loved for sharing his entrepreneurial journey as it is, with no filters! I checked out Logology, assuming it would be just another logo maker (which it technically is, but with a twist!). Dagobert Renouf Logolog This is one unique logo maker, where you take a quick brand personality test, get logos that match your values, and customize your logo colors and font as you want. The questions forced me to understand more about my brand and what I wanted the world to see it as. Some of the cool questions were: There were 16 more questions like these which included important questions like the kind of marketing voice, the kind of values, and the kind of company that I envisioned my startup to be. I was sold on how creative these questions were! The result of my answers: Here were some of my favorite options: I changed the personality from kind and classic to visionary. Check out these favorite picks. Of all these, I went with the first one because it was exactly what I wanted! I tried another for my personal brand name Farah Kim, and here’s what I chose after plenty of options. What I absolutely love about Logology was the amount of detail that was put into crafting a brand identity. All this would have cost me nearly a $1,000 had a hired a professional. Sure, it could get repetitive because I did see the same symbols from the Caffeinated Pros repeated for Farah Kim, but, even if they were, you had so many options and variations to choose from that your logo would still be unique! The best part? I was able to see how my logo would look in branding materials! With previews for how it would look like on a website. For every option, there would be a detailed explanation: All this for a mere $49 and literally in 15 minutes. Not bad for a starter I’d say. You could get a unique version of this logo for $499 after a brand discussion call. The Pros: Focused on branding and not just making a logo like other logo makers Loads of options based on voice and brand values Impressive UI/UX where I didn’t quickly close the tab in frustration You can see how your logo would look on all branding materials The Cons: We could have had more superhero options. I don’t necessarily like WonderWoman, but had to go with it! Maybe Captain Marvel could have been better! I would have liked more options for typographic logos playing on initials I wanted to have element options too. There was a nice cup vector that appeared in the Farah Kim branding but not in the Caffeinated Pros branding which I really wanted. To Use or Not to Use? → To use if you want consistency, a reflection of brand values, and plenty of options to choose from. → Not to use if you are afraid of a non-original logo. In that case, you can avail the $499 package. Wix for Website Design & Development I know, I know, Wix is not a favorite for many people. It’s expensive, it’s sometimes wonky, and annoying, but it really helped me get a nice-looking website for when I needed it most. I pay $100 annually to get: Complete lead management with a start from finish workflow Tasks and reminders dashboard An integrated inbox with automatic contact management options SEO and basic marketing functions Detailed analytics & reports Plenty of integrations Everything I need to make my website work well in one platform It did take me a week to pull off a 5 pager website that could host my CV, portfolio, and blog, but it was well worth the effort. Some of the things I absolutely love about Wix and which would cost me more if I had a developer work on it would be: Automations This is the coolest feature of Wix. Traditionally, you would have to invest in several tools in order to automate chat responses, signup emails, and tasks reminders. But Wix lets you do that in one dashboard. Wix provides you with website features, but advanced marketing functions are provided by Ascend, Wix’s suite of marketing and customer management tools that are built into your site dashboard. To get unlimited tools, you will need to pay $49/month. With the free plan, you get limited options. Note: Here’s what you can get with all Ascend plans. When you upgrade to the Premium plan, you can get unlimited access. I don’t mind paying $49/month for everything to be on one platform, because if I were to do any of these manually, I’d be having a tech stack costing no less than $500/month! SEO Friendly I don’t have to hire a technical SEO expert to ‘optimize’ my website. Wix takes care of all the technical optimization parts so the website is already Google ready. Now, I just need to start creating content and working on the on-site SEO. My website was on Google’s 3rd-page result without me having to do any SEO optimization. Here’s a list of SEO optimization that Wix lets you do easily. You can optimize the SEO for all your pages without having to hire an SEO expert. For every step you get a guided snippet to do the task yourself. Flexible Editor What sets Wix apart from the other competitors is the Editor. You just have to drag and drop text and boxes to get it done. You can even preview the site on mobile and tablet version to see how the layout functions. And the best thing? You can change layouts easily. This is great if you want to update your website design without having to go through the whole process of hiring a designer or a development team. With hundreds of layouts to choose from, you’ll have plenty of fun. Some of the best features of the editor that I love are: A host of functions to choose from. Forms, social buttons, interactive elements, video & music options, whatever you need to get your site running, Wix has it. Directly add apps into the website from the Wix Store (some apps are paid) Easily embed custom codes in the site for optimal performance Plenty of color, font, theme, options to customize your theme Overall, Wix is a great option for solo consultants like me who don’t want to spend 5-digits on a website. With everything in one place, I can easily experiment with my needs and wants to decide what tech stack I absolutely need. Here’s the final result of my website. Now, to the pros and cons. The Pros: Solid DIY website builder with great speed & features Easy DIY with guided tutorials at every step of the way You can easily add/remove/fix functions and features as needed A complete business suite in one place so you don’t have to use additional plugins or tools The Cons Site themes need more improvement and variety Business suite tools are very limited if you’re on the free Ascend plan This means if you ever want to move to another platform like WordPress, you’ll have to start from scratch You can’t transfer your site. Mobile responsive may have issues. I had to spend a lot of time adjusting spacing & text positions so it could look as good on mobile To Use or Not to Use? → If you want a quick website, don’t have the time, or budget to invest in a website right now, $100 for the Premium plan is good money to build a functional website in a day. → Not for people who have specific design or functionality requirements that can only be done through custom coding. Envato Themes for Presentations & Mockups Envato has literally been a lifesaver for the many times I’ve had to design pitch decks and presentations without having access to a designer. Let me note here that you can make great presentation decks on Canva too, but you’ll have to spend a lot of time adjusting designs and shapes. The easy way out for me is to buy an Envato presentation deck (you don’t need to purchase an individual deck if you have an Envato account) and use Canva to create images that I then add into the Envato deck. With over 6,000 presentation decks categorized into PowerPoint, KeyNotes, and Google Slides, you’re not short on options. Each deck has around 40 slides that you can use to represent your data. And every Envato presentation deck that I’ve used for clients and for myself has received stellar responses. From presentations for a solar business to a laundry business, and to an NFT project, you get EVERYTHING. Here’s one solar presentation deck that I used. All I had to do in this was replace the text and images that I had created on Canva. This presentation template won me an extended contract from the client! With one Envato account, you can get access to stock videos, images, logos, graphic templates, presentations, audios, and much more. Personally, I find the stock images to be very limited but I loved the slide templates and vector icons for every industry under the sun. The Pros 6,000+ templates Everything you need for graphics Easy to use templates that come for both Mac/Windows One account at $16.50/month to get it all You can also purchase individual items if you don’t want an account The Cons Some designs may be too outdated. You’ll have to search for modern designs Stock images are quite limited Images used in the slides are not provided There’s no lifetime membership so if you don’t use it for more than one time, it could be an expensive deal to renew the account every month To Use or Not to Use? → Use if you don’t have a designer on hand and need to send out pitch decks with stock images and vector icons that you can download. → Don’t use if you want detailed customization and a unique design. Overall, Envato has been great every time I needed to pull off a presentation. Sure I would have to spend hours perfecting it, but with some decks having over 100 slides to choose from, I get more variety in how I present information. You’ll still have to use tools like Canva to create custom graphics and animations for the deck, but rest assured, once you’re able to do this, you wouldn’t need to hire a designer! Other Great DIY Branding Tools for Early Starters & Consultants A list of other favorite tools: plugin to capture complete web page and PDF screenshots. Great for showcasing your web portfolio instead of sharing links. GoFullPage for recording tutorial videos, screen videos, and demos. Loom for landing page and email automation Unbounce for AHMAZING public domain pictures Unsplash for creating stock videos Lumen5 for one-pager CVs About.me for digital letterheads, business cards, and other essentials Canva And there you go! Over the past 6 months, I’ve been using a plethora of tools (some free, some paid) to get most of my branding done. In the coming year though, as I am able to understand my brand identity better, I will be investing in a professional website that will host a community, a job portal, and much more. When you’re just starting out, it doesn’t make sense to spend tens of thousands on designs and branding materials where there are so many free options out there that can help you kickstart your business. Any more tools that you think I should try out? Let me know!

How I Created My Digital Branding For Less than $500

Docker is a container technology that enables developers to run entire applications as a unit. It offers all the benefits of virtual machines, without the high overhead: Production and development environments are equal. Consistency: fewer dependencies with the underlying OS; the same image can be deployed on any cloud provider. Portability: better performance than virtual machines. Low overhead: distribute services among different containers. Divide and conquer: However, Docker introduces a new variable to the equation: the app must be baked into the container image, then correctly deployed. In addition, setting up a test environment can prove more challenging. Here is where a CI/CD platform can be of great value to us: by automating all tasks and giving us a fast and reliable environment to work in. In this hands-on tutorial, we'll learn how Semaphore can help us achieve all this in a few minutes. The tutorial is broken down into two sections: build and test the app image. Continuous integration: send the image to Heroku to run online Continuous deployment: Enter the Application First, we will work with Semaphore's ready-to-use . The app consists of a plain task manager, written for the web micro-framework, with a acting as a database backend. To keep things nice and tidy, it has been split into two containers: one for the database and the other for the web server. Python Flask demo Flask MongoDB The will: CI/CD pipelines Build a Docker image with our application. Push the image to Docker Hub. Test the application inside the container. Deploy it to Heroku. To get started, fork the repository and clone it. semaphore-demo-python-flask Continuous Integration A well designed Continuous Integration setup will help us to: Spend less time testing and deploying. Get 100% automated testing. Avoid it-works-on-my-machine syndrome. The objective of this section is to bake the app into a container. Ready to get started? Docker Hub provides free storage for images, so go ahead and get a account. You'll also need a account; you can sign up with your GitHub account. The free plan is plenty for our purposes. Docker Hub Semaphore To add the project to Semaphore, click on the sign under Projects and select your repository. + (plus) One last thing: Semaphore needs to be able to access your Docker Hub repository. The best way of storing sensitive data is by using , which are automatically encrypted and made available to jobs when called: Secrets Under , go to . Configuration Secrets Click the button. Create New Secret Name your secret and type your Docker Hub credentials: pyflask-semaphore Integrate Now, everything is in place to start integrating. How about a trial run? Edit any file in your repository and push the update: $ touch some_file
$ git add some_file
$ git commit -m $ git push "first run of the integration pipeline" Head back to Semaphore. in a few seconds, you'll see the new workflow starting in your dashboard: Inside the workflow, you'll be able to see the pipeline: Don't mind the button; we'll get to it in a bit. The good news is that the integration pipeline is all green. If everything went according to plan you should have a new image in your . Promote Docker Repository We're halfway there. But... what happened? How did Semaphore do all that? Building an Image Creating a custom Docker image is easily achieved with the right Dockerfile. The project already ships with a working . Take a look at the contents: flask.Dockerfile FROM python:3.7
ADD . ./opt/
WORKDIR /opt/
EXPOSE 5000
RUN pip install --upgrade pip
RUN pip install -r requirements.txt
CMD [ , ] "python" "run.py" The first line defines the base image used as a starting point, in this case, a basic Debian image with Python 3.7. Next, we the app files into the /opt dir. invokes pip, Python's package manager, to install all the app dependencies. The final defines how the app starts. ADD RUN CMD The container setup is completed with docker-compose.yml: version: '3.5' services: mongodb: image: mongo:3.4.20 container_name: "mongodb" ports: - 27017 :27017 command: mongod --smallfiles --logpath=/dev/null flasksemaphore: image: pyflasksemaphore container_name: semaphore-pyflask-docker_flasksemaphore_1 build: context: . dockerfile: ./flask.Dockerfile ports: - "5000:5000" volumes: - .:/opt/ environment: - DB=mongodb://mongodb:27017/tasks - PORT=5000 depends_on: - mongodb With Compose, we define two services: mongodb: references a public MongoDB image. flasksemaphore: the custom-built app container. It only takes one command to build the image and start everything: docker-compose up The CI Pipeline Next, let's examine how is Semaphore implementing the integration pipeline. If you ever get lost, take a look at the . Semaphore's guided tour version: v1.0 name: Semaphore Python / Flask / Docker Example Pipeline agent: machine: type: e1-standard-2 os_image: ubuntu1804 blocks: - name: Build task: secrets: - name: pyflask-semaphore jobs: - name: Docker build commands: - echo "${DOCKER_PASSWORD}" | docker login -u "${DOCKER_USERNAME}" --password-stdin
 - checkout
 - docker-compose build
 - docker tag pyflasksemaphore:latest "$DOCKER_USERNAME"/pyflasksemaphore:latest
 - docker tag pyflasksemaphore:latest "$DOCKER_USERNAME"/pyflasksemaphore:$SEMAPHORE_WORKFLOW_ID
 - docker push "$DOCKER_USERNAME"/pyflasksemaphore:latest
 - docker push "$DOCKER_USERNAME"/pyflasksemaphore:$SEMAPHORE_WORKFLOW_ID
 - docker images - name: Run & Test Docker image task: secrets: - name: pyflask-semaphore prologue: commands: - echo "${DOCKER_PASSWORD}" | docker login -u "${DOCKER_USERNAME}" --password-stdin
 - checkout
 - docker pull "$DOCKER_USERNAME"/pyflasksemaphore
 - docker-compose up -d jobs: - name: Check Running Images commands: - docker ps - name: Run Unit test commands: - docker exec -it semaphore-pyflask-docker_flasksemaphore_1 python -m unittest promotions: - name: Deploy to Heroku pipeline_file: deploy-heroku.yml auto_promote_on: - result: passed Let's break it down in more digestible bits. : The sets the and the Operating System that drives the pipeline. Semaphore offers machines in several sizes. For our needs, the e1-standard-4 with its 4 CPUs and 8GB of RAM is powerful enough to build a Docker image in a few seconds. Agent agent machine type The super convenient image includes everything you need to get started right away, including Docker, Docker Compose, Python, and Heroku. No additional components required. Ubuntu 18.04 : Blocks define actions for the pipeline. Each block has a single task, and each task can have one or more jobs. Jobs within a block run concurrently, each one in its own fully isolated virtual machine. Once all jobs in a block complete, the next block begins. Build block The build block does exactly that; it builds the Docker image: secrets imports the Docker Hub variables. clones GitHub repository. checkout is required for pushing the image to Docker Hub. docker login docker-compose the image… builds …which is , and finally to the registry. tagged pushed : In this block, both containers are spun up to do integration tests. The is executed before every job in a block. In this case, the prologue pulls the image and starts the app with . Test block prologue docker-compose up We have two tests jobs: Run unit test: start a test script inside the container. Check running images: lists docker containers running. : The final part of .semaphore/semaphore.yml defines how the workflow continues. At this point, we can chain multiple pipelines with to create complex workflows. Promotions can be manual or automatic. In this case, we have a manual connection to the deployment pipeline: Promotion promotions promotions: - name: Deploy to Heroku pipeline_file: deploy-heroku.yml Continuous Delivery Once we have a working image, we're ready to enter the continuous delivery stage. Here we'll discuss how we can make deploy the app so our users can enjoy it. We're going to add two new services to our scheme: : to run the application. Heroku : to get a managed MongoDB database. MongoDB Atlas Sign up for a Heroku account and get an authorization token: Heroku Sign up for a account and get an authorization token: Heroku Click on your account profile, on the top right corner. Select Account Settings. Go to the Applications tab. Press the Create Authorization button. Set the description as: semaphore-demo-python-flask Finally, create an empty application. From your Heroku dashboard, click the button and select : New Create New App Set your application name, or leave blank for a random one. Select your preferred zone: or . US Europe In Semaphore, create a new secret called to store the authorization token: heroku MongoDB Atlas While Heroku has a MongoDB addon, it isn't included on the free plan. Meanwhile, offers a 500MB cluster for free. Not bad, not bad at all. However, the setup process is rather lengthy, so please bear with me: MongoDB Atlas Sign up for a Account MongoDB Atlas Select AWS as a provider. Choose the region that matches your Heroku app. For the US , and for Europe us-east-1 eu-west-1 On Cluster Tier, select the M0 Sandbox You may set a name to describe your cluster. You can leave the rest of the settings alone. Click on . Give it a few minutes to provision. Create cluster Now, for the database user: On the left side navigation bar, open . Security Click on the button. +Add New User Add the user . Choose a secure password and set the privileges to "Read and write any database" semaphore-demo-python-flask Back in Security, select the tab. IP Whitelist Click on the button. +Add IP Address Choose and Allow access from anywhere Confirm. To get the connection URI, go back to and click on the button. Under the "Connect your application" section choose "Python 3.6 or later". Copy the entire connection string. Clusters Connect The connection string is incomplete; replace <password> with your actual password. If it has any special characters, you should first run it through . URL Encode Head back to Semaphore to create a secret: mongodb-atlas The CD Pipeline In this section, we're going to examine all the steps that the deployment pipeline goes through. Take a look at .semaphore/deploy-heroku.yml version: v1.0 name: Deploy to Heroku agent: machine: type: e1-standard-2 os_image: ubuntu1804 blocks: - name: Deploy to Heroku task: secrets: - name: mongodb-atlas - name: pyflask-semaphore - name: heroku env_vars: - name: HEROKU_APP value: <YOUR_APP_NAME> jobs: - name: Deploy commands: - checkout - echo "${DOCKER_PASSWORD}" | docker login -u "${DOCKER_USERNAME}" --password-stdin
 - docker pull "$DOCKER_USERNAME"/pyflasksemaphore:$SEMAPHORE_WORKFLOW_ID
 - heroku container:login
 - docker tag "$DOCKER_USERNAME"/pyflasksemaphore:$SEMAPHORE_WORKFLOW_ID registry.heroku.com/$HEROKU_APP/web
 - docker push registry.heroku.com/$HEROKU_APP/web
 - heroku config:set DB="$MONGODB_URI"
 - heroku stack:set container --app $HEROKU_APP
 - heroku container:release web --app $HEROKU_APP : We only need to explicitly set a single variable, , which should point to your Heroku app name. Once you've done this, go ahead and replace the value with it. Environment and Secrets $HEROKU_APP The deployment block needs access to all services, and the variables are imported from secrets: mongodb-atlas,pyflask-semaphore, heroku. : The only new commands introduced in this block are related to : Deploy block Heroku Docker Tag the image with URL. Heroku Registry Send the URI variable for the MongoDB connection. Set the to container. stack mode : gets the app started. Release Deploy Only one more step to go! Commit the changes to get the CI/CD started: $ git add .semaphore
$ git commit -m $ git push "ready to deploy!" After a few minutes, we should have the CI pipeline completed. Click on the button to launch the CD pipeline: Promote Finally, click on the button to access the live application. Happy task managing! Open app Summing it up We've explored how to run a Python application using Docker. After that, we learned how to use Semaphore to create a pipeline that automates running the tests and the necessary build commands, as well as deploying the application to Heroku. Previously published at: https://semaphoreci.com/community/tutorials/continuous-deployment-of-a-python-flask-application-with-docker-and-semaphore .

Flawless Releases with Continuous Deployment and Docker

I want to become a product manager, a builder, maybe an entrepreneur; I know I need to code, at least understand how everything works. I started to go through the CS50 by Harvard on Coursera; it had the most positive reviews, and people recommended it for noobies. I didn't finish it, got stuck, and got through a more rough period at my current job, and then it was harder to get back on the road. But then I discovered no-code, it seemed interesting, I became more curious. I already built WordPress sites with site builders, but to have an app with no code was the next level for me. For half a year, I am learning slowly about these tools, about the opportunities that they make it now possible. Here I am trying to summarize my findings and my thoughts on what is now conceivable with these tools and how I perceive they will affect the near-future. Table of contents: ⏳ A brief history of no-code 🔥 Why all the fuss 🙋 Who is/will benefit 📝 Conclusions ⏳ A brief history of no-code It is not that new of technology, but it has become more accessible to a broader audience; No-code or visual programming is an old idea that grew and blossomed in ideal circumstances alongside more opportunities. No-code is another case of the democratization of technology . This kind of tools existed since the 90s, from or to WordPress & Drupal in the 00s following Shopify, Wix, Squarespace to nowadays unique tools that enable you to build coherent and outstanding websites, cms & apps few of them .bubble, Webflow, Glide, Zapier, Airtable. FrontPage Dreamweaver These apps now flourish due to a mature ecosystem of tools and integrations. No-code allows us to work visually and in ordinary human language to create the applications that the modern world demands, all in a faster and more cost-effective way than ever before. Anyone can become a developer in no-code by letting their eyes and simple logic guide them to translate the small ideas into real apps. 🔥Why all the fuss The sexiness of no-code and the product-market fit; forecasts that low-code & no-code application platforms will account for There is a developer shortage out there, as no-code will not replace their tasks but will let them focus on the important stuff. Gartner 65 percent of all app development by 2024. There is now a massive demand for computer scientists skilled in mobile app development, game development, data science, machine learning… The ambition of no-code is to reduce the gap. No-code can save operational costs in two ways. Development time and developers. As I said, recruiting developers in a scared market is challenging. Also, developers' standards are continually changing. Still, no-code offers an easy-to-use approach for more and more tasks with minimal knowledge as full-fledged code developers can focus on the high-priority & deep tasks. But time is what nowadays everyone is running for or from. With no-code, what task can take weeks is now possible in minutes or a few hours with a shorter development and testing period. The productivity increases, and your overhead costs go down. No-code can boost up the . search for innovation With some existing modules and templates to choose from, all projects are given access for faster prototyping. This enables quicker testing to cycle through different projects faster, becoming lean to the next level. You can become more agile with no code. Native coding is not easy to modify. It usually takes up time and has to follow strict policies before it is even made possible. The very decisions to make changes take time. No-code allows for quick modifications that don't halt the development of the overall app. At the tip of the iceberg, no-code breaks down one of the most crucial barriers of these days, the development of technical expertise, as it diminishes most of its friction. starting a new business 🙋 Who is/will benefit Or the use-cases; No-Code For Big companies For the big behemoths, no code offers more agility or room for failing with reduced costs. No-code is a solution to allow non-tech people to build MVPs, internal dashboards, or automation workflow processes in big companies. So they can accelerate the digital transformation with fewer costs through no-code. . Limited budget, no problem, no-code is your solution It can also help develop new tech solutions for each department within companies, creating & owning solutions without any engineer involved. Product departments can integrate no-code how they wish through their process: build & test hypotheses on the go. The Marketing department can adapt & automate workflows on their own. HR dept. can build & manage internal or external dashboards and automation with minimum knowledge, and so on. No-Code For Small-medium enterprises(SMEs) No-code allows SMEs to gain extra independence. You still got an offline business you have to take it online? You can do it cheaper & faster now. Do you have a restaurant that needs its own delivery platform? Rather than paying the high fees to the mainstream delivery platforms. is already part of this mass digitalization but for online stores. No-code creates opportunities for all businesses out there. Until now, you had to pay for everything developers, designers, project managers, and so on. , for example, enables SMEs to build great visual content for their audience without having a designer. Shopify Canva They could also develop their website alone in or for less the bucks, even if they hire someone else to build with no-code. Or automate that daily mail directly with to gain that most important thing, time. Carrd Webflow Zapier No-Code For Entrepreneurs/ builders It helps to enhance the time-to-market acceleration, which is a critical factor for success. It enables fast iteration on products and ship more quickly than competitors. It eases up a little the hunt for product-market-fit and lets you focus on finding ways to gain traction. No-code gives you a faster path to an excellent feedback loop. No-Code For Designers & Developers Now a team, but in various contexts, it can become a one-man show. No-code expands each of their capabilities beyond their core expertise, with less effort. Each role removes the friction of the other member. They can be more independent if they want. No-Code For Individuals The rise of the new section on your CV: real-life projects. Every employee requires experience, but you can always build up the experience with no-code when that is not available. You can start a side project easier either as a hobby or side-gig for more money. We currently have a pool of people who want to become influencers, and maybe the next thing is to have a lot of people who wish to become no-code builders. 📝 Conclusions 1️⃣ Abundance of software Most of the new businesses and existing businesses that may need no-code services are/will be within the small business category. The long tail of software of will become flatter and longer with the help of no-code solutions as more people will build businesses for hyper niches. The cost of development is lower and more people want to participate in wealth creation, share their ideas, or build an audience. Chris Anderson 2️⃣ Enable the become a creator ambition Expression of creativity is one of the most important traits we got as human species. As the Internet is shown in the last years an abundance of creativity in writing, music, and video due to the Internet, no code will be the next. Another thing I see is personalization at its finest. Do you want a simple expense app track without paying a subscription for one? Build it fast on your own for you and your family and maybe some friends. The small learning curve to master no-code for basic stuff than learning programming from scratch. Learning code is hard, takes time, which many people don't have to invest in acquiring new skills and value from it. More people can acquire the basics of no-code to build stuff that developers don't want to waste time on. 3️⃣ The new CV requirement or new employment opportunities either as a no-code expert or as a side-gig freelancer. As no-code opportunities will crystallize, companies will look to hire talents that can also handle some no-coding. Having this skill on your resume in the future can improve your chances of getting a better or desired job.Or take part in the gig economy. , a no-code software agency, has a big database of collaborators worldwide that can take projects, while AirDev becomes the middle man.More no-code agencies will raise taking care of their local clients than needing various solutions FAST & CHEAP. At the same time, no-code offer also reliable ones.You can do this part-time or from time to time when you need more money. AirDev 4️⃣No code, only on the way forward A new technology of any kind tends to grow & emerge in waves, following an S Curve. A primer on S curves by a16z and a must-read from Benedict Evans. here here In the first phase of the S curve, the new technology is small, unfriendly, and slow. The second phase is where everything starts to accelerate because improvements are made in usability and performance, and the adoption skyrockets. That's a period of very rapid change, innovation, and feature expansion. No code seems to be in the creation phase; as any technology follows this framework, you may want to get ready for the next stage. Understand what this does mean for you or how you can make this useful for you. 6️⃣Co-creation Another significant aspect of no-code is that it can enable better collaboration in the future between departments and people. As we witnessed the year of collaboration tools boom, we see that it is possible to work together even if we are not present in the same room. Similarly, we will be able to co-create with no-code, towards efficiency and faster scaling. 7️⃣No code education As the demand for no-code will increase, more boot camps and educators will rise. Even now, there are some no-code boot camps, but more to aid the adoption barriers of no-code or to reduce the shortage of no-code developers for themselves. And so on, I had the chance to be in AirDev bootcamp and I did learn a lot and had all the support down the way. AirDev Bootcamp Bubble Bootcamp Buildcamp.io ⌛️The end No-code makes our lives easier and opens up a world of opportunities for those who can't code. It's the natural step in our evolution. We can't wish to get on mars with the same tools we are using today or yesterday. No-code is a public access key to a set of tools to solves everyday problems. Most of the no-code tools are currently expanding their educational content, reducing the friction in adopting these tools. With little effort and a smaller learning curve than coding, you can become a visual developer or enhance that coding knowledge to speed out through things with no-code, make no-code part of your stack.

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