Lunatech Tech Matrix

Tech Matrix - Who knows what in Lunatech!

Tech Matrix allows users to set their level of knowledge on the technologies they know. This information helps assert teams best suited for new projects, people able to give workshops, which technologies we have a gap in, etc.

TechMatrix is regularly updated (once per day) after cross-checking PeopleAPI in order verify the accesslevel that is entered inside the Users table. This means that accesslevel (status as well) should always be filled in that table and match with what the PeopleAPI returns. If there is not a match then the accesslevel will be defined according to the entry that the PeopleAPI has.

Data Model

In the application there are a few entities we use:

User:
    id
    firstName
    lastName
    email
    accesslevels
    status

Tech:
    id
    name
    techType
    techLabel

Skill:
    id
    userId
    techId
    skillLevel

In our database we have 3 main tables: users, tech and user_skills. The third table is just a holder of userId, techId and the level. When the users introduces a skill to his list, the properties of the skill (the name, label and type) are stored in the Tech table, and therefore form the tech body. We store it in the Tech table so that this particular skill will be available for other users as well (autocomplete)

So the difference between the Tech and Skill is that the tech represents the technical knowledge a user has, and the skill is just a holder of the techId & userId and the level that user has about that skill.

How it looks in the database:

Users:

id	firstName	lastName	email	accesslevels	status
1	Martin	Odersky	martin.odersky@scala.com	{Admin}	Active
2	Severus	Snape	severus.snape@hogwarts.com	{Developer}	Inactive

Tech:

id	name	label	type
1	scala	Scala	LANGUAGE
2	dark arts	Dark Arts	CONCEPT

Skill:

id	userId	techId	skillLevel
1	1	1	PROFICIENT
2	2	2	EXPERT

We also have intermediate models that help to either intercept correctly the parameters in the controller or to hold the results needed.

SkillMatrixItem:
    Tech
    SkillLevel

This is used in the POST a users makes in order to add a skill to his list. It looks like this:

{
    "tech": {
        "name": "prolog",
        "label": "Prolog",
        "techType": "LANGUAGE"
    },
    "skillLevel": "NOVICE"
}

At the moment of writing, we haven't found yet a way on how to validate that the request contains 2 objects (tech and skillLevel), hence we create an intermediate case class that will hold these two objects.

We also have two response models. These are used to create correctly the results of some GET requests, because we mix the data from 2 or 3 tables in one response.

SkillMatrixResponse:
    techId
    techName
    techType
    users: Seq[skillMatrixUsersAndLevel] // maybe the name is not that good, but no inspiration has come to us

SkillMatrixUsersAndLevel:
    userName // this is the first and last name combined together
    level

This looks like this:

{
      "techId": 7,
      "techName": "Defense Against the Dark Arts",
      "techType": "CONCEPT",
      "users": [
        {
          "userName": "Severus Snape",
          "level": "EXPERT"
        },
         {
           "userName": "Dolores Umbridge",
            "level": "NOVICE"
         }
      ]
}

UserSkillResponse: userId firstName lastName skills: Seq[SkillMatrixItem]

{
    "userId": 4,
    "firstName": "Severus",
    "lastName": "Snape",
    "skill": [
      {
        "tech": {
          "id": 7,
          "name": "dark arts",
          "label": "Dark Arts",
          "techType": "CONCEPT"
        },
        "skillLevel": "EXPERT"
      },
      {
        "tech": {
          "id": 8,
          "name": "defense against the dark arts",
          "label": "Defense against the Dark Arts",
          "techType": "CONCEPT"
        },
        "skillLevel": "EXPERT"
      }
    ]
}

Initial Configuration

The configuration of the project goes under conf/application.conf

Right now, we are using PostgreSQL, and you should change the properties 'url', 'user' and 'password' according to the configuration of your local database

Acceptance test

You can use sbt acc:test command to run only the acceptance tests, or sbt test to run all the tests.

Have ideas on adding or changing functionality?

Talk to the product owner, just add it to github issues list and we will take care of it!