odonnellryan/OrgChart

Org Chart project/assignment coded in Node.js

Organizational Chart

Node.js + Express as the backend, SQLite as the DB, and Angular as the frontend tech.

How to run:

1. Install Node.js and NPM

2. Run npm install from OrgChart directory

3. Run npm start

4. App now should be running on: 127.0.0.1:3000/company

Note: if you install supervisor (npm install -g supervisor) and then run supervisor bin/www the app will restart on save. Helps with development.

The 3 main requirements are:

1. It should allow users to view the chart

2. It should allow users to add and delete items to the chart

3. It should allow users to reorder and restructure the chart

Things I'd love to do (if I had time) in order of priority:

1. Testing!

2. Finish features. Unfortunately, I did not have enough time to complete all feature requests.

3. Proper frontend. I'd love to spend some time making an Angular app.

4. Way to make the whole app a true module, to be easily integrated with another app. I think this has great potential for gradual signup!

5. Form validation similar to WTForms (Flask/Python) to properly display validation errors.

6. Caching.

Note on data structures:

This approaches several data structures(graph/heap/tree), but adding these constraints would
complicate the problem and make it harder to manage. By looking at several 
org. charts online, it can be determined that most organizations are 
structured by employee `Title`. Arguments can be made either way, but we're 
going to assume this is how we'd like to structure our chart as well and 
sort our data based on the numerical rank of the `Title` model. 

Working spec:

1. Each person can have multiple managers and multiple direct reports.

• Represent with a one to many Managers field.

2. No login, all session-based (assuming this will be a part of a bigger app that has login capability).

• The session will keep track of the various Company Charts the user may have. Each Company gets a unique ID assigned which will be used as the URL linking to that chart. Eventually use this for gradual signup purposes!

Assumptions:

1. Models: This could be created purely as a SPA (if we don't need to query these models or really do anything with them a JSON blob or likewise would be fine), but since this is a full stack test we will want to have clearly defined models:

• Employee model: One Name field (not everyone has a first and last name!) One to one relation to the Title model (we're going to assume that no one has more than one official title) One to many Managers field which is a self-referencing foreign key that can be null (C-level employees.) One to one relation with the Company

• Title model Incrementing PK Title field Numerical rank (this doesn't have to be unique, all VPs can have the same rank, for example) One to one relation with the Company

• Company model Sequential uuid as a PK (Note: this may give you performance problems with indexing, so it should be thought about a little more) so we can can easily generate our unique URL for the company org char page. Store this in the session for the user so they can access their Companies without having to log in. Eventually this could become some kind of gradual signup for new users (users don't have to sign up to create a chart, only to save one) Title of the Company (required)

2. We want to structure our chart based on the numberical rank of the Title model.

• This can be reworked to structure the graph purely based on direct reports, but at this point we'd complicate the problem beyond the time we have to work on it.
• By sticking to these constraints we can develop a UI based on the available Title fields which could later be expanded to a graph UI if the specs change.

High-level feature list:

1. Session support for users

2. RESTful API to:

• Add/Remove/Edit Company - Only supports adds
• Add/Remove/Edit Title - DONE
• Add/Remove/Edit Employee - No employee support. Base off Title.

3. Reorder Employee by changing their Title

4. Support a progressive enhancement UI