System Adminstration of a Census

These instructions are for Developers. It assumes you already have the code installed on your machine.

See the README to get the basic setup.

DNS

The easiest way to configure DNS settings for a Census would be to setup a wildcard entry for all subdomains of the base domain you serve from. Each site, including the system and auth sites, is served from a subdomain.

Auth Providers

The Census is configured to use Google and Facebook as auth providers. You must setup these providers.

Google

Go to your Google Cloud account and "Create a New Client ID" under "APIs & auth > Credentials". The type is "web application", and you need to configure the origins and callbacks for your auth subdomain (which is id by default. e.g.: http://id.{base_domain}/login).

Get the credentials required for your GOOGLE_APP_ID and GOOGLE_APP_SECRET settings.

Facebook

Go to your Facebook account and add a new app. As with the Google instructions above, add the appropriate urls/callbacks for auth.

Get the credentials required for your FACEBOOK_APP_ID and FACEBOOK_APP_SECRET settings.

Comment Notifications

Submissions have Disqus comment threads. You can provide a custom Disqus forum name via DISQUS_SHORTNAME. There is also a feature to notify submitters when someone comments on their submission. To enable this feature:

  1. Create a Disqus API application and add DISQUS_API_KEY and DISQUS_API_SECRET to your census config.
  2. Run the check-comments.js script with some type of scheduler, at a suitable period for your needs. On Heroku, you can use the Heroku scheduler to run this script. We also include an example cron job that you can modify.

Deploying a New Census

If you are not a developer but want a Census booted please make a request: http://census.okfn.org/

The census app is multi-tenant, with each tenant ("site") served from a subdomain.

In order to serve a site, an entry is needed in the Registry.

The OKFN Registry is here.

The registry does not contain senstive information like passwords.

To start your own Census installation, copy the Registry template and adjust as required.

Notice that each entry in the Registry has a link to the config file for the site. The Local Config template is linked to from the local app in the Registry template, for example.

This then provides the entry point into site-specific configuration.

Before you start

IMPORTANT: to make a Google Spreadsheet 'Public on the Web' you must:

  • Go to sharing and make world readable
  • Go to File Menu => "Publish to the Web" and click "Start Publishing"

It's useful to check the "Automatically republish when changes are made" box. However, note that republishing doesn't always happen immediately. You can always revisit File Menu => "Publish to the Web" and click "Republish now".

Step-by-Step

  • Add a new entry to the Registry
  • Reload the Registry on your Census at http://system.{base_domain}/control
  • Your email will have to be added as the sysAdmin email - see the setup instructions in the README.
  • Ask the Site administrator (who must have an email in the adminemail field of the Registry entry for her site) to finish all the site-specific configuration and then the site admin must:
  • Visit http://{site}.{base_domain}/admin (e.g. http://my-site.census.okfn.org/admin)
  • Load Config
  • Load Places
  • Load Datasets

  • Load Questions

  • The Site will now be live at: http://{site}.{base_domain}/