RewardBot

Description

RewardBot was developed as part of the course project for CS5704 - Software Engineering at Virginia Tech in Spring '23'. RewardBot is a smart bot-based reward and recognition system for software engineering teams. It solves the problem of existing rewards and recognition systems which suffer from multiple flaws, including a lack of transparency, difficulty in quantifying rewards, and poorly defined actionable objectives. RewadBot is a Slack bot that utilizes gamification principles to recognize and reward employees effectively. RewardBot awards points based on individuals’ contributions to projects and their involvement in the open-source community. These accumulated points are displayed on a leaderboard and can be redeemed for various rewards, boosting employee motivation and fostering a healthy competitive environment.

Setup

To setup and run the project locally, do the following,

• Clone the repository using git clone https://github.com/r-ramaraja/RewardBot.git

• Setup Python virtual environment,

  python3 -m venv .venv
  source .venv/bin/activate

• Install the dependencies using pip install -r requirements.txt

• Create and setup a Slack app. Refer here for more details.

• Setup a MySQL server and create a database. Refer here for more details.

• Populate the .env file with the MySQL server details.

• Run the SQL script given here to create the required tables.

• We are assuming that the employee details are already in the DB. So, insert a few employee records into the employee table. Eg.

INSERT INTO employee 
VALUES ('Ramaraja Ramanujan', 'r-ramaraja', 'U04SNJYHQ6P', 0);

• To find the slack id of a user, do the following,
  • Open the user's full profile in Slack
  • Click on the vertical ellipsis (⋮) in the top right corner
  • Click on Copy member ID
• Run the project using flask --app app run --debug --port <port_number>. Eg. flask --app app run --debug --port 8081
• Use ngrok to expose the local server to the internet. ngrok http <port_number>. Eg. ngrok http 8081. Refer here for more details.
• You should be good to go now. You can interact with the bot in Slack!

Tests

To run the tests, do the following,

• Clone the repository using git clone https://github.com/r-ramaraja/RewardBot.git

• Setup Python virtual environment,

  python3 -m venv .venv
  source .venv/bin/activate

• Install the dependencies using pip install -r requirements.txt

• Run the tests using pytest from the root directory

Features

Leaderboard

The leaderboard feature allows users to see the top ten performers. The user issues a Slack slash command by typing /leaderboard, which prompts the RewardBot to retrieve the top ten performers and send the leaderboard as a direct message.

Use Case

Display the leaderboard showing the name of the top ten performers and their accumulated points.

Preconditions

• The employee should have the necessary permissions to interact with the bot.
• There should be valid entries in the database of the respective employees and their details.

Main Flow

The employee will invoke a slash command which will then trigger the Reward Bot [S1]. The Reward Bot will then show the leaderboard to the employee on a private channel [S2].

Sub Flow

[S1] Employee invokes the bot using the /leaderboard slash command.
[S2] The bot then sends a direct message containing the leaderboard of the top ten performers to the employee who invoked the command.

User Diagram

You can view details about the other features here

Project Management

Kanban Board: Link
Issue Tracker: Link
Wiki: Link

Organization

├── LICENSE
├── README.md
├── app.py
├── .env
├── data
│   └── tables.sql
├── docs
│   ├── final-report.pdf
│   ├── proposal-design-sketch.pdf
│   └── proposal.pdf
├── requirements.txt
├── services
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── award_points_service.py
│   ├── github_integration_service.py
│   └── leaderboard_service.py
├── settings
│   └── mysql_settings.py
├── slack
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── award_points_events.py
│   ├── github_integration_events.py
│   └── leaderboard_events.py
└── tests
    ├── __init__.py
    └── test_leaderboard_service.py

• app.py is the entry point of the application.
• data/tables.sql contains the SQL script to create the required tables.
• docs/ contains the documentation regarding the project (report, proposal, demo).
• requirements.txt contains the list of dependencies.
• services/ contains the business logic of the application.
• settings/ contains the settings for the application.
• slack/ contains the Slack event handlers.
• tests/ contains the unit tests for the application.
• .env contains the environment variables for the application.

Documentation

Project Proposal: Link
Design Sketches: Link
Final Report: Link
Demo Presentation: Link

Workflows

• Pylint: Link
• Pytest: Link
• Sonar: Link

Cloud Deployment

• Flask Service: https://rewardbot.onrender.com
• MySQL DB: https://cloud.cs.vt.edu/p/c-k7rk9:p-lj9rm/workload/deployment:rewardbot:mysql

Note: The MySQL DB deployed in cloud.cs.vt.edu is not running due to a 429 Too Many Requests error. We believe this is a problem with cloud.cs.vt.edu and not our application. Since, the MySQL DB is not running, the Flask service in the cloud is not running either.