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Working with the Admin Site

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AB edited this page Jun 10, 2021 · 1 revision

Working with the Admin Site

  1. Overview
  2. Setting up an Election Session
  3. Notes on the RON/No Candidate

Overview

The admin site can be found at /admin (for login credentials enquire with the previous CRO) and is used to set up ElectionSessions, Elections, Candidates for each Election and Eligibilities for each Election. These can be done either manually or automatically using a CSV file. Note that there are templates for how these files must appear in the skule_vote/backend/static/backend/csv_templates folder of this repo.

Additionally, if you go to the admin site and click on Election Sessions on the left-hand panel, you will get a page that shows you a list of all the Election Sessions. On top right this page you will see a button Download CSV Templates that will serve you a ZIP file of all of the CSV files in the skule_vote/backend/static/backend/csv_templates directory.

Developer Note: If you wish to change the CSV templates in any way, make sure to regenerate the ZIP file and place it in the skule_vote/backend/static/backend directory.

Setting up an Election Session

Method 1: Using a CSV File (Recommended)

To use this method, when you go to the admin site and add an ElectionSession you must add an ElectionSession with a name, start_date and end_date, and CSV files for each section of election, candidate and eligibility. These CSV files have certain constraints that must be obeyed. The constraints are as follows:

  • The header (first row) of each CSV file must be the same as the ones in the /csv_files templates.
  • Within a single CSV file all rows must be of equal length (have the same number of comma separated values).
  • Election and Eligibility CSVs must have the same number of rows, since they are 1-to-1.
  • The Election names in the Eligibilities and Candidates CSVs must match the ones in the Elections CSV.
  • Within the Elections CSV:
    • All of the seats_available must be integers and >=1.
    • Election Categories must be one of [Referenda, Officer, Board of Directors, Discipline Club, Class Representative, Other].
  • Within the Eligibilities CSV:
    • All of the eligible fields must be integers and either 1 (True) or 0 (False).
    • Eligibilities status_eligible fields must be one of [Full Time, Part Time, Full and Part Time].

Note: All the CSV files must be uploaded at once, or none at all. If this is not met then an error will be shown and nothing will happen.

Note: if you upload CSVs successfully and realize you made a mistake, you can just re-upload the updated CSVs to the same ElectionSession. All of the previous Elections, Candidates and Eligibilities connected to that ElectionSession will be deleted and new ones will be created from the new CSV.

Note: once an ElectionSession has started you cannot edit it to change its name, start_date, or upload any new CSV files. Any changes required for Elections, Candidates and Eligibilities must be made manually. You can change the ElectionSession's end_date once it has started, also manually.

Method 2: Manually

To use this method, when you go to the admin site and add an ElectionSession you must add an ElectionSession with only a name, start_date and end_date. You will then go and manually create each of Election, Candidate and Eligibility. Note that Candidate and Eligibility require an Election to connect to, so Elections should be created first.

Notes on the RON/No Candidate

The RON/No Candidate is created by default on the creation of each Election. It is also deleted by cascade on deletion of any Election, which includes manual Election deletion or as a cascade from deleting an ElectionSession. We describe it as the RON/No Candidate since it can take the form of a RON Candidate in the case where there are two or more other Candidates, or the No Candidate in the case of a single other Candidate.

The RON/No Candidate has a default statement that says Choose this option to reopen nominations.. This will appear to the user when RON is active. When No is active, we remove the message and change the name to No. This is all done in the frontend.

The RON/No Candidate is protected from accidental deletion in the following ways:

  • When you go to the Candidate changelist on the admin site, you will not see any RON Candidates when in production more (you will see them in debug mode though).
  • When you go to the change view for a specific Candidate on the admin site, you should not see a Delete button for any RON Candidates, while you can see it for regular Candidates (you will see them in debug mode though).

Developer Note: If you wish to change any of these options they are found in the backend/models.py and backend/admin.py files.

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