Decidim::ActionDelegator

A tool for Decidim that provides extended functionalities for cooperatives or any other type of organization that need to vote with weighted-vote results and/or vote-delegation.

Combines a CSV-like verification method with impersonation capabilities that allow users to delegate some actions to others.

Admin can set limits to the number of delegation per users an other characteristics.

Initially, only votes on consultations can be delegated.

Dependencies

• decidim-consultations >= v0.27.0
• decidim-admin >= v0.27.0
• decidim-core >= v0.27.0

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem "decidim-action_delegator"

Or, if you want to stay up to date with the latest changes use this line instead:

gem 'decidim-action_delegator', git: "https://github.com/coopdevs/decidim-module-action_delegator"

And then execute:

bundle
bundle exec rails decidim_action_delegator:install:migrations
bundle exec rails db:migrate

ActiveJob Configuration

This module can send invitations to users in order to register into the platform. If you are using Sidekiq (or another queue processor), you need to make sure that the invite_participants queue is processed by Sidekiq.

For instance, this file should work for Sidekiq:

config/sidekiq.yml

:concurrency: <%= ENV.fetch("SIDEKIQ_CONCURRENCY", "5").to_i %>
:queues:
  - [mailers, 4]
  - [invite_participants, 4]
  - [vote_reminder, 2]
  - [reminders, 2]
  - [default, 2]
  - [newsletter, 2]
  - [newsletters_opt_in, 2]
  - [conference_diplomas, 2]
  - [events, 2]
  - [translations, 2]
  - [user_report, 2]
  - [block_user, 2]
  - [metrics, 1]
  - [exports, 1]
  - [close_meeting_reminder, 1]

UPGRADE NOTES:

If you are upgrading from a previous version, you need to run the migrations again and import all membership types/weights into the built-in census by executing in your production server:

RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rails action_delegator:import_direct_verifications

It is safe to run the previous command multiple times, no content will be imported twice.

Depending on your Decidim version, you can choose the corresponding version to ensure compatibility:

Version	Compatible Decidim versions
0.8.x	0.27.x
0.7.x	0.26.x
0.6.x	0.26.x
0.5	0.25.x
0.4	0.24.x
0.3	0.24.x
0.2	0.23.x
0.1	0.22.0

Heads up! Consultations module will be deprecated in the near future.

Usage

ActionDelegator does not provides new Components or Participatory Spaces but enhances some functionalities in them.

Currently it is designed to work with the Consultations module.

• On one side, provides a custom verification method that allows admins to ensure only those in specific census (that can be uploaded via CSV) are able to vote. This census can be different for each consultation. This is optional and doesn't affect weighted voting or delegations.

• On the other, each set of census can work with a different set of weights and delegation.

Extended consultation results

This gem modifies the consultation's results page adding two extra columns Membership type and Membership weight. This is based on the census uploaded for each consultation and the weights assigned to each participant.

Authorization verfifier and SMS gateway setup

The integrated authorization method is called "Delegations verifier". If included in each question of a consultation, it will check if the user is authorized and present in the census before letting him vote.

It can be used in 3 modes:

1. Email only: This means that the participants list for each consultation setting relies on the email only. No SMS gateway integration is needed. The user is verified if the email is found in the census.
2. Email and phone: This means that the participants list for each consultation setting relies on the email and the phone number. An SMS gateway integration is needed. The user is verified if the email is found in the census and then sending a verification code to the phone number that the user cannot edit.
3. Phone only: This means that the participants list for each consultation setting relies on the phone number only. An SMS gateway integration is needed. The user is verified by a form where a phone number must be introduced. The user can edit the phone number and the verification code is sent to the new phone number if that phone number is found in the participant's list. This method is useful to avoid to relay on keeping track of email changes for user's database.

In order to use this new sms gateway you need to configure your application. It can work on two modes,

The first is to use the same built-in SMS gateway used in Decidim: In config/initializers/decidim.rb set:

config.sms_gateway_service = 'Decidim::ActionDelegator::SmsGateway'

Note that if you use this method you will be able to use the built-in SMS verification method in Decidim.

The other is to use a gateway service specific only for this plugin, this allows you to separate gateways or prevent decidim to allow admins to use the built in SMS verification method. This comes preinstalled and only requires you to setup some ENV variables.

Som Connexió

You can use Som Connexió as SMS provider which uses this SOAP API. Reach out to Som Connexió to sign up first.

Then you'll need to set the following ENV vars:

SMS_USER= # Username provided by Som Connexió
SMS_PASS= # Password provided by Som Connexió
SMS_SENDER= # (optional) Name or phone number used as sender of the SMS

Twilio

Alternatively, you can use Twilio as provider by specifying the folowing ENV vars

TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID # SID from your Twilio account
TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN # Token from your Twilio account
SMS_SENDER # Twilio's phone number. You need to purchase one there with SMS capability.

Custom SMS gateways

It is also possible to use your own Sms Gateway. In an new initializer (ie config/initializers/action_delegator.rb) set:

Decidim::ActionDelegator.configure do |config|
  config.sms_gateway_service = 'YourOwnSmsGateway'
end

Other configuration options

There are some other configuration options available, for more info check action_delegator. These are the default values

Decidim::ActionDelegator.configure do |config|
  # this is the SmsGateway provided by this module
  # Note that it will be ignored if you provide your own SmsGateway in Decidm.sms_gateway_service
  config.sms_gateway_service = "Decidim::ActionDelegator::SmsGateway"

  # The default expiration time for the integrated authorization
  # if zero, the authorization won't be registered
  config.authorization_expiration_time = 3.months

  # Put this to false if you don't want to allow administrators to invite users not registered
  # in the platform when uploading a census (inviting users without permission can be a GDPR offense).
  config.allow_to_invite_users = true

  # used for comparing phone numbers from a census list and the ones introduced by the user
  # the phone number will be normalized before comparing it so, for instance,
  # if you have a census list with  +34 666 666 666 and the user introduces 0034666666666 or 666666666, they will be considered the same
  # can be empty or null if yo don't want to check different combinations of prefixes
  config.phone_prefixes = %w(+34 0034 34)

  # The regex for validating phone numbers
  config.phone_regex = /^\d{6,15}$/ # 6 to 15 digits

  # Consultations has an annoying and totally useless deprecation warning
  # This plugin removes it by default.
  # If you want to keep it, you can set this config to false
  config.remove_consultation_deprecation_warning = true
end

Track delegated votes and unvotes

Votes and revocations done on behalf of other members are tracked through the versions table using PaperTrail. This enables fetching a log of actions involving a particular delegation or consultation for auditing purposes. This keeps out regular votes and unvotes.

When performing votes and unvotes of delegations you'll see things like the following in your versions table:

  id  |          item_type           | item_id |  event  | whodunnit | decidim_action_delegator_delegation_id 
------+------------------------------+---------+---------+-----------+----------------------------------------
 2019 | Decidim::Consultations::Vote |     143 | destroy | 1         |                                     22
 2018 | Decidim::Consultations::Vote |     143 | create  | 1         |                                     22
 2017 | Decidim::Consultations::Vote |     142 | create  | 1         |                                     23
 2016 | Decidim::Consultations::Vote |     138 | destroy | 1         |                                     23

Note that the item_type is Decidim::Consultations::Vote and whoddunit refers to a Decidim::User record. This enables joining versions and decidim_users tables although this doesn't follow Decidim's convention of using gids, such as gid://decidim/Decidim::User/1.

You can use Decidim::ActionDelegato::DelegatedVotesVersions query object for that matter.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/coopdevs/decidim-module-action_delegator.

Developing

To start contributing to this project, first:

• Install the basic dependencies (such as Ruby and PostgreSQL)
• Clone this repository

Decidim's main repository also provides a Docker configuration file if you prefer to use Docker instead of installing the dependencies locally on your machine.

You can create the development app by running the following commands after cloning this project:

bundle
DATABASE_USERNAME=<username> DATABASE_PASSWORD=<password> bundle exec rake development_app

Note that the database user has to have rights to create and drop a database in order to create the dummy test app database.

Then to test how the module works in Decidim, start the development server:

DATABASE_USERNAME=<username> DATABASE_PASSWORD=<password> bin/rails s

Note that bin/rails is a convenient wrapper around the command cd development_app; bundle exec rails.

In case you are using rbenv and have the rbenv-vars plugin installed for it, you can add the environment variables to the root directory of the project in a file named .rbenv-vars. If these are defined for the environment, you can omit defining these in the commands shown above.

Webpacker notes

As latests versions of Decidim, this repository uses Webpacker for Rails. This means that compilation of assets is required everytime a Javascript or CSS file is modified. Usually, this happens automatically, but in some cases (specially when actively changes that type of files) you want to speed up the process.

To do that, start in a separate terminal than the one with bin/rails s, and BEFORE it, the following command:

bin/webpack-dev-server

Code Styling

Please follow the code styling defined by the different linters that ensure we are all talking with the same language collaborating on the same project. This project is set to follow the same rules that Decidim itself follows.

Rubocop linter is used for the Ruby language.

You can run the code styling checks by running the following commands from the console:

bundle exec rubocop

To ease up following the style guide, you should install the plugin to your favorite editor, such as:

• Sublime Text - Sublime RuboCop
• Visual Studio Code - Rubocop for Visual Studio Code

Non-Ruby Code Styling

There are other linters for Javascript and CSS. These run using NPM packages. You can run the following commands:

1. npm run lint: Runs the linter for Javascript files.
2. npm run lint-fix: Automatically fix issues for Javascript files (if possible).
3. npm run stylelint: Runs the linter for SCSS files.
4. npm run stylelint-fix: Automatically fix issues for SCSS files (if possible).

Testing

To run the tests run the following in the gem development path:

bundle
DATABASE_USERNAME=<username> DATABASE_PASSWORD=<password> bundle exec rake test_app
DATABASE_USERNAME=<username> DATABASE_PASSWORD=<password> bundle exec rspec

Note that the database user has to have rights to create and drop a database in order to create the dummy test app database.

In case you are using rbenv and have the rbenv-vars plugin installed for it, you can add these environment variables to the root directory of the project in a file named .rbenv-vars. In this case, you can omit defining these in the commands shown above.

Test code coverage

Running tests automatically generates a code coverage report. To generate the complete report run all the tests using this command:

bundle exec rspec

This will generate a folder named coverage in the project root which contains the code coverage report.

Localization

If you would like to see this module in your own language, you can help with its translation at Crowdin:

https://crowdin.com/project/decidim-action-delegator-vote

License

This engine is distributed under the GNU AFFERO GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE.

About

This plugin is currently maintained by with much appreciated contributions from other companies.