Mom Data
Budget Analysis Tool for the Whole Family
Mom Data is a user-friendly application for storing, retrieving and calculating major life expense categories: Food, Transport, Accommodation and Clothing. Mom Data is for family budget keepers. It aims to provide a clear overview of their monthly expenses throughout the year.
The application populates a database from user input, calculates the sum of the monthly expenses and compares it to the given budget. It gives clear user guidance and feedback about the inputs, checks the data to be valid and that the programme flows uninterrupted until the user chooses to end it.
This is the third Portfolio Project in frames of the Code Institute Full Stack Web Developer Course Assessment. It is for educational purposes and developed in Python programming language, which runs in a command-line terminal that is visually presented through the Heroku platform. Further tools and languages will be implemented for the consequent projects.
Live View
Contents:
UX
(User Experience)
The application is intended, foremost for mothers that keep the family budget. However, it is suitable for wide audiences, practically everyone who is willing to document and keep track of their periodic life expenses. Mom Data is intuitive to use and guides the user through the process with input validations and recurring main menu. The project is kept simple to make sure the users can dedicate very little time and achieve desired results. A very important feature, especially for working mothers with children.
NOTE: !! MOM DATA app runs on PC-s or Laptops and is not suitable for mobile phones and is not recommended on tablets.
Features
Welcoming introduction
Mom Data app starts with greeting the user and a short description of its purpose: Here you can get insights about your monthly expenses.
Main menu
The recurring main menu encourages the user to choose between the three menu options, by typing merely the initials of the words:
VIEW
ADD
EXIT
(V)IEW
- Upon typing the letter V (or v, which is accepted by the programme as well), the user immediately sees the current table demonstrating the year's expenses overview. The data is already saved during the previous inputs.
To continue with the application, the main menu again offers to choose between the categories view, add and exit.
(A)DD
- To add new expenses, the user simply enters A (or a). The menu asks to choose an expense month by typing the corresponding numbers. Here it is important to make sure the input leads to the correct location in the database. So if the user enters a wrong number, that does not represent any month, the app will encourage trying over and over again until a specific month is chosen.
Cat is not a number! ... User input validation
Upon choosing the desired month, Mom Data would like to know the budget to compare the expenses with. The user input is taken to update the expenses for that month.
(E)XIT
- Exiting the app is easy and requires typing the initial E(or e). A friendly and concise 'Goodbye' message signals the current budgeting session has been closed.
Future Features:
- Currently, Mom Data works with an existing, prepopulated worksheet, stored on Google API. In a future implementation, each user should be able to create an individual worksheet.
- Additional to standard expenses, custom categories will be added. A possibility will be introduced to edit or remove the Standard categories.
- Downloading and saving the current data will be made possible. At the moment a sharing option can be added only, however, due to complications with a request of opening an own google account, it was decided to leave this option open.
Development Stages
Initial planning
Initially, the main expense categories (Food, Transport, Accommodation, Clothing) were taken from the author's previous project, JavaScript budget calculator https://github.com/annagabain/Mom-Calculator . So was the target user and general functionality inherited to demonstrate a connection between the projects. However, the implementations in Python differ from those in JavaScript.
The initial flowchart focused on expense categories rather than budget months
Later on, during the project development, it became evident the usage of budget comparison was connected to a specific month, and the app flow changed accordingly.
Structure
Final Flowchart
The Python code is written in Gitpod integrated VSCode editor, run.py file. Right after initializing necessary dependencies, global variables and libraries, the 12 project functions lign-up one after the other to provide Mom Data with structured code.
Some functions contain the main content of the app (e.g. main_menu, update_expenses), whereas the others supply them with 'tools' to work with (e.g. locate_the_budget_cell, print_months, etc.)
The 12 functions of the project
Using Libraries
Pandas library was necessary for the implementation of the project. Pandas is a Python library that is used to analyze data. In Mom Data it is used to display the expenses table in a visually appealing way to the user.
Gspread is a Python API for Google Sheets, which was used to store and retrieve the data of the application.
Testing
Manual testing
The testing for this project was done mostly manually, by countless attempts to establish a smooth flow and running the programme over and over again to test the functionality. A 'try breaking it' method proved to be especially effective for user input validation.
Deliberately inputted false data, 'bullet proved' the application to be prone to sudden interruption.
Method: 'breaking' by false input, then adding functions to prevent it
Test: running the app after each major change (e.g. new function)
Result: uninterrupted programme flow and error communication with the user
Method: print() method is used both to communicate with the user as well as check and test data bit by bit for revealing information, such as data types, values and locating code.
Test: put a print() statement at the code breakpoints to catch the error before it occurs.
Result: After finding the desired solution, the print() statement is removed.
Method: Terminal errors and problems indicate the code line that is to be fixed.
Test: go to the line seen in the error message and fix it manually or with the above-mentioned print() statement.
Result: it took several attempts to eliminate the error messages and continue running the programme.
Database and Server Side Testing
The cells to place the values of the inputs were identified and located using Gspread methods described in the official documentation: https://docs.gspread.org/en/latest/user-guide.html
Storing the data results was tested by looking up the table in Google sheets and manually calculating the sum of the values as well as the budget status samples.
Validators
- PEP8
For the time of the final project testing, an intended Python code validation through http://pep8online.com/ was not possible due to technical issues with the website itself. Therefore a suggested workaround was implemented.
Following the suggested steps, some indentation and white space issues were detected and solved manually.
Debugging
Traceback error in the terminal
Bug: the programme could not access the 'months' list
Cause: the list was placed in another function's scope
Solution: 'months' list is put in the global scope, as it is frequently used by several functions in the programme
Months menu bug
Bug: the choose_months_menu contains 12 months accessible through numbers 1 to 12. The user types 13 and the programme could not find that number.
Cause: This input was validated against data type only, let's say if the user typed in some words or any other signs, but not for numbers out of range, i.e. smaller than 1 and larger than 12
Solution: Validate the range between 1 and 12
F-string bugs
Bug: was detected in the terminal, in the problems section only. Although not interrupting the programme flow, it was worth fixing to have cleaner code and fewer error messages
Cause: unnecessary usage of f-string
Solution: the letter 'f' is removed from the corresponding print() statement without string literals
Budget bug
Bug: at this point of the code running the terminal does not know the month_number variable because it will be defined later.
Cause: the setting budget decision was initially placed at the introduction inside the main menu and then moved to be related to the chosen month menu. Option (B)UDGET accidentally stayed within the main menu. However, when the new user hit 'B(b)', there was nothing to display. Although seemingly connected to the variable definition issue, the true problem lies in programme flow in general.
Solution: The bug was solved simply by removing the (B)UDGET option from the main menu.
Deployment
The project is deployed to GitHub via Gitpod Terminal with an integrated VScode editor. Then it is connected to the Heroku app to be reached via a web browser for user convenience. To enable this, a special Code Institute template was cloned and used https://github.com/Code-Institute-Org/python-essentials-template .
The code is placed in run.py file and dependencies are placed in the requirements.txt file. The instruction on Heroku deployment was taken from the Code Institute Love Sandwiches walkthrough project, step by step as required.
Creating the Heroku app
The project was deployed to Heroku as follows:
- Create an account and log into https://www.heroku.com/
- Click 'New' from the dashboard, and from the drop-down menu select "Create new app"
- Make a unique app name: mom-data
- Choose a relevant geographical region, Europe
- Click "Create app"
- In the settings menu, go to "Config Vars" section
- Click "Reveal Config Vars", where type port for "key", 8000 for "value" and click "add"
- Add "Python" first and then "node.js" buildpacks
- In "Deploy" tab, select Github as the deployment method
- Connect to GitHub
- Find the project repository and click "connect" next to it
- "Enable Automatic Deploys" for automatic deployment with every new change
Sources
How to use Pandas: https://datatofish.com/read_excel/
How to Use Google Sheets With Python (2022): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu5wXjz2KvU
Gspread for the project: https://github.com/annagabain/love-sandwiches-walkthrough from Code Institute
Gspread documentation: https://docs.gspread.org/en/latest/user-guide.html
Creating the worksheet on: https://docs.google.com/
Some inspiration from Build A Simple Expense Tracker Using Python: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnKc74fWYCg
How to Validate User Inputs in Python: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUWyA3m_-r0
Global variables: https://www.w3schools.com/python/python_variables_global.asp
Flowchart: https://lucid.app/
Project Repository: https://github.com/
Development environment with integrated Visual Studio Code editor - https://www.gitpod.io/
Am I responsive, testing usability across different devices: https://ui.dev/amiresponsive
Acknowledgments
Richard Wells - the course mentor for friendly guidance, help with refactoring some code and numerous project feedback sessions
Jakob Lövhall - for providing support, including babysitting evenings to allow more time for the project, as well as acting as a test user
Johannes Lövhall - for testing the app as a user to reveal bugs and being asked to break it with incredible inputs
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