Loomio as redmine plugin?
Duncan PublicSeen by 23Redmine is a CMS system built on ruby that includes forums, wiki, bugtracker and supports a fairly good plugin framework. Due to the modular nature of ruby apps and the strict adherence to MVC principles, it seems to me that making a version of loomio that can be installed as a module in a redmine instance should be relatively easy. Having said that I am not an authority on the subject and have little knowledge of what might be involved or what obstacles are likely to appear.
Can anyone who knows a bit more quickly estimate how viable this idea is and what the likely problems with it might be?
See the redming plugin tutorial for an idea of what a redmine plugin looks like and requires.
Please don't spend too much time on this on my account, I am just curious for now.
Redmine is at its core an issue tracking system, but it has been expanded to the point where it is a viable CMS to govern almost every aspect of a company or organisation's activity. There is a wiki for static reference information, a forum for idle discussion and a bugtracker for managing workload, time and priority of tasks. It also has news and syndication feeds, calendars and a wide array of plugins with similar small modules for whatever the user wants.
What it really lacks is a decision making framework, either for democratically governed organisations, or simply for decisions where there are a lot of stakeholders with different perspectives. I was aware of this lack before I found loomio and that was the first thing I thought of when I saw it. Loomio on the other hand could benefit from being attached to a bugtracker because once a decision to act has been made, it has no framework for seeing this through to completion and managing the day to day activity required to implement the decisions.
As an example use case I am setting up a loosely organised game development cooperative. The group is basically for software development and related activities but there are a lot of different projects, and diverse opportunities to collaborate. Loomio would serve in this example as a decision making framework for when communal resources are required or communal interests are affected. Examples are decisions for the configuration of the CMS, new member applications, whether to collect and spend communal money and what to spend it on, etc.
Another note: Things that occurred to me that might be an issue to integrate are users (assuming both programs use and expect different types of user objects) and permissions. Redmine permissions would not have to necessarily be integrated in a loomio plugin from the start though, just accepting all members with any role in the project would suffice.
Loomio and Redmine are both OAuth providers, meaning you could set up something like 'Log in with Loomio' on a Redmine instance, or 'Log in with Redmine' on a Loomio instance, which seems like a good place to start. Next step would be to get the two apps talking to each other, via webhooks or API requests.
I also notice Redmine has an app on Zapier; I've been playing about with getting a Loomio app up there as well, so you could set up 'Zaps' which would do integrations like "When a proposal with a particular outcome keyword, create an issue in Redmine", or "When Redmine receives a membership application, raise a proposal on Loomio to get a temperature check of if they should be allowed to join." Failing that, the two apps could talk to each other via old fashioned webhooks / API requests (this is how Zapier works under the hood anyway.)
Also, might be worth having a peek at Cobudget, which is another app in the Enspiral ecosystem focused specifically on budgeting of communal resources.
Thanks for the tip about cobudget, I will keep an eye on that it looks interesting. To return the favour I thought I would link https://consider.it/
This project is doing something quite similar to loomio so maybe it is of interest for comparison/inspiration. http://www.kuneagi.org/ is also very interesting.
Hm, what's the end goal here? What the thing that redmine (or Loomio) provides for one another which you'd like to work together?
Without knowing too much about the redmine ecosystem, I think it'd be really hard to turn Loomio into a plugin or rails engine for another system. But if I had a handle on the overarching use case a little better I might be able to suggest a more palatable approach; Loomio's getting to a point where it can play with other systems pretty nicely given a little elbow grease.