Do you know of a similar work or product for States? (In particular Texas)

There is the 50 states project that I didn't find out about until after I made this module. It's an API, also created by Sunlight, that works at the state level. Adding support for this to cd_sunlight would be no small undertaking. It would require abstracting out several of the components to make them work at both the state and federal level.

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dalin’s picture

dalin
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Category: feature » task
gregarios’s picture

gregarios commented

I'm interested in using a state-level option if you come up with it... for sure. Subscribing.

Old Man’s picture

Old Man commented

I too would be very interested in this module. State level integration gets my vote!

meecect’s picture

meecect commented

+10000 subscribe.

If you sketch out some of the tasks involved, I'd be willing to chip in some coding help. This would be an extremely powerful addition.

dalin’s picture

dalin
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@meecect sorry for the slow reply, I've been extremely swamped this past month.

Basically what needs to happen is that we need to abstract out the concepts of districts, and look-up services so that the system can integrate with any level of government and with any look-up service. It should probably use the factory pattern.

What is your skill level? Are you familiar with design patterns?

tjhellmann’s picture

tjhellmann
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This would be a great feature for a number of organizations I work with – to have access to this data at a state level and CiviCRM integration. I don't think I have the skill set to contribute code, but I'd be willing to help recruit others and/or find funding. I know of several organizations here in the Boston area who may be willing to contribute funds towards this feature. It would be a great tool for local activism.

adharris’s picture

adharris commented

I'm looking for this feature as well...

@dalin: I can help out with the coding. I'm pretty new to drupal development, but my PHP is pretty solid.

If I understand you right, you are looking to abstract the lookup process into lookup object (which is then pointed at sunlight or elsewhere), and then use a factory to provide the appropriate lookup for a given case. Am I following you?

What is your vision for abstracting out the districts?

meecect’s picture

meecect commented

I have created a chipin page for this work. I'm happy to share the proceeds with whoever contributes to the final project. Here is the page:

http://cliffordmeece.chipin.com/enhancement-of-cdsunlight-drupal-module

@tjhellmann , it would be great if you could reach out to some organizations to help fund the effort.

dalin’s picture

dalin
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If I understand you right, you are looking to abstract the lookup process into lookup object (which is then pointed at sunlight or elsewhere), and then use a factory to provide the appropriate lookup for a given case. Am I following you?

What is your vision for abstracting out the districts?

Sort of. To maintain the ability to use the module without CiviCRM there needs to be a few parts to each lookup object lets call them lookup_service, lookup_views, and lookup_civicrm. lookup_service provides the ability to query the service (or it could be a local file or database even), and optionally store the data locally (like we currently do). lookup_views provides views integration. lookup_civicrm provides fields on the settings page for the admin to choose which CiviCRM custom fields are used for its domain (federal districts, prefects, or what have you). There would have to be something listening to CiviCRM watching for changes, lets call that the Listener. When a contact's address data changes the Listener either puts the contact_id in the lookup queue, or has all the look_civicrm objects do an immediate lookup (depending on the context, just like we do now).

That's my basic plan. It would probably need to be refined and mapped out a bit better.

Unfortunately I don't see myself having availability to code this for at least the next six months.

meecect’s picture

meecect commented

My organization is willing to pay for the development of this feature, but we would like to extend it beyond state reps and down to city aldermanic districts as well.

Is anyone interested in doing this work for a fee? I can discuss the details more if there is interest.