City of Asheville Purchasing
##The Problem Like many municipalities, the City of Asheville relies on many vendors and suppliers to support the governance of the city. While all purchases are recorded in our financial system, Tyler MUNIS, little has been done to understand patterns of purchasing relative to vendor location, departments served, frequency and/or volume of purchases from specific vendors, etc. To get a better handle on the purchasing patterns in Asheville and to know if the city is effectively marketing the needs for goods and services to a broad range of vendors, we need to analyze and understand our purchasing patterns.
The goal of this exercise is to address the problem above by analyzing available data (see below) and delivering that analysis and any related visualizations. This is intentionally broad to provide plenty of room for creativity and fresh perspectives.
Once we determine meaningful metrics/visualizations, we will need to monitor our progress on an ongoing basis.
##Data
- Purchasing data (vendors, invoices, purchase orders, purchase order line items) are updated nightly from Tyler Munis and are published on the city’s open data catalog - http://opendatacatalog.ashevillenc.gov/opendata/search/?sort=name&dir=asc&qs=invoice
- Also please feel to use any other data on the city's open data portal that might help -http://opendatacatalog.ashevillenc.gov/
- You may also use or link to any other data sources you wish.
##Rules
Keep it simple. We are not looking for a finished product but want to learn a little more about your skills and how you approach problems. Think of your delivery as something “mininmal” that is on the road to awesome. You may submit results via GitHub, Google Drive, DropBox, (or any similar file sharing service) or any way that you prefer.
- Move the data into a MSSQL Server Database. You can download SQL Server Express from Microsoft for free. If you’d rather approach this differently, let us know why.
- Use any reporting tool you like or any other visualization tools/techniques.
- You may use, borrow anything you want but the work should be done by you.
- You may email us with any questions. sbarnwell@ashevillenc.gov or use this repo’s issues.
##Submissions
Detach and send us the database.
Send us any reports or other visualizations that you think would be helpful.
Feel free to send us any documentation or comments on design, set-up, or your approach to the problem.
Have fun!
Please complete your submission by Monday, December 7th, at 9am. Early submissions are welcome!