data.vulekamali.gov.za (CKAN)

Vulekamali uses an installation of CKAN to organise data with groups, formats and other metadata, provide a data discovery API.

Usage on vulekamali

Production: https://data.vulekamali.gov.za/

Sandbox: https://sandbox-data.vulekamali.gov.za/

vulekamali CKAN is used to manage the data displayed on Vulekamali, for example (but not limited to):

Datasets contain Resources and metadata.

Metadata is just data about data, e.g. the description of what's contained in the dataset, and also classifying information like a specific financial year, sphere, department, or government that the dataset relates to.

Resources can be files (structured data, semi-structured data, documents), or links (URLs) to these or just to other websites.

Examples of structured data on vulekamali:

  • Adjusted Estimates of Expenditure data

  • Audit Outcomes data

  • Estimates of Provincial Expenditure data

Groups (Vulekamali categories)

Groups allow us to categorise datasets

  • Adjusted Budget Vote Documents

  • Bills of Revenue

  • Estimates of Provincial Expenditure

Best Practices

  • If your dataset exists across multiple financial years, create one dataset per financial year.

  • It is better to upload documents rather than link to them - links can go stale.

  • Dataset titles and slugs should be human readable i.e. contain full names instead of acronyms.

  • No duplication.

  • Include data for each financial year available.

  • If you've deleted a dataset or resource - be sure to purge it afterwards, otherwise it won't actually be deleted and you'll get a message like "That URL is already in use" when trying to recreate it.

Code and configuration

The github repository contains the code for the vulekamali CKAN installation.

Use the Sandbox CKAN configuration playbook for deployment reference https://github.com/OpenUpSA/ansible-config/blob/master/apps/vulekamali/ckan-sandbox.yml

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