CapX – .NET Blazor-ing a trail? An(other) operational management tool for RSE groups

Whether you are leading a team of a few RSEs or managing a large department full of all manner of digital research technical professionals, capacity management is an essential activity. That is, knowing what everyone is assigned to work on, at what percentage, and for how long. The “spreadsheet of doom” used to play “Assignment Tetris” was an ineffective tool for the purpose, and so Capacity eXtended (CapX) was developed. However, it didn’t stop there. Frustrated by the lack of frictionless access to good quality data related to people and projects, the CapX data model started to grow, connecting information across the full research lifecycle. CapX now features workload model management for all staff, a competency framework to track development, timesheets, project cost tracking and a secure API so RSEs can build their own tools on top of the database. This walkthrough will demonstrate the features and provide insights into the supporting processes that underpin them. Furthermore, it will discuss the choice of .NET Blazor as its foundation and present as case for why Blazor might be an ideal choice to help diversify your RSE web technology pool.

We acknowledge additional contributions to the CapX code base from Ian Hinder, Andrew Rowley, Chris Lam, Donal Fellows and Maryna Shedzko, all of the RSE department at The University of Manchester.