Overview

Background

This project will manage developments to be made to the Peace Agreements web application and database PA-X (https://www.peaceagreements.org/) for 24/25 until 31st March, and a new project will continue from there to cover the 25/26 Financial Year to match with PeaceRep funding.  The application has been developed over the last 10 years by Development Services to support and publish research carried out by  the Political Settlement Research Programme, (now PeaceRep), and the School of Law.   . Every year, PeaceRep put budget towards additional improvements and a Senior Analyst Developer in the Software Development team is employed to carry out the work on the PA-X. 154 days have been pledged this year, up to the end of March 2025.

John Allison had been the primary contact/developer for the work and remains involved as Senior Supplier. The main purpose of the project is to maintain a view on the Jira log to assist with the organisation and prioritisation of work on PA-X, and budget monitoring (including regularly reporting to the budget holder).

Scope

• Updates to applications  in the PA-X ecosystem, prioritised by Project Team using an Agile approach
• Ensuring all work is organised and prioritised, and deliverables agreed on a fortnightly basis
• Production handover
• Upgrade and migration of Amnesties application to tier 2 Python infrastructure
• Creation of STAGING Environment

Out of scope

• Decommissioning of tier 1 Python infrastructure following Amnesties application migration (agreed with INF169 and Production Management, Jira will be passed to Production Management so decommissioning can start)

Objectives and Deliverables

Benefits

• Regular updates made to applications in the PA-X ecosystem in line with PeaceRep requirements
• Financial updates shared regularly to ensure budget targets are met
• Creates better support for future issues and improvements
• Production Management support of live system will deliver consistent and responsive service
• STAGING Environment will enable to the application to directly support the PeaceRep team's research and publication workflows

Success Criteria

• Stakeholders know what improvements are in the pipeline, what order / when they will be delivered, how they will be resourced
• Continuous Improvements delivered to PA-X
• Business is satisfied with progress and communication 
• Process for managing improvements established and handover to Production

Project Milestones