Do you know the size of Montenegrin state budget? Do you know where the taxpayers money goes to and how it is distributed?
If your answer is no, than we have a contra-argument that’s only a few clicks away. Brand new, improved and updated portal called mojnovac.me contains all of the data that might interest you. It is the haven of monitoring all of the state’s spending, in detail, divided into municipalities and categories. Users are facing modern infographics, split by revenue and expenditure.
It is all a part of the project “Promoting financial responsibility in Montenegro”, financed by United Kingdom embassy. Upgrade has been funded by the European union, our partners from Institut Alternativa were in charge of implementation and this is their take on the project:
“Our goal was to give users the opportunity to better understand state budget and to make all the information available in just one click. Budget visualisation enables simple check on how the state made money and how the money was spent, and it also shows how the institutions used it – during which program. You can access capital projects using interactive map of Montenegro, which contains all the data concerning every single one of them. “
Making the process of money distribution by state more transparent is where we come in, because it had to be digital. Development was coordinated by our team made of C# developers, designers and project managers. Project was initiated in 2016. And it’s been constantly upgraded since. Today, we have contemporary product, which is modern in terms of design and easy to use. One of the most complex elements that was integrated at the end was to update the content in terms of capital budget of municipalities and then split it to programs. Paving our way to the unique design we used:
Server: Windows Server 2012
Web Server: IIS 8
Database: SQL Server 2014
Application structure: Client Server application RESTFull
Backend: ASP .NET C#
Frontend: JavaScript, Angular.js framework, HTML/CSS, Kendo UI, Grunt
What seems as a simple task, in its form is very complex. Or, how we like to say – we had a ton of work. Infographics, interactive map, design, redesign, search option have been created so the user can get the information he needs – fast. It was Institut Alternativa who gathered the data from state institutions. Our job was to deal with it. Here’s the example of how tough it was: every single budget sheet contains 200+ pages and backup dates to nine years. Data entry had to be done by hand.
But, we made it. And anybody who wonders “Where’s the money”, can get the instant answer, to analyze and make comparisons.
Even that is not all. Everything we’ve done so far is a part of the project which we are proud of, done in two cycles. There is more to come, more to improve and we are ready to use new modules and level up the game in terms of user experience.
