iStep in action

·1 Feb ’16
·Sinead O'Brien

What is iStep

iStep is a web based intervention developed by Sheffield Hallam University as part of the EU funded project Innovage. Its aims were to both promote and enable healthy, active lifestyles towards a reduction in levels of problematic obesity in increasingly aging populations. iStep stands for ‘Intergenerational Support To Encourage Physical Activity’.

The iStep tool was designed to allow a younger and an older person to form a partnerships and track their physical activity. Two people would pair up to form a dyad. They could then compete against other pairs to complete a challenge. Users of the system could see how much activity they had done, compare their progress with other dyads teams, and work towards a series of collective goals, by logging onto the on-line iStep environment.

How does iStep work?

The videos below illustrate each stage of using the iStep platform.

Register with the website : Step 1

Join a group: Step 2

Find a partner: Step 3

Add your steps: Step 4

View your progress: Step 5

How do I build this/Where is the code

The iStep prototype was built on top of WordPress.The live site (assuming it hasn’t been take down yet) should be available here (update:it has now been taken down). A website overview is available here. Information on one of the trials is available here.

The iStep platform is composed of a variety of plugins and themes from various sources. As well as using existing well known plugins such as BuddyPress the site also required the creation of various custom plugins, themes and language code. A full technical document detailing how to set up the system is available on request.

The following plug-ins are required:

Plugin name & URL	Description
Innovage BuddyPress Group Challenge bitbucket code here	Extends BuddyPress groups to have a challenge route. Allows administrator(s) to create and modify routes.It alters the BuddyPress Group-> Manage->Detail page to have three new fields related to creating a challenge. A challenge route: Routes as created using the plugin innovage_routes A challenge type: a) Competitive dyad challenge b) Collaborative dyad challenge c) Competitive individual challenge d) Collaborative individual challenge A challenge end date: Date field.In addition requires that Buddypress is installed.
Innovage Bulk Create Members For Group bitbucket code here	Allow a BuddyPress group administrator to create user accounts in bulk and make these users members of the same group automatically. There are currently no admin options.
Innovage Export Users bitbucket code here	Plugin to allow an administrator user to export user and step data to a CSV file for iStep platform. The extracted data is used for reporting and evaluation.
Innovage FPDF bitbucket code here	Generate an instruction and info sheet for group manager to provide to group members. When called will generate a page GroupAndChallengeInfo.pdf. Generated PDF is currently empty. A page must be created on wordpress to hold the called page with shortcode [view_admin_challenge_file]. Call to page must be embedded somewhere in the template. Plugin incomplete – no content for generated PDF.
Innovage Messages bitbucket code here	Allows members to send hardcoded ‘Kudos’ messages to other site members. Hides site wide and group activity streams. Limits profile activity to Personal and Mentions(where mentions has been renamed to Kudos). Disables commenting and favouriting on an activity. There are currently no admin options.
Innovage_Miscellaneous bitbucket code here	Miscellaneous functions to support iStep that do not fit into the other plugins or the theme. Functions relate to the following; Table installation for handing historical deleted groups and users A new version for the user notification email Delete user – throw data in a table Delete group – throw data in a table Show BuddyPress name in column on admin dashboard -> users page -> list of users
Innovage_NoDashNoBar bitbucket code here	Innovage NoDashNoBar is a plugin to hide the following sections from all users except the administrator; the dashboard the admin bar the user profile If a user attempts to go to the profile page or dashboard directly they will be automatically redirected back to the sites home page. There are currently no admin options. There are existing plugins that will provide SOME of this functionality already. However this would require the installation of multiple plugins, each with a range of bulky additional features.
Innovage Pedometer bitbucket code here	Innovage pedometer is a BuddyPress plugin to allow a logged in user to keep track of their steps and partner up with other users. It allows logged in users to enter their step count for a day. To the user profile the following tabs and pages are added: Steps: Page to allow user or their partner to add steps. Displays steps taken over the last 30 days. Also displays a graph for each of the challenges a user has joined. To the group profile the following tabs and pages are added: Individual steps: shows animated map of users progress and graph of progress for all users. Partner steps: shows animated map of users dyad and a graph of progress for all dyads. This is only available on dyad challenges. Partners : Allows group owner and users with edit permissions (editor/administrator) to create partnerships within a group.Animated maps are created and managed via separate plugin: innovage_bp_group_challenge. There are currently no admin options.
Innovage Routes bitbucket code here	Allows editor and admin users to create routes via google maps. Use the shortcode [innovage_routes_tool] on a page to allow a user with edit permissions to Build a route via google maps View/Delete existing routes Edit existing routes Designed to be used with innovage_pedometer and innovage_bp_group_challenge. There are currently no admin options.
Innovage Special User bitbucket code here	Allows a logged in user to create a ‘fake’ user account for another person. Will also join the user to the specified group and create a dyad between the two users. Relies on the presence of innovage_pedometer plugin. Innovage Special User is a plugin that has been designed to allow a logged in user to create a user account for someone who will never actually use the site. This will have limited use for anything outside of the iStep website. On iStep this will be used in the case where we have a person with technical skills who wants to do a partner challenge with a person who doesn’t have internet access or technical skills. The technical user can create the account for their partner and manage their steps. The non technical user can still do the challenge but does not have to learn how to use the site. When the technical user creates the account, the account is automatically added to the same group and partnered with the creator user. Requires innovage_pedometer to function fully. There are currently no admin options.
Twilio for wordpress bitbucket code here	Allow users to text in the number of steps they have walked and update the site accordingly. In alpha only as told to stop working on. Hoped to eventually build the plugin to allow site members to text in the number of steps they have walked. This was put on hold until the practical application could be proven. Very heavily based on plugin ‘Twilio For WordPress’ by Marcus Battle. Got as far as creating a function (twilio_istep_parse_sms) to parse trusted input.
Innovage Moves bitbucket code here	Beta plugin. Due to time constraints this plugin has not been fully tested or placed on live site. Allows members to link their iStep account to their Moves account via OAuth 2.0 and then imports walking step counts from the moves API. Requires innovage_pedometer plugin to be installed and active. Admin options to set moves API client id, moves secret code and istep redirect url.

Plugin name & URL

Description

Innovage BuddyPress Group Challenge

bitbucket code here

Extends BuddyPress groups to have a challenge route. Allows administrator(s)
to create and modify routes.It alters the BuddyPress Group-> Manage->Detail page to have three new fields related to creating a challenge.
A challenge route: Routes as created using the plugin innovage_routes
A challenge type:
a) Competitive dyad challenge
b) Collaborative dyad challenge
c) Competitive individual challenge
d) Collaborative individual challenge
A challenge end date: Date field.In addition requires that Buddypress is installed.

Innovage Bulk Create Members For Group

bitbucket code here

Allow a BuddyPress group administrator to create user accounts in bulk and make these users members of the same group automatically.
There are currently no admin options.

Innovage Export Users

bitbucket code here

Plugin to allow an administrator user to export user and step data to a CSV file for iStep platform. The extracted data is used for reporting and evaluation.

Innovage FPDF

bitbucket code here

Generate an instruction and info sheet for group manager to provide to group members. When called will generate a page GroupAndChallengeInfo.pdf. Generated PDF is currently empty. A page must be created on wordpress to hold the called page
with shortcode [view_admin_challenge_file]. Call to page must be embedded
somewhere in the template. Plugin incomplete – no content for generated PDF.

Innovage Messages

bitbucket code here

Allows members to send hardcoded ‘Kudos’ messages to other site members. Hides
site wide and group activity streams. Limits profile activity to
Personal and Mentions(where mentions has been renamed to Kudos). Disables commenting and favouriting on an activity.

There are currently no admin options.

Innovage_Miscellaneous

bitbucket code here

Miscellaneous functions to support iStep that do not fit into the other plugins
or the theme. Functions relate to the following;
Table installation for handing historical deleted groups and users
A new version for the user notification email
Delete user – throw data in a table
Delete group – throw data in a table
Show BuddyPress name in column on admin dashboard -> users page -> list of users

Innovage_NoDashNoBar

bitbucket code here

Innovage NoDashNoBar is a plugin to hide the following sections from all users except the administrator;

the dashboard
the admin bar
the user profile

If a user attempts to go to the profile page or dashboard directly they will be automatically redirected back to the sites home page. There are currently no admin options. There are existing plugins that will provide SOME of this functionality already. However this would require the installation of multiple plugins, each with a range of bulky additional features.

Innovage Pedometer

bitbucket code here

Innovage pedometer is a BuddyPress plugin to allow a logged in user to keep track
of their steps and partner up with other users. It allows logged in users to
enter their step count for a day.
To the user profile the following tabs and pages are added:

Steps: Page to allow user or their partner to add steps. Displays steps taken over the last 30 days. Also displays a graph for each of the challenges a user has joined.

To the group profile the following tabs and pages are added:

Individual steps: shows animated map of users progress and graph of progress for all users.
Partner steps: shows animated map of users dyad and a graph of progress for all dyads. This is only available on dyad challenges.
Partners : Allows group owner and users with edit permissions (editor/administrator) to create partnerships within a group.Animated maps are created and managed via separate plugin: innovage_bp_group_challenge. There are currently no admin options.

Innovage Routes

bitbucket code here

Allows editor and admin users to create routes via google maps. Use the shortcode [innovage_routes_tool] on a page to allow a user with edit permissions to

Build a route via google maps
View/Delete existing routes
Edit existing routes

Designed to be used with innovage_pedometer and innovage_bp_group_challenge. There are currently no admin options.

Innovage Special User

bitbucket code here

Allows a logged in user to create a ‘fake’ user account for another person. Will also join the user to the specified group and create a dyad between the two users. Relies on the presence of innovage_pedometer plugin.

Innovage Special User is a plugin that has been designed to allow a logged in user to create a user account for someone who will never actually use the site. This will have limited use for anything outside of the iStep website. On iStep this will be used in the case where we have a person with technical skills who wants to do a partner challenge with a person who doesn’t have internet access or technical skills. The technical user can create the account for their partner and manage their steps. The non technical user can still do the challenge but does not have to learn how to use the site.

When the technical user creates the account, the account is automatically added to the same group and partnered with the creator user. Requires innovage_pedometer to function fully. There are currently no admin options.

Twilio for wordpress

bitbucket code here

Allow users to text in the number of steps they have walked and update the site accordingly. In alpha only as told to stop working on.

Hoped to eventually build the plugin to allow site members to text in the number of steps they have walked. This was put on hold until the practical application could be proven.

Very heavily based on plugin ‘Twilio For WordPress’ by Marcus Battle. Got as far as creating a function (twilio_istep_parse_sms) to parse trusted input.

Innovage Moves

bitbucket code here

Beta plugin. Due to time constraints this plugin has not been fully tested or placed on live site. Allows members to link their iStep account to their Moves account via OAuth 2.0 and then imports walking step counts from the moves API. Requires innovage_pedometer plugin to be installed and active. Admin options to set moves API client id, moves secret code and istep redirect url.

To read more about my code and tech adventures go here.