About ERGO

About ERGO

Introduction

ERGO is a specialized platform for monitoring productivity and well-being in professional environments, conceived by Prof. Dr. Carlo Gabriel Porto Bellini (Porto-Bellini in citations), Full Professor of Business Administration and Human-Computer Interaction (MIS/HCI) at the Department of Business Administration at the Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB).

Developed with a focus on scientific research and organizational management, the system enables structured data collection on working conditions, productivity, effectiveness, and ergonomic factors, supporting statistical analysis and evidence-based decision-making.

Infrastructure and Data Governance

ERGO is hosted on the infrastructure of the Superintendence of Information Technology (STI/UFPB), ensuring high standards of availability, reliability, and institutional security for the platform's data and users.

Technical Team and Development

Technical management, architecture, development, and maintenance of the platform are conducted by Leonardo Américo Bezerra Viana, UFPB employee and Lead Software Architect and Full-Stack Developer responsible for the continuous evolution of the system, implementation of new features, and support of the production environment.

Development Interns:

• Iago Albuquerque Sousa da Silva Guedes
• Emmanuel Gomes Mendonça da Silva
• Hiago da Silva Galdino
• João Vitor Teixeira Barreto

Fundamental Concepts

Tasks

Tasks are the central element of ERGO. Each task can involve different participants, evaluations, and ergonomic records, allowing detailed monitoring of execution conditions and results achieved.

Task Roles

• Observer: Represents the evaluator, client, manager, or person responsible for the demand. Defines success criteria and evaluates the delivered results.
• Incumbent: Responsible for executing the task, recording working conditions, and performing self-assessment upon completion.

Conceptual Foundation

ERGO adopts the Digital Effectiveness framework proposed by Carlo Gabriel Porto Bellini. Task roles are intentionally separated into:

• Observer – the person responsible for defining success criteria and evaluating task outcomes.
• Incumbent – the individual responsible for performing the task and reporting the conditions under which the work was carried out.

This distinction enables ERGO to compare self-perceived effectiveness with external evaluations while considering the environmental, cognitive, and behavioral dimensions of work.

Access Levels

• Superadministrator (SUPERADMIN): Full system access, including global settings, user management, viewing all tasks, and complete data access.
• Administrator (ADMIN): Responsible for team management, task creation, performance monitoring, and overseeing activities under their supervision.
• User (USUARIO): Operational profile focused on task execution, ergonomic information recording, and completing evaluations.

Workflow

The ERGO operational workflow follows the steps below:

1. An Observer creates a task and assigns one or more Incumbents.
2. The Incumbent starts the task, changing its status to DOING.
3. During execution, ergonomic aspects and performance indicators can be recorded.
4. Upon completion, the Incumbent changes the status to DONE and performs their self-assessment.
5. The Observer reviews the delivery and records their evaluation.
6. The results become part of the task history for future analysis.

Task Lifecycle (Statuses)

• DOING: The task is being executed.
• PAUSED: Temporary interruption.
• CANCELED: The task was closed without completion.
• DONE: The task has been completed and is available for evaluation.

Task Attributes

• Difficulty: Perceived complexity level, ranging from 1 to 5.
• Estimated Duration: Estimated time for completion, expressed in days and hours.

Invitations and Sharing

• Email Invitation: The system allows inviting users who do not yet have an account. During task creation/editing, the participant's email is entered. ERGO sends a message with a unique registration link (valid for 48 hours). After registration, the user is automatically linked to the task.
• Share via Link: It is possible to generate a shareable link to request task access. Requests can be approved or rejected by the creator.

Ergonomic Dimensions

ERGO organizes its evaluation logic into three fundamental pillars:

1. Environment: External physical factors influencing work (Temperature, Noise, Lighting).
2. Cognition: Aspects related to mental load and psychological processes (Focus, Stress, Mental Fatigue).
3. Behavior: Aspects related to how work is performed (Posture, Breaks, Work Rhythm).

Personalization and Parametrization

Each user can configure their own monitoring aspects (goals, scales, or reference values). This flexibility adapts the system to offices, remote work, laboratories, or industries.

Evaluations and Daily Effectiveness

ERGO differentiates internal perception from external perception of performance:

• Self Assessment: Performed by the Incumbent upon completion, representing their perception of conditions, personal performance, and effectiveness.
• Observer Evaluation: Performed after the task is delivered, representing the external perception of quality and meeting expectations.

Daily Effectiveness

Continuous productivity monitoring through a daily effectiveness rating (scale 1-5). When recorded, the system captures a snapshot of ergonomic aspects, enabling correlation analyses.

History and Auditing

ERGO maintains a complete and auditable history for detailed analysis:

• Admins / Superadmins: Full access to all records and evaluations across all observers and incumbents.
• Incumbents: Can only view their own history (self-assessments and received evaluations).
• Observers: Can view the history of incumbents linked to their tasks (including the incumbent's self-assessment and their own observer evaluation). To ensure evaluator privacy, observers with user profiles cannot view evaluations submitted by other observers on the same task.
• Other Users: No access to third-party history.

Dashboard and Views

Main Indicators

• Tasks Created by Me: Number of tasks created by the user.
• Tasks as Observer: Number of tasks in which the user acts as observer.
• Task: Number of execution assignments associated with the user (one task may have multiple incumbents, so this number may be higher).

System Architecture

ERGO is developed using the Django (Python) framework and adopts a modular architecture composed of specialized applications:

• accounts: User management, authentication, groups, and permissions.
• tasks: System core (tasks, assignments, evaluations, invitations, and sharing).
• user_aspects: Management of personalized ergonomic aspects and effectiveness history.
• dimensions: Global ergonomic dimension definitions.
• aspects: Definition of aspects used in evaluations.
• units: Measurement unit registration and management.
• pages: Institutional pages, privacy policy, and public content.

Data Export for Research

ERGO offers CSV exports with missing value treatment (empty cells), fully compatible with software such as Jamovi, SPSS, R, Python, and Stata.

Available Datasets

• Effectiveness: Daily data per user, with demographics and effectiveness indicators.
• Task Evaluations: Results linked to Environment, Cognition, and Behavior dimensions.
• Tasks Summary: Aggregated indicators by period.
• Complete Research Database: Consolidated dataset containing over 30 variables (demographics, ergonomic dimensions, evaluations, etc.).

Privacy and Transparency

ERGO is committed to protecting personal data and complying with the Brazilian General Data Protection Law (LGPD). The platform uses only strictly necessary cookies for authentication, security, and proper system operation, and does not perform commercial tracking or share data for advertising purposes.

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