The Rotary Club of Truro Community Yearbook Application

This was a large project that took a lot of planning, time and dedication to complete. After meeting with members of The Rotary Club, I established the application outline that the Rotarians (Rotary Club members) could use to sell and set up an ad in the Community Yearbook; a page for the solicitor (Rotarian selling the ad), a page for the photographer, a page for the sponsor (person or business purchasing the ad), some administration pages and a login system to determine the user.

The solicitor page is where the journey begins. A Rotarian can login to the system using their own unique id to see which sponsors they have been assigned, along with any necessary information they might need about the sponsor. Using this page, a Rotarian can then tell the application if the request for an ad has been declined or accepted by a sponsor. The Rotarian is also able to change any incorrect data that is shown on this page.
When a Rotarian tells the application that a sponsor has approved an ad, the application takes that infomation and starts to build an ad for the customer internally and informs the photographer that a photograph of the sponsor needs to be uploaded.

When the photographer logs into the system, he is presented with a list of sponsors that require photographs to be uploaded to continue the application process, along with the same information that is displayed to the solicitor. He may also view the sponsors that have already had a photo uploaded, in the event that those sponsors would like their photo changed. The photographer is able to email the sponsor from here as well.
Once the photographer is ready to upload a photo, he can easily do so along with any additional information about the photo (names of people in the photo, etc...). When a photo is uploaded for a sponsor for the first time, login information is dynamically created for the sponsor and emailed to them. If there is no email for the sponsor, a message is displayed to inform the photographer.

Once the sponsor receives their login information, they can view a special sponsor page which displays their ad and its information for approval. The sponsor is then able to make small changes to the information on this page if something is incorrect. If the sponsor approves the ad, an invoice is generated, saved in a pdf file and then emailed to the sponsor. If the sponsor is unable to fix any errors with the ad here, they have the option to disapprove the ad and explain why. An admininstrator will then receive the disapproval message and can deal with the situation accordingly.

The administration pages are where admins can view all the necessary infomation with ease. The information is spread out over two pages; one page focuses on ad data exculsively and the other handles all other data. Using these two pages admins can send emails and invoices, approve ads and payments manually, assign solicitors to sponsors, change passwords, receive alerts about disapproved ads and other issues, and modify any data they need to.

Communication was critical to the success of this project. From the beginning, a flow of the program needed to be established. Working with the Rotarians was key to getting this accomplished. After some extensive discussion and questioning, a plan of action was established. With the program flow planned out, work moved onto prototype pages.

The application was written from scratch; no Wordpress, no templates and only one plugin (for the PDF). By relying on as little external software as possible, we intend to keep updates and vulnerabilities to a minimum. The pages are written with ASP.NET using C# and JavaScript. Handler scripts with proper data filtering and sanatizing are used for all of the data transfers.

A lot of thought went into the design of the application with regular input from The Rotary Club. The Rotarians placed a strong emphasis on ease of use and simplicity. Great care was taken to make sure the application had the look that The Rotary Club were striving for.

A large amount of data is created and transfered to several locations during the application process. Proper communication between the application's pages and the database were a primary concern during development. Because the proper planning had been done, I was easily able to successfully maintain data integrity throughout the entire application.

During this project I had to learn how to program and build a PDF dynamically. The original software that was intended for use had a license requirement and required a fee. Not wanting to accrue any additional costs on the project, I searched and discovered a free version that suited the project's needs. While documentation for the new software was limited, I was successfully able to complete the necessary switch and deliver a beautiful invoice in a timely manner. Click the image to the right for a sample.

The application was a huge success. After a brief demonstration at a large, member-wide meeting, I deployed the project shortly after with little error. Just as intended, the application has helped The Rotary Club make the Community Yearbook a much easier, simpler and enjoyable experience, for everyone involved.