What is SDS?
The Story...
As the days progress, more and more companies are shifting to digital platforms for data management and communication, the same is prevelent in the grocery industry. However, not everyone has the possibility of aquireing those tools and technologies to grow there business. This is what me and my fellow capstone members decided when making the "Schedule Distribution System" or "SDS" for short.
The Journey
Purpose
Throughout my employment at different grocery stores and other part time positions, there was always a common pattern with data management. When handling schedules, we always kept a physical copy on a bulletin board as a means for us to retrieve our next shifts. However, due to the lack of an online presence this form of static communication arises a handful of pretentious and frustrating issues for managers and department heads communicating these new schedules or potential future adjustments to their respective employees. This has led to a lof of confusion when deciding who will be coming in, in replacement of an employee; different employees having opposing versions of the schedule, due to a potential overrite when making an adjustment, causing one or more employees to fall out of the loop, to complete schedule remapping to accomodate even the simplest of miscommunications. Retrieving the information would require either everyone to come into the store to retrieve a photo of their current or future schedule or have the head send out the schedule to all of us shortly after posting in hopes we all have a means of receiving it and there's no future issues with having to change it again. This is where me and my teammates would lend a hand in assisting them with SDS to eliminate these issues.
Competitors
Stafflinq
◦ Undisclosed pricing
Acuity Scheduling
◦ They will charge on average $16 to $49 per month depending on the establishment
Snap Schedule
◦ $450/month per location that uses their software
◦ $36/month per employee under the establishment
These three companies were our primary candidates for what would be the basis for our project, a benchmark if you will. This helped us determine the necessary components and features needed to combat with other apps.
Project Requirements
Pages and Components
◦ My Shifts
◦ Profile Page*
◦ All Shifts Page*
◦ Department Schedule*
◦ Swap and Drop*
◦ Footer / Navbar
◦ Manager Priveleges*
◦ MongoDB
◦ Google Authentication
My Shifts
◦ Displays current shifts
◦ User locked view
◦ Displays all details
◦ Drop and Swap buttons in each shift
◦ Swap shift Function
◦ Drop shift Function
Profile Page
◦ Google information
◦ View Swap Requests
◦ Deny or Accept Requests
◦ Department Schedule*
◦ Swap and Drop*
All Shifts Page
◦ Lists department shifts
◦ Select which to swap
◦ Ability to return to "My Shifts"
◦ Logic locked
◦ Doesn't include user's shifts
◦ Displays shift details
Department Schedule
◦ Display current week
◦ Shows employees in user's department
◦ Shift details upon selection
◦ Modal for shift details
◦ Ability to exit modal
Footer / NavBar
◦ Easy to use icons
◦ Hyperlinks for pages
◦ Schedule
◦ Profile
◦ My Shifts
Manager Priveleges
◦ Manager page access
◦ Approve Requests
◦ Disapprove Requests
◦ Submit next schedule
Challenges
Communication
◦ Merge Conflicts
◦ Extracurricular
◦ Inconsistent messaging (resolved to MS Teams)
Time Constraints
◦ Tight schedule
◦ Short time frame
◦ Little time for polish
◦ Bugs unaddressed
Technical Issues
◦ Vercel launching issues
◦ Database pulling incorrect data
◦ Version control confusion
◦ Database not connecting
Future plans
In the future, we hope to advance this pototype into a fully fledged mobile app, allowing local and small businesses to have a more consistent and efficient form of communication between managers and employees.
Gallery
Mobile
