The problem was clear, but unfortunately the solution was not; the office needed
a better way to manage the FPC project. I worked with my supervisor to create
a robust system that would help clean up the overall process. The first step was
to build an online application where the students could apply in numbers greater
than 150. After the online application was built we focused our efforts in creating
a staff site that could be used to perform the hiring process. Hiring was made
simple by the fact that application data was rolled over for those students who
were selected to become FPC's. Once the hiring process was complete, the next
task was to plan for the scheduling of roughly 20 full days of events.
For those who do not know, the
University
of Pittsburgh has an average freshman class of about 3,000 students. Since
the FPC's are responsible for orienting all 3,000 students over a 20 day span
there is great need for maximum organization. The system that we built allows
the office staff to automatically fill schedules for the 12 hour days that utilize
all 40 or so FPC's. Once the schedules are made, the FPC's can login to their
private site to update necessary demographic data, change their availabilities,
check schedules and find resources needed on the go. After each event has been
completed, the system automatically generates payroll information for each student
based on the schedules that were generated.
Although the tasks sounds easy in concept, the reality of implementing a project
of this size with only a two person team meant a lot of overtime and planning.
The outcome has been successful and changes are continually made to tweak the
system. All of the code was written in the .net platform and used Microsoft
SQL server as the backend database. The screen shots above show parts of the
backend for reviewing applications, the schedules that are dynamically generated
for the FPC's private site, and some of the forms that the FPC's can change
via thier portal.
Photos
