Since I worked Alumni Association of WPSD website for more than a year, and I never get tired of this. I would say biggest thanks to James DeBee when he first asked me that he want me build login system in alumni website. Since then, I bought several my ideas in website for fun part of my work: security level, managements, wiki of Alumni Directory, and blog tools of WPSD News. Without of James' idea for login system in alumni website, all of my ideas would be lagging or very late today.
Now, I have been thinking so much time which I would love to share with you about secrets behind Alumni Directory. I have investigated most of my time to make sure there is no sensitive information to show you what the secrets exposed in Alumni Directory.
What is Alumni Directory and what does this offers? This web site includes the whole list of alumnus names, find some of their geographically locations (mostly in United States), some of every pictures of class group who graduate their year, view list of deceased and association names. Also there is the search function for first, maiden and last names to pull up the current contact information. I used MySQL database and migrated those with PHP into the web site on the fly.
First thing, if it is your first time to go there, you might need to register and confirm your Alumni account, to access into Alumni Directory. The other thing about alumni password-protected login, I developed and created five levels of security in Alumni login system; each security level is: Admin, Board Members, Alumni, Student (WPSD) and Guest. For example, you logged in as alumni of security level; you can access the whole information in our alumni site. If you login as student, you have only limited access to pages, such as History pages, vice versa. Alumni Directory is open for everyone in all five levels. However, the admin can have their authorization to change the security levels on the users.
I developed the friendly browser interface or GUI (Graphics User Interface) front-end database on Alumni Directory site to add, edit, modify and delete its data. It is only allowed for board members to view these; they can have their time to change in anyplace on web browser. You could sneak between two screens what these looks like:
Top: Logged in as Alumni security level
Bottom: Logged in as Board Members security level
You get the idea. For example, the lower security level (alumni, guest and student) only can see the city, state and zip code in Alumni Directory. The higher security level (admin, board members) can view the full address and a link of edit and delete button. It is more like wiki, I call Wiki of Alumni Directory. According to Webopedia, Wiki defines:
The cool feature in Alumni Directory, it also includes the mailing list. I wrote the code to generate all mailing address into portable document format or PDF through browser and print this out by using special paper of mailing labels. Also, I got feedback from board members and listened them what they wanted: The users who modified the existing data and recorded the user name in one data and recorded again in activity log for date and time. And, those old data (address) saved in another database (like backup database), in case if there is mistaken, they can redo this anytime.
Surprising, I have seen very, very few people including me and board members already knew and using wiki in Alumni Directory. Hundreds of WPSD staff, alumnus and especially you didn't know about this... until now. One time, I showed those to a friend and they were totally amazed of my work. A friend said it is smart thing to ease with database through networking, rather than having a file to open through off-line and licensed application software (a.k.a. MS Access, FileMaker, etc.)
The biggest advantage about Alumni Directory and its wiki:
- back-up database in another web hosting server, if the current database screw-up
- No necessary to have stand-alone application
- Modify sharing and confidential information of alumnus for board members only
- The corresponding secretary is responsible updating, adding the old and/or new alumnus
- No cost for network database (but only to web hosting)it helps to save the alumni organization’s financial rather than buying application for its database
There you go. This year, I am focusing to make some changes in Alumni Directory and add some few cool features which you would like to see. I'm learning and gaining my experience; it’s great idea to put this on my resume.
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