Welcome to the guide for setting up the Student Union Internal Management System!
This comprehensive guide aims to assist Student Union leaders, administrators, and IT professionals in hosting a robust and user-friendly Internal Management System tailored to their specific requirements. By following the steps outlined here, you'll be able to streamline administrative processes, enhance communication and collaboration, and empower your Student Union to thrive.
So, let's dive in and embark on the journey of setting up an efficient and effective Student Union Internal Management System.
The Student Union Internal Management System runs on a Linux (Ubuntu) server hosted on a cloud service, eliminating maintenance and hardware costs. Cloud hosting provides a scalable and secure environment, allowing easy access and ensuring data integrity.
There are a variety of different services that offer cloud hosting services, so it does not make sense to identify a particular one here. Choose one that has servers close to your region and is affordable.
You will also need to have purchased a domain that points to the IP address of your server.
💡 Tip - Here are some general instructions for how to configure a domain for your server.
- Choose a domain registrar: There are many domain registrars available, such as GoDaddy, Namecheap, and Google Domains. Choose one that suits your needs and budget.
- Search for available domains: Use the registrar's search tool to find an available domain that you like. You can search for domains by keyword, or by entering a specific domain name.
- Purchase the domain: Once you have found an available domain that you like, follow the registrar's instructions to purchase it. You will need to provide your contact information and payment details.
- Access your domain registrar's DNS settings: Once you have purchased your domain, you will need to access your domain registrar's DNS settings to point your domain towards the IP address of your server. The exact steps for doing this will depend on your registrar, but you should be able to find instructions in their documentation.
- Add an "A" record: In your DNS settings, add an "A" record that points your domain towards the IP address of your server. The exact steps for doing this will depend on your registrar, but you will typically need to enter the IP address of your server in the "Value" field of the "A" record.
- Wait for DNS propagation: Once you have added the "A" record, it may take some time for the changes to propagate across the internet. This can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours.
Once you have purchased a cloud server and a domain, you will need to access its terminal to host the system on it. I recommend the PuTTY SSH tool to do this.
💡 Tip - To SSH into a cloud Linux server using PuTTY, follow these simple instructions:
- Download and install PuTTY: Visit the PuTTY website (https://www.putty.org/) and download the appropriate version of PuTTY for your operating system. Install PuTTY by following the on-screen instructions.
- Obtain server credentials: The cloud service should provide the IP address and the username and password for your server.
- Launch PuTTY: Open PuTTY from your computer's programs or applications menu.
- Configure the connection: In the PuTTY configuration window, enter the server IP address in the "Host Name" field. Make sure the "SSH" option is selected, and the port is set to 22 (the default SSH port).
- Save the session: Optionally, you can enter a name for your session in the "Saved Sessions" field and click the "Save" button to save these settings for future use.
- Connect to the server: Click the "Open" button to initiate the SSH connection.
- Provide login credentials: A new terminal window will open. Enter the username provided by your cloud service provider and press "Enter." If you are using a password for authentication, enter it when prompted. If you are using an SSH key, refer to the next step.
- Configure SSH key authentication (if applicable): If you are using an SSH key instead of a password, follow these additional steps: a. Click "Connection" in the left panel of the PuTTY configuration window. b. Expand the "SSH" section and select "Auth." c. Click the "Browse" button and locate your private key file on your local machine. d. Click "Open" to return to the main configuration window.
- Complete the login process: After providing the appropriate credentials (either password or SSH key), press "Enter" to log in to the cloud Linux server via SSH using PuTTY. Once connected, you can execute commands and perform administrative tasks on the cloud Linux server through the PuTTY terminal window.
Download the setup script using the following line.
curl -o setup.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/chungchunwang/Student-Union-System/main/app/scripts/setup.sh Execute the setup script using the following. Make sure to follow the on screen instructions.
bash setup.shFirst, install MySQL Workbench at https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/workbench/. Connect to your server.
💡 Tip - Here are the steps to connect to a MySQL server via MySQL Workbench:
- Open MySQL Workbench.
- Click on the "+" icon in the "MySQL Connections" section of the home screen.
- Enter a name for the connection in the "Connection Name" field.
- Enter the domain of your sever in the "Hostname" field.
- Click on the "Store in Vault" button to securely store the password for the root user.
- Click on the "Test Connection" button to test the connection to the MySQL server. If the connection is successful, click on the "OK" button to save the connection.
- Once you have saved the connection, you can double-click on it in the "MySQL Connections" section to connect to the MySQL server.
Download the base MySQL setup for Budibase here.
Click Server->Data Import, and select Import from Self-Contained File. Next to Default Target Schema, select New and input the name of the schema (database) you wish to create. It is recommended convention that you name the schema after the particular school year this system is for. Thus, you can have multiple copies of the database for different years. Select the setup file you downloaded. To begin the import, click the Start button at the bottom of the page.
Navigate to the Global_Variables table, and click the rightmost button to view its contents. Notice that there is a row entitled Quarter. This is used by the system to determine the current quarter of the school year. Its possible values are Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4. Make sure to update this variable as necessary.
If you access your domain at the port you provided during the setup process, you should see a running, blank Budibase instance. Follow the onscreen instructions to setup an admin account. We will not need to build an app from scratch, we just have to load in the saved app file.
Go to the dashboard. We will now configure the global Budibase settings.
Go to Email, and configure the SMTP settings for an email address for the system to send automated emails with. You may have to create a free online email for this step, or contact your school administrator to obtain another school email.
Below you can set email templates. You can use the defaults there. Slightly modified versions of the defaults that are recommended can be found here.
Go to Organization, and input the name of your student union. Also upload its logo. Add the URL of your site to Platform URL. Make sure to include the port if necessary (eg. example.com:100). Save your changes.
Go to Plugins, and click add plugin. Choose URL as the source, and add the following urls:
- https://github.com/chungchunwang/Budibase-File-Upload/releases/download/v1.1.8/Budibase-File-Upload-1.1.8.tar.gz
- https://github.com/chungchunwang/Budibase-File-Repeater/releases/download/v1.1.3/Budibase-File-Repeater-1.1.3.tar.gz
- https://github.com/andz-bb/budibase-component-accordion/releases/download/v1.2.0/accordion-1.2.0.tar.gz
- https://github.com/MartinPicc/budibase-interval-plugin/releases/download/v1.1.1/Interval-1.1.1.tar.gz
- https://github.com/rosnerdev/bb-qr-code/releases/download/v1.0.0/bb-qr-code-1.0.0.tar.gz
- https://github.com/aptkingston/budibase-comment-box/releases/download/v1.0.2/comment-box-1.0.2.tar.gz
- https://github.com/chungchunwang/Budibase-QR-Code-Scanner/releases/download/v1.0.2/QR-Code-Scanner-1.0.2.tar.gz
Go to https://github.com/chungchunwang/Student-Union-System/tree/main/app/budibase/exports and download the latest version of the app. On the dashboard, click Create new app, and then Import app. Here, give the app a name and then import the file. It is recommended that you give the app the same name as the database.
After you have logged in, change the configuration for MySQL to have Host be your domain name and Password be the password you set for MySQL during the setup process. Set Database to be the name of your schema. Save your configuration.
On the dashboard, click on the Users tab, and import the emails of the people you wish to invite to the system. You can make use of a CSV file. Make sure to set regular users as App User, not Dev or Admin.
Then, click Manage on your app, and select the Access tab. Add the users you imported into you app. You will have to specify their level of access between either Admin, Power, and Basic. Consult the user documentation for the Student Union System for more information about what each of these categories entails.
This can be rather tedious if you have a lot of users, however you will only have to do it once a year! Unfortunately an easier method is a paid feature of Budibase. Alternately you can try to setup an automatic script to do this with the Budibase API, though you will have to figure that one out for yourself.
Go to the Groups section of the MySQL database inside the Data tab of the Budibase app. Here, add all of the different groups that are present in your school. You can save this to a csv and upload it for successive years. A recommended system of groups used here at Hanvos-Kent can be found here.
Go to the Design tab, and view the page for the Bug Report. Click on the Bug Report button component, and change action it triggers to go to a particular page you want bug reports to your system to be reported. If you think this is unnecessary, just delete this page.
For some reason, the accordion plugin does not work properly when imported. To fix this, go to /tasks/new/:group in the design tab of the app, select the accordion component (inside the Users section), and toggle the default states to closed and then back to on. This seems to "wake the plugin up".
The app is designed to work over a particular school year. Over multiple school years, you will need to maintain a new version of the app as detailed in the instructions above (though you will not need to reset up Budibase and MySQL, just add a new app and schema respectively - thus, you DO NOT need to rerun the install script). For archivial purposes, it is recommended that you maintain the Budibase app and MySQL schema for past school years, but set the MySQL schema to read only. To do so, use the SQL command:
ALTER Schema `SCHEMA NAME HERE` READ ONLY = 1;If there is any reason that necessitates the movement of servers, you will need to migrate your MySQL schemas and Budibase apps over to the new server.
Firstly, on the new server, run the setup script above to install Budibase and MySQL. Follow the later steps below that if you also need to setup a blank app for a new school year.
Just like we loaded a blank MySQL setup to install a blank app, we can also save our schemas to files that can be loaded onto a new server.
In MySQL Workbench, connect to your original MySQL server, and go to Server -> Data Export. Select the schemas you wish to migrate, then select Export to Self-Contained File. At the bottom, check the Include Create Schema checkmark. This means that you will not need to rename each of the schemas as we did for the base schema above - it will import later with the name you have set. Click Start Export to begin the file export.
On the new server, go to Server -> Data Import. Select Import from Self-Contained File, and select the file you just generated in the step above. Then, click Start Import.
Now, your MySQL schemas should be moved to the new server.
Migrating Budibase apps is quite straightfoward. For each of the apps you wish to migrate, click on Manage, then the ... button, then Export Published. This should download to your device a file that represents the app. On the new Budibase server, click Create New App, then Import app. Drag your exported file into the File to import section, and type in the name of your file.