LUDIS

Trailblazers

Proposed level of Achievement

Artemis

Project Scope

Development of a mobile application to facilitate booking of facilities in halls, residential colleges and residences

Motivation

After having lived in NUS for over a semester, as students we believe that there is a need for a centralized booking system to streamline and improve the booking process. There are a multitude of problems associated with booking these facilities and there is a need for some change.

As of today, students at Prince George’s Park find it inconvenient to book facilities such as meeting rooms, seminar rooms and multipurpose sports hall, as one has to book at least 3 days in advance over email. Moreover, despite the availability of the facilities, students are often unable to use these facilities due to the delay in processing the booking requests. Furthermore, time conflict resolution is also another pressing concern as time conflicts cannot be indicated till the processing of the request. Such problems can be easily solved by an application to book common facilities.

These problems related to booking of common facilities are also present in many other halls, residential colleges and residences and we believe that we can create an application to solve such problems similar to REBOKS NUS which is an application to book sports facilities in UTown and University Sports Centre.

User Stories

• As a resident, I want to be able to view the various facilities and their timetable.
• As a resident, I want to be able to book facilities like the seminar rooms, meeting rooms and the sports hall instantly for upto a week in advance
• As a student, I want to be able to extend, cancel or modify my booking.
• As a student, I want to be able to book facilities at any time irrespective of whether or not the management office is open.
• As a leader of a student interest group or the management committee member of a I will be able to book facilities 14-21 days in advance
• As a PGP Management committee member, I will be able use the application like an admin. I will be able to book and cancel bookings.
• As a PGP Management committee member, I will be able to update facilities such as updating time table, opening hours, active days etc.

Features

• Login

  • Students can login using their NUS Email ID or NUSNET ID

• Facilities Directory

  • View all facilities and view the days time table
  • Every type of facility will have a small description and photo

• Booking Facilities

  • Residents will be able to book facilities upto 7 days in advance
  • Certain specific users like leaders of student interest groups and other individuals organising events in PGP will be able to book 14-21 days in advance
  • The management office will also have increased booking capabilities to allow then to book in advance, cancel bookings and modify facilities timetable etc

• Review Bookings

  • Residents will be able to view their bookings
  • Residents will be able to extend bookings subject to availability.
  • Residents will be able to cancel bookings.
  • Residents will be able to modify bookings subject to availability.

• Luxury Features Subject to Availability of Time

  • Suggestion of alternate facilities and timings
  • Residents will be able to view new events and register for them
  • Residents will be able to register and join the recreational groups

Timeline

• By end of May

  • Create a master plan or documentation
    • Research and Understand the Tech Stack
    • Decide the functionality and constraints of the features
  • Create a few Figmas for UI/UX and conduct basic user acceptance testing (UAT) to better understand the needs of the users and update requirements if needed.
  • Meet with PGP Management to understand and explain the need for a booking system and understand their requirements and rules and regulations to help create a better application for the booking system.
  • Learn Flutter and Firebase to begin developing the application.

• By end of June

  • Create the Facilities Directory feature
    • Add the Description and Photos of all facilities
    • View the schedule of the facilities
  • Create the Booking Facilities feature
    • Implement the anti-collision module to maintain the consistency of the bookings and identify conflicting bookings
    • Create a record of the booking and integrate Email notifications
  • Work on the Review Bookings feature
    • View your bookings
    • Implement extending, cancelling and modifying bookings

• By end of July

  • Create the Minimum Viable Product(MVP)
    • Create the basic Architecture
    • Create all the basic features like login, book facilities, review facilities, facilities directory, settings etc.
  • Work on the mobile app both Android and iOS versions to ensure that both function similarly and the UI/UX is similar and up to the standards of other NUS Apps.
  • Testing extensively to ensure both Android and iOS versions of the application run smoothly by conducting both a part release Beta test and complete automated regression testing.
  • Review the application with the mentor and advisor to better understand the problems, shortcomings, design and functionality of the app to make changes where necessary.
  • Refine the UI/UX and features after beta testing and the review of the application.
  • Implement Luxury Features is time permits

• By end of August

  • Work on feedback from the users and mentors
  • Further enhance the UI/UX
  • Prepare for the final presentation and documentation of the application.
  • Discuss future steps and Conduct a meeting with PGP to create this system to book facilities.

Software Development Plan

We plan to use Confluence and Jira Software to unleash the potential in our development team. We will use the Product Requirements Blueprint to capture our requirements, then create our Jira epic and other issues right from the requirements page in Confluence. By choosing the Create Jira Issue link, we will create stories in Jira and then automatically link them to our epic. In this way we will be able to track the progress of the stories from the Confluence page or from within Jira. The tight integration between Confluence and Jira Software facilitates in easy access of issues from the Confluence page also enabling to see their status at a glance. From within Jira software the links to related Confluence pages can also be viewed.

Tech Stack

• Flutter
• Dart
• Firebase