Questionnaires Application

This is another project of European School of English Malta (ESE) using SoapGateQ! for Domino and its Flex/Flash components.

Background
ESE's COO (Chief Operations Officer) has in the past implemented a number of quick solutions to day to day operational requirements using Microsoft Access. In the majority this development consists of more or less complex forms to collect information required for the schools quality assurance and related reports and statistics. 

Because of the importance to the school's operations the MS Access database has been growing exponentially in the last few years and its size is now reaching the limits for a (functional) MS Access database. The MS Access "platform" as such is simply not designed for such data volume.

The Solution
As ESE already has a Domino infrastructure, the conclusion is obviously to migrate the data to a Lotus Notes database. The latter being much more scalable and more secure. The only real question was whether to choose the Lotus Notes Client as the platform to work with the database (as all operational users are in fact Notes Client user) or if it would make more sense to choose the browser as the client.

As ESE's long term strategy is to move away from the (fat) Notes Client (though keeping Domino as its database platform) and to make all its operational databases web enabled, it was decided to use the Flash platform to be able to provide the most modern and functional RIA experience for ESE's users.

Of course a side effect of this change in client is that applications today used internally only can in some aspects be made available to ESE's partners (e.g. travel agencies), students  and remote workers. Basically to anyone who has no Domino infrastructure, but requires access to (parts of) ESE's operational data.

In matter of fact the Questionnaires Application could be made available online to the students to post their comments directly.  

The Project
As the MS Access database contains literally dozens of forms and reports, the entire migration process will be devided into sub-projects, the first one being the migration of the welfare questionnaires form.  ESE Welfare is doing a first weeks and last weeks survey (questionnaire) with as many students as possible, currently filling in a printed form, which is later on entered into the MS Access database.

Because of ESE commitment to provide internships (see work placements at ESE) to young ICT students the migration project's implementation will form part of the students learning experience. The project was started in the first quarter 2010 with a changing team of ICT students.

 

The provided demo of the Questionnaires Application ist not complete yet and has a number of issues. It is the result of a 12 week internship team consisting of two ICT students (who never saw Flex/Flash or Domino before), and will be completed by a second team that already joined ESE.


About the Questionnaires Demo

The Questionnaires Application has three major functions:

  1. Adding new questionnaires

    Questionnaires are currently filled on printed forms and then entered one by one into the database. To speed up the process submitting a form will actually not close the form after the data is submitted, but rather simply blank the form and allow continues input. Use the back arrow to close the Questionnaires capture form.

    Some fields are dropdown fields providing a choice of e.g. a list of Hotels the student may have resided in. The data coming from the ESE Booking System (Lotus Notes Domino of course). However, to select the questioned student use the Student button top right. A data grid type table dialog allows searching and filtering to find the student. The Enter key or double clicking the student in the dialog closes the dialog and fills the students details into the respective fields in the form.

    Note: the form on screen represents to 100% the printed form's layout to make the data capture as straight forward as possible. Whether the layout of the printed form is ideal is another question.

  2. Searching for existing questionnaires and eventually amending them if required.

    Searching for existing questionnaires can be done by date range, student name and questionnaire type. The result set can be further filtered.

  3. Analytical charting 

    Well, there isn't much there yet. This area is currently not more than a proof of concept. The required reports and analytical charts are still to be discussed and will be concluded by the second development team.

    Drag any of the rows in the data grid's result set into the chart area...