Cost to create a database website.

[timbo343]

I have had a question thrown to me about having a database online that enables our primary schools to search for information and drill down into information.. for example..

 

One of our primary schools wants to see how many of our schools have say a IT Technician. So they would search IT Technician and it would then give the results. They would then we able to use a filter on the side of the page to drill down to see the list of schools, how many hours they do etc.

 

They said it needs to be like a catalogue of information about our primary schools and the site needs to work like i guess ebuyer, autotrader, amazon, etc.

 

Obviously it would need to be secure and primary schools would need to log in to view information/alter their own data to keep it upto date.

 

I was wondering if anyone knew how much it would be to create this type of thing as i said i would find out as let them know.

[tmcd35]

I'd say the biggest single cost is in data entry. Whose going to do it? How is the database going to be kept upto date? Are all primary schools signed up to this and happy with that level of data being stored "in the cloud"?

 

Personally I'd make certain of the above before going out and getting quotes on development.

 

Web hosting is quiet cheap. I just picked up very good hosting and a domain name for under £30 for 1 yr from Unlimited Web Hosting | Affordable Web Hosting | Zyma Technologies

 

For the rest, I suppose you need a competent web developer/SQL admin to create a bespoke site for you. Depending on the level required you could be looking it a couple of thousand to outsource the work to a web developer, or maybe have someone hired on a temporary contract (school leaver?), or indeed there's the cheap D.I.Y. approach if your happy with SQL web development and the time it will take.

[timbo343]

This is what i have said to them.. The biggest problem they have got is keeping the data up to date, as it's OK having these things in place but it's no good unless its kept up to date. I guess they will be told to update the information as the cluster of schools are needing to share information. The person who came to see me said this is only in the very early stages at the moment, i mean design and how it would work stages.

 

Thanks for the link, i checked out some hosting companies and found that hosting and storage would be the cheaper side of things, it was more the cost to design and setup the website with an SQL backend.

 

I wouldn't want to do it myself, for a start i dont know anything about creating tables etc in SQL.

 

Oh, i forgot to mention something, they also want to run reports on the data that is stored within the database.

 

So my next question is, does anyone know of any Database/SQL web developers out there?

[zag]

I'd charge a couple of grand for something like this to be built with MYSQL/PHP but this would be quite a basic Database driven site.

 

If you start wanting features like some of the more complicated online stores then the price obviously goes up.

 

Reports are something that would also be extra as that's a whole new complication

 

Basically if you want something custom like this done, then you need a simple brief of the data you want, how you want to list and search, then how to display that data.

Edited May 22, 2014 by zag

[mats]

The database side sounds like a fairly trivial job for somebody handy with python & django. As for the data - contact details for schools are available from LAs but don't think there is a central register of level of ict support.

 

If you're going to rely on schools updating their own data, there needs to be a reason for them to do so. Out of date data is likely to be a big problem.

[tmcd35]

@mats, I suspect there's a little bit more being recorded in the dbase than you might first think (or indeed the end user cares to mention at the start of the project). Building a dbase is usually straight forward. The problems start with reporting. I've done a few af these sorts of projects, small scale, to understand the headaches involved (almost all end user created - mission drift!).

 

Best advise would be to hire a school/college leaver for 2-3 months to work with the stakeholders and create a bespoke solution.

[timbo343]

The person who came to me works at the LA and the information involved is more like how many schools have an a teacher who can teach English and looks like they need improving and then possibly another criteria after that. I said its a bit like the Auto Trader site then... if you are looking for "cars that are a golf, have 17" alloys, in black, with HID headlights, diesel, 3lt engine"... you can see where that's going so users are able to filter and drill down to see specific results. Edited May 22, 2014 by timbo343

[dhicks]

The person who came to me works at the LA and the information involved is more like how many schools have an a teacher who can teach English and looks like they need improving and then possibly another criteria after that.

 

This sounds like it is going to grow into a sizeable skills / professional development database. You'd think there would already be a product around that handles this - I'd investigate what is already available before going down the route of developing your own database. If you do need to create your own system, it sounds like the kind of thing you're going to want an experienced professional dealing with - something put together by a temporary member of staff, no matter how good they are, is going to wind up unmaintained and out of date a few months after they are finished.