Tuicamp: Currenly a side project

[speedypro]

Hi all.

 

I hope this does not go against the rules here but I'm building Tuicamp, a cashless payment system for uk schools. It'll be a clone of ParentPay for now. The "long story, short", happened here.

 

It's still in its early development process and would like for anyone to check it out. Depending on the direction I take, I may open source the code or make it as a SassS platform. It uses Wonde to get the school, parent and children information and nothing else. It's not meant for production use but hopefully it will be ready by mid 2025.

 

I'm able to work on this full time as I was made redundant as a software engineer. Any questions, feel free to reply here or send me a PM.

[dapaulio]

I see where your going with this and it beginning to take shape. I tried it on my mobile iOS is safari and the site was fast and intuitive.

 

As a parent of two kids in primary the issues we have with our current school provider is.

Each meal time slot is credit individually rather than a central pot. Eg we have to credit lunch time separately to eg after school club and I can’t see the point. Maybe if the kids were ordering their own meals I can understand as parent will not want their child dipping in to meals pot when your crediting the trips pot in installments. But I can’t see primary kids doing this as the choice is down to the parent to decide. Secondary yes primary no

 

I like that you can select the same meal for every day in one screen, However this may work with sandwiches in some schools but not main courses.

Primary schools especially have a set meal plan so the kids have something different everyday. The choices are straight forward normally a vegi and non vegi hot meal or a sandwich again vegi or non vegi option. Each day will follow a two or three week menu.

A suggestion for the school login. Is the ability to edit and publish a set menu that links to the calendar in the parent view. I see this working with what you already have.

Secondaries now tend to be luke a cafe style you choose what you want. They still have a set menu rotating weekly of hot mains but there is a lot more choice.

Your system for secondaries school interface may have to be completely different interface to your primary school interface

 

Great work

Edited December 14, 2024 by dapaulio

[speedypro]

Thanks for checking it out. It means a lot.

 

The school can add their meals and select when the meal is available (it's not perfect as yet): every day, every other day etc. I will do a walk-through video at some point to highlight all its features. Regarding the calendar, it's on my list and it will be done.

 

There are more work to be done and any feedback will be implemented.

[dapaulio]

I’m happy to help where I can

 

In the endgame would you look to publish it to a good cloud server. As another pet peeve as both a parent and tech are companies who use cheap cloud servers to host that spend more time down

Edited December 14, 2024 by dapaulio

[speedypro]

...In the endgame would you look to publish it to a good cloud server...

 

Most definitely. It's currently hosted on DigitalOcean.

[Edu-IT]

I assume you will add in the option for UiFSM as well as FSM? That is free meals for all children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2.

 

For the allergens it would be good if this could be pulled from the MIS via Wonde.

 

With the one off items being able to set discounts would be beneficial.

Edited December 15, 2024 by Edu-IT

[speedypro]

Thanks for those questions. Free meals are based on their current age/year. I'll do more research on option for UiFSM and FSM. As for Wonde, I had no idea I could pull in those information for the allergens. Will definitely add the discount option.

[Steve21]

Being early development I'm not sure how far it's supposed to be "working as expected" on that demo login but there seems to be security holes in the coding at the base level of restricting what people can see/edit

 

As a parent you can view/edit any student in the whole system currently.

 

Miss. Demo Bent has two children assigned to her which would suggest those are the only ones she can see (Natalia Simpson & Kimarnie Simpson)

 

However just by changing the URL you can view any other students/schools too:

e.g. https://tuicamp.com/p/buckets/2/students/18 - Stan Ackton

https://tuicamp.com/p/buckets/2/students/19 - Sabrina Alsop

https://tuicamp.com/p/buckets/2/students/20 - Sophia Alsop

https://tuicamp.com/p/buckets/2/students/21 - Wyatt Andrews

https://tuicamp.com/p/buckets/2/students/22 - Steve Bond

etc etc

 

 

You'll now notice that Miss Demo Bent just saved/blocked "Steve Bond" from all foods as he's totally allergic to everything on the menu (Even though it's not her own child/school) but has full rights to edit them

 

Pretty much anything that uses those Student/School ID numbers is do-able from any account currently

 

Steve

Edited December 15, 2024 by Steve21

[dmj]

Hi all.

 

Depending on the direction I take, I may open source the code or make it as a SassS platform.

 

Do both, it's a pretty common model. Most school techs will struggle to deploy and manage a full stack applications without vendor support. Others, as you've seen here, will contribute to bug reports and fixes.

Larger companies are unlikely to come and steal your lunch without buying out the core development team.

It's a good way to get momentum on a project.

[speedypro]

Thanks Steve. There was a bug on how I ensured that child belonged to the parent/carer. All sorted. I'm sure there are other bugs and will get those ironed out today. Thanks for that important finding.

[speedypro]

Do both, it's a pretty common model. Most school techs will struggle to deploy and manage a full stack applications without vendor support. Others, as you've seen here, will contribute to bug reports and fixes.

Larger companies are unlikely to come and steal your lunch without buying out the core development team.

It's a good way to get momentum on a project.

 

Let's see what the future holds with this

[speedypro]

Been looking at a food menu to see how they schedule meals. For their "Dish", I got that covered with "List". Under a list you can specify the different meals. On that website I see meals are set on specific days that runs monthly ie "Cheese and tomato pizza with baked beans" once every Monday of a month etc. The only thing missing for my meal schedule is "every x day that repeats weekly or monthly". So under Jacket potato, Cheese (v) is available Tuesday and Wednesday but once monthly. I may need to make some adjustments to my meal schedule. It could be simple as changing the Availability select options to a checkbox but this bit is somewhat complex.

 

School meals schedules are different compared to a calendar event.

[Edu-IT]

Been looking at a food menu to see how they schedule meals. For their "Dish", I got that covered with "List". Under a list you can specify the different meals. On that website I see meals are set on specific days that runs monthly ie "Cheese and tomato pizza with baked beans" once every Monday of a month etc. The only thing missing for my meal schedule is "every x day that repeats weekly or monthly". So under Jacket potato, Cheese (v) is available Tuesday and Wednesday but once monthly. I may need to make some adjustments to my meal schedule. It could be simple as changing the Availability select options to a checkbox but this bit is somewhat complex.

 

School meals schedules are different compared to a calendar event.

Don’t forget an option to make ad-hoc changes as days can change at the drop of a hat if issues with deliveries for example.

[speedypro]

I've finished replicating Easy Lunch Menu on the website. Check it out and let me know. Only weeks 1 to 3 were added.

 

I'm getting to understand that meals go by "week commencing". I need to refactor the "add meal" section to facilitate selecting those "week commencing" dates. This change was complex as it is but I see progress with this. Next, I need to know if meals could be uploaded via a CSV and which meal company uses images.

Edited December 19, 2024 by speedypro

[Edu-IT]

I've finished replicating Easy Lunch Menu on the website. Check it out and let me know. Only weeks 1 to 3 were added.

 

I'm getting to understand that meals go by "week commencing". I need to refactor the "add meal" section to facilitate selecting those "week commencing" dates. This change was complex as it is but I see progress with this. Next, I need to know if meals could be uploaded via a CSV and which meal company uses images.

Meal images are quite common, yes.

[speedypro]

Meal images are quite common, yes.

Perfect