Minimart & Voucher System

Inspiration

The inspiration for our product stems from the mission and values of Muhammadiyah Welfare Home (MWH) which is to empower and nurture boys in its care. As we sought to build a system that aligns with MWH's values of empowermentand adresses its operational challenges, we recognised that a web-based voucher and minimart management system serves as a powerful tool to instill financial literacy, promote responsibility and streamlines administrative tasks.

This formulated our aim to be to create a product that empowers users (residents) to manage thier own accounts and earn rewards in a meaningful way while providing admin (staff) with the tools to manage operations effectively.

What it does

Empowers users to request products, earn vouchers and manage thier own account. Enabling admins by means for user management, inventory analysis and voucher approvals

How we built it

We started by implementing schemas as the most important thing is how we structure our data and the methods each admin/user should have. For exanple, in order to implement notifications and transaction history, each instance of user has to have that method in his data so it can be tracked. As we shift our focus to other elements such as the products on the page, there is a whole other schema for that which entails the description, price, stock, size, etc.

Then we tackled the data structures and thought about how to compartmentalise our API routes to ensure security and authentification. We used middleware API routes to verify JSON web tokens and ensure for example approving voucher requests is only done by the admin. Once the APIs were implemented, we moved on to frontnend structure to present a responsive and visually appealing user interface in the login/signup page, residents purchasing pages and admin operations pages.

Challenges we ran into

Some of the packages and libraries were new to us and we had to tread through unfamiliar syntax to build the product.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We understood some of the new packages and libraries would aid us in achieveing better user experience and admin operations which urged us to understand their functionality and implementation to arrive at our final product. This allowed us to dive deepr into the custimizations available simply by adjusting or introducing new parameters, thereby providing the users and admins with a visually appealing and functionally robust portal.

What we learned

We gained insight to applications of technology to address real-world contraints and provide enhancements for client experience of a product. For example, one of our features is allowing admins to store a MS Excel file of the audit logs and inventory summary onto their local device which enables them to perform analysis or vet these data on the go anywhere, anytime. We realised that as developers or implementers, providing our clients with the best possible, functional and convenient product is in our hands. Ultimately, through our knowledge we are empowered to enhance their experience.

What's next for Minimart & Voucher Management

Some additional features such as product recommmendation for users based on past purchases as well as recommendation to admins regarding products to add to the minimart as well.