project-electronic-bulletin-board

The Digital Bulletin Board replaces outdated physical postings with a secure online system, letting departments upload agendas, admins oversee them, and the public access meetings anytime.

Comment 1

Inspiration

Cities are legally required to make meeting agendas available to the public at least 72 hours in advance. Right now, this is often done by literally pinning papers on a bulletin board at city hall. The inspiration came from modernizing that outdated process into something digital, accessible, and easy to manage.

What it does

The Electronic Bulletin Board is a secure web app that allows city staff to upload meeting agendas and supporting documents, while the public can easily view them online. It supports:

  • Direct agenda uploads to S3 using pre-signed URLs
  • A clean board page where the public can view upcoming meetings
  • Admin and staff dashboards (with role-based views)
  • Display and dark modes for flexible presentation
  • PDF previews with a toggle option

How we built it

  • Frontend: Vue.js + Quasar Framework for the UI and responsive layouts
  • Storage: Amazon S3 for hosting and storing agendas
  • Upload Handling: Pre-signed S3 URLs for direct file uploads
  • Access Control (Demo): Basic role selection based on email (future integration with AWS Cognito planned)
  • Monitoring: Functions to periodically check S3 for new uploads
  • Hosting: Static site deployed via S3 + CloudFront

Challenges we ran into

  • Rendering PDFs correctly (initially only page counts were showing)
  • Designing around time constraints — prioritizing demo-ready functionality over deeper backend integration
  • Handling large agenda files (50–100MB PDFs with 100+ pages) efficiently
  • Balancing the need for real authentication vs. keeping the demo lightweight

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Fully working agenda upload flow from frontend to S3
  • Smooth PDF rendering with previews
  • Clean, intuitive board UI that works well on public displays
  • Flexible “Display Mode” and “Dark Mode” for accessibility and usability
  • Delivering a functional demo with both staff and admin roles in a short timeframe

What we learned

  • Pre-signed S3 URLs are a powerful way to streamline file uploads without heavy backend code
  • Simple role-based logic can be enough to validate workflows in a demo setting
  • UI details like dark mode and preview toggles, while small, make a big difference in usability
  • Managing large files requires more planning around optimization and backend processing

What's next for project-electronic-bulletin-board

  • 🔐 Integrate real authentication and role management with AWS Cognito
  • 🔐 Add custom domain support and https using AWS Route 53 and AWS Cloud Front
  • 🗂 Build a proper API with AWS API Gateway + AWS Lambda + AWS DynamoDB to track uploads and agenda metadata
  • ⚡️ Add optimization/processing for large PDF files during upload
  • 🔔 Replace polling with event-driven notifications (S3 → Lambda → API Gateway) for real-time updates
  • 📊 Expand the admin dashboard beyond static UI to include real stats and activity tracking
  • 🌍 Work with municipalities to pilot and validate the system in real-world use

Demo

Staff Account:

  • Email: staff@city.gov
  • Password: password
  • Department: Any department

Admin Account:

  • Email: admin@city.gov
  • Password: password
  • Department: Any department

Pages:

https://d1r6yvp4doepfd.cloudfront.net/#/board?display=true

https://d1r6yvp4doepfd.cloudfront.net/

https://d1r6yvp4doepfd.cloudfront.net/#/login

Built With

Share this project:

Updates