TERPMAX: Team Management Discord Bot

Inspiration

We wanted a product which would allow for effective team management. Our team members held frustrations regarding previous team experiences, specifically the difficulties that came with setting meeting dates that worked with everyone's schedules, establishing a steady line of communication (email? ELMS? GroupMe?), storing essential resources in one place, and maintaining a project workflow which would keep group members on track. We wanted something which would bolster team productivity! This innovative Discord bot is the fruit of those frustrations. Discord allows for a great deal of flexibility and customizability, which gives our Discord bot the possibility of further development.

What it does

This project can manage multiple projects (or sub-projects within an overarching project). For each of these projects, users will be able to add, edit, and delete tasks from a Todo list structure. They are also able to store URLs of important links and resources in a FileManager, which they can view easily to see a displayed list of resources. Additionally, the bot has the dynamic functionality for running team meetings; upon entering a voice chat, the bot will create a corresponding text channel so participants can write down meeting notes as they converse. upon, the end of the meeting, the bot will transcribe all of the notes and send the meeting minute file into the project's group chat for easy access.

How we built it

We used the Discord Python API and the Python language to create an innovative Discord bot which would allow teams to manage projects, create Todo lists, set reminders, transcribe team meeting notes, and organize shared files.

Challenges we ran into

There was a bit of a learning curve when we started out, since our team was unfamiliar with the Discord API. This required us to spend many hours reading through the Discord documentation for us to be able to even set up the basic structure of a Discord bot, let alone Discord-specific components and objects necessary for proper configuration. We also spent a great deal of time discussing amongst ourselves in order to determine the most efficient and structurally-sound implementation which would allow users to easily make commands and allow for us to be able to have a neat backend. During these conversations, we found ourselves conflicted with the direction of the project and had to handle miscommunication by clarifying team goals and project objectives. Lastly, this was the first hackathon for three of the four members making up our team. Thus, it took a while for us to get a hang of the hackathon-esque environment.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We managed to be quite adept at utilizing the Discord API even though this was the first experience where we had to reference it. We also managed to effectively manage team tasks, by dividing and conquering work according to skill and interest. Our bot is also functional! This is our first time creating a bot at all, so it's a great achievement.

What we learned

As I mentioned above, we learned how to use the Discord API to make appropriate calls in our framework. We also learned how to best organize project files and design backend architecture for a project created from scratch.

What's next for Team Management Discord Bot

Next steps include implementing server and channel wide selection mechanisms that utilize Discord users' connected Google Calendar data to return most opportune meeting times; modifying the FileManager function to store pdfs, images, and other files (besides urls/messages); fix a Reminder implementation so we users can set notifications; and provide other perspectives on the tasks in Todo list (like Kanban perspective).