Senior Project - Blue Steel

Parent-to-Parent of Colorado provides a support group of families with high-need children. Services include providing events and information of interest to the families, as well as providing a matching service for families with similar needs and interests. The organization currently has more than 3,000 families and is growing.

Providing these services requires maintaining large amounts of information, which was distributed across three different databases accessible only on computers at specific physical locations. These databases were very difficult for the six part-time employees, all working from different locations themselves, to keep up-to-date and consistent. The organization also faced difficulty tracking employees as they participated in various events each month. Finally, the process of matching families with similar needs and interests was both tedious and time consuming. The goal of this project was to provide a single database and web-based interface that would make the information accessible from any computer with a secure internet connection.

The software provides access to the database on three levels: parent access, employee access, and administrator access. Parents have access to register as a user, as well as to view and change their own family information. Employees have access to update, add, and query all information in the database. This includes not only a way to retrieve information from and enter information into the database via a web-based interface, but also communication tools (such as email groups and news postings on the website), employee event tracking tools, and family matching tools. Finally, an administrator has the ability to modify database fields, add new fields, and to extend the functionality of the system through a query builder interface. The system, based on PHP and a back-end database, is fully compliant with web accessibility standards.