Clockwise from left: Tan Si Hao, Darryl Mok, Marcus Ong, Huxley Goh and Nguyen Phuong Thao
Transient Workers Count Too launched a custom-developed software application in October 2016. It is a complex matrix that is part-database of volunteers, members, donors and other contacts, part-database of volunteering events, and a whole lot of interactive connections between people and events.
We’ve named it Bahamas — Benefactors and Helpers Management System.
It will allow volunteers to see what volunteering opportunities are coming up in TWC2’s calendar and sign up to participate. Bahamas will be able to track their volunteering history, and will be searchable for their email addresses, languages and skills. Bahamas will also be the main membership roll for TWC2 as a registered society.
The need for a digital, cloud-based platform has become more and more apparent over the last few years. TWC2 has close to a thousand volunteering events each year. We have hundreds of volunteers, so many that it has become impossible for any one person to know them all. Keeping track of events and people, and arriving at annual statistics were growing headaches.
Zuerst members discussing project progress with Miguel Pina and Pat Meyer (foreground) of TWC2
The application was developed by a team of students from the School of Information Systems in Singapore Management University as their IS480 project. The team comprised Darryl Mok, Huxley Goh, Tan Si Hao, Marcus Ong and Nguyen Phuong Thao, who called themselves Team Zuerst.
The Bahamas project began in April 2016, and six months later, it was ready to go live. The students fulfilled 100% of the project requirements set out by TWC2.
It was a massive brief, with multiple databases, five different access permission levels, several ways to enter data, and several ways to see the same data. Not surprisingly, there were unexpected difficulties and bugs along the way. The team worked exceedingly hard and overcame all of them, all this while juggling internships and schoolwork. The students were always cheerful, positive-thinking and remarkably cohesive as a group.
TWC2 is extremely happy with the delivered product which is fast becoming the backbone of our volunteer management.
On TWC2’s side, the project committee comprised Alex Au, Yew Kong Leong, Pat Meyer, Miguel Pina and Robin Rheaume, each bringing different skills and experience to the team.
Group photo of Zuerst members, their professors and TWC2 folks after Zuerst’s final presentation to their profs, concluding the project.