Status Report One

CSC 333 Project Status Report

Project Name: HOME - Habitat Open Managment Engine
Team Members and Team Lead: Jim Hurne, Jonathan Corbin, Tom Setliff, Denny Daugherty
Date Report Submitted: February 11th, 2002
Time Period Reporting On: Feb. 2nd - Feb. 11th

1. Progress Made

   Jonathan, and Jim successfully met for the first time with Harrisburg Habitat for Humanity on Monday, February 10th. We discussed what Harrisburg Habitat would like to get out of the project, and what sort of application they would like. We also communicated our requirements of the project to them, and also explained what is expected of them. In order to work as efficiently with them as we can, we decided that we will meet with their primary contact, Fred Silva, who is Harrisburg Habitat?s Business Manager.

   Here is what we discussed: Harrisburg Habitat would like us to develop them a database system to store and track information about their homeowners, their mortgages and the payments they make, and the taxes that each homeowner is paying. They would also like the system to track sweat equity hours of individual homeowners. The application should be able to generate various specific reports and invoices for Harrisburg Habitat?s record keeping, and for regular mailings to the homeowners.

   Since Harrisburg Habitat is looking to expand it?s office, and to also install a network in the very near future, they would like the database system to be network accessible. They also have plans on installing a stand-alone server to service their network in the very near future. Because of this, our initial choice of implementation tools are PostgresSQL for the database, and JSP and Struts for the application. By making the application web-based, it will be easy for every computer to access the database without having to install special software.

   In the evening of Monday, Jon and Jim met with the other two team members, and passed on everything that we had learned from our visit to them.

2. Plans for Upcoming Time Period Until Next Status Report Due

   Now that we have collected large amounts of information on what Harrisburg Habitat?s needs and hopes are for this project, we can go ahead, and start working on the project proposal, and the preliminary project plan. We will meet again with Harrisburg Habitat next week to start hashing out in detail the application requirements and associated documentation.

3. Issues Resolved

   We finally made contact with Harrisburg Habitat, and now have a good sense of where this project is going.

4. New Issues to be Addressed

   Now, we need to start developing our detailed application requirements, and develop a plan and schedule for the project. Finding a meeting time that works for both Harrisburg Habitat and all four of our team members as also proven to be a challenge. One of our team members will likely not be able to attend the weekly meeting. Also, we must make sure that Harrisburg Habitat?s software environment is totally legal. We also have to discuss with Harrisburg Habitat what sort of interface they expect to use, and also if they agree that the implementation software that we have decided on is appropriate.