SotBy — Resource & Schedule Management for BCIT Automotive
- Role: Student Developer (Frontend & Realtime)
- Engagement: Team project — 4 weeks
- Project Timeline: Single 4-week sprint (second cohort extending prior backend)
🎓 BCIT⚙️ Education⚛️ React🎨 Bootstrap🟩 Node.js🚀 Express🐘 PostgreSQL⚡ Socket.IO🔑 JWT🌐 REST APIs🌀 Agile
📖 Project Overview
SotBy replaces a chaotic single-user Google Doc with a multi-user web app for the BCIT Automotive Department. It adds authentication, role-based permissions, real-time concurrent editing, drag-and-drop scheduling, and auditable change history.
3
👨👩👦 Students on the team
4
⏳ Weeks from start to MVP
1
🎤 Demo to department head
❌ Problem
- Single shared Google Doc → only one editor at a time.
- No audit trail of changes.
- Frequent conflicts with resources & schedules.
💡 Solution
A multi-user web application with secure login and roles, real-time updates via Socket.IO, drag-and-drop schedule editing, resource request/approval workflows, and a clear audit log of all changes.
⚙️ Core Product Capabilities
- Auth & RBAC: admin vs regular permissions.
- Realtime: concurrent edits via Socket.IO.
- Scheduling UI: drag-and-drop calendar.
- Workflows: resource & vacation requests.
- Auditability: change history & transparency.
🙋 My Contributions
- Built frontend auth flow + RBAC.
- Implemented Socket.IO realtime editing.
- Designed drag-and-drop scheduling interface.
- Reverse-engineered inherited backend endpoints.
🏗️ Architecture & Stack
- Frontend: React, Bootstrap
- Backend: Node.js, Express
- Database: PostgreSQL
- Realtime: Socket.IO
- Auth: JWT, bcrypt
- Other: REST APIs
🤔 Why this approach?
- Concurrency ➡️ real-time collab replaces single-editor doc.
- Clarity ➡️ RBAC + audit logs reduce conflicts.
- Speed ➡️ React + Express enabled 4-week MVP.
- Extensibility ➡️ clean handoff for next cohort.
🏆 Outcomes
- Delivered MVP demoed to faculty head.
- Documented for future cohorts.
- Next steps: hosting, accounts, staged rollout.
📓 Process Notes & Lessons
- Inherited codebase ➡️ solved via endpoint exploration.
- Weekly sprints kept us on track.
- UX hindsight ➡️ simplify calendar UI + accessibility.
Not live — local deployment only