Club Central
ENTI 407 Creation Project
A major problem that university clubs face, especially at the University of Calgary (UofC) is managing and coordinating events within the club while properly keeping track of cash flows to ensure each club is receiving the proper funding. One of our group members Zaigham, who is involved with a club at UofC noticed a lack of organization within the clubs and a gap between the communication of the Student Union (SU) which provides funding for the various clubs and the clubs themselves. These issues started to affect the club’s operations and daily deliverables by delaying some of the processes that both the club and SU must take part in. The need for a platform that can connect all the members of a club with each other as well as with the SU has become very evident as they do not currently have a central platform.
Our solution to this is a mobile app called Club Central which combines the various aspects required for proper communication and reporting into an app that all members of the club can join. Our app that we created a prototype for includes three main categories that we identified were needed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the operations of the clubs. These are Communication, Financials, and Operations. To get started using the app a club member needs to open the app which will allow them to sign up or sign in if they have already created an account. If they do not have an account yet they will need to sign up and this process requires them to include their name, email, university and the name of the club they are joining. This is shown below:
Once this is completed they are directed to the homepage of the club that they are a member of. They can now access the various aspects of the app where the club can engage in communication with each other, analyze the financials and see how much they are spending, and schedule events as well as many more things. Our default users name is John Doe so that we can give a better visual of the app.
The pages a club member can access include:
- Communication
The tool that inspired the communication part of the app was Slack. Slack is a communication app that ensures every member of a team is connected and informed. They specialize in bringing all the communication for a company into one place that is organised and easy to navigate. Slack has many different channels which allow members to communicate in different chats that have a different purpose such as general, team 1, team 2, etc. In our communication tab there are three different tabs the user can navigate through. These are group members, group chat and new messages as shown below.
There is a group chat that every member is added to once they join the club, so they never miss out on any important information and gives the club members a place to discuss anything in general that all the members need to be a part of.
The group member section allows the user to see who is a member of the club with their names sorted alphabetically. Once in the directory, a user’s name can be clicked on to see some information about them, such as their title, email address, and phone number. As an example Augusta’s name was clicked on and her information is shown below.
Users can also click on the new message tab to privately message any individual or group of individuals about a matter that doesn’t need to be discussed with everybody. The names of the people you want to message are selected with the circle beside the person’s name, you can select as many people as you want and then to send a message to those people click on the arrow which will direct you to the message screen.
The purpose of the communication within the app is to allow those using the app to feel professional and comfortable with messaging and conveying ideas and concerns with others while everyone can see who you are even if they do not know your phone number.
2. Financials
We based the financial portion of the app off of book personal finance tools such as Expensify. Expensify is an application that allows individuals or businesses to manage their expenses, it helps the user track how much their expenses are and where these expenses are coming from, allowing them to budget and better manage their personal finances. The financial section will be available to club leaders, admins and members that have been given financial privileges through the app, as not every club member should have access to this section.
The financial section of the app is split into 3 sections: Monthly Report, Expenditure breakdown, and track receipts.
The Monthly Report tab shows each month’s income, and the user can click on a month to see further details about cash flows during that month.
The Expenditure breakdown tab allows users to see their overall expenditure for the month and a breakdown of which areas contribute most to their expenses (admin costs, event planning, etc.)
The final tab is the receipts tracking tab which will allow users to scan their receipts using their phone camera, which will use Optical Character Recognition to determine the amount on the receipt and then add that as an expenditure. Users will be able to title and label the expense.
3. Operations
While working on the operations element of the application, we weren’t really looking at one specific tool for inspiration but rather a few different tools to get the most out of the final product. In order to ensure that the operations part of the application meets the needs of the various clubs on campus and the SU, we created a list of different tasks that the two parties require to do their work. Some of the important tasks are listed below.
· Clubs needing to schedule an event by notifying the SU
· Clubs requesting to book a room for their events
· Clubs requesting for financial aid from the SU
· Clubs requesting for audio and visual equipment from the SU for events
· SU approving requests from clubs
· Clubs communicating operational changes in the club to SU
The reason we chose this topic is due to a communication gap between the SU and the clubs under SU. We noticed this communication gap based on Zaigham’s time in a student club which is managed by the SU. This started to affect the club’s operations and daily deliverables by delaying some of the processes that both the club and SU must take part in.
As a solution to these problems, we created the operations element of this application packed with different tools that will make it easier for both the clubs and SU to coordinate and stay on the same page. However, we do not want users to confuse this element with the communication element of the application as the operations part is strictly for major operational changes within the club and event management updates that need to be communicated to the SU.
To start off with the operations tool itself, as mentioned, it wasn’t really based on one specific application but rather a compilation of useful elements from multiple applications. However, if there was one application that we had to look at to imagine our own end product, it would be Freedcamp. The reason behind this is due to the similarity of actions that Freedcamp and our application provides.
Now diving straight into the operations element of our application we will first navigate to the “Operations” main screen. Here we see a list of actions done within the operations of the club:
· Tasks
· Calendar
· Request Forms
Tasks
This feature allows a team member to manage the tasks that they create for themselves as well as tasks that are assigned to them by other team members. While creating the task, a user can set different deadlines for each task as well as add subtasks to break down a specific deliverable. This process will make it easier for each user to manage their own responsibilities and keep the whole club on track.
Calendar
This feature can be used by the club and the SU at the same time by allowing both parties to choose the best time and date for a specific event. It gives a good overview of all the events that are already scheduled and avoids any overlapping events. It also gives the clubs a good visual aid of when all events and scheduled tasks are due.
Request Forms
This feature of the application allows a club to submit various requests to the SU. It gives the club the ability to submit new requests and view the status of the “in-progress” requests. This feature makes it easier for the SU to manage all the requests as well which allows them to respond back in a timely manner.
Creation of the App:
There are many different app building tools available to use but the one we chose is Proto.io because it is simple to use and doesn’t require any coding knowledge. Proto.io allows you to create a prototype of an app but some features are limited in ways such as the ability to use the camera or send messages in the chat. If we had the ability to code a different platform would have been chosen but because of our limited knowledge of building apps and coding we decided to use Proto.io. It is simple to use and offers many features to create a very presentable prototype that can demonstrate how the app is used. To start you need to create an account with Proto.io and sign up for the 15-day free trial. Once signed up you can elect to create a project from scratch or use the sample template, we created one from scratch. After those steps are completed you can select what platform your app will be used on (smartphone, tablet, desktop, etc.), we chose the smartphone template for easy accessibility for those using the app. Now the editing process can begin:
To add a new page to the app, simply click the new screen tab on the left side of the page. To add elements to the page there is an option to use existing templates or you can add each element that you want separately however, the templates were very detailed, so we decided to go this route. To add a template to the page, click the template tab on the top right side and then scroll through the various categories of templates to find the one you are looking for. Once one is found drag the template onto the screen and format it. The categories consist of onboarding, sign in/sign up, feeds, settings, messages, create new, activity feeds, music & video, and many more. Once you format the page you can begin to add interactions to the page which will allow the user to click on different parts of the page and be directed to another page or cause an event to happen such as clicking on a contact to view their information.
To add an interaction you need to click on the item you want to initiate the action such as the home button, then on the right side of the page you can click the lighting icon which will give you the option to add, delete, or edit an interaction. To add our interactions, we chose the desired screen, the trigger for the interaction which is what will cause the action to occur and the action such as load screen as overlay which will switch the page to the page you want the interaction to take you to. After the interactions are added you can preview the app and ensure it works in the way you intended it to.
Sources:
Slack. (n.d.). Where work happens. Retrieved from https://slack.com/intl/en-ca/
Receipt and Expense Management Software: Travel and Expense Reporting. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.expensify.com/
We empower people to work together. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://freedcamp.com/
Prototypes that feel real. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://proto.io/
