The project difficulty level increased considerably when we got involved in the design of user views for the client. The process of data collection was only verbally explained to us as this is a non-profit business that hasn’t been fully implemented yet. The only views we received were from brokers displaying property information (please see figures above). No forms or any other user views are currently used by the business. Consequently, our project involved designing the actual user views to allow our client to interact with the database to perform her work. We had to rely on our own deductions from the meetings we had with her to build a vision of the process and the steps involved. We had to make sure our views properly covered all the attributes of the main entities involved and new ones introduced by our client. In addition we tried to make them as user friendly as possible without the loss of business rules, which were sometimes inadequately explained to us. Also, due to restrictions imposed by the client, much of the initial data entry of the lookup tables was relegated to the administrative back-end so that our client could exert total control over the accuracy of that data. Some of the tables affected were: contaminants lookup table, usage and type tables, and the street designation lookup table.

The only way to solve the various problems was to interact extensively with our client to ensure that our understanding and their needs both intersected at a common point. This was also the most rewarding part of the project as it forced us to go beyond a superficial understanding of both her business and our database design knowledge. It required much more time and effort on our part but it helped us learn the material better. Honing both our database modeling and programming skills, this project worked because our team functioned extremely well. All three of us lack a business background and this common thread allowed us to bond as a group and do the extra work this project demanded.

Working together, we argued, yelled, and laughed more than any other group but this same dynamic allowed us to deliver the best possible output because we constantly explored what often seemed like every single possibility. No stone was left unturned as we tried to address even the smallest detail. Everyone put in more than their share of work and no one was afraid to question why the other two supported one or the other path. Of course, the project doesn’t end for us with just this report as we have promised the non-profit organization a fully-functional database with a working front-end. This will most likely take another month but the task is made infinitely more tractable since this project allowed us to construct the whole foundation of the final application.