Development of a truly worthwhile application arises from needs of an organization and the resources available.
The WBGO Events Calendar (also known as the music calendar) was comprised of a list that the Marketing Manager would update a couple of times a month. It turns out that all he was doing was emailing a list generated by an Access database to the Web person. The actual work was being done by the Events Coordinator.
When I took over the Website and had the Web Server in-house I was working a lot with ASP. So I made a page that connects directly to the Access Database and pulls up the data for the day. I even made a little calendar that lets people look ahead at the events.
After this was done, however, this section was destined to become very popular – as it is one of the only Jazz and Blues listing in the NY/NJ metro area. This meant that the updates to this listing now needed to be consistent and timely. Once a week, I would replace the server database which added the new content to the calendar. While the process was great, it still taxed the Events Coordinator over one entire day to update all the requests that came to her. A more efficient process could not be in place at the time.
Over the years WBGO established a great relationship with NJ.com who even helped WBGO stream online in the beginning. Years after this process was established, I came to know of siLive.com – owned by the same parent company – who was compiling similar lists for a much broader spectrum of events. I was able to establish a relationship and a possible partnership where our Events Coordinator would be the final authority on what goes up in the ‘Jazz and Blues’ listing (WBGO had more listings than silive.com at the time).
The biggest hurdle, by far, was the integration of their data with WBGO.org’s website. I had to learn the use of variables within their custom application, modify the SQL and create custom templates in addition to creating integration components using AJAX and PHP on WBGO.org.
To further enhance the experience, I created a Google Maps integration for the venues and another for listing all the events from a single venue.
A couple of weeks back I was thanked personally by the Events Coordinator for helping free up her time to do the other things that she enjoys doing.
Events Calendar (music calendar)
This online Newsletter creator and emailer was created to facilitate the Marketing department in deploying an online newsletter in a consistent format before a decision was made to outsource this function.
It was used for several years by several Marketing staff to generate graphically appealing and consistent format for an online companion of the publication Upbeat. Email addresses would be imported/exported from the Membership database (if they have selected the option) to send the newsletter.
Jazz-e-News
This system allowed the Office Manager to put up a notice and manage the Board members’ information as required.
The inactive board members’ information is kept in the database for possible future use.
Possible future additions included Board-member access only pages and newsletters.
Board of Trustees
This multi-user level application allows the Marketing and Underwriting departments to collaborate on Membership Card Discounts.
Optional check-box allows discount items to be featured on the main Discounts page on the corporate Website.
Front-end is displayed as categories in the Member Card Discounts page with featured items displayed by default.
Member Discount
The PlayList is a custom client-server solution for adding song information for a Radio station while the DJ spins the songs On the Air.
At WBGO, I integrated this with their Amazon.com account so the CDs of the songs could be located with a click. The host entering the data can edit only their own entries. A logged-in administrator may edit everyone’s data.
Additional benefits include being able to include additional information required by ASCAAP and BMI of Public Radio Stations every year and generate reports from collected data.
The goal of the completed application was to integrate with WBGO’s music library, once digitized, to allow single song downloads and purchases.
Future development would involve an online playlist available to Members with their favorite hosts announcing the intro and outro of titles.
The front-end of this application is viewable here.
PlayList
After my second interview at WBGO, I decided to volunteer my time until the management made a decision to help out with an impending fund-raiser. Someone had built them an application using Visual Basic that essentially served as a chat application between the announcer’s computer and the producer’s computer while raising funds. I gathered the requirements to build an application that automatically tallies up the pledges and serves as a web-based application.
This was the birth of the first version of the GoalBoard - an application enabling a radio station in reaching their goal by centralizing all data in a password protected multi-level access restricted application.
Written as a ASP/MySQL solution, this application eventually evolved to include multiple components including:
- Drive Administration
- Goals Administration
- Premiums Management
- Reports Management
- Pledge Input systems
- Pledge Edit/Export
- Web and Overflow Integration
Each of these components will be further defined in detail.
GoalBoard
