Providing bookkeeping & payroll services, typesetting and website & database design since 1990.
https://www.jolanders.com
Custom Database for Land Trusts 2
The first step in developing the system was to gain a better understanding of the type of information they needed to track. Although I had provided bookkeeping, website, and hosting services to the organization for several years, I had never seen a land monitoring report and didn’t understand what being responsible for a conservation restriction or agricultural protection restriction meant.
The Board provided copies of various paper documents, and we had several meetings to discuss what kind of information they needed to keep track of. Over time, as they gained a better understanding of what using a database, compared to a paper system, would mean, we begain thinking about how various information (contacts, properties, deeds, etc.) could be linked together and what kinds of reporting capabilities they might want.
During development I worked closely with Board Members Wil Hastings and Eric Weber, and Caroline Raisler, a land trust consultant who did the bulk of their land monitoring. Caroline was extremely helpful as I developed the database, assisting me in deciding what tables or fields it needed, and how various parts should link together. When I began developing the user interface, she provided testing and detailed feedback. As a result, I was able to make several modifications to my initial design which resulted in greater functionality under real-world conditions and a more user-friendly system.
One feature I added fairly early was a feeback form. Caroline’s feedback was clear and comprehensive, but other testers didn’t provide the same level of information, and none of them could tell me about hidden $_POST or other variables that might be causing problems in the code. As a result, the feedback form automatically adds that information if it would be helpful in tracking down the cause of a problem.
Contact the Site Administrator - accessible from every page. If the user is reporting on error on the previous page, it automatically sends the url of the previous page and any $_POST or $_SESSION variables. I also added more general subject choices, for use in a live site.
