Daily Bulletin
Cleveland Public School
Problem:
The school needed a new way to manage its daily announcements. Previously, they created individual documents for each day of the school year and placed them in a shared Google Drive folder. This meant that there were about 165 documents manually created and edited at the start of each school year.
Solution:
To solve this problem, I created a custom web app that gave staff a simple way to view the announcements for any school year. The transition from static documents to a dynamic web app allowed me to integrate it with the school's lunch menu, public events calendar, and staff events calendar. This, combined with automatically importing birthdays from our student information system, created an extremely low-maintenance information hub that makes staying up-to-date easy for our teachers and staff. Over time, I added other features to the application, such as the weather forecast, student mailing list generation, and the ability to quickly view student counts by class, grade, or education level.
Challenges:
Cost & Ease of Access
Minimizing labor and system costs was essential. To facilitate this, I created a Google Apps Script app, eliminating the need for additional hardware setup at the school. Due to the school's existing Google Workspace subscription, the app didn't incur any costs with this method. The Google Site made it simple for all staff to access and used the all-staff email group for authentication, so every employee would automatically receive access.
Data Updates
To reduce the workload of the staff in charge of the announcements, every employee needed the ability to make some changes themselves. I developed a system that used Google Forms and Google Apps Script to facilitate this. Employees can access one form to make changes, which are automatically added or sent for approval. When admins approve changes, they are automatically added to the bulletins.
Data Storage
The data for all the bulletins needed to be stored quickly and efficiently but also easily accessible for designated staff to make updates. The solution was storing all the data in a Google Sheet, each row containing a single bulletin. With this approach, the data retained a familiar visual interface, so designated staff members could be given access and make changes without needing training.
Future Plans:
This summer, we intend to enhance the Daily Bulletin by adding a new page enabling the staff to locate each Chromebook cart and know the number of devices in it. To achieve this, we plan to integrate it with the school's inventory system.
Impact:
This project significantly improved the method for daily bulletins, making it easier for staff to maintain the data and view the information they want. Now, if you walk into any classroom or office, you'll see the Daily Bulletin web app sitting open.
