University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Uncompromised Web Applications: Variety Without Chaos University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Copyright University of Washington, (Joe Frost and Marcia Tufarolo This work is the intellectual property of the Author. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the author. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the authors

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 University of Washington State Research University 3 Major Campuses 40,000 Students 24,000 Faculty & Staff

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Joe Frost - System Engineer Marcia Tufarolo - Technology Manager Computing & Communications Client Services Project Consulting

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Client Services Project Consulting Consulting group for UW Self-sustaining operation CSPC hired for work

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Development Architectures Custom Application Universal Application Custom Compromised App ‘Generic’ Application

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Custom Application Developed for one area Meets all needs No resource leveraging High cost - develop & maintain Risk of many similar applications

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Universal Application One application & feature set Used by many areas Limited use of some application functions Re-definition of functions to meet needs Leveraged development costs Committee modifications/enhancements

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Customized Compromised Application Cloned Custom or Universal app Modified to meet ‘real’ needs “If statements” Redefinition of fields Cost savings? Fragile to modify

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Types of Development Architectures

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Generic Application Meets common need Flexible to customize Serves specific needs of many areas Leverage dev & maint costs Not for high transaction volume apps

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 UW ‘Generic’ Applications UW Web Conference UW Web Donation UW Web Store

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 UW ‘Generic’ Applications Architecture Goal –Meet a common need –Ability to customize content –e-commerce functions –Scaleable

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Central UW Infrastructure Web-based Credit Card Processing UW Web Credit Card Project

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 UW Web Credit Card Goal – Increase usage of secure, central application

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 UW Web Credit Card API for Interface Specific Requirements –Database –SSL –Security Callbacks

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 UW Web Credit Card

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 UW Web Credit Card Users Tuition UW Computer Training

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 UW Web Credit Card Interface Many areas could not interface –Complex programming & environment –Limited basic Web skills

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Credit Card Acceptance Fax Phone Yikes!

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Customized Common Needs Conferences –Health Policy Analysis Program Pledge Drives –KEXP Radio Station

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Project Approach Defined timeframe of operation High Visibility ‘Always a rush’

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 ‘Generic’ Application Conferences –User registration & payment –Administrative application Standard report Data extract Registration maintenance Conference management

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Project Team Database Expert Java Expert Student Staff - ‘The Gaber’ Project Manager

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Project Method High Level Design Prototype/Code Implement

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Computing Environment Win2K IIS SQL Server Java JavaScript

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 User Registration & Payment

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 UW Web Conference Registration Demo UW Web Conference Registration Demo AltAlt

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Generic And Custom Form elements are defined in a database Departments control data and form appearance

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 UW Web Conference Registration Sample Registration Page REGSample Registration Page REG

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Web Page Form Elements Form Elements built from database rows

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 HTML Tag Attributes Attributes of the input tag saved as columns

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 HTML Input Tag Types Standard HTML tags Select, Text area, Radio, Checkbox Subtypes of Text Text, Integer, Date, Money Display Only Any HTML fragment

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Types of Form Elements Same data structure for each of the standard HTML form elements

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Text Tag Subtypes Data type determines client-side processing

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Select Tag Form Element Select and radio buttons can also be generated.

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Select Tag Values Radio and select require multiple rows.

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Scripting Functions Scripts for form elements

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Serving The Page Page Builder generates the form

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Saving The Results Retrieve the Attribute descriptions Edit the form data Store Registration and RegValue rows

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Database Backbone Two tables for display

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Attribute Maintenance Attribute Maintenance Search AMAttribute Maintenance Search AM

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Database Backbone Two for displayTwo for storage

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Using The Data Get data into simple table form Append the regValue columns to the Registration columns

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Table Pivoting Convert flat tables to deep tables

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Create Temporary Table Select the distinct attribute rows in a cursor Build a “create table” statement with the attribute names as columns Execute the create table statement

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Create Table Select attribute_names into process loop

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Load Temporary Table Insert an empty row for each registration Select the distinct attribute names in a cursor Build and execute update statements using each attribute name as a column name and selection criteria

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Update the Temporary Table Update each column in a loop

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Administrative Application Most of the application is behind the scenes. Conference Administration CAConference Administration CA

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Another Application The same architecture can be used for other applications. –KEXP Donation (Sample) KDKEXP Donation (Sample) KD –Donation Administration DADonation Administration DA

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Development Efficiencies Conference App – 3 months Donation App – 6 weeks Add a new conference or pledge drive: 8 hours

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Where We Are Today Applications have evolved New features added to meet a general needs Still expanding

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Challenges Money for development Levels of cost to department –Setup Fee –Credit card usage fees Changing technologies

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Lessons Learned Strong database design More generic = Better design Java is better than JavaScript

University of Washington CUMREC 2003 Uncompromised Web Applications: Variety Without Chaos University of Washington