Fei Yue Fei Yue Community Services is a not-for-profit Voluntary Welfare Organisation (VWO). Its main role is to run Family Service Centres (FSCs) to manage counselling services, provide family life education and develop children and youth programmes in the community. Over time, the responsibilities of the FSC grew and FYCS now also manages Student Care Centres, Neighbourhood Links, Senior Activity Centres and more. As such, there are numerous different divisions under Fei Yue Community Services.

Project Description

This project is a continuation from the 2012’s project. However, owing to the lack of manpower, we focused on refining the Case Management System this time.

Furthermore, over the course of the last two years, we found insufficiencies in the old system that required an overhaul. We utilised this opportunity to do so.

Project Accomplishments

There were many uncertainties at the start of the project. However, our team had a few rounds of iteration over the UI and the overall application, as such, the application had a higher level of polish than other projects in the past, at the same stage of development.

Furthermore, Fei Yue’s Case Management System is the first system which CVWO has written in Ruby on Rails. This proved challenging; however, it has been demonstrated that doing so results in a better product and reduced maintenance costs. Future projects undertaken by CVWO will most likely be using this stack.

Usefulness

Since the project planning stage it was apparent to me that the application was in general doing what it was supposed to do and the main problem was that the UI was not presenting all the functionality as well as it could have been. The UI has since been cleaned up substantially, resulting in a smoother workflow for the centre staff.

The correctness of reports have also been verified: this would remove the need to manually verify and adjust numbers before report submission by centre staff.

Screenshots

Global To-do List Facebook-style Task Notifications Intakes Form Intakes List Staff Calendar Sample Case Worker Closure Report Sample Bimonthly FSC KPI Report

The Team

  • Joel Low (Project Lead, Year 2)
  • Lin Xuanyi (Developer, Year 2)
  • Sue Zheng Hao (Developer/Server administrator, Year 1)
  • Wu Di (Developer, Year 1)
  • Sean Ho (Developer, Year 1)
  • Pan Peining (Developer, Year 1)
  • Zhou Chuyu (Developer, Year 1)

Afterthoughts

The time spent building production-quality information management systems for FYCS was tough but worthwhile. It was also immensely satisfying to see the works of our hands shipped into production, seeing how it positively impacts the people who will be using the system we have built.

– Joel Low

Working on this project is probably going to be the most important lesson I have ever gone through in my computing studies. There is only so much one can learn in a classroom setting. This summer project has allowed me to build a foundation to gain further knowledge in the future.

– Lin Xuanyi

While undertaking the task of rewriting the system in Rails has been a challenging experience, it has also provided me with a lot of learning opportunities. The project has allowed me to apply my classroom skills in a real world scenario and even when the occasional setbacks have been disheartening, they have encouraged me to work harder and learn faster.

– Sue Zheng Hao

Prior to this I had not even heard of Fei Yue Community Services, and CVWO has given me a chance to learn about these voluntary welfare organisations and the services they provide to benefit the community. It is thus immensely satisfying to know that the system that we have built will be able to make a positive impact in the lives of the staff and their clients.

– Wu Di

CVWO provided me with an outlet for the knowledge that I have accumulated for the past year, allowing me to use the skills that I had been taught, mould it and use it to benefit society. Nothing is more satisfying than knowing that your product is used by people because it makes their lives easier.

– Sean Ho

This project has provided me with the precious opportunity to apply what I have learnt in school in giving back to society. It is especially meaningful to know that the system we have created will reduce the workload of the staff at Fei Yue, and thus aid them in providing efficient assistance to the clients.

– Pan Peining

We would also like to thank the following people:

  • Dr Ben Leong (NUS) for his guidance, teachings and advice
  • Fei Yue staff who have played a co-operative and supportive role
  • Jonathan Low for handing over the project smoothly