Rasbelin
Member
Intro
The new XenForo powered website of a Finnish housing co-op needs custom coding and development. The site provides news, permanent information, facility management (read: support tickets) and community discussion for a large apartment complex. There's some 250-300 likely active, but non concurrent users (landlords and tenants). XenForo is up and running, but currently without any work done yet. The new site isn't public yet. No Finnish language skill is needed, because I'm responsible for the translation of any custom phrases and the site is also available in English. The XF resources add-on is installed.
Features required
Some of these are possibly available with already existing free or paid modifications/add-ons. I haven't had the time to get into this in depth. Naturally I don't want to reinvent the wheel, which means already available working stuff is to be used for costefficiency and code reliability.
Users and security
- Usernames or e-mail addresses are used for authentication upon login, but not displayed to anyone, except for admins on the profile page and admin CP. Usernames would probably add an extra layer to prevent accounts being compromised.
- First and family name required, showed as public profile name of user.
- Apartment number required, except for the admin and contractor usergroups. Visible in the postbit to these groups.
- Whitelist of apartment numbers. Users must specify an existing one when they register. Admins can exclude users from this requirement as otherwise contractors wouldn't be able to use the site.
- Challenge codes for whitelist. This feature can be skipped, if it gets way expensive, but would add more security. Each apartment number would have their individual challenge codes for registration. If the apartment A99 is trying to register, they need to provide the challenge code YHHB8474.
- Phone number required in the user profile, not visible to anyone, except admins and contractors. Visible on profile page.
- Password complexity enforcement.
- Password required to be changed several times per year.
- The site is only visible to registered users, which means support and discussions are off limits for guests. Some static content is available to guests, but other than that it's for residents only.
Layout
- Main page with a vertical static box that contains a welcome message and describes the service. Search engines should pick up this for keywords and description in search results. Not visible to logged in users.
- The first section on the main page would news items that are posted by admins and a news usergroup. Maybe the 3 newest ones would be with the full body included and the rest of the posts would be on subpages. Ideas are more than welcome!
- At the bottom, below the helpdesk, there would be one single forum for community discussion. Five latest active threads would be shown on the main page as titles. Some nice link to the actual subforum in connection to that.
- Vertical postbits like in vB 3.x (indeed, I'm an old fashioned vBull'er).
Facility helpdesk
- The section section on the main page would consist of subforum/s for the helpdesk. It would be individual to each user account, meaning threads are only visible to the initial poster. Admins would see everything and contractors would see those threads they are assigned to by admins, unless it's technically too compliacted.
- Admins would get e-mail notifications about new support threads, i.e. tickets.
- Tickets can be assigned category prefixes by the initial poster and admins can set the status of the ticket.
- Threads, i.e. tickets, are assigned different statuses. Visible to adminds, thread creator and assigned contractors. Contractors only see what they get assigned to.
- Contractors get a notification when they are assigned to a ticket thread or there's new follow-ups.
- Contractors all have their own user account.
- SMS notifications. Our service contractors don't frequent the site, so they need to be poked. E-mail would be OK, but SMS works better for many less techsawy. There's currently no specific SMS gateway in use, as I'm looking for an option that would accomodate incoming replies. However e.g. SMSglobal can be used for this feature. SMSglobal has HTTP, REST, SOAP and SMPP available. API info: http://www.smsglobal.com/apis/. The SMS thing is something I hope we could split costwise with other possibly interested sites. Crowd funding works fine by me for this. There's a separate thread about this SMS topic.
Contractor requirements
- Any chosen contractor must provide access to previous works done. Ones with recommendations or other positive credentials are given a big plus.
- You can request my e-mail address privately, but I expect at least a short intro about what you can offer when you contact me.
- Timewise this should be ready within 1-2 months. Would of course like to roll this out ASAP, but I'm flexible, if we can make a good deal and both parties find the agreed timetable OK.
- You can price per the hour or all-included.
- Payments can be in any currency you wish and all payment systems are OK. Bitcoin is a little bit bothersome for the records, so not a primary choice.
- Can get you a letter of recommendation or work out some other form of portfolio or CV boost you wish, in case needed and the project works out great.
Don't hesitate to ask for clarifications in this thread.
Hopefully I got everything included and wrote informative enough.
The new XenForo powered website of a Finnish housing co-op needs custom coding and development. The site provides news, permanent information, facility management (read: support tickets) and community discussion for a large apartment complex. There's some 250-300 likely active, but non concurrent users (landlords and tenants). XenForo is up and running, but currently without any work done yet. The new site isn't public yet. No Finnish language skill is needed, because I'm responsible for the translation of any custom phrases and the site is also available in English. The XF resources add-on is installed.
Features required
Some of these are possibly available with already existing free or paid modifications/add-ons. I haven't had the time to get into this in depth. Naturally I don't want to reinvent the wheel, which means already available working stuff is to be used for costefficiency and code reliability.
Users and security
- Usernames or e-mail addresses are used for authentication upon login, but not displayed to anyone, except for admins on the profile page and admin CP. Usernames would probably add an extra layer to prevent accounts being compromised.
- First and family name required, showed as public profile name of user.
- Apartment number required, except for the admin and contractor usergroups. Visible in the postbit to these groups.
- Whitelist of apartment numbers. Users must specify an existing one when they register. Admins can exclude users from this requirement as otherwise contractors wouldn't be able to use the site.
- Challenge codes for whitelist. This feature can be skipped, if it gets way expensive, but would add more security. Each apartment number would have their individual challenge codes for registration. If the apartment A99 is trying to register, they need to provide the challenge code YHHB8474.
- Phone number required in the user profile, not visible to anyone, except admins and contractors. Visible on profile page.
- Password complexity enforcement.
- Password required to be changed several times per year.
- The site is only visible to registered users, which means support and discussions are off limits for guests. Some static content is available to guests, but other than that it's for residents only.
Layout
- Main page with a vertical static box that contains a welcome message and describes the service. Search engines should pick up this for keywords and description in search results. Not visible to logged in users.
- The first section on the main page would news items that are posted by admins and a news usergroup. Maybe the 3 newest ones would be with the full body included and the rest of the posts would be on subpages. Ideas are more than welcome!
- At the bottom, below the helpdesk, there would be one single forum for community discussion. Five latest active threads would be shown on the main page as titles. Some nice link to the actual subforum in connection to that.
- Vertical postbits like in vB 3.x (indeed, I'm an old fashioned vBull'er).
Facility helpdesk
- The section section on the main page would consist of subforum/s for the helpdesk. It would be individual to each user account, meaning threads are only visible to the initial poster. Admins would see everything and contractors would see those threads they are assigned to by admins, unless it's technically too compliacted.
- Admins would get e-mail notifications about new support threads, i.e. tickets.
- Tickets can be assigned category prefixes by the initial poster and admins can set the status of the ticket.
- Threads, i.e. tickets, are assigned different statuses. Visible to adminds, thread creator and assigned contractors. Contractors only see what they get assigned to.
- Contractors get a notification when they are assigned to a ticket thread or there's new follow-ups.
- Contractors all have their own user account.
- SMS notifications. Our service contractors don't frequent the site, so they need to be poked. E-mail would be OK, but SMS works better for many less techsawy. There's currently no specific SMS gateway in use, as I'm looking for an option that would accomodate incoming replies. However e.g. SMSglobal can be used for this feature. SMSglobal has HTTP, REST, SOAP and SMPP available. API info: http://www.smsglobal.com/apis/. The SMS thing is something I hope we could split costwise with other possibly interested sites. Crowd funding works fine by me for this. There's a separate thread about this SMS topic.
Contractor requirements
- Any chosen contractor must provide access to previous works done. Ones with recommendations or other positive credentials are given a big plus.
- You can request my e-mail address privately, but I expect at least a short intro about what you can offer when you contact me.
- Timewise this should be ready within 1-2 months. Would of course like to roll this out ASAP, but I'm flexible, if we can make a good deal and both parties find the agreed timetable OK.
- You can price per the hour or all-included.
- Payments can be in any currency you wish and all payment systems are OK. Bitcoin is a little bit bothersome for the records, so not a primary choice.
- Can get you a letter of recommendation or work out some other form of portfolio or CV boost you wish, in case needed and the project works out great.
Don't hesitate to ask for clarifications in this thread.
Hopefully I got everything included and wrote informative enough.
Last edited:
