Freelance Projects

Plan On A Page (POAP) Project

We require a contractor or company to produce a bespoke web application, based on processes currently being managed manually in Excel spreadsheets. The provider will be expected to carry out the full project life cycle, from technical specification to deployment and testing on an external server.

It is possible that there will be a second phase of development following the completion of this project. However the decision to add a second phase would only be confirmed after an assessment of the outputs of Phase 1.

We would intend that the project take no more than two months from initiation to sign-off.

Technical Requirements

- Secure database-driven web application, platform-independent and preferably using open source technologies.
- Suitable for hosting on a remote server, or for deployment on a client site intranet.
- Clear, intuitive and attractive user interface

Use of System (*) and System Description

*The system will be used to help managers of teams and departments to plan their resources and workloads.

The system will be based on the hierarchical structure of an administration centre, with a number of Sites, which in turn contain multiple Departments, each of which is split into a number of Teams. Each of these levels will have a corresponding user role, on 1:1 basis - each Site will have a Site Manager, each Department an Operations Manager, and each Team a Team Leader. The system will allow users to be allocated to these roles.

*Team Leaders will use the system to create Proposed Plans for their team for the week ahead to discuss them with their manager and to save Agreed Plans once the plans have been agreed. At the end of the week, the Team Leader will record the Results vs Plan for the week, so that they can compare these against plan. Department managers will use the system to aggregate teams’ Proposed and Agreed plans and Results vs plan to see how the overall business is doing.

On a weekly basis, each Team Leader will enter the expected work figures for the coming week, and save the data as a Proposed Team Plan. The figures will then be modified and agreed with their manager, and saved as a separate Agreed Team Plan. At the end of the week, the actual work figures achieved during the week will be added to the data on the Agreed Team Plan, and saved as Team Results vs Plan, again separate. The Team Leader will also be able to create and save a number of Draft Team Plans for the week, to experiment with different figures. All the week’s plans need to be persistently stored, and a new set of plans will be created in the next week by the same process.

On each Team Plan, calculations will be carried out using the input data to provide meaningful derived information. This will be carried both as part of the plan saving process, and on-the-fly to dynamically update the information on the web page.

At Department level, the next step up in the hierarchy, an Operations Manager will be able to select a number of Team Plans, for Teams within their Department, and aggregate their data into a single Department Plan. They will then be able to save that within the same structure as for Team Plans: Proposed, Agreed, Results or one of multiple Drafts. The aggregated data will be displayed in several formats that are useful to the Operations Manager. Once a Department Plan has been created, the underlying Team Plans will be locked for editing.

Production of plans at Site level by a Site Manager will follow the same format as for Department level, except that saved Department Plans will be aggregated rather than Team Plans.

Project Phases

As mentioned above, once the system as described in the specification document is complete and deployed, it is possible that there will be a second phase to the project. A summary of the possible expansions to system functionality is attached.

Although these are not part of the initial project, it would be useful to consider them in the development of the system, to make them as straightforward to implement at a later date as possible – provided such considerations do not increase the costs or timescales of the project.

Other Details

- The application will need to be fully standards-compliant and documented.
- The developer would need to provide ongoing system maintenance on a contractual basis
- UK-based hosting of the finished system could be a benefit, but is not a necessity. If available, please give details of the service and costs, although not included in the project bid.
- It is possible that we will accept multiple bids for this project. In this case, we would select a preferred system, with an eye on proceeding to the second phase development, once each provider has completed their project and the balance been paid.

Bid Details

In addition to any other information you consider appropriate, please provide information on the following:

- An outline of how you would see the system laid out
- Technologies that you would intend to use, and your relevant experience and qualifications
- Project and development methodologies, frameworks and documentation procedures that you would intend to use
- Details of similar projects that you have successfully implemented in the past
- Contactable references for previous projects
- Links to other examples of your work that we can view, if available

A full specification of requirements is attached, along with example spreadsheets.