So last month I finished my project at work. Seven months of software development to create something that I think is pretty kick ass. It's a database driven, web app that uses .NET 2.0, C#, ASP, SQL Server, Stored Procedures, Windows Service, and the AJAX 1.0 Toolkit.
What is it and what does it do? It is as complete a HR scheduling system as I've ever seen. Through this software, you can schedule your employees across multiple locations, they sign in and out at each location (using 3rd party magnetic key tags) and you receive a live newsfeed about employees who didn't follow their schedules (late/early/look too long a lunch/took too short a lunch/left early/left late/didn't show up/etc!). You can then go in and make changes if you want to. Each employee also has their own set of rules, they have default schedules and late and early variances (some employees can be more late/early than others). The next part was a bitch to code, you can run payroll reports for anytime period you want. The software will calculate how much each employee is to be owed taking into account hourly VS salary VS flat rate, overtime laws, stat holiday calculations (holy shit!), bonuses, raises, vacations, sick days, etc. Another cool feature is that you can set up different "companies" to pay employees for. So if I should be working in the Garage one day but I'm paid out of the office, the Garage's payroll will indicate that they owe the office for my time.
Here is the user documentation I wrote for management, you have to download it to your PC to able to read it. Aside from some of you, this is the best thing I've ever done!
The frustrating thing about development, is that I was 90% done about 4 months ago. The vast bulk of the work took as much time as the fine tuning and deployment. As much time is spent coding/thinking about coding as it is not coding. I guess it's not really out of the ordinary for software development, or anything else really. Large swaths of work is easy, but its all the peripheral work that takes time. Like, when you're painting a room, it'll take you more time to set up, tape and paint the edges, and clean up than it will to paint the walls.
Replies: 4 comments
so ... now what are you going to do?
Posted by melpie @ 02/03/2008 10:29 PM EST
It's those naps you take at work that are holding you back...:P!!
Posted by dAN @ 02/04/2008 10:14 AM EST
new project: coming up with and coding up a sales forecasting model...
Posted by Long @ 02/05/2008 04:31 PM EST
"Aside from some of you, this is the best thing I've ever done!"
Oh dear. :P
Posted by Rachelle @ 02/17/2008 04:27 PM EST