Overview

Background

The current PG Open Day and Tours booking forms (http://www.ed.ac.uk/about/campus/tours/student-tours-booking) are currently located on the 'praline' server, which needs to be decommissioned as it is not supported. 

There are also security issues with the current implementation, which is not correctly protected. 

Each application (PG Open days & Tours) has two halves; the public facing signup form, and an administrative tool for Student Recruitment and Admission (SRA)  to use

Scope, Objectives and Deliverables

The scope of this project is to migrate the redeveloped booking systems for PG Open Day and Tours and their administration interface to the LAMP server provided by IS.

Out of scope: 

• Decomissioning the 'praline' server  
• UG Open Days will not be migrated (SRA have already replaced the UG Open Day application (by EventBrite ) )

Assumptions:

• The LAMP infrastructure is available to create the new environments. 
• The new application needs to be load tested. PG Open Day typically attracts only around 1,500 registrants. However the load test can be done once we have actually delivered a usable service into production. This is to allow to meet the Sept deadline.  
• The new application does NOT need to be tested for Disaster Recovery, but recoverable steps need to be documented in the TAD. 
• The new PG open Days development and the built scripts already done by Ross Nicoll from Dev Team can be reused (see System Design Specifications document) . No further build is expected, just peer testing.   

Benefits

• This project will enable the 'praline' server to be decommissioned.
• It will allow the new service to be properly supported by IS Apps Management.
• It will reduce the risk of security issues through use of common framework (Yii) to handle user input validation.
• It will reduce the risk of data errors by adding referential integrity constraints to database.
• it will reduce administrative overheads by removing need for data clearing and population each year.
• It will remove requirement for developer time when changing dates on which open days/tours are run.
• The user interface design will be more coherent.

Success Criteria

• Applicants and potential applicants can book tours and open days using the new PG Open Day booking forms.
• The applicants' data is secure and the system cannot be hacked.
• The database schema design is brought into compliance with IS Apps standards.
• The software architecture brought in-line with similar PHP applications (i.e. A-Z directory, PG degree catalogue).