For the past several months, I've been working on a project to bring the Title and Pay Plan (TPP) into a more useable format. The request goes back several years to the time of the Business Transformation Program, but for a variety of reasons wasn't able to come to fruition as a web application. The TPP is where the campus tracks salary information for all classifications. Contracts change over time, so we needed a method to help the classification and compensation staff manage this complicated and data intensive material.
My objective with this application is to provide a robust and easy to use tool that SHR staff can use to perform basic functions (search, print, etc.). Beyond the basics, with some training I hope to provide them the ability to create their own views on the data to improve their own processes.
With my interest in standardizing on Drupal for small database type projects, I revived some prototype work originally done in Cake and began working on a design that could utilize built-in Drupal features (accounts, content revisioning, permissions, commenting), CCK and Views to produce a searchable, commented, revisioning, version of the TPP.
Along the way, I dove deep into the internals of CCK and Views, custom module develoment and theming to achieve the requirements from SHR. I'll tackle some of my learning moments in other posts as I get time.
SHR will begin putting the beta through a feedback and testing phase beginning next week. Feel free to take a look for yourself.
We went live the week of October 4, 2009. It is being run under our Aegir hosting and management system.