Backstage Technical Services

One of the most complicated sites that I've undertaken was the Backstage Technical Services one. The then Chairman, Matt Bates, proposed a radical rethink about the way the Backstage site was operated and maintained.

The proposal called for the Backstage site to be as dynamic as possible, allowing ordinary members to get at information quickly and allowing those members with permission the opportunity to alter the content of the site without having to be literate in HTML or even able to use a WYSIWYG HTML editor. The idea was to take the diary, crew lists and volunteering and bundle them together into one homogenous mechanism that seemlessly integrated with the day to day running of the site.

Design Considerations

The Backstage site has to be hosted on the University Computing Service (BUCS) which is both a blessing and a hindrance. The University are kind enough to grant normal users the opportunity to create and run their own CGI scripts - something that is fundamental to this site. However, there are no database facilities and the Perl modules are tightly controlled by the SysAdmins (a good thing) which means that the site would require a custom database and also some workarounds for Perl features not available because the relevant modules weren't installed.

The End Result

One year on, the site has come to fruition with more features than were originally intended. The main features, those of a fully integrated event diary and crew management system are the centrepieces of a system which now handles members, meeting minutes, a socials diary, a categorized gallery and many other features ported across and enhanced from previous version of the site, such as the Gaffer Tape Archive, not to mention a complete, custom developed Session Management System.

The live (but tweaked) site can be viewed at http://www.bath.ac.uk/~su2bc.

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