UC-201 Halo: A Volunteer Management Application

Halo is a comprehensive volunteer management application (VMA) developed to address specific needs identified by Angels Among Us Pet Rescue (AAU). AAU's current system is unable to effectively manage and store complex volunteer information. As the organization’s needs evolved, AAU required a more efficient and secure solution to handle volunteer information. Our team designed Halo using the React.js framework for the frontend, the python based FastAPI framework for the backend, and a PostgreSQL database schema, with Docker containerization to ensure consistent deployment across environments. This setup enables efficient management of volunteer and team data, along with support for exporting reports in both .csv and .xlsx formats. To address security, Halo incorporates role-based access control (RBAC), differentiating access for administrators, editors, and readers. We also implemented a Google Sign-On feature with JSON web tokens (JWT) to validate users' Google login information within the database. Additionally, an Extract, Transfer, and Load (ETL) script facilitates secure data requests directly on the server. Halo’s frontend offers an intuitive interface designed to enhance user experience, with extensive search and filtering capabilities that make it easy to access and manage volunteer data. These improvements result in faster query responses and a substantial boost in usability compared to AAU's previous system.