UB Arbeitsplatzbuchung

This tool was written in June 2020 for handling restricted access during the COVID-19 pandemic and to support the booking of working spaces per location for clients.

It supports:

different resources, e.g. locations, floors, each with their own possible capacity numbers
different time slots per resource
display of a configurable date range
a rolling opening for new bookings (which is the current date + DISPLAY_DAYS_IN_ADVANCE value from configuration)

DISCLAIMER

This tool might not work for you out-of-the-box!

Due to the tight schedule, we were not able to turn it into a full-featured and polished shiny end product. Especially the authentication system is tailored to serve the needs of our institution. The underlying framework - Laravel - makes it pretty easy though to roll your own authentication or even go with the built-in solution. See "Authentication" for details.

Also, some things in the JavaScript part are a bit cumbersome and there should be some more cleanup in files and code structure.

Requirements

PHP 7.2
Database
npm
the will and time to adjust some things ;)

Webserver

Entry point for the application is public/index.php. Your webserver config should point to this location.

Installation

First you install the application by running: composer install.

You will then need to add an .env file with your configuration. A boilerplate config file is provided as .env.example. Just do a simple cp .env.example .env and tweak it to your needs.

Configuration options

Option	Purpose	Example
APP_NAME	The title of the app	"Buchungssystem für Arbeitsplätze"
APP_OWNER	The owner of the app, used in confirmation mail	"Universitätsbibliotheken der TU und UdK"
APP_ENV	Whether the app shows detailed errors or not	local/production
APP_KEY	Leave empty. Set by the application in the next installation step	Hash value
APP_DEBUG	Whether the app shows detailed errors or not	false
APP_URL	The base URL of the application	https://example.org/platzbuchung
APP_VERSION	The current version of the app	1.0
APP_LOGO	The path to the logo file	images/logo.svg (points to public/images directory)
TELESCOPE_ENABLED	Whether the debug tool Telescope" should be available under <APP_URL>/telescope	false
AUTH_ENDPOINT	Our external authentication server	"https://external.auth.webservice"
USER_BOOKING_QUOTA	How many bookings are allowed within the displayed date range, starting today	5
DISPLAY_DAYS_IN_ADVANCE	How many opening days should be displayed to the user for booking (weekends are currently excluded)	10
REPORT_PROCESS_SERVER_HOST	Remote processing server host without protocol, for SCPing the user report (see below)	"remote.process.server"
REPORT_PROCESS_SERVER_USER	Remote processing server SSH user, for SCPing the user report (see below)	"remote.process.server.ssh.user"
REPORT_PROCESS_SERVER_FILE_PATH	Remote processing server file path, for SCPing the user report (see below)	"/filepath/at/remote/process/server.txt"
STATS_REPORT_SUBJECT	Mail subject for daily statistics (see below)	"Tagesstatistik Buchungssystem"
STATS_REPORT_RECIPIENT	Mail recipient(s) for daily statistics (separate multiple with comma)	info@example.org
LOG_CHANNEL	The default channel, pointing to <APP_DIR>/storage/logs/laravel.log	stack
DB_CONNECTION	Your database engine, check out supported drivers	mysql
DB_HOST	Your database host	127.0.0.1
DB_PORT	Your database port	3306
DB_DATABASE	Your database name	platzbuchung
DB_USERNAME	Your dedicated database user	groot
DB_PASSWORD	Your dedicated database user's password	gr00t!
MAIL_MAILER	Your mail driver, check out supported drivers	smtp
MAIL_HOST	Your mail server	localhost
MAIL_PORT	Your mail server port	587
MAIL_USERNAME	Your mail server user	groot
MAIL_PASSWORD	Your mail server user's password	gr00t!
MAIL_ENCRYPTION	Your mail server encryption type	tls
MAIL_FROM_ADDRESS	Sender email address for confirmation mails	info@example.org
MAIL_FROM_NAME	Sender name for confirmation mails	"Buchungssystem"

After setting everything up, do this:

php artisan key:generate
php artisan jwt:secret
php artisan migrate

npm install
npm run prod

Authentication

We query an external webservice for authentication via TLS-secured CURL. Due to GDPR we only save the user data that is absolutely needed for running the application in the application database. Our custom authentication driver lives in app/Auth/AlmaUserProvider.php.

Chances are big that you'll use another road here. Laravel framework provides a convenient way for adding custom-tailored authentication which is described here.

Even Shibboleth authentication is possible. We've already done it successfully in the past and in another project with this library.

Built-in authentication

You could also use the built-in authentication system with local database tables as the main source. This even provides scaffolding so you should be ready to go in no time.

In config/auth.php, replace

'users' => [
    'driver' => 'alma',
    'model' => App\User::class,
],

with this

'users' => [
    'driver' => 'eloquent',
    'model' => App\User::class,
],

Remove this in app/Providers/AuthServiceProvider.php:

Auth::provider('alma',function() {
    return new AlmaUserProvider(new User());
});

You will need to put back the password field to the users table (which we removed). Just create a new migration:

php artisan make:migration add_password_to_users

This creates a new file inside database/migrations directory, where you put the following:

[...]
public function up()
{
    Schema::table('users', function (Blueprint $table) {
        $table->string('password');    
    });
}
[...]
public function down()
{
    Schema::table('users', function (Blueprint $table) {
        $table->dropColumn('password');
    });
}

Check out the documentation for scaffolding

Frontend assets compilation

JavaScript

The frontend is written in Vue2, a reactive JavaScript framework which interacts via API methods with the Laravel backend.

The entry point for development is resources/js/app.js
After compilation you have one target file: public/js/app.js

CSS

The styles are written in SASS, a CSS pre-processor.

The entry point for development is resources/sass/app.scss
After compilation you have one target file: public/css/app.css

Compilation

Fire up the following command:

npm run [dev/prod]

The dev option compiles the files to rather verbose target versions. The prod option generates minified target versions for better performance.

For convenient development you can also use npm run watch which detects changes on the source files and compiles it on-the-fly.

Logo

Your logo should go to public/images. We use a SVG version for better scaling. After placing your logo file you have to reference it in the .envfile with the APP_LOGOoption.

i18n

All texts are defined in in form of a PHP array.

German: resources/lang/de/app.php
English: resources/lang/en/app.php.

But: There is currently no switcher in the frontend. You can switch the language app-wide in config/app.php with the config option lang.

Since the frontend also relies on these you have to run the following after making adjustments to the texts:

php artisan vue-i18n:generate
npm run prod

Checkin / Checkout

There are 2 screens prepared for usage on dedicated screens:

<YOUR_APPLICATION_URL>/checkin
<YOUR_APPLICATION_URL>/checkout

In our institution they run in 2 workstations with kiosk browser installed and a hand scanner attached which scans the barcode of the library card. Of course, The screens can also be used on a normal infodesk computer in a browser, operated by a staff member.

The check-in validates if there is a currently valid booking present. The check-out validates if there was an check-in before.

Maintenance Commands

There is no administration panel (yet). Some stuff can be done on CLI level on the application server.

User report

In case of a COVID-19 infected client or a zombie apocalypse, this is the command to run:

php artisan axxess:user-report <DATE>

In our case, it assembles a separated list of checked-in users for a given date from the application database which is then sent to another server for enrichment with other personal data (which we don't store due to privacy reasons). Check out app/Console/Commands/GenerateUserReport.php for adjustments.

Add resource

If you want to add a new resource, just do this:

php artisan axxess:add-resource

Have the following data ready: Regular name, short name, capacity number, address, background color & text color (optional, for visual guidance only).

ATTENTION: No update or delete function yet.

Add Time slot

If you want to add a new time slot to a resource (multiple timeslots per resource per day are possible), just do this:

php artisan axxess:add-timeslot

It presents you a table with your resources for reference. Have the following data ready: Start time, end time.