LACC After-School Program Portal

The LA Conservation Corps was founded in 1986 by former U.S. Secretary of Commerce and Trade Ambassador Mickey Kantor. LACC’s primary mission and purpose is to provide at-risk young adults and school-aged youth with opportunities for success through job skills training, education and work experience with an emphasis on conservation and service projects that benefit the community. LACC is currently the largest urban conservation corps in the nation with a full-time staff of over 150 employees who serve over 17,000 young people each year.


“Cory and RB Zack really worked with us to pinpoint the most essential aspects of our previous MS Access based Attendance Database while leaving the problematic aspect behind. Before, extracting and uploading our files was an arduous process--we knew there had to be a better way; now, our database allows us to input data from anywhere and is immediately accessible. They even cleaned and simplified the display making the navigation of the site easier than Access. Thanks RB Zack!”

- Biko Haffar
Administrative Assistant at LACC

Challenge: Change Attendance Data Entry From Access to Web

Los Angeles Conservation Corps has an after-school program that provides academic enrichment, tutoring and mentoring services at the Los Angeles Unified District elementary and middle schools.

LACC was using a Microsoft Access-based program which was collected and exported to Excel by each data entry specialist, then sent to the LACC Administration office for processing. The Excel sheets were then combined and sent in a report to LAUSD. The process involved a great deal of manual attention and coordination and there was no simple way to provide up-tothe-minute data on attendance.

Solution: Intuitive Web Portal for Easy Order Entry

RBZ&A designed and developed a LACC portal that provides web-based interface to a single database. The online attendance data entry, data import and export, and reporting are now available in realtime and manual data consolidation is no longer required.

Designed to mimic the original screens’ features and functionality, LACC found the transition very easy and appreciates the instantaneous ability to view attendance data. Other system features include login access, user management, school maintenance, student information maintenance, attendance data entry, data import and export, and reporting.

Results:

  • LACC after school program is now portable via web.
  • LACC now has a centeral database for after school program.
  • Built foundation that would support new features and functionality

Technologies Used:

  • Visual Studio 2010
  • ASP.NET 4.0
  • C# 4.0
  • HTML/DHTML/JavaScript
  • IIS 7
  • SQL Server 2008
  • Windows Server 2008
  • Authorize.Net Certified Developer
  • Microsoft Certified Partner