Mustard Seed Database: Food Pantry Software

Manages the three primary workflow of a food pantry operation:

• Verification of client eligibility - when client checks in at the food pantry, prompts for re-verification of expired documentation. Verification documents include:
  • Verification of identification.
  • Proof of residency.
  • Proof of household income.
  • Eligibility documentation may be scanned and stored in the database.
  • Determination of extent of client eligibility based on household income and household size.
• Received donations - Barcodes are scanned and non-barcode items assigned sku codes. Receiving of items is logged and added to current inventory.
• Food distribution - Record distribution of food items to clients, resembling a supermarket checkout model.

Includes admistration facilities:

• Inventory cycle count.
• Resolve database to actual inventory.
• Report generation (future).
• Database validation.
• Role-based access control. Long-term staff may be assigned access accounts. Access may be configured for temporary or short-term staff that limits privileges and expires at the end of the session.

Fully "skinnable" with your own color scheme and graphical elements (logo, navigation icons).

Installation

Installation requires git, rubygems, bundler and ruby 1.9.3 to be installed on the host computer.

If these are not already present, follow the installation instructions for each of them at:

• ruby - ruby-lang.org
• rubygems - rubygems.org
• bundler - gembundler.com
• git - git-scm.com

Download the code from github:

git clone git://github.com/mustardseeddatabase/msdb.git

Or if you have a github account, fork the code into your account and download from there, later you will use your own account as a repo for your own customized version.

Install gem dependencies:

cd msdb
bundle

Create a database (the default database is sqlite, to facilitate installation. You will certainly wish to replace that with mySQL or Postgres, so edit config/database.yml appropriately).:

rake db:schema:load

(If you have loaded the application on a server and will be running in production environment, use RAILS_ENV=production like so:)

rake db:schema:load RAILS_ENV=production

Prepare the test database:

rake db:schema:load RAILS_ENV=test

If you're running Apache/Passenger, you need to add a file public/.htaccess with contents:

RackBaseURI /
PassengerAppRoot /path/from/root/to/msdb

Run the tests:

cucumber features
rspec spec

If you wish to import your own data, rather than start with a clean slate, you will need to write rake tasks to map your existing database onto the tables in the application. Depending on the structure of your database, this can be a tricky endeavour. Verifying that the import has been correctly executed is a manual task and cannot easily be automated.

Bootstrap access accounts. Set up the first adminstrative account, from which other access accounts can be generated via the user interface.

Note that the command format has no spaces or quotes, the arguments are first name, last name, login and password.

rake authengine:bootstrap[Harry,Harker,hhrocks,sekret]

(See above regarding appending RAILS_ENV=production to this command if you have loaded the application on a server)

A sample set of data may be loaded into the database so you can explore the application and get a feel for how it works. Load up the sample data with:

rake msdb:preload

(See above regarding appending RAILS_ENV=production to this command if you have loaded the application on a server)

Precompile the assets, (this step would typically be automated in your Capistrano recipe, but here we do it manually)

rake assets:precompile

Customize the color scheme and graphics

Run the rake task:

rake msdb:create_theme

(append RAILS_ENV=production in a server configuration)

The theme's text elements (banner text and page title) may then be configured in config/locales/theme/en.yml.

All the images (logo and navigation icons) are combined in a single sprite, app/themes/custom/images/ms_sprite.png. Replace the elements in this image with images of your own.

Edit the stylesheets in app/themes/custom/stylesheets to render the pages with your own color scheme.

Set up access accounts, roles and privileges

A bootstrap rake task is provided to configure the first admin account (see above). After the first account is configured, further accounts and roles may be added via the user interface.

Roles, with user-defined names, are configured, and access privileges are assigned to the roles. When a user account is added, the user is assigned one (or more) roles.

Since a food pantry operation may be staffed by a transient cast of volunteers, an account may be temporarily downgraded (for the duration of the session) so that the computer may be used for, for instance, client checkout, without exposing the full database to the temporary staffer.

Set up the constants for the mailer

Emails are sent by the application during the registration of new users. Parameters used in emails are configured in lib/constants.rb. The smtp agent is configured in config/initializers/action_mailer.rb (an example of such a configuration is included: config/initializers/action_mailer_example.rb. Edit this file and rename it to action_mailer.rb)