OK fit for a business dashboard?

[MarcC]

I am putting together a business dashboard in plain PHP+templating engine at the moment, and I thought maybe Processwire would be an OK fit for the project. The advantage would be that a lot of work has already been done on editing individual items and there's a full API.

So the requirements are like this:

Keep a list of clients

Keep a list of invoices sent, with amount, client name, other details

Keep a list of monthly goals for each year. A goal represents an amount that is to be billed that month.

Optional:

Keep track of issues and ongoing projects with each client. Store things like a project due date, milestones, and TODOs.

Output: Probably some JavaScript-enhanced charts and tables with other dashboard-ish stuff, like, "Amount left to bill in order to reach monthly goal," things like that.

Anything I'd need to be aware of? Advice? I wasn't sure how to handle things like goals. Thanks in advance.

[ryan]

Whether to use PW to build this – I'd say Yes, i think it would be a great way to go if you use PW how it's intended. That means using templates to define your data types and pages to contain the entries. Though even if you don't use PW to define and store your data, it still serves as a nice framework for your pages.

Anything I'd need to be aware of? Advice?

I'm good with specific questions but get stumped on broad, all-encompassing questions like this.   But here are a few 'broad' pointers that work for me when approaching a new project:

Figure out the logic you'll need outside the context of any other framework or code. Get a good solid understanding of the big picture in your head, and write down the key points to help you keep it fresh for the long term.

Take it one step at a time. If you get stumped on any part, then break it into smaller pieces.

Start simple. Get a barebones functional prototype, then go back and make it do everything you want.

For instances where you can't or don't want to plan it all out ahead of time, and it's preventing you from moving forward– just start. By that I mean code now and plan later. Then redo it with a plan once you really understand it. Some things need to be figured out as you go, and then you can go back and re-do as necessary to make it right. I'm not sure everyone would agree with this, but it works for me (and I code a lot of things twice or more).

I wasn't sure how to handle things like goals.

In general: Define your goal and understand what the completed goal looks like. Take where you are now, and where the goal is, and break it into 3 major steps to completion. Then break those 3 down into smaller steps until each seems relatively simple. Write down those steps. Accomplish one step at a time. Cross them off the list and keep the momentum going till the goal is completed.

In accounting: sorry I don't know about that.

[MarcC]

Thanks, Ryan. That's great advice and I'm sorry about the vague question.

So the goals thing, yeah. When I was doing this in plain 'ol PHP, a friend said I might use a database table with a unique goal ID of YYYYMM. I liked the idea but it seems like the best approach in Processwire would be to create a "Goal tree" like:

2011
    01
    02
    ...
    11
    12
Etc...

...and then just use the API and whatever variable math I need to crunch numbers. I'm going to start with that idea, anyway. [glow=red,2,300]GLOW[/glow]

[ryan]

I still don't really understand exactly what you mean by the goal, or the GLOW. But it sounds like you are on the right track.