Inspiration
We want to help our front line heroes leverage technology to scale their operations. We discovered that while a lot of healthcare professionals are exposed to COVID-19, there are no good alternatives for quarantine. Since hospitality business is at an all-times low, hotels have expressed their desire to help. We want to enable these communities help each other.
What it does
Hotels can send us their healthcare and front line worker specific promo codes, which we create a directory on our site. Administrators for the healthcare and front line organizations can inform their teams to request for accommodation. Then, the administrator can use the promo codes provided by the hotel to continue the booking at the hotel website, thus ensuring that the right parties are offered the discount, and our service does not need to manage an inventory. For the individual healthcare and front line worker it's really easy: register with their ID and submit a request, all from the mobile browser.
How we built it
For the backend, we implemented a GraphQL API to query/mutate data from database to deliver to the client. We also chose MongoDB as the database of choice through MongoDB Atlas. For the frontend, we used React with React Router to implement various different pages.
Challenges we ran into
There were many challenges we ran into. For implementing the backend, we had tough time getting my graphQL queries to match the mongo schema. Also, it was a challenge using Apollo Client for the front end to even use my graphQL queries. Some other challenges we ran into was setting up authentication and deploying to Google App Engine.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
I'm proud of our team, having built a product with potential for large impact in the current environment. I'd love to see this app being used and get a lot of feedback to keep improving it.
What we learned
One of the main things we learned was how to use GraphQL with a built react app (create-react-app). It was very much different than when we had our own webpack file. We learned that the initial idea had to be adjusted based on user's needs and existing infrastructure. We tried to strike the best balance between usability and features.
What's next for Safety Patch
Get it in front of users! Have them try it and make sure it delivers value to them
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