SKIL2 Chez Natalie

Project Overview

As part of the Skills Integration Lab (SKIL) at Thomas More, our team developed a comprehensive B&B management platform for Chez Natalie. Working in an Agile/Scrum structure, I took on roles ranging from backend architecture and Docker DevOps setup to building advanced interactive features like visual editors and scheduling engines.

1. Database Architecture & Schema Design

I designed and implemented the entire database layer from scratch using Laravel Eloquent ORM. The architecture was fully verified against client needs and normalized for robust relational behavior.

Database Highlights:

• Users & Access: Extended standard Laravel users to support custom roles and gender relationships.
• Booking Engine: Designed room categories, seasonal pricing, booking constraints, and seeders to prevent double-booking conflicts.
• Leisure Systems: Created separate entities and relation maps for bike rentals, yoga class schedules, and class subscriptions.

Our database design received a 9.5 / 10 evaluation from the examiners:

“Group 601 has delivered a highly professional and extensive database architecture. The project covers a complex scope including room bookings, bike rentals, yoga classes, and a mail template system. The code quality is excellent, with strong adherence to Laravel standards and clear architectural choices.”

2. Core Feature Engineering

Visual Mailing Template Maker & Queue Backend

To prevent future API deprecations, I built a custom visual WYSIWYG mail editor and a resilient backend mailing queue system from scratch:

• Placeholder Editor: Allows admins to insert dynamic system variables (like {{client_name}}, {{booking_date}}) into mail subjects and bodies.
• Smart Variable Filtering: Groups available placeholders contextually based on the event trigger (e.g., room details are hidden during yoga class cancellations to avoid validation errors).
• Flexible Delay Engine: Integrated an intuitive UI delay selector enabling direct or scheduled background mail delivery.
• Robust Queue: Supported by Laravel Queues to guarantee bulletproof delivery, persistence across server restarts, and automatic template-variable replacement.

Yoga Class Management

Developed a comprehensive administrative workspace and frontend dashboard for yoga instructors:

• Intelligent Reinstating: An active recovery system for canceled classes that automatically runs check queries against room schedules to prevent scheduling overlaps.
• Dynamic Room Checkers: Live room availability states that update asynchronously as the date and time fields are edited.
• Open Hours Enforcement: Validation rules that automatically restrict lesson start times and durations based on B&B operational guidelines.

Verified Customer Review System

A high-end feedback module that allows customers to leave ratings and text feedback:

• Security & Anti-Spam: Secured post-booking links via unique ULIDs to ensure only verified guests can submit ratings, limited to exactly one review per booking.
• Data Integrity: Implemented database-level triggers and models, resolving edge cases such as rendering a clean 0.0 rating state instead of empty gaps when no reviews exist.

3. UI/UX & Interactive Calendar Upgrades

To offer B&B admins and yoga teachers a cohesive experience, I engineered dynamic, single-page application dashboards styled with Tailwind CSS and FluxUI:

Dashboards & Calendar Systems

• Personalized Analytics: Custom admin and teacher landing views showing quick stats, schedules, and active bookings.
• Abstract Calendar Integration: Integrated a custom, responsive calendar day-view component.
• Real-Time Progress & Timeline: Built a live, dynamic red progress line showing the current time, with an auto-scroll trigger that focuses the viewport on the current hour on load.
• Status Badging: Implemented clear visual badges and striped grids to instantly indicate canceled classes or fully booked rooms.

Quality of Life Additions

• Floating Action Action (FAB): Placed a sticky quick-action button on booking panels to let users schedule bookings instantly.
• Settings Layouts: Created a sticky, split-pane navigation bar for system settings forms to make long configuration forms painless to update and save.
• Custom Error Layouts: Crafted high-fidelity styled pages for 403, 404, and 500 HTTP errors with smart UX routing (e.g., automatically redirecting unauthorized guest role views straight to /login or correct user dashboards).

4. DevOps, QA & Quality Assurance

To ensure my team was productive and the codebase stayed clean, I took ownership of our local environments and our automated quality gates:

Local Development Environment

• Laravel Sail: Built a standardized, Docker-based local development pipeline optimized for Linux environments, bypassing slower alternatives.
• Vite Hot-Reloading: Wired hot module replacement directly through Docker networking for immediate, fluid frontend refreshes during design work.

CI/CD Pipeline & Quality Gates

• Static Code Analysis: Configured Laravel Pint to automatically enforce coding standards, formatting styles, and optimal syntax on every commit.
• Rigorous Test Suite: Developed extensive feature tests (e.g., asserting asynchronous queue behaviors without needing manual email triggers) totaling over 300+ assertions running automatically on every Pull Request.
• Pull Request DOD: Drafted our team’s “Definition of Done” template integrated into GitHub to ensure consistent quality standards before code merge.
• Security Auditing: Implemented strict Content Security Policy (CSP) headers to shield the B&B app from XSS injections, standardized database naming conventions, and hardened Mollie endpoints against API rate limit blocks.