Open-source on-demand Baobab Program Management System for US SNAP-EdTHE CUSTOMER CPS Baobab Inc (CPS) is a startup company that provides web-based program management to the nutrition education community in the U.S. Potential clients include universities, community-based health and human service agencies, non-governmental organizations, and trade and faith-based organizations that manage a variety of nutrition education programs or projects.
THEIR NEED CPS approached Aspire in the fall of 2007 to build a highly reliable and scalable, web-based specialty Program Management System (PMS). The software would initially target Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program - Education (SNAP-Ed), but would need to have extended use in other nutrition and health promotion education programs, such as EFNEP and WIC. Federally funded by the Food and Nutrition Services of the United States Department of Agriculture (FNS-USDA), SNAP-Ed supports community-based nutrition and physical activity education for low income adults and children in 50 states and three territories through public and nonprofit organizations. CPS wanted an intuitive, user-friendly system that would provide benefit equally through all levels of the software – from community-based educators to state level management to end-point federal reporting – and include built-in features to assure compliance with federal and state funding requirements while supporting best practices. Above all, the software needed to fully respond to Education and Administrative Reporting System (EARS), the reporting standard for SNAP-Ed, and have an implementation date of FY10 (October 1, 2009 – September 30, 2010). Apart from internal applications used by individual organizations/universities, which are limited, smaller scope reporting systems, there were no other similar solutions available to SNAP-Ed implementing agencies. CPS’s web-based product would be the first to cater exclusively to this audience.
OUR DEED As the sole technology partner of the customer, Aspire built a flexible Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Program Management System (PMS) from concept to implementation. The web-based solution is built from scratch on the open-source LAMP stack and integrated it with a custom-built MVC framework, which is customizable for future expansion programs of nutrition education. Meeting CPS’ objectives, the application – Baobab Program Management System™ – simplifies program management and operation; improves collaboration among nutrition educators; and provides a comprehensive reporting system that meets all EARS requirements. View the full story (PDF)  |
