Almost two years ago, we launched a new souped-up website for Perimeter Church in Norcross, Georgia. Since then, we've been adding functionality and making the site even more awesome. All aspects of growth on perimeter.org have been geared towards helping ministry. In building different online tools, we're helping Perimeter's ministries work more efficiently than they ever have before. We're helping Perimeter Church pursue their vision, "To make and deploy mature and equipped followers of Christ for the sake of family, community and global transformation." Here are a handful of projects that have been developed:
Google Spreadsheets Tool More and more classes are using the website to distribute materials, collect information and more. Google Forms are easy embed into a page, but Perimeter needed to take that a bit further for management of data gathered in forms. Using Google's API, we created a backend tool to collect the output of these forms and automatically send a PDF to a designated person or send it to a person selected in the form using a small SQL database to match names to addresses. This has been extremely useful for classes that have multiple teachers.
Pulse Builder Each week Perimeter sends out an email newsletter called "The Pulse." The Communications staff wanted an HTML tool to expedite the process of creating this newsletter. Ministry leaders fill out a form with their announcement, which goes to the backend and is automatically placed on the bulletin or the Pulse. The "Pulse Builder" is a javascript and php tool created to gather information from these forms, organize them and add graphics, which creates a perfect HTML email. Archives can be seen at www.perimeterpulse.com
Checkout Library This is a CakePHP frontend tool for users to browse a small library of books and request to check the book out. The tool shows some information about the book and if it is "In," "Out" or "Already Requested." It also incorporates a frontend managing tool.
Perimeter Sync This has been a huge project to sync Perimeter's in-house CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software and the website's SQL database of user information through a C#.NET desktop application with an integrated windows service. In addition to the normal logged in profile sync, we've also created a profile update form in anticipation for an upcoming hashed email update profile campaign via Web Service.
Sentinel Bot This might be the most useful thing built for anyone managing a website. It's a cron job (scheduled task) that runs a scheduled task that monitors for specific parts of the site, such as the login process, and sends a warning email if anything is awry.
