UH Groupings API

Introduction

The UI can be viewed here and the API here.

I worked (and am still working) on one of UH Manoa’s ITS department’s web devlopment teams to develop UH Groupings, which is an inhouse web app used by the university to group and sort students into different groups for organization, access permissions, and email listings. I started working on UH Groupings since March 2018, primarily working on the API side to develop new functionalities and improve the code base for use by the UI team. UH Groupings was built on the framework of Internet2’s Grouper API. It uses a multitude of frameworks, languages, and tools, including but not limited to Java, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, Spring, Maven, JUnit, CAS, and Swagger. We communicated and worked as a team using Jira, Git, and Slack.

Duties and Accomplishments

• Improved the code base by implementing large amounts of code coverage using JUnit to write both Unit and Integration Tests, and improving the quality of the code to improve its flow and readability.
• Developed the new v2.1 API REST Controller in line with RESTful concepts.
• Developed a new functionality allowing the UI to obtain a given user’s attributes directly. This was used to show the end user all the attributes of anyone they were attempting to add, delete, or move in UH Groupings.
• Implemented bug fixes and testing to ensure working code.
• Miscellaneous tasks involving maintenance of the UH Groupings API and UI backend.

Lessons Learned

From working on UH Groupings so far, I have learned how a professional software development team functions. I learned how work is divided amongst a professional team, and how a team collaborates from weekly meetings. I was able to apply things I learned from my classes, such as my understanding of TCP/IP, my coding ability, and the power of Stack Overflow and Google. I’m somewhat joking, but a lot of times it was on me to learn how to do something, either by asking a team member for help, looking online, and being able to understand what I found (such as raw documentation, tutorials, or Stack Overflow results). I have also learned the importance of pushing and maintaining good code that isn’t only for a class project and then forgotten about. The code I write for UH Groupings will have to be future-proof and easily understandable and maintainable by not only my coworkers and bosses, but also future team members who may not be able to ask me to clarify how any of the code functions once I am gone.