On Monday, July 15, 2013 12:30:45 AM UTC-4, Arslan Farooq wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I am learning Ruby. In the meantime, I have to make a simple app for a 
> small company that I know how to make in PHP and MySQL.
>
> I have not started learning Rails yet (first I want to finish the Ruby 
> book I have started). But I was thinking if with a little guidance may be I 
> can make this app in Rails. If I can do it, that will be great.
>
> The requirement is like this: 
>
>
>    - I am given an Excel file that has 11 columns. Each row has 
>    information about one item. Each row is unique. Right now the company uses 
>    this excel file to search for required information, and they want me to 
>    make a web app for this. 
>    
>
>    - This Excel data and future data will be inserted into the database 
>    in bulk, using CSV imports. I think there is no need to break the table, 
>    and our app can just have a single table to search from. 
>    
>
>    - The search will be done using 2 columns from the table.
>    
>
>    - One person will have the privilege to edit searched records.
>    
>
>    - Only 4 people will be using the app for now. There will be no option 
>    to sign-up for a new account.
>    
>    - The home page will have the search form (two fields, user can fill 
>    both or one).
>    
>    
> I will appreciate (a lot) any pointers, guidance and help with this.
>
> I can make this in PHP, but I'd love to make it in Rails.
>
> -- arslan
>

Assuming you have little Ruby experience and no Rails experience I think 
your best plan would be to familiarize yourself with RubyOnRails tutorials 
at: http://guides.rubyonrails.org/getting_started.html (a full tree 
provided by the RoR development group covering major Rails components), 
and: http://ruby.railstutorial.org/ruby-on-rails-tutorial-book (a very good 
book by Michael Hartl with the apt sub-title "Learn Web Development with 
Rails").  Both are free online.

Your application looks like a good one for a first effort with two models: 
User and Item.  Members of the User class can have roles associated with 
them, i.e.: Manager, Employee, and Administrator.  The Item class will be a 
direct map of the spreadsheet, members will have fields that mirror the 
spreadsheet columns.  The Item search can be nicely built into the item 
controller's index method and the item edit restriction can be enforced by 
keying off the user's role in the controller methods and views.

I would suggest that, at least initially, you use a snapshot of the 
company's spreadsheet to populate a database that you will use for all 
development, test, and functional acceptance.  You can then segregate out a 
separate task to either provide functions to import and export the excel 
based data.  I would suggest that the final design might want to have the 
data held in a database with a publish capability with an excel format 
(and/or pdf, and/or ...) that has the published date/time as part of the 
page header.

Be sure to learn how to test your app, validate your data, and have fun.

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