One project that I have worked on continuously since 1975 is management software to keep track of things. Now that I am retired, I will be working on Everything Manager. This will be the be all to end all computer life management programs.
Primary Objectives
- Needs to be easy to use.
- Needs to be able to track anything.
- Options for making it simple as possible but complex as needed.
- Automate entries as much as possible.
Possible use cases.
- Club membership and event tracking
- Vehicle maintenance.
- Home repairs.
- Service inventory.
As in any project, there will be some compromises as illustrated with that last point. I will make more posts about how this is going to work and why it will never be ready to a perfectionist like me. I’m going to use the “Data Model Resource Book” as a reference for much of what follows. As well as schema.org. Here is an outline of things to track.
- Thing. Everything is a thing of some kind. We keep everything in a single table so when we lookup a patient, we can filter the thing table on category. Things can have more than one category. For example, I can be a performer, a patient, a client, etc. Here are some categories of thing.
- Party. This would include anything that can enter into an agreement or own other things. They will have contact information. This could be a person, a company, or other organization. Party could be related to one or more other things. In the most extreme case this could be used as a family tree program.
- local business.
- person.
- Equipment. Some things are significant items that are always owned by a party. Lawn mower, car, AC unit, etc. These often have serial numbers, cost, value, etc.
- Event. Action. When we log what we or someone else does, we are talking about events actions. I am thinking about not including them in the thing table as except that calendar events need to be a thing. So even logs of what I do will be things, otherwise some events or actions would be both an action and an event. This needs groups and sub events.
- Inventory. Not sure about the exact organization here yet. I might need to categorize by items needing regular maintenance and those that are maintenance free. Supplies, consumables, parts, tools, etc. are all under this category. I will probably have sub categories. Some of this might have multiple locations for example, soap. Some can only be in one place at a time but might be mobile. Laptop, book, car. Some might be loaned out occasionally. These will often be used in events.
- domain. Has one DNS Server group and 1 registrar.
- Website is associated with a domain.
- email address is associated with a domain.
- network device. Computer, printer, switch, firewall, router, etc.
- vehicle.
- domain. Has one DNS Server group and 1 registrar.
- Party. This would include anything that can enter into an agreement or own other things. They will have contact information. This could be a person, a company, or other organization. Party could be related to one or more other things. In the most extreme case this could be used as a family tree program.