The Andersons — Household Management Application

Technology Stack

Context & Background

Working as a team, our goal was to design and implement a comprehensive digital solution for "The Andersons" — a wealthy family that relies on a household staff of chefs, administrative assistants, and other personnel to manage day-to-day operations.

The core problem was a lack of any centralized system: tasks, schedules, meals, trips, and expenses were all managed separately or informally, leading to miscommunication and a missing overview. Our application consolidates everything into a single platform with role-based access for five distinct user types: Admin, Staff, Chef, Family Member, and The Andersons (heads of household).

Realisations

We delivered a working web application covering the following implemented modules:

• Authentication & Security: Full login system with two-factor authentication (2FA) via Laravel Fortify, password recovery via email, and role-based middleware protecting every route.
• Dashboard: A personalized overview displaying today's tasks (with priority and time filters), upcoming trips with checkpoints, and upcoming dinner plans — all adapted per user role.
• Task Management: Staff can view, create, complete, and manage their personal tasks. Family members and The Andersons get a read-only overview of all household tasks for the day.
• Invoice & Expense Management: Staff and Chefs upload receipts with file attachments; Admins and The Andersons can approve, mark as paid, and filter all household expenses. Full CRUD with status tracking (unpaid / paid).
• Meal Planning: Admins and Chefs manage planned meals; all users can join or cancel a dinner, add a guest, and view upcoming meal schedules. Chefs can confirm when a meal is prepared and view consolidated allergy information.
• Unavailability Management: Staff and Chefs register unavailability periods with start/end times. The system automatically detects conflicts with existing assigned tasks and blocks invalid entries.
• Admin Panel: A tabbed management panel for Admins covering user management (create, edit, deactivate/delete), role color customization, receipt categories, task categories, locations, and task priorities — all protected by password re-confirmation modals.
• Real-time Notifications: A Pusher-powered WebSocket notification system with an in-app notification bell, supporting task assignments, collaboration requests, and task reminders.
• Schedule Calendar: A visual calendar showing the household's full schedule across days, weeks, and months.
• Staff Availability Calendar: Admins can view all staff availability and unavailability periods on a shared calendar.
• Automated Testing: A Pest test suite covering authentication, admin panel, invoice flows, meal access control, notification API, and smoke tests across all major routes.

Key Diagrams: Use Case and ERD overviews.

Open Full Size

Open Full Size

Feature Prioritization — MoSCoW

We used the MoSCoW method to prioritize the 28 identified use cases. The Must Have features formed the core of our implementation: login & authentication, task management (personal and staff-wide), availability management, trip and checkpoint tracking, meal planning and subscriptions, allergy management, invoice management, and user administration. Should Have features included account settings, schedule printing, and receipt printing. Could Have covered collaboration request flows. Won't Have for this iteration: multi-household support.

Teamwork & My Role

This was a collaborative team project. My primary contributions were in the invoice & expense management module (full CRUD, role-based visibility, status tracking, file serving), the unavailability system (including the task conflict detection logic), and the admin panel (tabbed management UI with inline editing and password re-confirmation). I also contributed to the shared database architecture, seeding strategies, and the Pest test suite for the invoice flows.