Domenico Ruggiero
THE SOFTWARE MAESTRO, LLC

PROJECT 1: Automated Catalog Generation

 

Challenge

​

• The annually-produced Homeschool Connections Course Catalog was manually created for the many years since the company's establishment.  This was a labor intensive task that became increasingly burdensome (easily 200+ hours of effort annually) as the business grew with more 41 instructors and an excess of 250 course offerings.

• Dates for the lectures and "off weeks" were manually determined.

• The inefficient manual-labor effort introduced points of entry for data error (copy-paste, stale data that had been superseded by more recent updates, etc.).

• Formatting for the report was sufficient to convey information, but it was "text-heavy" with course descriptions running together in succession with uncontrolled page breaks (sample seen at left).

• Any desired format changes (e.g., the order of displayed information for each of the courses) would often be avoided because these changes could not be applied universally (once and for all) and instead would require manually implementing every instance of the change for all 250+ courses.
• The abundance of time expended on catalog production is time that would have been better spent on growing the business through conference participation, social media interactions, newsletter distribution, attracting new instructors and courses offerings, and more.

​

​

​

Solution

​

Consists of a Macro-Enabled Excel workbook interacting with a high-quality MS Word template.

​

• Data for courses is collected into a structured spreadsheet.  Data collection via forms by the Instructors eliminates staff from doing all of the data entry by hand.

• Some data fields are calculated such as the "off weeks" and last class dates based on script that calculates each lecture from the start date and taking into account known "off days" and instructor personal days.

• Detailed instructor biographies are collected including their pictures.

• The MS Word template defines the structure of the catalog, the look & feel of each section, utilizes more color and graphics/icons, and has a complex table structure for many of its information displays.

• Changes to the template are easy to implement and will be reflected throughout the catalog with just an update to 1 location.

• Due to the structured nature of the source data, it is used in a variety of ways:

  • Each course is given a full page each without any odd page breaks.  The course descriptions organize the details in an easy-to-find format, include the important class dates (start date, off days, and end date), utilize icons to represent the subject matter for the course, includes a picture of the instructor, and more (sample seen at left).

  • The "Courses at a Glance" serves as an informative table of contents with each course grouped under subject matter headings, icons for the subject matter, a condensed summary of course details, and a grouped summary of how many courses are available each semester per subject (sample seen at left).

  • Each semester section begins with a weekday vs time matrix of courses.  All courses for that semester can be seen in this view to allow parents to find courses that best fit into a family's schedule.

  • The Instructor Biography section includes a list of all course offerings that they have in the current schedule.  Some students have favored instructors and will enroll in the other courses that these instructors offer.

  • Extensive use of hyperlinks are established throughout the "Courses at a Glance", the semester weekday matrix, and the Instructor Biographies to allow users of the electronic catalog to jump directly to the applicable "Course Details" page.​

• The catalog is auto-generated from the aforementioned spreadsheet of data into the template.  The generation process is hands-free (no human intervention needed other than starting it), takes approximately 1-2 hours depending on the quantity of content, and can be assured that the finished output reflects exactly what is found in the source spreadsheet and needs no additional modifications to be ready for distribution.

​​

​

Client Testimony and Stated Benefits

"Domenico Ruggiero has worked with HomeschoolConnections.com on a number of projects. I very much appreciate Mr. Ruggiero's professionalism and expertise. He is easy to work with, has good communication skills, keeps deadlines, and always goes the extra mile.

​

One project that Mr. Ruggiero worked on for HomeschoolConnections.com was the creation of a course catalog for our online courses. This was a complicated project as our teachers and course offerings can change from semester to semester from 40+ teachers with hundreds of courses. 

​

Previously, we were creating the catalog manually, which took hundreds of man-hours. Mr. Ruggiero's program cut the time commitment to the catalog by 90%, saving our company a significant amount of money. Perhaps more importantly, data entry errors in the catalog were reduced to almost zero. So, in addition to saving costs, we have a product to share with our clients that is more professional and easier for them to use. 

​

Another plus to Mr. Ruggiero's program was that we could easily manipulate the information to create mini-catalogs, a calendar of course days & times, and a conference handout of "Courses At a Glance".

​

The indirect benefits of our new catalog are many. Just to mention a few:

1. Increased enrollments due to the ease of searching the catalog

2. The attraction of new clients in response to the professionalism of the catalog

3. Freeing up of time for our staff to work on new projects

 

Anyone who is considering Domenico Ruggiero for a position should not hesitate to contact me for a more in-depth review of his work with Homeschool Connections."​

​

Maureen Wittmann
Co-Founder and Co-Director
HomeschoolConnections.com
CatholicHomeschoolConference.com

​

 

Summary

The solution produces a much-higher quality and useful catalog that also conveys the professionalism that the company represents.  These outputs bring forth higher student enrollment and income.  The time savings and stress reduction by the company's staff represent tangible and intangible benefits that will be realized for many years to come.  And growth of the company can continue without adversely affecting catalog quality because the solution is scalable to any increased quantity of instructors and their courses.

​

View the current Live Course Catalog by visiting
https://homeschoolconnections.com/catalog/.

​