In our latest instalment of Developer’s Corner, I corresponded via email with William Grzybowski, one of our developers hailing all the way from Curitiba, Brazil.
William developed an interest in open source even before college. His first job was at his college lab as an intern system administrator who supervised Linux servers and C development. He graduated with a degree in computer science from the Federal University of Paraná in 2010 and worked as a PostgreSQL administrator and Python developer before starting work for iXsystems. William is an instrumental part of the FreeNAS development team.
His current project is the new production tracking database, also known as Serial Tracking Database 2, that will be used internally by iXsystems. It is a Rich Internet Application (RIA) featuring an easy-to-use interface that replicates the work-flow of iX production staff as closely as possible. William developed this application from the ground up with the help of another iX employee, James Nixon. It is built with both Django and Dojo, the same technology found in FreeNAS and TrueNAS.
The basic work-flow can be explained in 5 steps:
- Creating an order
- Adding custom configurations to that order
- Adding systems to each custom configuration
- Adding parts to each system
- Shipping details for a group of selected systems or spare parts
James assisted with developing the UI and splitting the screen so every step of the work-flow takes minimal effort to perform any possible action. It essentially simplifies five steps down to two and will vastly improve the usability, productivity, and efficiency of the database.
Another great feature is the sidebar tree menu. It is used primarily to show all open orders, every item included in that order, and can be filtered by a specific order number, system serial, part number, etc.
Experience with the previous version of Serial Tracking Database, along with input from testers, are all extremely important for William. While “STD2” is still in development, the software has been successfully tested with high-volume and complex orders. He mentions there is room for improvement, but he is confident the new tracking software will significantly improve productivity on a daily basis.
Thank you William for sharing. Stay tuned for the next Developer’s Corner!
Lisa Liang
Marketing Assistant
