InPlace — Placement Management System

InPlace is a web-based placement management system for university placement teams, built for the University of Leicester. It connects students, tutors, employers (providers), programme directors and administrators in one platform to manage placements end-to-end — from applications and approvals, through visits and reflections, to reporting and analytics.

🌐 Live demo: https://inplace-uup1.onrender.com/inplace/login.php

---

Features

Student

• Register and track placement application status (pending / approved / rejected)
• View current placement details and provider information
• Submit and manage tutor visit requests
• Write and submit placement reflections/reports
• Upload supporting documents (CVs, agreements, etc.)
• Receive announcements and messages
• View placement change requests

Tutor

• Create and manage student placements
• Schedule and record tutor visits (with calendar integration)
• Map view of all student placement locations
• Review "at-risk" students (e.g. missed visits, low engagement)
• Manage provider directory and provider meetings
• Review and respond to placement change requests
• Messaging with students and providers
• Generate reports

Provider (Employer)

• Dashboard of assigned students
• Confirm/accept placement offers
• Log and manage workplace issues
• Evaluate students at end of placement
• View and respond to tutor visit requests
• Messaging with tutors and students

Director (Programme Director)

• Programme-wide dashboard and analytics
• Placement overview across all students
• Map view of all active placements
• At-risk student monitoring
• Employer feedback summaries
• Export reports

Admin

• Approve/reject student & user registrations
• Manage all users (students, tutors, providers, directors)
• Manage placements (create, edit, export)
• System settings (reCAPTCHA keys, email config, etc.)
• Audit log of system activity

Platform-wide

• Email notifications (PHPMailer) and OTP-based verification
• reCAPTCHA v2 protected login/registration
• In-app messaging and notification center
• Document & report uploads (local disk or S3-compatible storage)
• Password reset flow
• Role-based dashboards and navigation

---

Tech Stack

• Backend: PHP 8.2 (vanilla PHP, no framework), PDO/MySQLi for data access
• Database: MySQL 8 (Aiven free tier in production, MariaDB/XAMPP locally)
• Frontend: HTML, CSS, vanilla JavaScript (server-rendered pages)
• Email: PHPMailer
• File storage: Local filesystem (dev) or Cloudflare R2 / S3-compatible storage (production) via aws/aws-sdk-php
• Containerization: Docker (php:8.2-apache)
• Hosting: Render (Docker web service, free tier)

---

Project Structure

inplace/
├── admin/              Admin dashboards, user management, settings
├── director/           Programme director dashboards & reports
├── tutor/              Tutor dashboards, placements, visits, providers
├── provider/           Provider (employer) dashboards & evaluations
├── student/            Student dashboards, placements, reflections
├── api/                JSON endpoints (calendar, messages, notifications, OTP, etc.)
├── actions/            Shared POST-handler scripts (uploads, reflections, visits)
├── includes/           Shared layout (header/footer/sidebar), auth, helpers
├── config/             DB connection, app config, email config
├── assets/             Images, uploads, static files
├── docker/             Dockerfile entrypoint & Apache config
├── tools/              One-off maintenance/utility scripts
├── PHPMailer-master/   Vendored PHPMailer library
├── login.php           Login page (with demo account quick-fill)
├── register.php        Student registration (with admin approval workflow)
├── dashboard.php       Role-based dashboard router
└── ...

---

Database

The application uses a single MySQL database with the following tables:

users, companies, placements, placement_opportunities, placement_change_requests, placement_notifications, documents, reflections, reports, visits, provider_meetings, provider_evaluations, provider_issues, provider_tokens, announcements, announcement_reads, messages, notifications, audit_log, otp_codes, password_resets, system_settings, tutor_settings.

Key users columns include role (student, tutor, provider, admin, director), approval_status (pending, approved, rejected), plus academic profile fields (academic_year, programme_type, etc.).

---

Local Development Setup (XAMPP)

1. Clone this repo into your XAMPP htdocs folder (e.g. C:\xampp\htdocs\inplace).
2. Start Apache and MySQL via the XAMPP control panel.
3. Create a database named inplace_db and import the schema/data dump.
4. Install PHP dependencies:

   composer install

5. config/db.php defaults to localhost / root / no password / inplace_db — adjust if your local MySQL credentials differ (or set the DB_HOST, DB_USER, DB_PASS, DB_NAME, DB_PORT environment variables).
6. Visit http://localhost/inplace/login.php.

Demo accounts (password: password)

Role	Email
Admin	admin.leicester.ac.uk@gmail.com
Tutor	tutor.leicester.ac.uk@gmail.com
Provider	provider.deloitte.ac.uk@gmail.com
Director	Director.leicester.ac.uk@gmail.com

These are also available as one-click "Demo Accounts" buttons on the login page.

---

Deployment

InPlace is deployed for free using:

• App → Render (Docker web service)
• Database → Aiven (free MySQL)
• File storage → Cloudflare R2 (S3-compatible)

Every push to main automatically triggers a rebuild and redeploy on Render.

See DEPLOYMENT.md for full setup details, environment variables, and how to apply schema changes.

---

Environment Variables

Variable	Purpose
DB_HOST, DB_PORT, DB_NAME, DB_USER, DB_PASS	MySQL connection
DB_SSL_CA	Optional CA cert path for DB TLS
R2_ACCOUNT_ID, R2_ACCESS_KEY_ID, R2_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY, R2_BUCKET, R2_PUBLIC_URL	Cloudflare R2 file storage

reCAPTCHA and email settings are configured at runtime via Admin → Settings (stored in the system_settings table), not environment variables.

---

License

This project was built for educational purposes as part of a university placement management coursework/project.