Starfish (The Family Place Utah)
Service management platform for a non-profit — rebuilt from scratch in 2024 to support scheduling, time tracking, and operations across multiple programs.
The Family Place Utah runs nursery, therapy, and family education programs out of multiple locations. For years their operations ran on a patchwork of spreadsheets, and paper sign-in sheets until our v1 web app I built for them over 9 years ago.
In early 2024 we agreed it was time to refresh the application. The rebuild achieved feature parity within a year and improvements have been shipping incrementally since then.
What the platform does
Calendar & scheduling — A shared org-wide calendar that tracks room usage, staff assignments, and program sessions. Rooms can be reserved independently of sessions, which matters when you have multiple programs competing for the same physical spaces.
Time clock — Staff clock in and out through the platform. The previous process involved paper sheets and manual data entry.
Document store — Onboarding documents and HR paperwork are attached to staff records in the platform. The data model supports expiry tracking for credentials as that workflow matures.
Program management — Each program (nursery, therapy, education) has its own configuration, roster management, and reporting. Staff only see what's relevant to their program.
The rebuild
The original system was built on a home-grown PHP framework with AngularJS on the front end. It had grown organically for over 9 years and had become difficult to change safely.
The rebuild is a proper Laravel application — clean domain separation, test coverage, and a Filament admin panel covering everything from staff management to scheduling and time tracking. The data model was redesigned from scratch to support the org's actual workflows rather than the workarounds the old system had forced them into.
My role
I'm the sole developer and have been since the beginning. I handle everything: requirements, architecture, development, deployment, and ongoing support. It's a long-term embedded relationship — I know their programs, their staff, and their operational quirks well enough to build software that actually fits.