Handyman Services Application (HSA)

Authors:

• Alex Guo
• Tan Nguyen
• Stewart Sankey
• Mike Zeng

This application was built as part of the course CS:5830:0001 Software Engineering Project taken during the Spring 2025 semester at The University of Iowa.

The original repository can be found .

Introduction

The Handyman Services Application (HSA) is a web-based, field-service app designed to assist handyman businesses. The app is an all-in-one solution for a handyman to manage everyday tasks such as customer management, job tracking, invoicing, and bookings.

Background

A handyman is a person who provides maintenance or "fix-me-up" type of work for households. Typical services include work such as cleaning gutters, window washing, pressure washing, painting, furniture assembly, lighting, and remodeling. While they are typically a generalist, some may have additional expertise in areas such as HVAC, landscaping, electrical, and plumbing.

Problem Statement

A recent study by Slack found that small business owners are losing on average 96 minutes per day in productivity from context switching between different apps for managing their business. This amounts to over 3 work weeks of loss productivity annually. Handyman businesses are no exception to this.

An independent handyman business can have a lot of overhead in their day-to-day operations. To run their business, a handyman needs to be able to track their customers, jobs, materials, and other costs. They also need to manage their schedules, generate quotes, dispatch subcontractors, track invoices, and many other tasks. As their business grows, the time spent having to manage overhead grows with it.

Application Overview

The Handyman Services App consists of 6 primary features and a secondary customer-facing feature. HSA is organized into three primary systems: The CRM system, the Jobs system, and the Bookings system.

Key Features

Primary Features

Quote Managment

quote-demo.mp4

External Website Forms

iframe-demo.mp4

Login and Signup

Signup.and.Login.-.Wiki.mp4

Invoices

Invoice.-.Wiki.mp4

Onboarding

Onboarding.-.Wiki.mp4

Bookings and Calendar

Booking.-.Wiki.mp4

Booking Remainders

remainder-demo.mp4

Jobs

Job.-.Wiki.mp4

Technical Stack

The Handyman Services Application is built using the following technologies:

• Frontend: Angular 19 with Angular Material and Tailwind CSS
• Backend: Django Rest with Gunicorn
• Database: PostgreSQL + Redis
• Deployment: Google Cloud Platform + Kubernetes

Installation Instructions

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v18 or higher)
• Python (v3.10 or higher)
• PostgreSQL (v14 or higher)
• Docker (optional, for containerized deployment)

Frontend Setup (Angular)

1. Navigate to the frontend directory:

   cd HSA-frontend

2. Install dependencies:

   npm install

3. Start the development server:

   npm start

   The application will be available at http://localhost:4200

Backend Setup (Django)

1. Navigate to the backend directory:

   cd HSA-backend

2. Create a virtual environment:

   python -m venv venv
   source venv/bin/activate  # On Windows: venv\Scripts\activate

3. Install dependencies:

   pip install -r requirements.txt

4. Set up the database:

   • Create a PostgreSQL database
   • Configure the database connection in your environment variables:

     DATABASE_NAME=your_db_name
     DATABASE_IP=localhost
     DATABASE_USERNAME=your_db_user
     DATABASE_PASSWORD=your_db_password
     

5. Run migrations:

   python manage.py migrate

6. Start the development server:

   python manage.py runserver

   The API will be available at http://localhost:8000

Docker Deployment

The application can also be deployed using Docker:

1. Build the Docker image:

   ./environment.sh build

2. Set the required environment variables:

   export DATABASE_NAME=your_db_name
   export DATABASE_IP=your_db_host
   export DATABASE_USERNAME=your_db_user
   export DATABASE_PASSWORD=your_db_password

3. Run the Docker container:

   ./environment.sh run

   The application will be available at http://localhost:8000

Contributing

Please see Contributing.md for details on our code of conduct and the process for submitting pull requests.

License

This project is licensed under the terms of the LICENSE file included in the repository.