Start with a small maintenance task
An editor might update links, change a colour or archive a checklist item. THE NEST taught Rolly the value of a CMS and admin area. Ask who will maintain your app and what they need to change.
A working editor, honestly described
Propose a small editor for [content or setting]. Explain where changes are stored, whether they survive refresh and who can make them. For this fictional prototype, label any local-only editor clearly. Do not present a public editor as a protected admin system. Show a plan for proper authorization before private school use.
Test the result
Statistics should mean something
If you add stats, explain exactly what is counted and where the data comes from. Label illustrative figures as demo data. Do not present invented numbers as real usage.
A route name is not protection
Calling a page /admin does not secure it. Sensitive edits need verified identity and permission checks on the server. Plan recovery as well: archive or restore content where appropriate rather than making every mistake permanent.
Connecting to the systems you already have
Rolly is familiar with APIs and has used them to connect one commercial app to another. The turning point was exploring alone: connecting commercial apps to web apps of Rolly’s own through the API keys those systems make available. That opened up further web app and solution development. Many school apps start this way, by making the data in a system the school already has easier to use.
An API key can open a whole system
An API key ID and secret let one app talk to another system. Even read-only access can be enough to open a large school system, such as a pupil or admissions database, to a web app. Treat both like a master password. Keep them out of your code, chats, screenshots and public repositories. Store them as secrets on the server, never in the browser. Ask for the narrowest access that does the job, involve the person who owns that system before you request a key, and never practise with a real one.
I want my app to read from [system] through its API. Before you write any code, explain what read-only access could expose and what the narrowest permission would be. Keep the key ID and secret out of the code and out of the browser, store them as server-side secrets, and tell me how to check that nothing is exposed. Use fictional data while we practise.