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A Volunteer Management System (VMS) is an essential tool for organisations relying on the services of volunteers. Managing information about volunteers, their skills, availability, and assignments can be a challenging task even for small organizations, let alone larger ones. Here, we will outline how to create a simple VMS using SQL.
Database Design
For this example, we will create three basic tables: Volunteers, Assignments, and Skills. These tables will provide the needed information for this system.
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CREATE TABLE Volunteers ( ID INT PRIMARY KEY, FirstName VARCHAR(40), LastName VARCHAR(40), Email VARCHAR(60) ); CREATE TABLE Assignments ( ID INT PRIMARY KEY, Title VARCHAR(100), StartDate DATE, EndDate DATE ); CREATE TABLE Skills ( ID INT PRIMARY KEY, Name VARCHAR(50) ); |
Associative Tables
To maintain the many-to-many relationships between entities, we will create two more tables, VolunteerSkills and VolunteerAssignments.
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CREATE TABLE VolunteerSkills ( VolunteerID INT FOREIGN KEY REFERENCES Volunteers(ID), SkillsID INT FOREIGN KEY REFERENCES Skills(ID), PRIMARY KEY (VolunteerID, SkillsID) ); CREATE TABLE VolunteerAssignments ( VolunteerID INT FOREIGN KEY REFERENCES Volunteers(ID), AssignmentID INT FOREIGN KEY REFERENCES Assignments(ID), PRIMARY KEY (VolunteerID, AssignmentID) ); |
Data Manipulation
After setting up the necessary tables, we can now manipulate the data. For instance, insert values into the Volunteers and Skills tables:
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INSERT INTO Volunteers(ID, FirstName, LastName, Email) VALUES (1, 'John', 'Doe', <a href="mailto:'john.doe@example.com'" >'john.doe@example.com'</a>), (2, 'Jane', 'Doe', <a href="mailto:'jane.doe@example.com'" >'jane.doe@example.com'</a>); INSERT INTO Skills(ID, Name) VALUES (1, 'First Aid'), (2, 'Fire Safety'), (3, 'Leadership'); |
Data Querying
In SQL, the JOIN clause is used to combine records from two or more tables in a database. For example, to find out the skills of a specific volunteer:
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SELECT Volunteers.FirstName, Volunteers.LastName, Skills.Name FROM VolunteerSkills INNER JOIN Volunteers ON VolunteerSkills.VolunteerID=Volunteers.ID INNER JOIN Skills ON VolunteerSkills.SkillsID=Skills.ID WHERE Volunteers.ID = 1; |
This simple but effective Volunteer Management System is a great starting point. By using SQL, you can incorporate complex functionalities and features to meet specific organizational needs. Happy coding!