A new database resource site for "Whispering" Bob Harris!
Database sites are beasts. By definition they grow, and by design they are adaptable and endlessly re-interpretable. They require a depth of imagination and technical acumen to design properly, as well as no small amount of bravery (to take on) that only comes with experience.
Anyone who knows 3B also knows we are a group that really LOVES our music! Our development and marketing teams are almost entirely musicians of varying skill and aptitude and the hysterically tone-deaf Bremer brothers invariably donate most of their disposable income to live music events.
We’ve also, over the years, garnered considerable experience and expertise in delivering sites that leverage large and often unwieldy historical databases and dynamic content.
Put these 2 essential factors together and it seemed only natural and right that when we’d discovered that our great broadcasting “hero”, Robert Brinley Joseph “Whispering Bob” Harris, OBE, had unhappily retired his colossal database of past show playlists and running orders, we should step in!
Bob was delighted to hear from us, and we were equally delighted to have the opportunity to meet the great man himself. And he didn’t disappoint; I always say you should never meet your heroes (I also always say you shouldn’t call people heroes unless they’ve recently pulled a handful of kittens out of a burning building, but I do it anyway) but Bob is exactly what you’d hope he’d be - charming, chatty & very very happy to regale with his many stories… ideas for projects and schemes abound!
But first the database - a huge resource of songs, photos, artists and the like that needed seriously sorting and sifting. One of 3B’s founders, Adam Belson, was quick to volunteer his expertise in recommending that we build the database using React - an open source javascript library we’d not worked with before despite our many forays into Big Data. I was delighted that one of our developers, Stoyan, was excited and keen to use React and so he was assigned to this project.
Database sites are beasts. By definition they grow, and by design they are adaptable and endlessly re-interpretable. They require a depth of imagination and technical acumen to design properly, as well as no small amount of bravery (to take on) that only comes with experience. But what they need most is an obsessive eye for detail and accuracy. At 3B we often talk of taking on “hostile” databases; fields and fields of cells that are inconsistent, inaccurate or incomplete, and what always astonishes me is how Jack Bremer fizzes with excitement whenever he gets his teeth into this sort of data. His tricks and techniques for ferreting out date inaccuracies and the like leave me boggled every time, and this database was no exception.
Suffice to say that, nearly a year after this project was first discussed, we finally launched this new resource today (19th August 2020) - on the occasion of Bob’s 50th Anniversary in radio broadcasting. Like any great database this will grow, evolve and be subject to revision and, no doubt, corrections - and we are so excited to see the thing released into the wild!
“I am so happy to have partnered with 3B Digital and so excited to launch our new Bob Harris site on the 50th anniversary of my first ever radio programme.
Working with Alex, Jack and the 3B team is proving to be a joy and an education. I am in awe of their phenomenal work ethic and extremely proud of the resource we are creating and building. Navigating the site is simple and enjoyable and the depth of information 3B have compiled is absolutely awesome. Friends have been telling me that they have been happily searching the archive for hours on end.
It has taken more than a year of collaboration to reach this moment and we are all thrilled with the results. And this is just the beginning. Over the next few months the site will grow as we pour more and more information online for you to explore and enjoy.”
Bob Harris, OBE
Take a look at the work yourself; if you have even a casual interest in, or knowledge of, classic rock, pop and / or country music we hope you’ll find something here to enjoy.
Visit the new site at archive.bobharris.org/.
Our Toggl Dashboard Reviewed
We hate timesheets, and have come to understand that most people do. They’re also boring, and not very accurate! Given that our clients always want transparency (one of our values), we knew we needed to use a system which was fun, accurate and simple to use.
Why build a custom time tracking dashboard?
We hate timesheets, and have come to understand that most people do. They’re also boring, and not very accurate! Given that our clients always want transparency (one of our values), we knew we needed to use a system which was fun, accurate and simple to use.
A beautiful solution to the timesheet problem
When our Senior Developer Matt Matterson first joined 3B we set him straight to work on our new Toggl Dashboard tool so we can see who is working on what at any time. We’d never seen anything quite like what we had in our heads so it was a real “journey of discovery” as we made up what we wanted as we went along… and we couldn’t be happier with the results! Each member of staff has their own grid-square, which is black and white if they’re not currently tracking time.
Once they start tracking, their face comes into full colour. See below
It also helps other team members to see what one another is working on, without needing to disturb them (if they have their headphones in and are ‘in flow’, for example)
This simple tools shows us the following for each team member at any moment in time.
Client
Project
Task
Project estimate / actual time
Task estimate / actual time
Non / Billable - A pound symbol if it's billable
Time tracked so far
Time passed since tracking finished
Total today
Total billable
Identifiable client and project details have been blurred
Our dashboard then runs a query every two minutes to check if a user has begun/finished tracking within the last 5 minutes. If they have then the display will refresh. To make the page load as quickly as possible, the information loads into session variables before refreshing.
If the user has not tracked within 24 hours the information will simply display how many days/weeks/months have passed.
We have integrated Zendesk, JIRA and Toggl altogether with our proprietary client dashboard, which helps us to provide seamless ticket, time and priority-management tools for our clients. If you’d like to know how we can build or connect tools like this for your company or agency, do get in touch.
