Building a Student Registration System with SQLite (Part 3): Enhancing Functionality with Advanced Features
Explore advanced features like student notifications, course prerequisites, and role-based access to enhance your student registration system with SQLite.
In Part 2, we worked on the main actions of our student registration system, like enrolling students, checking how many spots are left in classes, updating grades, and helping students leave courses. Now, in Part 3 of the 5-Part Series, we’ll make the system even better by adding cool features that will make it easier to use, give admins more control, and help the system do things automatically!
In this blog, we’ll cover the following key features:
Student Notifications
Course Prerequisites
Admin Reports
Search and Filter Functionality
Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
Jumped ahead? No worries, here’s Part 1.
Step 1: Student Notifications
Keeping students updated is really important in any registration system. In the real world, you’ll need to send messages to students about things like whether they got into a course, if their grades change, and other important updates!
Example: Sending Email Notifications for Successful Enrollment
Imagine a student successfully joins a course. You can use SQLite to handle the registration and connect it with an email service (like SendGrid or Mailgun) to automatically send the student a confirmation email.
Here’s an example of how you might set up the email notification after the student enrolls:
-- Enroll the student and send a confirmation email
BEGIN TRANSACTION;
-- Enroll the student
INSERT INTO enrollments (student_id, course_id, enrollment_date)
VALUES (1, 2, '2025-02-01');
-- Trigger an email sending action (this would be done in your application logic, not in SQL)
-- Code to send an email to the student goes here, using an email service provider
COMMIT;After the student joins the course, the email is sent through the backend of your app. SQLite keeps track of the data, and the email is sent by another part of your app when everything is done.
Why It’s Useful:
Students get an email right away when they join a course or when something about their registration changes.
This keeps them informed right away and makes them feel more connected to the system!
Step 2: Course Prerequisites
Making sure students meet course requirements helps keep things fair, so they can't take a hard class without first finishing the easier ones. To do this, we’ll add a prerequisite_courses table that will store which courses need to be taken before others.
Creating a Prerequisite Table
CREATE TABLE prerequisite_courses (
course_id INTEGER,
prerequisite_course_id INTEGER,
FOREIGN KEY (course_id) REFERENCES courses (course_id),
FOREIGN KEY (prerequisite_course_id) REFERENCES courses (course_id)
);This table connects courses to the ones that need to be completed first. For example, if Course B requires Course A to be completed before it, we would add this record:
-- Course B requires Course A as a prerequisite
INSERT INTO prerequisite_courses (course_id, prerequisite_course_id)
VALUES (2, 1); -- Course B (ID=2) requires Course A (ID=1)Checking Prerequisites Before Enrollment
Before allowing a student to enroll in a course, we need to make sure they’ve finished any required courses. Here’s how we can check if the student has completed the prerequisite courses:
-- Check if a student has completed the prerequisites for a course
SELECT COUNT(*)
FROM enrollments
WHERE student_id = 1
AND course_id IN (SELECT prerequisite_course_id
FROM prerequisite_courses
WHERE course_id = 2);This query checks if the student has completed the required courses before enrolling in Course B (ID=2). If the count is zero, the student hasn’t completed the prerequisite yet and cannot enroll.
Step 3: Admin Reports
Administrators often need to create reports to track things like how many students have signed up for each course, how full the classes are, and how students are doing in their grades. SQLite has a strong querying tool that can help generate these reports easily.
Example: Generating a Report on Enrollments
Here’s an example of a query that shows how many students are enrolled in each course:
-- Get the number of students enrolled in each course
SELECT courses.course_name, COUNT(enrollments.student_id) AS student_count
FROM courses
LEFT JOIN enrollments ON courses.course_id = enrollments.course_id
GROUP BY courses.course_id;This query gives a simple report showing how many students are enrolled in each course. Administrators can use this data to see which courses are the most popular, track how full each class is, and figure out which courses might need extra resources like more space or instructors.
Step 4: Search and Filter Functionality
Letting students and administrators search and filter courses makes the system much easier to use. For example, students might want to find courses based on the department, instructor, or course date. This helps them quickly find the classes they’re interested in.
Example: Searching for Courses by Name and Instructor
-- Search for courses by name or instructor
SELECT course_name, instructor_name
FROM courses
WHERE course_name LIKE '%Mathematics%'
OR instructor_name LIKE '%John%'; This query looks for courses that have "Mathematics" in the name or are taught by an instructor named John.
Why It’s Useful:
Students can quickly find the courses they want by searching for specific topics or instructors.
Admins can filter courses based on different details, making it easier to manage course offerings and track what’s available.
Step 5: Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
To keep your registration system secure, you can use Role-Based Access Control (RBAC). This means that only authorized users, like admins or students, can access certain parts of the system, ensuring sensitive information is protected.
Creating User Roles
First, we need to create a roles table to define user roles:
CREATE TABLE roles (
role_id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT,
role_name TEXT NOT NULL
);Next, we’ll link users (e.g., students, admins) to roles:
CREATE TABLE user_roles (
user_id INTEGER,
role_id INTEGER,
FOREIGN KEY (user_id) REFERENCES students (student_id),
FOREIGN KEY (role_id) REFERENCES roles (role_id)
);Assigning Roles
Let’s assign the admin role to a user:
-- Assigning the 'Admin' role to a user (student with ID = 1)
INSERT INTO user_roles (user_id, role_id)
VALUES (1, (SELECT role_id FROM roles WHERE role_name = 'Admin'));Checking Roles for Access
To make sure a user has the right permissions to do certain things (like viewing admin reports), we can check their role before giving them access:
-- Check if a user has 'Admin' role before granting access
SELECT 1
FROM user_roles
JOIN roles ON user_roles.role_id = roles.role_id
WHERE user_roles.user_id = 1 AND roles.role_name = 'Admin';If the query returns a result, it means the user has the Admin role, and they can access the admin reports. If not, they won’t be granted access.
Conclusion (Part 3)
In Part 3, we added cool features to our student registration system using SQLite. We made it more interactive, secure, and easier to use with things like student notifications, course prerequisites, and role-based access.
In Part 4, we’ll make sure everything works perfectly by adding the final touches. We’ll talk about data checks, error fixes, backup plans, speeding up the system, and keeping things secure.
In Part 5, we’ll make the system even better by improving the design, adding real-time updates, doing tests to make sure everything works, and connecting the system to other tools. These last steps will make the system ready to be used in real life!
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