DIGI-Q

DIGI-Q: Create and Manage Queues in an efficient way. No need to stand in the queue anymore. Just let the technology do the work for you while you work on things that matters the most.

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Inspiration

Recently, I was at a vaccination center. The queue was very long with little to no management. I had to wait for a long time in the queue. That’s when it hit me. I could leverage my knowledge in technology to somehow improve the situation. Queues can be a huge issue, not only at the vaccination centers (because of the proximity with each other) but almost everywhere. For example, the elderly shouldn’t have to stand in queues outside government offices, grocery stores, etc. That’s when I came up with the idea of letting our devices do the work of standing in the lines and making the process of maintaining and joining queues as easy as possible for everyone. So, I along with my friends decided to build a hack for it. A hack that solves a vital problem of our neighborhood.

What it does

digiQ is an android mobile app + web app that makes queue management super easy. Let's deep dive into it's features.

1) As a creator of the queue:

  • You have full access to the working of the queue.
  • Our service will generate a QR code once you create a queue. The QR code or the queue id can be shared with everyone.
  • You get the details of all the queues you have created; you can deactivate a queue, activate a queue, delete a queue, and move the queue ahead.

2) As a member of the queue:

  • You can join any queue available from the app or you can enter the queue ID or scan the QR code from the scanner embedded in our android app.
  • The app informs you about your position in the queue as well as the expected waiting time for the queue. You may decide to leave the queue if you wish to.

How we built it

  • We used Flutter to build the mobile app and ReactJS for the web version of the app.
  • The backend was done using Flask and is hosted on the Microsoft Azure web service.
  • Heroku is being used to host the main website.
  • CosmosDB is being used as the database.
  • Figma was used for wireframing and designing both the website as well as the app.
  • We have also integrated Twilio to notify users when they are close to the front of the queue [Since we have a free account on Twilio, it is functional for a single mobile number only]

Challenges we ran into

Well, building a functioning web app and a mobile app in two days was a challenge in itself. There were a lot of tricky parts like:

  • Estimating the time and sending notifications to the users.
  • Integrating APIs by using proper data/error handling and maintaining the sleek UI along with great performance was a tricky task.
  • It was a great experience as it tested our skills of working under such time constraints and delivering a working prototype.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are really proud of the features that we have implemented in this app. One of them is time estimation and showing real time changes when the queue gets updated/deleted.

What we learned

Well, we didn't have a member who does proper designing so we learned FIGMA. Our app developer learned some advanced concepts of state management and the web developer learned some cool new features of React. Also, we learnt to host the app on Azure as well as Heroku.

What's next for digiQ

Well, we have so much planned for digiQ

  • We are planning to implement a queue scheduling feature where a user can schedule a queue for a particular time slot. This can be helpful in government offices and shopping markets.
  • We are also planning to make the app location-based so that only the queues in your surrounding will be shown to you.
  • And provide real-time updates via push notifications for every activity.

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