Featured case study · 01 · EdTech · Australia · 2022–2026

Professional Project

Paperly — K-12 school operations at production scale

Senior Web Application Developer · July 2022 – August 2026 · Remote (Perth team) · Laravel · Vue.js · MySQL · REST APIs

Paperly excursions operations dashboard with calendar, parent permissions and risk status
4 yrsSenior delivery on a live multi-school product
Daily useModules used by teachers & parents at scale
250+Schools joined for 2026 — Paperly public claim
Visit Paperly ↗ iOS app ↗

Production project — source code private

01 Overview

Paperly is a cloud-based K-12 school operations and workflow platform. It sits beside a school’s SIS and LMS — digitising the operational work that those systems are not built for: trips and excursions, digital forms, compliance, risk assessments, announcements, approvals and parent/staff communication.

02 Project Context

It serves independent schools, government schools, Catholic/Diocesan systems and multi-campus organisations. Public product materials list integrations with systems such as Synergetic, TASS, Schoolbox, Veracross, SEQTA, Wonde, Digistorm and Microsoft identity services.

The product codebase is a modular Laravel + Vue.js application with role-specific portals (staff, parent, student, external), REST APIs, MySQL, and an abstraction layer for school management system (SIS) sync.

03 My Role

I joined as a Senior Web Application Developer and worked remotely with the Perth-based team from July 2022 to August 2026. This is my strongest recent production experience — end-to-end feature work on a live multi-school platform, not a greenfield demo.

  • Built and maintained school administration modules used daily by teachers and parents across Australian schools.
  • Delivered excursion / trip workflows, sports and music coordination, parent-teacher interviews and assessment calendars.
  • Implemented dynamic form builders, multi-step approval workflows and notification-driven submission lifecycles.
  • Owned permissions and role boundaries across administrators, staff, parents and students in a multi-school context.
  • Designed REST APIs and MySQL schemas; integrated third-party SIS/LMS and identity services in Agile production releases.
  • Supported geolocation-enabled activity workflows and ongoing production debugging, testing and delivery.

04 What I Built

Backend

School operations were modelled as composable Laravel modules behind role portals: staff configure and approve; parents consent and submit; students participate where needed. Laravel services and repositories own domain rules.

Database

MySQL schemas persist school data, submissions, approvals and permission state across a multi-school context.

APIs & Integrations

REST APIs and SIS clients keep people, classes, medical and contact data in sync. Vue.js surfaces handle dense calendars, forms and permission follow-up.

Authentication & Permissions

Role boundaries for administrators, staff, parents, students and external users, including school-scoped access so data does not leak across schools.

Paperly form builder with approval workflow configuration
Illustrative form-building surface — flexible field layouts, medical details, consent and a visible approval path.

Excursion & permission flow

Typical excursion path: staff configure → internal approvals → parent digital consent → permission tracking → operational calendar.

Paperly end-to-end excursion workflow capability chart
Capability chart showing the operational flow and supporting risk, medical, notification and geolocation concerns.

Module map

Excursions & activitiesTrips, sports, music, geolocation-aware activity workflows and follow-up
Form builderDynamic forms, submission lifecycle, multi-step approvals and notifications
Calendars & interviewsAssessment calendars, events and parent-teacher interview scheduling
Compliance & opsPolicies/procedures, training induction, reception and school settings surfaces
Identity & portalsStaff, parent, student and external portals with school identity federation
SIS integrationsAbstraction layer syncing people, classes and medical data from school systems

05 Technical Challenges

  • Dynamic workflows — reusable form and approval logic that still matches each school’s process, not a one-size-fits-all screen.
  • Complex permissions — correct capability boundaries for admins, teachers, parents, students and external users without leaking cross-school data.
  • SIS / third-party sync — keeping people, classes, medical and contact data accurate while schools run different student information systems.
  • Geolocation & activity ops — location-aware excursion and activity flows that remain usable for non-technical staff.
  • Production reliability — shipping continuously into a live multi-school platform used every school day.
  • Remote collaboration — senior delivery across timezones with a Perth-based product and engineering team.

06 Architecture

Paperly is organised as convention-based modules (controllers, models, services, repositories and role-scoped routes per domain). Clients hit role portals; Laravel owns business logic; MySQL persists school data; SIS and identity clients keep external systems aligned.

Paperly role portals and modular application architecture
Architecture overview — four role surfaces, a modular Laravel/Vue core, and isolated integration responsibilities.

Role portals share one modular Laravel/Vue core with MySQL, SIS sync, identity federation and notification channels.

07 Integrations & Infrastructure

School data sync is abstracted behind a school-management interface so the same modules can run against different SIS products. Public Paperly materials and the product integration surface include Synergetic, TASS, Veracross, SEQTA, Schoolbox, Wonde, Digistorm and Microsoft identity — plus payments and venue/contractor tooling where schools need them.

Security

Access is role- and school-scoped. Form submissions, medical details and parent consent sit behind permission checks rather than a shared admin surface.

Deployment

Work shipped through Agile production releases on a live multi-school platform, including testing, debugging and ongoing support with the remote Perth team.

08 Results / Impact

Four years of stable senior delivery on a live education SaaS: workflow-heavy modules shipped and supported in production. Paperly publicly states that more than 250 schools joined for 2026 and beyond.

  • Four years of stable senior delivery on a live multi-school education SaaS.
  • Modules used daily by thousands of teachers and parents across Australian schools.
  • Paperly publicly states that more than 250 schools joined for 2026 and beyond.

10 Technology

  • Backend: Laravel (PHP), MySQL, REST APIs, modular services/repositories, queued jobs where workflows need them
  • Frontend: Vue.js, JavaScript — staff/parent/student portal UIs for calendars, forms and permissions
  • Domain: excursions, form builder, calendars, parent-teacher interviews, cocurricular, policies, enrolment, permissions
  • Integrations: SIS/LMS clients (e.g. Synergetic, TASS, Veracross, SEQTA, Schoolbox, Wonde), identity federation, notifications
  • Delivery: Agile production releases, remote collaboration, debugging and ongoing support on a multi-school live platform
LaravelVue.jsMySQLREST APIWorkflowsForm BuilderPermissionsGeolocationSIS IntegrationsEdTechMulti-school

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