UNCTEC 2021, My Journey As A Programmer And My Biggest Success So Far

UNCTEC is the United Nations Conferences at Tecnologico de Monterrey in Cuernavaca, MOR, Mexico. This event simulates the works done by the UN where you represent a country in one of the different committees of the UN debating an international problem; the principal abilities to work out in the Models of the United Nations are negotiation, persuasion, and communication.

Covid19 appeared and changed everyone's plans, including events logistics. The organizing committee started its works in August 2020 and had only 8 months to finish the whole planning, but this time with the challenge that this year it wouldn't be in person; UNCTEC 2021 will be virtual.

Before, the process to participate in UNCTEC was:

1. Fill a Google Forms with your personal data.
2. Make your payment online on a different website.
3. Send your receipt via email, and wait for the response of what delegation and committee you'll be representing.

Those were the steps to follow before but in UNCTEC 2021 everything changed.

What big difference did I make in UNCTEC 2021?

As I have already said, this would be the first virtual edition of UNCTEC so this was the chance for me to show my abilities as the General Secretary of Communications and Technology. I didn't have to make different files and documents in order to organize my and my coworker's information because with the website I created in Wix I could have everything in there.

First, I will like to talk about how this website helped the participants.

If you have read until here, I'm sure you have seen the steps people needed to follow before; with UNCTEC 2021 website, the inscriptions were much easier.

They only had to:

1. Create an account.
2. Select the committee and delegation of interest.
3. Make the payment on the same website.
4. The payment confirmation will be accepted in less than 24 hrs, an email was sent automatically with the committee and country they will be representing.

What I did here is that instead of having different Excel files, the Database of Wix helped me to fill and save the new and the current items depending on each case. One example was that instead of opening Excel and then see the delegations that were available and then manually write the participants name, with Wix Velo I only had to import the whole delegations that were available, and then with the Wix Data Filter it only appeared the once I can assign and it will save it automatically.

The person in charge of assigning delegations and committees only had to select the committee of interest, and click in one delegation that hasn't been taken. Then an email was sent automatically with the country and committee where the participant has been assigned.

I think this was the most important change that I made because before delegations used to be duplicated since it was a lot of information and people weren't careful, but with this development it didn't occurred thanks to the autosave in the database.

Behind the design

I think that all web page developers see making websites as a human body; all the beautiful design in the site is the outside of a person and the coding the skeleton of it.

I used many Velo API that I didn't know how to used them, but with Youtube Videos and the Velo API Reference I started to learnt more about it.

Wix Animations

With this, I made the blue image turn into black when the visitor is reading this part of the page. I include the same image twice but one in black and the other in blue. Then after some seconds the opacity of the first one was cero and that's how it made the fading effect

Wix Data

I can't say UNCTEC's website without thinking of Wix Data. This was the Velo API that I used the most because if it wasn't for filtering a Dataset it was for querying a DataBase.

An example of it was a query after saving a DynamicDataset. This was made because after saving the information, an email would be sent; but I'll talk of it later.

And not only I used it in this way, also with filtering a dataset.

$w('#dataset1').setFilter(wixData.filter()
        .eq("comite", $w('#dropdown2').value)
    );

Wix CRM Backend

Before creating UNCTEC's website I didn't know what the back end code was, or at least how to make the front end code get into the backend; but since I wanted something automatized, I needed to learn backend.

I used Wix CRM Backend to send emails to the participants that sent their inscription in order to let them know their comitte and delegation or if the payment receipt was wrong.

I'm such an organized person so the back end codes I decided to catalog them in order of the functions they were gonna make; in this case, all the emails sent with Wix CRM are in the backend code call "SendEmail.jsw"

Wix Users

Last but not least. Wix Users was the Velo API that helped me the most so that the website become safe.

Each person that wanted to participate in UNCTEC had to create an account.

And yes, a login section were current members can enter to their account.

Thanks to the unique User ID I could filter their inscription in the Inscription Members Page. After the payment receipt was confirmed and the committe and delegation were assigned, they could see their flag and comittee's name in this part of the Members Area.

Other important things in UNCTEC website

Dynamic Pages

Some other things I included in this website was that instead of uploading each committee, I only did one dynamic page and uploaded all the info of each committee. I guess some people hasn't try this method, but it is an easier way to upload too many items that has the same design.

Groups

I made one wix group for each committee so that everyone could have communication with the other participants in the same group. More than that this was made because I didn't like that before they asked us to make one on Facebook and if you didn't have that person as a friend, you could add them.

Position Paper

Last but not least, in this website they could send their Position Paper (the posture of each country) from here. Before they had to sent it via mail (where each committee had to create an email and it was a waste of time) and then the chair had to resent it with the corrections.

As you can see, I include lots of Wix Velo Api integrations and honestly I have to say it was my first work done in Wix Velo but now, I have learn a lot since I dared to investigate how this worked.

If you have read all this article you may think "Are you an advance programmer?" Nope, I'm a 19 year old boy who likes to learn more each day in programming, and Wix helped me to start learning this.

This article is part of a writing contest hosted by Hacker Noon in partnership with Wix. Learn how to enter here and take a shot at winning $1000 every month, from March 1st, 2021 to May 31st, 2021