CompanyPulse — Internal Tool for Company Relations and Management

Context

CompanyPulse is an internal tool designed to manage relationships between Epitech Marseille and partner companies.

This web application was developed following a challenge from my campus director: build a fully functional solution within 2 weeks.

Objectives

The main objective was to centralize company data by registering companies with detailed information, in order to provide a single platform to track and manage relationships.

Challenges

• Time constraint (2 weeks)
• Managing both frontend and backend
• Setting up CI/CD quickly

Features

• Authentication via Epitech account (Microsoft authentication)
• Register companies with detailed information (name, address, phone, email, website, social media, etc.)
• Manage contacts linked to companies
• Create tasks (team or personal) with dashboard reminders
• Track all communications with companies (meetings, calls, etc.)
• Log company interactions during events (career fairs, presentations, etc.)
• Manage partnerships with status and expiration tracking
• Add custom tags for companies and contacts
• Blacklist companies with specific reasons
• Admin panel to invite users (whitelist system for secure access)

Tech Stack

• Laravel 12 — Backend framework
• Pest — Testing framework
• React 19 — Frontend library
• Tailwind CSS — CSS framework
• Shadcn UI — UI component library
• MySQL 8.0 — Database
• GitHub — Source code hosting
• Docker — Containerization
• Docker Registry — Image storage

Architecture

I used Inertia.js to improve developer experience and avoid building a separate REST API between frontend and backend.

The backend follows a simple Hexagonal Architecture.

The frontend uses a standard React structure.

Deployment

Deployment is handled using GitHub CI/CD:

CI

• Run tests with Pest
• Build a single Docker image (frontend + backend)
• Push the image to a Docker registry
• Use artifacts for caching to optimize build time and resources

CD

• Pull the latest image on a VPS
• Restart containers

I also developed a Bash script to back up the database into a compressed .gz file, automatically executed via a cron job.

What I Learned

• Improved my skills in Laravel and React
• Learned how to use Docker and GitHub CI/CD in a real-world project
• Discovered and applied Hexagonal Architecture in backend development

Future Improvements

• Enhance the dashboard with more insights
• Implement soft deletes to preserve data
• Extend admin features (user management, roles, permissions)