Challenge Overview
Welcome to the HP LPC - Women's Community Savings Android app - update prototype challenge. This project aims at creating a e-ledger mobile application that helps to simplify record keeping by digitizing it, thereby increase accuracy and improve data security.
Problem:
75% of the world’s poorest people do not have a formal bank account. Currently there is a solution to these people and it’s called community-based savings groups (also known as village banks) which are specifically designed and targeted to meet the needs of the rural poor for whom access to even the most basic financial services is extremely limited.
Client’s award-winning “WORTH Savings-group program” has reached nearly 400,000 women in 14 countries. It is important to understand what this program is about in-order to create this mobile application:
- Poor, primarily rural women get together in groups of 25 with a women’s economic empowerment model that integrates savings-led microfinance, literacy and numeracy, group banking, and micro-enterprise development, while strengthening social networks and empowering women to have a voice in their communities.
- Participants in each of the groups save/credit money on a weekly basis.
- The group’s savings are pooled, managed by the group independently, and available in short-term, low- interest loans to members, primarily for income generation.
- At the end of the six-month financial cycle, interest earned is distributed proportionately to group member’s savings, and members can decide to spend or to save it during the next cycle.
Currently, when the groups come together for their weekly meetings, all of the village bank transactions are recorded in each of the ledgers by hand. Group financial activity is currently tracked through paper, a system which is time-consuming and with greater opportunity for errors. The handwritten updating of ledgers is very cumbersome and vulnerable to errors - those errors, in turn, are very difficult to reconcile across the varied forms. So, there is an opportunity to further improve this program to more effectively serve its participants
Solution - The e-Ledger:
A shift from labor-intensive, handwritten paper records to digital accounting would drastically reduce banking transaction costs and the women’s opportunity costs for WORTH participation. This would also allow the client to enhance and improve existing training on micro-business and capital usage for existing groups while also including more women in the program.
This will be an online system (mobile app) to simplify record keeping, increase accuracy and improve data security:
- This mobile application would facilitate the existing record keeping - credits, debits, lending activities, lending calculators, loan repayment schedules, loan tracking, portfolio reporting.
Current Status
We built out an Android prototype for both phone and tablet resolutions sometime back. Since then, the client requirements have been updated so the prototype needs to be updated.
The Android app requirements are available at the below link
The following additional artifacts are available
Android app prototype repo on Github (request access in the forums)
Latest design assets for Android app
Scope
- For this challenge, we'd like you to update the existing Android Studio project for the following changes
1) All changes listed in this document are in scope.
2) Additionally, the screens should all match the designs provided here and must follow the requirements listed here - NOTE - all screens & all UI elements shown are in scope. No business logic/ persistence is expected to be implemented (only UI)
3) Currently, the app lists both standard user and MC user (Management Committee user) options together. We need to separate these based on user roles. Implement a dummy login capability and isolate the screens based on whether the user logging is a standard user or a MC user. A standard user must see only screens relevant for them. They should not see any MC user screens and vice-versa.
4) The changes need to be made for both phone and tablet orientations. Any screens which currently exist for phone but not for tablet need to be developed for tablet.
If you have any doubts related to any of the screens/ requirements, please ask in the forums.
Key Considerations
UI must exactly match the provided design assets
Ensure there are no memory leaks & no crashes
Follow Android best practices as mentioned here
Final Submission Guidelines
Final Submission Guidelines
Submit the updated Android Studio project
Provide a detailed guide with configuration (e.g. credentials for standard user, MC user) and verification
Provide a demo video covering the phone and tablet apps walking through the changes made (mandatory)