LazyCatch – A Smart Attendance Tracker for Unplaced Students

Building a comprehensive placement management system that streamlines attendance tracking, company management, and student placement monitoring for educational institutions using modern React and Firebase technologies.

� Behind the Scenes

🪄 What Sparked This Project?

Picture this: I'm sitting in my internal placement coordinator's cabin, just having a casual chat about the upcoming placement season. We were discussing the usual chaos - students missing important sessions, coordinators drowning in Excel sheets, and the endless back-and-forth of tracking who's placed and who needs more support.

That's when he suddenly leaned back in his chair and said, "You know what we really need? A system that just... catches everything automatically." He gestured at the pile of attendance sheets on his desk. "Something for the 'lazy' ones like us who don't want to manually track every single detail."

The word "catch" stuck with me. By the time I left his cabin, "LazyCatch" was already forming in my mind - a system that would automatically catch and track everything placement-related, making the coordinator's job (and mine) a whole lot easier.

🧰 Tech Stack

I chose this stack specifically for its developer experience and performance. Vite gives me instant hot reloading, TypeScript catches errors before they reach production, and React 19's latest features keep the codebase modern. Firebase Auth was a no-brainer for Google OAuth since our institution already uses Google Workspace.

✨ Key Features

🚧 Challenges I Faced

Context API State Management Complexity

Initially, I had all data fetching logic scattered across components. As the app grew with StudentContext, CompanyContext, BatchContext, MentorContext, and AuthContext, managing the state became a nightmare. I solved this by creating a clear hierarchy and ensuring each context had a single responsibility. The AuthContext became the parent that manages permissions, while other contexts handle their specific data domains.

Protected Route Implementation

Setting up role-based routing was trickier than expected. I had to create a flexible ProtectedRoute component that could handle multiple roles and permissions. The breakthrough came when I implemented a permission-based system where each role has specific permissions, making it scalable for future role additions.

Real-time Attendance Hour Detection

The attendance system needed to automatically detect which hour/period was currently active. I built a time-based algorithm that compares the current time with predefined hour slots and automatically selects the appropriate hour. This eliminated manual hour selection errors and made the system truly "lazy" as intended.

Firebase Authentication Integration

Integrating Google OAuth with our existing user roles was challenging. I had to create a custom authentication flow that verifies users against our internal database after successful Google authentication, ensuring only authorized personnel can access specific features.

PDF Generation Performance

Generating large PDF reports with jsPDF was causing browser freezes. I optimized this by implementing progressive rendering and showing loading states, making the user experience smooth even for reports with hundreds of students.

📚 What I Learned

📈 Optimisations & Performance

Component Architecture Optimization

I implemented a clean component structure with reusable UI components like SearchBar, AttendanceButton, and FilterDropDown. This reduced code duplication and made the app more maintainable. Each component has its own CSS file, preventing style conflicts and improving loading performance.

Context API Performance

To prevent unnecessary re-renders, I split contexts by domain (Student, Company, Batch, Mentor) instead of having one massive state. I also used useMemo hooks in components like the attendance filtering logic to optimize expensive calculations and prevent performance bottlenecks.

Lazy Loading & Code Splitting

React Router's lazy loading is implemented for page-level components, reducing the initial bundle size. The app loads only the necessary code for the current route, improving first contentful paint and overall loading performance.

State Management Optimization

Used React's useMemo and useCallback hooks strategically to prevent expensive operations from running on every render, especially in the attendance filtering and search functionality. This ensures smooth interactions even with large datasets.

CSS Performance Architecture

Implemented a clean CSS architecture with Variables.css for consistent theming, Reset.css for cross-browser compatibility, and component-specific CSS files to minimize unused styles and improve loading times.

🙌 Final Thoughts

Building LazyCatch was an incredibly rewarding journey that transformed a simple conversation in a placement coordinator's cabin into a comprehensive solution that could genuinely impact educational institutions. The project challenged me to think beyond just coding - I had to understand the real-world workflows of placement coordinators, students, and faculty members.

My biggest win was creating a system that truly lives up to its name - it automatically "catches" everything placement-related without requiring manual intervention. The real-time attendance hour detection, role-based permissions, and seamless PDF generation have turned what used to be hours of manual work into simple, automated processes.

If I were to start over, I might consider implementing real-time notifications using WebSockets for instant updates across all connected users. I'd also explore adding analytics dashboards with charts and graphs to provide better insights into placement trends and student performance patterns. Additionally, implementing offline support using service workers could make the system more resilient in areas with poor internet connectivity.

This project represents more than just technical skills - it showcases my ability to identify real-world problems and create elegant, user-friendly solutions. The focus on performance optimization, security, and user experience makes it a comprehensive demonstration of modern React development practices. Most importantly, knowing that this system will help streamline placement processes and reduce administrative burden for coordinators makes all the late-night debugging sessions worthwhile.

LazyCatch proves that the best solutions often come from the simplest conversations. Sometimes all it takes is someone saying "we need something for the lazy ones" to spark an idea that could revolutionize entire workflows.