SCDS Next

SCDS Next is the new version of the SCDS Membership software. SCDS Next is built on the Laravel framework with a React powered user interface.

We'll slowly migrate features to the new platform over time. This means that for a while we'll be running new and old parts of the system side by side.

Technology

The main reason we're building SCDS Next is to allow us to move to newer technology using a solid underlying web framework and a much more user friendly user interface while removing technical debt.

The original version of the SCDS Membership system is built upon a number of libraries which are no longer supported. The new Laravel framework meanwhile is much more widely used and supported, with a good long-term feature and support roadmap.

New features

Moving to this new framework will help us roll out new features much more quickly, with more robust software testing.

The new features we're focussing on intially include,

• Payments
  • A unified solution across all payment methods (BACS Direct Debit, Credit/Debit cards and more)
  • GoCardless removal
  • Guest payments
• Competitions
  • Support for custom events
  • Event ordering
  • Eligibilty criteria
  • External entries

A new look

We're ditching the Bootstrap CSS framework we've used since launch for a more custom approach built on Tailwind CSS. As we're running new and old side by side, you'll notice two different looks - we're working hard to migrate features to the new system once we're done with payments and competitions.

SCDS Next uses the ReactJS framework from Meta, so is dependent on JavaScript in a modern browser.

Better documentation

We're well aware of a need to improve the documentation available around the membership system. This page is part of a new documentation system that we're rolling out alongside SCDS Next. The new documentation system is powered by Docusaurus, which is made by Meta.

We'll be working hard to ensure we document all our new features in these help pages as we add them.