Firebase

Firebase is the backend service used for the TAMUSHPE app. It is the place where all data shared between devices is stored.

Firebase Services

On a high level, this is an overview of all of the services we use:

• Firestore - Stores JSON text data in different collections.
• Storage - Stores any blob-data (non-text data).
  • This includes images, video, pdf-files, zip files, backups, etc
• Functions - Creates API endpoints that can be called from the app.
• Auth - Handles authentication in the app through email and OAuth.

Each of these services

Firestore

Firestore is where the majority of app data is stored. This includes user information, committee info, event logs, and anything else that can be stored in a JSON format. JSON files are essentially text representations of Javascript Objects. If you're coming from a python background, these are very similar to dictionaries. The following is an example of a document that might be stored in firestore:

{
    username: "Bob",
    bio: "Hi, my name is Bob. I am a CSCE major planning to graduate in 2027.",
    roles: {
        admin: false,
        reader: true
    },
    interests: ["Study Hours", "Workshop"]
}

Firestore layout

Firestore works with collections, which act similarly to a files system on your computer. If you are given access to the database directly, you may see this in action here. The following is a visual representation of how the app data is laid out in firestore for the app:

committeeVerification
\
 --------------------<Committee Name>
                     \
                      ---------------requests

committees
\
 ---------<Committee Name>

config
\
 -----<config document name>

deleted-events
\
 -------------<event id>
              \
               ---------logs
events
\
 -----<Event ID>
      \
       ---------logs

feedback
\
 -------<Document ID>

links
\
 ----<1, 2, 3, 4, ...>

member-of-the-month
|
\------------------member
 ------------------past-members

memberSHPE
\
 ---------<User ID>

office-hours
\
 -----------<User ID>

restrictions
|
\-----------blacklist
 -----------watchlist

resumeVerification
\
 -----------------<User ID>

resumes
|
\-----------------data
 -----------------status

shirt-sizes
\
 ----------<User ID>

users
\
 ----<User ID>
     |
     \--------event-logs
      --------private
              \
               ------privateInfo

File Paths and Subcollections

Each individual Firestore document represents one JSON object, but they can also store subcollections. These are collections that are inside of documents. This can be useful if something needs a logical list of documents or if certain information requires different access permissions.

SHPE Events are a good example of why someone would need to use subcollections. Each event has a document with a unique ID for that specific event. These events must also track who has signed in to collect points, so they have a subcollection named "logs" which stores information about who has signed in.

Users use subcollections as well because a user may have private information that is useful to the app or officers, but other users should not see. This includes things like emails or push-notification tokens.

Collections and documents have a special rule where a file path must be alternating between collection and document and there must be an even number of tokens in a single file path. This also means there must be an odd number of tokens for a collection. Here are some examples:

• Valid file paths
  • collection/document
  • collection/document/subcollection/document
• Invalid file paths
  • document
  • collection/document/document
  • document/document

Storage

Functions

Auth