Bout V2 is a ground-up rebuild of Bout that had to reach feature parity with the original before it was allowed to add anything of its own.
Bout is the faculty evaluation and student information system underneath both: evaluation collection, evaluation analysis, and student records for a university.
Problem
Bout worked, and a rebuild of something that works is only worth doing if the new one is better along an axis the old one could not reach. The first version was a Laravel and Bootstrap application, server-rendered throughout, in a product whose most-used screens are forms and result views that want to respond without a round trip.
Constraints
Parity gates everything. A rebuild that ships without something the original did is a downgrade to the person using it, whatever its stack looks like underneath. So the whole of the original had to land first: permissioning, evaluation distribution and analysis, the student information store, and course and section management.
The new stack also had to keep the existing Laravel work worth something rather than throwing it away wholesale.
Approach
React on the front end for the interaction, Firestore for the data that suits a document store, and Laravel kept behind them. Feature parity first, then the additions the original had no place for: evaluation collection management, anonymous evaluation collection, a form builder so evaluations can be defined without a developer, and thesis registration management.
The form builder is the one that changes what the system is. An evaluation system whose evaluations are hard-coded is a system the administrators queue behind; one with a builder is a system they operate.
Outcome
Everything the original did, plus four capabilities it did not, on a stack where the interactive screens are interactive.