Account Manager

I inherited a critical but non-functional C# account management system at an educational institution that automated student account creation across multiple platforms.

This legacy application suffered from broken API integrations (missed a major Populi version migration), outdated Active Directory libraries, failed dependencies, and overall architectural incompatibilities with the organizations's updated infrastructure.

Manual account creation was consuming an enormous amount of IT resources each semester, taking multiple days of effort to complete and requiring extensive technical intervention. This was a huge problem for the IT department.

Initially, I worked to patch part of the legacy code, enabling it to run to create AD accounts (but not Google). This was a huge improvement already, with batch operations now taking approximately 90 seconds versus multiple days. However, it was buggy, and still required significant intervention to operate.

Ultimately, I designed and developed a comprehensive Python CLI application to replace the legacy system entirely. I was able to use available Microsoft and Google synchronization tools rather than custom integrations, which significantly reduced complexity and maintenance overhead.

I integrated AD, Populi's updated API, and even integrated Google Forms for collecting staff data. I created an algorithm-driven approach to automatically determine organizational unit placement, AD attributes, and group memberships, based on the existing data from Populi and Google Forms, requiring no additional user input.

I built the application using object-oriented Python with full type safety and enterprise-grade architecture. I included configuration files, environment variables, and extensive documentation to ensure a high degree of simple re-configuration and maintenance.

I integrated multiple systems: Active Directory, Populi API v3, Google Workspace via service accounts, and server-based automated synchronization tools.

I realized that student account creation could be fully automated with no user input based on existing Populi data, and integrated this realization into the architecture. I developed a simple, 7-question Google Form workflow for staff hiring that automatically populates a Google Sheet, which the CLI queries for account creation.

I implemented comprehensive error handling, logging, and a professional CLI user interface with color-coded output, friendly logging, and even some ASCII art.

Account Manager starting up, querying new students, and creating accounts

Documentation explaining how to start the app

Full debug logs

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I completely eliminated the need for manual account creation and intervention for both student and staff onboarding, which reduced the start-of-semester IT workload by at least 85%, and had even greater impacts to the overall operational efficiency of hiring.

Beyond that initial accomplishment, I ultimately achieved a 30x performance improvement from the fragile legacy solution, reducing batch processing time from 90 seconds to under 3 seconds for any dataset size.

I successfully integrated the entire solution into existing HR hiring processes and IT account creation processes, ensuring data accuracy and a high degree of visibility through logging.

Overall, the codebase is maintainable and well-documented, which should spare future administrators the heartache of inheriting a broken system.