Software prototype design for managing housing and communal services in apartment buildings

Introduction. The paper presents the disign and implementation of a computer program for the housing and utilities services. The Housing Code of the Russian Federation allows creating an apartment building council. The residents of a house choose the members this council to control providing services, manage an apartment building and represent their interests. The authors suggest using a special computer program for this purpose. Materials and Methods. The authors used the qualitative analysis of the data obtained from house bills and from the State housing and communal sector information system. The data processing and software development were performed through using the Ruby object-oriented language, the Ruby On Rails framework, the PostgreSQL database management system, the Slim templating, and Sass CSS extensions. Results. The authors developed a prototype software system to automate the activities of the apartment building council. This software helps to increase the quality of life of the apartment building residents. Discussion and Conclusions. This research provides an information framework for improving the quality of utilities services. The results of this study can be applied to the solution of many problems of housing and utilities sector.