NBAIS Staff Headcount Portal

Lead Systems Architect

The Challenge

A concurrent-safe staff verification system deployed simultaneously across 7+ state offices, built on Google Apps Script and Google Sheets.

The Engineering Win

Used LockService to serialize writes and generate atomic, gapless reference numbers under concurrent submissions, with duplicate-ID and duplicate-IPPIS checks re-validated inside the lock to close the race-condition window, plus a counter that re-seeds itself from actual row count on redeploy to prevent collisions.

Atomic reference number generation under concurrent load

function generateReferenceNumber() {
  const lock = LockService.getScriptLock();
  lock.waitLock(30000);

  try {
    const sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActive().getSheetByName("Staff");
    const lastRow = sheet.getLastRow();

    // Re-seed counter from actual row count, not a stored value,
    // so a redeploy or manual edit can never cause a collision.
    let counter = lastRow;
    let refNumber;

    do {
      counter++;
      refNumber = "NBAIS-2026-" + String(counter).padStart(4, "0");
    } while (isDuplicateReference(sheet, refNumber));

    return refNumber;
  } finally {
    lock.releaseLock();
  }
}

See It In Use

Staff Headcount 2026 landing page

Reprint verification slip form

Supervision and custodian posting form

Quantifiable Result

94% staff participation (566 of 600+) with zero data loss across simultaneous multi-office deployment.

Full Capabilities

•Staff identity verification and headcount submission
•Examination supervision posting letters, generated per staff member
•Admin dashboard with global search and bulk printing
•CSV export for government reporting
•Full audit logging of every record change
•Passport photo upload and storage

Tech Stack

Google Apps ScriptLockServiceGoogle SheetsAudit Logging