Dues

Never miss a university deadline again.

Dues App Screenshot

Dues is a web app that helps students manage their university assignments by reminding them of upcoming deadlines — ensuring they never miss a thing. It was built during a hackathon hosted by UNSW Google Developer Student Club (GDSC) and won first place. 🎉

Features

  • Google Calendar integration for auto-syncing deadlines
  • PDF syllabus parser to auto-import assignment dates
  • Real-time deadline reminders
  • User-friendly interface built with Tailwind CSS
  • Dark mode support out of the box

Tech Stack

  • Framework: Next.js 14
  • Database: Firebase Firestore
  • Styling: TailwindCSS with custom themes
  • Deployment: Vercel
nextjstypescriptfirebasetailwindcssvercel

Try it out

You can explore the live project here

Motivation

As a UNSW student, I often found myself juggling multiple courses, each with its own set of assignments, quizzes, and project deadlines. Like many students, I relied heavily on Moodle, course outlines, and scattered calendar entries to keep track — which became overwhelming fast. What made it more difficult was how each course had different formats for delivering important dates: some used PDFs, others buried them in announcements. There was no centralized system for students to track everything at a glance. I realized this was a problem not just for me, but for many of my peers.

That's when I decided to build Dues — a tool that would serve as a single source of truth for all upcoming deadlines. The goal wasn't just to create a calendar app, but something built for students, with real reminders, calendar syncing, and even a PDF parser to pull deadlines directly from course outlines. Ultimately, I wanted to build something that I personally needed — a practical, helpful tool that reduced mental clutter and made academic life a bit more manageable.

Learnings

  • How to parse and extract structured data from PDFs
  • Implementing sign in using google account
  • Using Firebase effectively in a Next.js environment
  • Improving UI/UX for student-centric tools

What can Be improved

While Dues is working just fine, there are several areas of improvement for it:

  • User Authentication
    Currently, there are no authentication except for Google, which means users need to manually add courses every time they visit Dues. Integrating proper authentication would make it more secure and personalized.

  • Collaboration Features
    Supporting group projects or shared calendars between classmates would be a great addition. This could include task assignment, shared reminders, or synced group deadlines.

  • Better PDF Parsing
    The current PDF deadline extractor works for a certain template of course outline by analyzing patterns. Improvements could include more robust natural language processing (NLP) to better understand academic phrasing across different course outlines.

  • Mobile Experience
    While the app is responsive, building a dedicated mobile version or a progressive web app (PWA) could provide offline access and push notifications.

  • Analytics & Insights
    Adding usage stats or visual summaries (e.g., weekly workload charts) could help students manage their time more effectively.

  • UNSW Integration
    Ideally, Dues could connect directly with UNSW systems (Moodle, course APIs) to automate syncing of deadlines without manual uploads. Collaborating with UNSW to gain data will be hugely beneficial for Dues.