Crowdfunding workflow

User roles

  • Platform owner: Owns and operates the platform (website).
  • Project owner: Created a project featured on the platform. The project owner receives the funds on successful completion of the project.
  • Visitor: A visitor to the website.
  • Backer: A visitor who has backed a project becomes a backer.

Project setup

  1. A project owner creates an account on the plattform.
  2. He creates a project.
  3. The platform owner reviews and approves the project.
  4. The project is open for bidding.

Bidding phase

  1. A visitor visits the website and looks at the project.
  2. He decides to support it by clicking on the ‘Back this project’ button.
  3. He is redirected to the backing page. On this page he has to enter the amount he wishes to back and select the reward.
  4. He gets redirected to the payment provider site where he enter his payment details.
  5. After successful completion he gets redirected to the thank you page which is the project detail page with ‘thank_you’ and the pledge id added as a query string. He is now a backer. If the visitor cancels the payment he is redirected to the detail page again. A message informs him that he had cancelled the transfer.

End phase

  1. After the project end date has passed, the bidding has ended.
  2. The system sends out a message to all backers informing them if the funding has succeeded or not.
  3. If the project did not succeed, the preapprovals are cancelled. No money is deducted.
  4. If the project did succeed, the money is transferred to the project owner.

Workflow Diagram

Data flow diagram.

The diagram can be viewed (and edited) on LucidChart.