Dissertation Council Voting System

What this solution does

The module supports the full lifecycle of a dissertation council meeting, from managing participant composition to generating a signed meeting protocol.

Voting Process

The council secretary initiates a vote, compiles the list of attendees, and sends them emails containing links to electronic ballots.

Participants open the link, enter a personal code, and cast a vote for or against. No account registration on the platform is required.

The secretary monitors the voting progress in real time; data updates automatically without page reloads.

Upon completion, the system calculates the results based on the two-thirds majority threshold and generates the meeting protocol in DOCX or PDF formats.

Functional Capabilities

Councils and Participants

A person's role and email address within a specific council can be overridden independently of their main profile. The same individual may serve as chairman in one council and as a member in another.

The system includes reference directories for scientific specialties and academic degrees. Each council card displays its code and official order number.

When saving the council composition, the system validates that there is exactly one chairman and exactly one scientific secretary.

Voting Statuses

Three statuses are supported: draft, in progress, and completed. While the vote is in draft status, the participant composition remains editable.

The composition of the meeting is captured at the time of creation. Subsequent edits to individual profiles do not affect votes already cast.

Roles in the meeting are assigned anew for each specific defense. The candidate's scientific supervisor cannot serve as the chair. The module verifies the presence of a chair, deputy chair, scientific secretary, and council members, and suggests appointments if any are missing.

Both secret and roll-call voting are supported. In secret roll-call mode, individual responses do not leave the database; only the total count of 'for' and 'against' votes is transmitted externally. In roll-call mode, the card displays how each participant voted.

The server calculates the outcome: a decision is adopted with two-thirds of the votes 'for' or more.

Ballot

Access is granted via a personal participant code without requiring site registration or an account. The code is validated on every request.

The ballot link can be copied.

Participant responses are stored in the database in encrypted form.

Protocol

The protocol template is your own DOCX file, uploaded in the module settings. There is no internal layout for the template within the module: headers, page margins, emblems, and signature lines remain exactly as defined in your template.

Documents are generated with automatic data substitution using placeholders in the {{NAME}} format. Available variables include the council code, institution name, meeting date, applicant's full name and academic degree, council order number, total council members, number of voters, vote counts for 'for' and 'against', and the titles and initials of the chairman and scientific secretary. A complete list of placeholders with examples is available on the settings page. The system automatically declines full names and academic degrees according to Russian grammatical cases.

PDF generation is based on the same source document used for DOCX, converted via LibreOffice, ensuring that both formats remain identical. LibreOffice is optional: if it is not installed on the server, DOCX export functions normally, and the PDF export button is simply hidden.

Customization options allow for uploading a unique logo and selecting a color scheme. Three pre-configured themes are provided, along with the ability to override individual colors to match the university's corporate identity.

System Requirements:

Mandatory conditions for installation:

- PHP version 8.4 or higher.

- Bitrix CMS, Main module (main) version 26.0.0 or higher.

- PHP extensions: dom, gd, json, mbstring, openssl, xml, zip.

- MySQL database version 8.

Exporting the protocol to PDF requires LibreOffice (the libreoffice-writer package). If the application is not detected, the Export to PDF button will not appear in the interface. DOCX export is always available. The path to the soffice executable is configured in the module settings.

General iT can install and configure this module and check how it works on your website.