How are appointments recorded?
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Where are the student (clients) details kept?
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Where are the tutor (employees) details kept?
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How is payment determined?
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What problems have you had with storing details manually.E.g loosing clients/tutors details. Please list
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INTERVIEW
I visited Tutors R us and interviewed Miss Thomas and her secretary Ruth Samuel.
With Miss Samuel, the questionnaire was used and the interview with Miss Thomas, the following questions were asked:
- Q – What is the age group of your clients (students)?
A – All age group really, anything from 5yrs old to maybe 50yrs old.
- Q – How do they make appointments?
A – They call, state the subject and the level, state the time and date, sometimes they specify if they prefer male or female tutor.
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Q – How do you keep a record of which students are visited by which tutor and for how long?
A – From the appointment and it is the tutor’s responsibility to give us that kind of information and at times we get in contact with the clients if we do not have a record of that information.
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Q – How do you work out how much the tutors are paid?
A – The numbers of hours they do, the level at which they tutor. Our business gets to keep one fifth of what they get from tutoring.
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Q – How is your business advertised?
A – Fliers are done by a friend of mine on her computer as well as the application forms.
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Q – Do you have a letterhead? If so, how was it done?
A – Yes, it was also done by my friend.
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Q – What do you want this new system to be able to do?
A – Store clients (students) as well as employees (tutors) details
– These details should be accessible by the touch of a button
– Should create reports by a touch of a button, ready for printing
– Record appointments
– Record the subjects and the levels on offer
– Create mailing labels
– Merged with documents for correspondence
– Allow access to a number of users at different levels
– Back-up files have different levels of security – password for different level of staff
– be able to amend or cancel appointments if necessary
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Q – What is your budget?
A – About £5000
SUMMARY
An interview was carried out and a questionnaire submitted for the feasibility study, at Tutors R Us. The interview was done with the CEO of the company Miss Sarah Thomas and the questionnaire was done with her secretary Miss Ruth Samuel.
The interview and the questionnaire both concluded that the system was inadequate and there is a definite room for improvement. Although the system presently in use is proven to work, there are signs of problems which range from it being unreliable at times in that documents and files are seldom misplaced or lost even. It also proves to be time consuming especially with the recent boom in business.
Payment is presently determined using a calculator which is not causing too much problems but still a part of the ‘old’ days, especially with the technology present these days.
There is limited – next to none, use of the computer.
ACTUAL FEASIBILITY
Taking into consideration what the new system is required to do, I devised a feasibility study that covers three aspects of feasibility – Technical, Social/Legal and Economical, and 3 types of implementation – fully, partial and no implementation.
FULL IMPLEMENTATION
TECHNICAL
Hardware needed: Computers to be organized in a network, including IBM compatible CPUs, VDUs, HUB, cables, printers, scanner and a main server will be needed as well as back-up system.
Software needed: because the new system would be networked, software will be shared thus making it cheaper. Software includes a Microsoft Office package with such applications as MS Access, MS Excel, MS Word, MS Power Point, MS Outlook, MS FrontPage and MS Publisher.
SOCIAL/LEGAL
The new system required will need trained staff. The company has to obtain software licenses and data obtained about their clients and employees (tutors) will have to be protected by the Data Protection Act.
ECONOMICAL
Taking into consideration the number of hardware and software needed, one has to realize the cost of the new system is going to be very high. The initial cost of buying PCs and other hardware devices to be networked varies. Each PC will assumeably cost approximately £700 each, a scanner about £80-£100, printer £150 depending on the brand and the type, cables may vary, a server also varies in price. Please take into consideration when bought in bulk, the price could be considerably lower. Training staff to use the new system is going to be time consuming and very expensive. My estimated cost of a fully implemented system varies between £7000 and £8000.
PARTIAL IMPLEMENTATION
TECHNICAL
A partial implementation would be to network the PCs but limit the number of PCs purchase. The recommended number is about 2 or 3 with just one printer, a scanner, a HUB for the network, floppy disks for backup and cabled for the network. Software will include MS Office, preferably the most updated one.
SOCIAL/LEGAL
Staff is trained. Licenses required and data on clients and employees should be Data Protected.
ECONOMICAL
The cost of purchasing and maintaining hardware will not be as much as that of the fully implemented system but it will still be a bit much. Buying the products will help keep the expenses at bay rather than buying individually. The software will be shared through the network and so would be cheap. The initial cost of this partially implemented system is an estimated £3000-£4000.
NO IMPLEMENTATION
TECHNICAL
The current system originally consists of a basic PC with basic application such as MS Works used for correspondence.
SOCIAL/LEGAL
Copyrights have been bought and there is no need for further training for staff.
ECONOMICAL
The cost of the present system is not judged so much on the money saved on not implementing a new system but on the time that can be saved and the mistakes that can be avoided as well the knowledge of being up to date with the rapid growth of technology.
ANALYSIS
The present system may be impeccably done but problems still arise. These problems include time consuming, lost or misplaced documents or files misplaced appointments etc.
These problems are to be solved so as to make things easier for the office employees of Tutors R Us. Solving these problems will benefit the business by guarantee a smoother running of business. The employees that are to be benefited most from this new and improved system will include the secretary, the personal assistant, the CEO of the company, the clientele and the tutors.
Filing the information of the clients and the tutors, typing up letters, dealing with correspondence etc, is done by the secretary. Letters and other correspondence such as memos are done on a basic Word application on a very basic computer system.
The information are stored in a filing system, which we have already mentioned to be unreliable, in that documents and files are misplaced and it can be very time consuming. These problems alone can be known to cause stress which can hinder how employees perform their jobs.
All the problems mentioned above are important and are in dire need of being solved straight away, though some take precedence over others. The problem of the filing system has to be sorted first and foremost and everything else shall fall into place.
These problems are not such big problems and can be dealt with without being broken down.
I will be trying to solve all of the problems which are not a lot. The main problem to be solved is the manual filing system.
I will attempt to solve this problem by devising a database system which will contain tables with clients and tutors information, appointment information and billing/payment information. Forms will be created to make entering this data and accessing information easier. Reports would be created to allow printing and viewing options of information required. These would be feasible through a link to a query which would be created to display a certain amount of specific information. This computerized database system is the only option as the other option was the manual system which is currently in use and which is also the problem. The reason for this option of solving this particular problem is so that files and documents are easily accessible and very unlikely to lost or misplaced, because files and document will be backed up ever so often. This will prove to be less time consuming thus allowing more leisure time for the secretary who will in turn reduce stress levels and it will also enhance the quality of work done.
The new computerized database system will allow users to enter information into the system through a form which would then store this information into a printable table which is linked to these information may include students and tutors information as well as appointments. The new system will allow the user to search for a student or a tutor of a specific subject and level. Reports on different date appointments, tutors appointment, student appointment, student and tutor details (name, address etc) will be created, ready for printing /viewing at the press of a button. The system will be backed up every evening using floppy disks and stored off site on different locations so as to avoid total loss in the event of anything happening, for example, a fire at the office or a flood or any other accidental or natural disasters. All in all, easily accessibility, low maintenance, user friendly and time saving are some of the features this system has to offer which will make work more enjoyable as it will almost be stress free, guarantee accuracy and saves time.
DESIGN
The application packages that will be used are Microsoft word and Microsoft access. The most suitable application package is Microsoft word, this soft ware is more appropriate because it could be used to write reports and other information that is relevant to the staff and the students at Tutor R’Us. That software can also store documents that are needed by the staff of Tutor R’Us. The hardware the staffs at Tutor R’Us are central processing unit along with input, output and backing storage.
The central processing unit is the part of the computer where the searching and sorting of data, calculating and decision-making goes on. Input, this is the stage of computing is concerned with getting the data needed by the program into the computer. The output, this stage of computing deals with producing the processed data as information in a form that is useful to the user. These devices would be useful at Tutor R’Us in that data and information of any collection of number, characters or other symbols that has been coded into a format that can be input into a computer and processed.
