Designing a computer system for the Enfield hotel.
THE ENFIELD HOTEL
Background
The company is called the Enfield hotel. It is located in north London. The Enfield hotel is a well established local hotel accommodating business and leisure needs. It has an excellent well earned reputation for the food served in the restaurant.
The Etruscan restaurant is for evening meals and breakfast. Style and décor of the restaurant provides a very special dining experience.
The restaurant is capable of holding 40 seated people, and the ratio of people staying in the hotel and eating for evening meals is 3:1.
The hotel is conveniently located in a quiet residential area, offering a peaceful retreat from the hustle and bustle of London life. The hotel is currently classed as a 2 star and is open all year round.
There are currently 8 people employed:
These consist of secretaries, waiters, chiefs, cleaners and management
* Owner (Mrs Bond) - looks after accounts.
* Manager (Mark)- looks after the running of the hotel.
* Main Secretary (Karen) - who takes care of bookings and admin.
* Head chief (nick) - prepares the food.
* Cleaner (Stephen) - cleans the rooms and other facilities.
* And 3 waiters
The current system for booking rooms and restaurant tables are manual systems.
There are currently a total of 12 rooms on site.
Each room is furnished to a very high standard, and are well presented and tastefully decorated. All bedrooms are en-suite with shower, remote control colour TV and other facilities.
Types of bedroom;
* Twin - 2 beds - 5 available
* Double - 1 bed - 3 available
* Single - 1 bed - 4 available
RATES
Room Type
Monday - Thursday
Friday - Sunday
Single
£65.00
£50.00
Double
£75.00
£65.00
Twin
£85.00
£85.00
All room rates quoted above are inclusive of breakfast and V.A.T.
Monday - Thursday rates reflect the fact that mainly business people use the hotel during the week. Lower rates at the weekend are carried out to attract tourists.
With reference to bookings;
Check in/out
* Check in from 16.00 onwards
* Check out by 11.00
Cancellations
* A credit card number is required to guarantee arrival for all bookings.
* Cancellation policy is by 4.00pm the day prior to arrival to avoid any cancellation charges. If not carried out the full amount will be charged.
* Require an imprint of your credit card on check in.
Bookings can be carried out over the phone, internet via e-mail or face to face. Rooms can also be booked 6 months in advance.
What actually happens when booking a room is the following;
* Customer asks to book room
* Secretary asks the following,
, when you would like to stay.
, what type of room would you like.
, for how many persons.
, have you stayed here before.
, tells them the price.
Then if the customer is happy with the price, the following happens:
* Secretary then takes down the customers,
Name
Contact number
Credit card number
This is written down in either book A1/ A2 depending on the month. The details are written into the days when the customer is staying.
* Secretary then tells the customer of the cancellation policy, and the checking in time. Then the secretary will ask weather they will be eating in the restaurant that night of arrival.
On arrival the secretary will take an imprint of the card. This is so that the customer can't leave without paying.
Booking complete
With reference to the booking of the restaurant;
The customer will tell the receptionist the day before weather they are eating in the restaurant the following day.
The receptionist will then flick through the restaurant diary, find the day, and write down;
The customer's name,
How many people will be eating,
Customer room number,
The table number.
The price will be left blank, and will be filled after the bill has been taken.
Then the receptionist will flick through diary A1/A2, find the guest. And then write that the guest is eating.
Statement of the problem
Mrs Bond the owner of the hotel is expanding the business. The present hotel is not purpose built. It consists of 2 large semi detached houses converted into one building, plus an ...
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The customer's name,
How many people will be eating,
Customer room number,
The table number.
The price will be left blank, and will be filled after the bill has been taken.
Then the receptionist will flick through diary A1/A2, find the guest. And then write that the guest is eating.
Statement of the problem
Mrs Bond the owner of the hotel is expanding the business. The present hotel is not purpose built. It consists of 2 large semi detached houses converted into one building, plus an extension built five years ago. The detached house next door is now up for sale and vacant. Mrs Bond is going to purchase it. This extension would increase the number of rooms from 12 to 25. This would put supreme stress on the secretaries as the current system is manual.
The manual system consists of all booked rooms kept in diaries. They are 2 A4 books used for booking rooms, as one diary is not enough. The two books are called A1 and A2. Book "A1" keeps track of bookings from January to June, and book "A2" keeps track of bookings from July to December. Both diaries consist of 365 pages, thus 2 pages for each day of the year. The pages are split into 12 sections, a section for each room (as you can see this is nearly outstripping the manual system). If the room is booked then the sections are filled with the details of the customer.
Another diary is kept for the bookings of the restaurant. The pages are split into 12 sections, each section for each room. All details are kept in one book as not a lot of information is needed.
All of the diaries kept from previous years are stored in cabinets. This is done so the manager is able to see past figures, and take note of trends.
Problem with the current system:
Investigation
In order for the system to meet the users needs an interview was arranged with my tutor and a list of topics was drawn up to discuss.
· The main objective of the new system.
· The method currently used for processing the information required
· The amount of data expected to go into the system
· Whether the user would prefer to use a particular system that they have already got in mind
· The type of software available for the users use.
From the interview a number of problems were realised with the current system, of manually doing the work.
It was said that the old way of doing things was far too slow and time consuming, and many mistakes were made with the data. This needed to be corrected with the new system.
The current system's process is a long and tedious one and a computerised system will be more efficient. The new system doesn't have to be a computerised system; I could instead just improve the current manual system. But I have chosen to make the new system computerised because of the following advantages:
* Computer systems can be backed up so that if there is a fire or the computers contract a virus, the files are not lost altogether. However if the system was not computerised and there was a fire, the data would be lost. Which could lead to a loss of customer due to a lack to reliability to the customer.
* A computer system can be modified and changed more easily than a non-computerised system. E.g. if you wanted to change the format of the customer data entry forms on a computer it could be done in a few minutes but manually on a non computerised system it would take a very long time to rewrite the records if they were held on card.
* A computerised system can find files within seconds where as on a card filing system it would take people a lot longer as it has to all be done by people and then the process is subject to human error.
* The secretary can search on several criteria.
* There is more storage space available (the new system should hold 2 years worth of information).
The key problems with the current system are:
. It is hard to keep track of payments, as information is held in 2 books. Thus the secretary needs to cross reference at least 2 diaries.
2. Easy for the diaries to be damaged or even lost.
3. Time constraint - it is time consuming for the secretary to look up empty rooms or relative information, as she would have to flick through the 2 books to find an empty room. It could take minutes for the secretary to look up information, thus the customer is left on hold. This may not meet the customer's satisfaction.
There will be 3 types of users, the owner, manager and the secretary. Due to this some information will be restricted to the secretary. To do this access levels will have to be used. Access levels will prevent others to change/ delete data or even view the information.
The firm currently uses ICT to perform operations, such as:
Word processor - used to write letters and information sheets.
But use a manual method to book rooms and tables for the restaurant.
Requirements analysis:
The users requirements is the most important element of the analysis, therefore I have to find out exactly what is wanted from the system as the first step in producing a solution to the problem.( the information was gathered by an interview)
Tasks
The system should be able to do;
Quantitative
* Mail - merge letters
* Edit/create customer details
* Record booked rooms
* Record payed rooms
* Add/delete customers
* Show which rooms are booked and which are free.
* Show customer status e.g. arriving, checked in/out.
* Calculate price for a customers stay.
* Add on the bill from the restaurant to the price of the customers stay.
* Calculate a total price for a customers stay.
Qualitative
* Be quick to load up
* Easy to use
* Clear fonts
* Use navigation buttons
* Clear and easy to use manual with diagrams.
* Consistent layout
* Use colours in helpful ways
* Require minimum IT training
* Be secure - passwords/access levels
Choices of Software
There are 2main choices of software these are Excel a spreadsheet, Access a database. All have advantages and disadvantages.
Excel
Excel has many advantages, which include the following points and features: -
· Excel allows you to insert buttons or macros these allow you to open and close forms at the click of a button. They also allow you to do things like run a query or calculation.
· Excel allows you to highlight different cells in colour and fill effects. You can highlight a cell by first clicking on the cell you want and then the fill colour icon, which brings up a range of colour, you can also colour the text or lines.
· There is a formula bar at the top, which displays the formula of the cell you are viewing; here you can also add things to the formula.
· You can create look-up tables.
· You can create graphs using the Chart Wizard tool.
· In Excel you can also copy the cell of a formula from cell you cell. This can be very useful when using a formula to calculate a certain equation.
· You can name cells, which makes identifying cells easier.
· Excel is a multi dimensional spreadsheet, this means that you can have as many sheets as you want, this is also known as a three dimensional spreadsheet.
Excel has disadvantages as well as advantages, these include: -
· If you change the name of a page after making a macro it can't find the correct page because it has changed names. This means you then have to go into Visual Basic and manually change the name of the page on the actual piece of code. This all takes time and if you change more than one page's name it will take a very long time.
· With the labels of the graph they will not change with the data so you end up having to go over the whole process of making a graph again.
Access
Access also has its advantages and disadvantages, which need to weigh up against Excel's advantages and disadvantages to come up with the right choice of software. Access' advantages include: -
· Access can perform advanced queries.
· Access can make forms to insert data.
· Access is very user friendly.
· In Access you can have macros to go between forms and queries.
· Access has lots of facilities which help to improve the appearance these include- Word Art, Paint, text and line fill, Spell check, Clip art, Importing pictures
· Access is not a flat file database so you can also create relationships between tables of data.
· It has a query language, which means it can perform advanced searches.
· You can hide certain forms out of view.
· You can put a password on the system to prevent people tampering with it.
· There are writing tools including spelling and punctuation tools available.
· Access can have relational tables, which are linked together. This avoids repetition in entering in data as more than one department of the system can share one bit of data.
Access has disadvantages as well as advantages these include: -
· Access is more sophisticated than Excel and is therefore harder to use for a novice.
· Access is used by professional system designers who design systems for end users. This means the system must be very powerful and very detailed. However it is more complicated for a non-expert to use
Evaluation of possible software solutions
I have decided to recommend the use of Access to the clients as being most suitable because it seems to offer more facilities and features, which will help me in designing a program for the hotel.
Access is more usable than Excel and the end users will find the system easier to use as the system will save time by cutting out repetitive tasks and will give them quick access to the information they need. A system designed in Access should give a very user-friendly interface and will function in the way the client's want in to. Access is a quick database and is quick to open files and change to new pages. Access will really provide a solution to the clients needs, as it is a diverse program, which can be used in many different ways. Another very good thing about Access is that it will be very easy to upgrade, introduce new functions and make modifications as and when they are necessary.
I have offered to put all this information on access to make it easier to store and keep up to date while also have the luxury of monitoring customers stay. I will need to make tables, quarries and report so that all the information that is required is interrelated and can be accessed by a click of a button.
I will design relationships between the tables so that quarries can be made to view the appropriate information required from each table, instead of having to open up all the tables and taking information separately.
Going on my recommendation of a computerized system I now have to provide and recommend the hardware and software most suitable for the system
Hardware / Software Requirements (resource analysis)
The requirement of the system is basically a standard Pc capable of running Microsoft Office 97, to use the program Access. You can buy this for around a hundred pounds, and most computers are bundled with the 'office' program anyway. You can also run it in other versions of 'office' such as 2000 and XP.
Available for use at the hotel is a Pentium PC running Windows 98 and a laser jet printer. The Windows system comes installed with Microsoft Office and includes all the major programs (Word, Access, Excel).
Since all this is available to the hotel, and karen is familiar with computers and their programs she has asked/recommended for me to design the new system in Access. She feels that a database would be the best way to tackle the problem as information can be gained quickly and efficiently and large amounts of data can be stored.
The employee's current IT skills are of a basic/ intermediate standard. They have had previous experience with word processing, but none with databases, except for karen. Thus training is required.
I have chosen to create the new IT system on a database rather than on spreadsheets. Because for this project it is unlikely that solutions using only spreadsheets would allow for a fully reusable system; however databases are able to cope with entity relationships, allow information to be taken from a mix of data tables, and quite complex processing and reporting can take place, thus it is more appropriate.
End-user skill level:
Most people today know exactly how to use computers, to do basic tasks such as type a letter, or send an e-mail. There are a lot of people who find this difficult and there are people who don't have a clue even how to switch a computer on. So the system needs to be as simple as it can be, so that it can be used by all members of staff. None of the staff has experience in databases and so great amount of effort is necessary in making the system simplistic.
Evaluation criteria
Qualitative
* Edit/create customer details
* Record booked rooms
* Record payed rooms
* Add/delete customers
* Show which rooms are booked and which are free.
* Show customer status e.g. arriving, checked in/out.
* Calculate price for a customers stay.
* Add on the bill from the restaurant to the price of the customers stay.
* Calculate a total price for a customers stay.
* Be secure - passwords/access levels
Quantitative
* Should take 45 seconds to book a room.
* It should take no longer than 20 seconds to find a free room.
* It should take at most 10 seconds to calculate a guest's stay including restaurant bill.
* It should take 10 seconds to create a guests details
Schedule
I will follow a plan of work for my project. This will enable me to meet deadlines, and complete the system well.
Data Flow Diagram
To help me design an effective and structured database system I have drawn a data flow diagram to show the logical movement of the data through a system, however it does not show how the data is stored.
There are different levels of data flow diagrams; I have drawn a level 1 diagram that can also be known as a context diagram. A data flow diagram has many symbols, which mean specific things the symbols I have used are: -
* External Entities - can also be known as a data source or destination. In the following diagram the Customer is the External Entity.
* Processes - are operations performed on the data. In the following diagram there are five processes each named P1, P2 ...etc.
* Data Stores - are logical stores for data, which are not physical in the following data, flow table they are labelled D1 and D2.
There are many different levels of DFD's the DFD below is a level 0 and the DFD on the following page is an example of a level 1 DFD
Luigi Girandola