Q. Can you explain your current rental system?
A. For E.g.
- A customer enters the shop and chooses a video (either of the shelf or asks at the counter).
- I go into the stock room and find the video
- I ask him for his Name, Address
- I record his details, video’s details and the date in the loans book.
Q. How much do you charge per video? Same rate for every video?
A. It depends on the movie, if it’s a new release I charge £3.00 but slightly old movies £2.00.
Q. Do you fine for overdue rentals?
A. Yes I fine them £1.00per day.
Q. What procedure is taken if videos are not returned on time?
A. I look at the loans book every Sunday and record any overdue rentals and send letters out.
Q. How do you advertise or display your videos?
A. I have posters inside the shop and also in the shop window.
Q. How do you make sure that your borrowers are not underage?
A. I mostly know the people, but since we have been growing I tend to judge by my self.
Q. Do you categories your videos?
A. I don’t get time to do so.
Q. Do you keep a regular or exact account of income and loss?
A. Since the business has started growing it has been difficult to keep an exact account of my income.
Q. Do you have a computer?
A. I have a computer at home but not in the shop.
Q. Do you have any I.T skills or any computer experience?
A. I am not very good with computers but am learning how to use one properly, however I word process my letters that I send to customers.
Q. How does your D.V.D renting system work?
A. This is exactly the same as the video renting system but I use a separate loans book.
Q. How much do you charge for each DVD?
A. I charge £2.50 per DVD.
Q. Since you sell Televisions and Video Player’s how do you keep track of stock?
A. Most of the stock is displayed within the shop and some in the storeroom, but I rely on my memory.
Q. What do you like about your present system and would like to retain?
A. I like the simplicity of the system.
Current system
Data Flow Diagram
Renting of videos.
Name
Address Video
Video
Explanation:
You can see the overview of the manual, existing system in the above data flow diagram.
Basically the customer enters giving his name and address.
Then details of the video are taken and the person who is renting out the video.
Finally the customer is handed the video.
Purchasing a video.
Video detail
Video No.
Delete
Video
Renting procedure
Name, Address Date
Video No. (Case).
Video
Explanation:
The customer gives his name and address. He also hands over the counter the video case with the number of the video on. The name and address of the person is recorded in the loans book with also the detail of the video and the date. Looking at the video number he finds the video on the coded shelves stored in the back room.
Returning videos & Fines procedure.
Delete record
Date, Name, Address
Video No.
Video
Detail of Video
Video Detail
Send letter
Name, address
Explanation:
The customer hands the video and gives his name and address. The video is put back on the appropriate shelve according to the video number. Then the details of the customer and video are deleted from the loans book and asked to pay accordingly to how many nights the video was out for. Every Sunday the loans book is checked for videos that have not yet been returned and are overdue and letters are sent asking them to return the video with also the fine.
Overview
Now looking back at the interview with Mr Gafoor Saab I can summarise what I have found out:
- Mr Gafoor Saab runs his own business within a growing Asian community and needs to update his manual system
- He buys his own videos.
- His Shop consists of Hollywood, Bollywood and Pakistani Movies that he rents out to the community.
- He keeps record of all videos (new and old) in a book, which he writes over in ink.
- Each customer’s details are taken each time they rent out a video.
- Every weekend he looks for any overdue rentals manually.
- He sends letters to the customers, fining them for overdue rentals and asking them to return the videos
- His DVD renting system works exactly the same as the video renting.
- He also has a selling side to the business and has difficulty remembering what is in stock.
- He likes the simplicity of the system but finds it difficult to remember everything.
Problems with existing system
There are many problems within this present system:
- Making sure that you don’t misplace the loans book and all the other books containing details of rentals. This could lead to not recording details of customers and loosing out money.
- There is no security toward the loans books; any one could alter the records.
- Keeping track of overdue rentals is difficult as there is no printed list. The overdue letters are sent via inspection of the Loans book.
- It is possible for a person to continue hiring out a video even though they may have an overdue video still out on loan.
- When a customer asks for a video it takes a long time finding the video if its in stock or not as the Stock book is in no particular order.
- There are no lists of videos for customers to choose from.
- Time consuming taking customer details every time they want to rent out a video.
- Data consistency is lost due to human error as mistakes can take place on deleting a record or keeping a record.
- There is no real proof of identity so any anyone can take a video on someone else’s name and address.
- An important issue that needs to be addressed is checking of age as many youngsters are sent to the shop, renting out videos on their parents names.
- No accurate record is made of the money earned by the rental process.
- The videos are advertised on shelves but not in any category and not enough time to produce lists of videos.
Possible solutions
I have decided to look at some possible solutions. To help me decide the possibilities I have:
-
Improve manual system.
*I could re-design Mr Gafoor Saab’s Renting system using records for each customer in a filling cabinet.
*Colour coding each Book so it is easy to find the books
*For security he could look up the books
Adv
*Looking at the Cost, this would be very cheap
*This would be easy to use, as Mr Gafoor would not require any training
Dis
*Searching will still take a long time.
*Still a chance of loosing records and books.
- Use A General Purpose Database
*Design a system in Microsoft Access
Adv
*Easy to produce Reports
*Easy to produce Lists
*Easy to produce letters for overdue rentals.
*Searching for a record is faster than manual system
*This is not very expensive (more than the manual system), as Mr Gafoor has already got the Microsoft Office package.
*Set up passwords for data security.
Dis
*Limited to the tools within the program
*Mr Gafoor will require some training to use the program.
- Write A Programme in Visual Basic
*Design the video renting system using an object oriented programme
Adv
*Easy to see the form and programme by clicking on command buttons
*Searching for a record is faster than manual system
*Set up passwords for data security.
Dis
*Mr Gafoor will require some training to use the program.
*Not very expensive to set up but will require to buy the software.
- Write A programme in Pascal
*Design a programme using a teaching 3rd Generation language.
Adv
*Programming in Pascal would be more efficient and effective than the manual system.
*Searching for a record is faster than manual system
Dis
*Mr Gafoor will require some training to use the program.
*Cost of the system to operate would be expansive than the manual system.
*Programming in a 3rd Generation language can be difficult.
-
Buy a system made for video renting.
*This programme could be bought from a shop as other video renting systems are already designed
Adv
*This would be the simple option as this type of problem has been already solved.
Dis
*The programme will be made generally so it will not meet the specific needs towards Mr Gafoor’s video shop.
*Mr Gafoor will require some training to use the program.
*Cost of the system will be expensive.
I have drawn up a table to help me summarise all the possible solutions.
Key: I have used number scheme as weights.
Cost 1=Min (cheap)… 5=Max (Expensive)
Implement 1=Min…………….. 5=Max
Usability 1=Easy…………… 5=Hard
Adv 1=Lots……………. 5=Not many
Dis 1=Lots……………. 5=Not many
General objectives
To produce a new system that will:
Successfully capture, and store all the data needed to produce relevant reports and forms.
A system that also deals with the DVD renting system and holds relevant information about stock available to sell
Reduce the time taken to record details on videos, members and the loan/return process.
Record accurate data for the loan and return of videos
Produce accurate reports
Produce membership cards with and a database with digital photos.
Reduce the time to search and sort data.
Will be easy to use and simple to understand.
Will be secure from damage and unauthorized access due to security.
There will be regular checks and reports keeping the system up-to-date and accurate.
Specific objectives
It should take less than 30 seconds to record a loan and similarly deal with a return.
Deal with the loan process for the video renting by:
- Check the customer membership card.
- Double-check the customer from using the photo.
- Successfully writing the appropriate details to the loan file e.g. name
- Correctly updating the number of videos on loan to a customer in the customer file.
Deal with the loan process for the DVD renting by:
- Check the customer membership card.
- Double-check the customer from using the photo.
- Successfully writing the appropriate details to the loan file genome
- Correctly updating the number of DVD's on loan to a customer in the customer file.
Deal with the return process by:
- Decreasing the no of videos on loan in the correct customer record in the customer file.
- Removing the customer reference in the appropriate video record in the video file.
Produce reports for the following:
- Monthly income information generated by video loans.
- Overdue video lists.
- Full video lists.
- Full DVD lists.
- List of videos and DVD’s out.
- Selective lists based on actors.
- Selective lists based on release date.
- Selective lists based on genre.
- Membership cards for new customers
All of the above reports should take only a few minutes to print in either a sorted or selective fashion.
Validate the loan by:
- Checking that the video and customer exists.
- Checking that the video is not already on loan.
- Checking that the customer has not exceeded his maximum loan limit.
- Checking that the customer is not under the age limit for a particular film.
Make Mail merge Menu form
Security:
Data Flow Diagrams
User skills and requirements
Design
Entity relationship Diagrams
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Table
Members
Films
Rental
Rental Line
