Yourprice.com Information Technology Investigation

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Contents

                                                                                   Page no.

1         Analysis                                                                

1.1                problem specification

1.2        user requirements

1.3        analysis of current system

1.4        input, processing and output needs

1.5        information requirements

        

2         Design

2.1        design of input

2.2        design of output

2.3        data checking and data controls

2.4        data structures

2.5         processing requirements

2.6        specialist software features

2.7        hardware requirements

2.8        software requirements

3         Software Development

3.1        hardware and software configuration

3.2        develop data and processing structures

3.3        user interface

3.4        data checking

3.5        annotated listings

4         Testing

4.1        testing strategy

4.2        test plans

4.3        test results

6         Evaluation

6.1        evaluations of results against

           the requirement specification

6.2        future developments

6.3        statements of limitations


Analysis


Problem Identification                          1.1        

Yourprice.com is a global Internet based music shop. As it is solely based on the Internet general maintenance costs and staff costs are considerably less than normal retail outlets.

The company has been running for three years and recently shopping over the Internet has become more popular and therefore there have been many extra orders and with this, increasing demands by customers.

The current computerised system is having problems dealing with the extra orders and staffs currently have to work overtime to make up for the inefficient system. The main reason for this is that each of the systems databases are completely detached from each other and therefore the relations between the customers file and stock file for example have to be done manually.

Yourprice.com currently employs thirty-seven people. Eight of these employees are responsible for receiving orders via the Internet and other office work such as employee wages etc. Five employees make sure that orders and received by the twelve employees based in the warehouse who are responsible for making up the orders and making sure that they are correctly packaged and dispatched on time, four employees are responsible for dealing with customer enquiries and complaints, three are in charge of advertising and public relations and there are five managerial staff.

The company also has plans for expansion into other parts of home entertainment such as DVD’s and computer hardware and software although without updating the current computer system first this wouldn’t be worthwhile and would also cause staff more problems.

To summarise what I propose to do I will create a system consisting of three relational files which I will be able to produce input, output layouts and also reports for each file. The three files I will use are Customer file, orders file and Item file.


User Requirements                                1.2

The manager of Yourprice.com has asked me to be the systems designer for a completely new relational computer system, which will eradicate the problems that exist in the current system which are mentioned in the next section.

The new relational database will consist of a customer file, an item file and an order file. The reason for having a relational database is so that when a customer enters their customer ID and the item number of the product they wish to purchase the system will be able to recognise the customer ID and display the details of their postal address, bank details etc. The same will also apply for the item number, as when this is entered into the system it will be able to detect whether the item is in stock, the description of the item and the other information about the item available.

This single change to the system will cut out all manually typed orders and customers will now only have to type in a Customer ID number and from this all their personal information can be gained immediately from the customer database. This is instead of the customers having to type in their private information on the Internet every time they wish to order something.

With the installation of the new system the manager’s aims are to at least double the amount of sales that the company make, as this would enable the company expand its business in the future.

Investigation and                                    1.3

Analysis of current system

In this section I will investigate the current system for myself by seeing it working, interviewing users of the system and also producing a questionnaire for employees of Yourprice.com to fill in. Hopefully with this information I will have an even better idea of the user requirements for the new system.

Firstly I conducted interviews with some members of staff in Yourprice.com to find out what was causing difficulties with the current system and whom it was affecting the most. I recorded the main points of each person’s answers and below I have produced an outline of my findings.

The first person I interviewed was the manager of the company. The main problems that he underlined with the current system are that it is not very user friendly and that it is very slow for customers. He emphasized that the reason for this is that there are no databases present in the system and that most things have to be done manually. Other indications from the manger’s interview were that there have been many complaints recently about the current waiting times when a customer places an order.

I also interviewed some of the other employees trying to include someone from each section of the workforce. There were some differences in opinion between some answers I was given although on the whole the points given by the manger were echoed. It was to be expected that the employee from the warehouse, for example was not as effected by the problems with the computer system as he wouldn’t be in contact with the system as much as one of the employees who takes the orders although he did say that because the orders were not computerised it caused some confusion in the warehouse. In contrast to this the employee responsible for customer enquiries stressed clearly the need for a new system and also commented that she had been receiving many phone calls from angry, impatient customers.

On the next page I have displayed the questionnaire, which I have asked the employees to fill in about the current system.


Yourprice.com

Fact finding Questionnaire

(Please tick the correct box(s) when required)

Please state your position in Yourprice.com

Orders                Dispatching                Customer enquiries

         

What are the disadvantages of the current system?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Join now!

Are there any advantages? (Please state)

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Do you think it will be easy to upgrade the current system?

                                Yes                No

If no, why?

                                                                                                                                                                                

Do you have any further observations to make?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Do you think that your company will benefit from a completely new system and if so how?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

What improvements would you most like to see from the new system if any?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

What department(s) do you think will benefit/lose out from a new system if any and in what ways?

                                                                                        

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

                                                                                        

Thank you very ...

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