The current stationery is used as follows
The company stores these documents on computer and on paper; it has two external hard drives to backup all the documents. It also has double copies of the paper documents so the documents are quite safe and secure. At the station we have a photocopier. All the files on the computer will be made in template form so it will photocopy itself in the computers brain.
For writing letters at the moment we just type in what we want and the main point of the letter. We don’t have a design on the letter and it is in black and white. Most of the time people look at the letter and think “I am not working there”.
For the memo we write on a piece of paper using our hand and then give it to them. Unfortunately many people don’t see the memos and think that it is just scrap paper as they are written on any random piece of paper.
For linking the documents we have nothing to do that. Our company computer has a lot of documents on it and when you are looking for a document it is very hard and time consuming to find it.
The manager George Mulalay is responsible for the safety and security of the documents. The documents are stored in folders on the computer and paper documents are stored in cupboards and cabinets in labelled files.
Problems with the current system
Everything above will be ideal for us if we had money to spend on better devices. But as the company is gradually getting bigger, it is costing us more to invest into the company. The paper backup we are printing is using up a lot of space and most of the print cartridges are very expensive. The main problem is that our documents are not professional looking. Many people don’t look at our documents because they are not very appealing to the eye. We need to make the design more appealing to people in order to attract them to Capital FM.
We have a lot of documents to look after in our company and that means that if we are looking for a certain document it will be hard to find as our organisation is not very good.
Sometimes staff have very messy hand writing and they write a memo on a piece of paper for other staff to read. The other staff may not be able to read it so that why we are creating a real memo on the computer.
If a staff member is ill on one of the day’s she is meant to be working then it is very hard to find another staff member that will come in on such short notice. Sometimes no staff have come in and the manager had to do the radio station himself.
Sometimes the computers take a long time to load. This cost the company a lot of time and money. The longer an employer takes doing one thing in the company the less he can do in another subject. The company needs to get faster computers so the employers can do whatever they are doing faster and quickly move on to another task as they are paid by the hour and not for how much they do.
End User Requirements
Letter
- George Mulalay wants a very good designed letter to be created. This letter will be to send to people who apply to be a presenter on our station.
- It must have a database that stores all the information of anyone the letter is to.
- To use this database data must be inputted into it. When the data has been inputted it will be stored in a database and that will be linked to the letter.
- Once all the data has been input you must be able to change the person by the click of a button.
- There must also be a date on the letter that updates every time the document opens.
- The letter must have the same house style as the other documents.
- Hopefully by using these ideas it will be a lot quicker for the company because you can click a button to change person instead of highlighting it, deleting it and then typing the new text. It will be a lot simpler and easier as well.
Memo
- The second thing George Mulalay wants created is a well deigned memo. This memo will be used to send to people to remind them of tasks.
- This memo must have a feature that allows you to insert a piece of text like an instruction. When you click this feature it will highlight all the text for you.
- To use this, all the end user will have to do is click the special feature and input his text.
- This document is to be created as a document that creates a new copy of itself every time it is opened.
- This will also have a date that updates every time the document is opened.
- The memo must have the same house style as the other documents
- Hopefully by using this it will be a lot more professional, quicker and easier for the company. It will also save a lot of time because all of the text will highlight automatically once clicked.
Homepage
- The last thing I would like the designer to make is a well designed homepage. This will be used to link to all of the documents.
- On the homepage it must have a button that once clicked takes you to another document. There will be two buttons and one will link to the memo and one to the homepage.
- All the end user needs to do is click one of the buttons and it will open the document selected.
- There also must be a picture of the document it is opening next to the button.
- Next to the picture their must be instructions on how to use the document and what it is for.
- To make it neat and tidy all of these three things need to be in a table so it everything is not all over the place.
- The homepage must have the same house style as the other documents
- This will be a lot quicker and simpler as you just use the one document to open all the other related documents.
Alternative Possible Solutions
A non ICT solution for the letter is that you could write a letter by hand and leave a gap where needed, for example the name, the address and the date and photo copy it a lot of times. The problem with this though is that it may look very untidy and that it does not look very professional.
A non ICT solution for the memo is that you could draw it out and where the macro fill-in fields are meant to be, you can in pencil write whatever the fill-in field is, for example “write name here”. Then when you come back to the document to fill it out you can rub the pencil out and write in the text. The problem here is that the rubbed out work can look messy and unprofessional.
A non ICT solution for storing the documents is that you could store all of these documents in a closet or in a filing cabinet instead of the computers memory. The problem with this though is that it will take up a lot of space whereas if you keep it saved on the computer it wont take up much space at all.
You could use notepad to write out the memos and design it. Notepad is very easy software to write with as it specialises in writing documents. The problem with notepad is that you can not really get a good design with it and it does not have a macro fill-in feature.
We also could use the paint program to design out templates. Paint is very good for designing as it has many different features that Microsoft Word 2007 does not have. For example it allows you to get a paintbrush and paint freely and it has a graffiti function. The problem with Paint though is that it is not very good at inputting text. You can not change the font or the size and it does not have a spelling and grammar check. Text is very important in a leaflet as it tells you all the important points that the leaflet is advertising.
We could use the desktop publishing program to create a good letter template. DTP specialises in designing things so it would be good for creating a letter deign. It also has custom made designs that you can edit. If you choose a custom made one it will save you making your own. However desktop publishing has not got the mail merge application so it will take a long time changing the name every time you print a letter.
Chosen Method
A word processing package would appear appropriate. It contains many tools that would assist in realising many of the end-user’s wishes: Mail Merge, Templates, and Fill-in fields with promote boxes, macro fill-in fields and an auto date.
They also have basis features such as changing the colour and font of text, inserting word art and clip art, making tables, inserting shapes and having a spelling and grammar checker.
A mail merge is useful for writing letters or invitations to people. All you have to do is write the letter you want and then type a list of recipients. The list of recipients is stored in your computer where you choose to save it. In the list you can put their details and whatever information about them you want. Once you have finished writing the letter and recipients list all you have to do is insert a field e.g. “firstname” and if you press preview results you can see the name you typed in the list. You can change the person by clicking an arrow on the toolbar. This is very useful as you only need to click an arrow to change the information instead of changing the text by deleting the old one and typing a new one in.
If you want to open a document and edit it but keep the original the same, you just open a template and it will make a new copy by itself. All you have to do is choose what you want to call it. This saves you opening a word document, changing it and then pressing save as. If you forget to press save as and your document is not a template it will just override the current document.
The automatic date and time field tool allows you to automatically update the date and time, if you click the update automatically tick box. Every time you open the document the date and time will have been updated. This is very useful if used on a template as a template opens a new copy every time so it will always keep updating the time.
Fill-in fields with promote boxes saves you a lot of time. If you open a document, boxes will appear at you saying type of subject. Once you type it in and press ok, it will insert the text into your document where you chose it to be while you were creating it.
Macro fill-in fields allow you to type something in, for example, “Type here”. When you click the “type here” it will highlight all the text for you so it will save you highlighting the text and pressing delete.
In conclusion, a word processing package would appear the most appropriate choice for the solution to this problem.
Objectives
- To create a well designed memo with macro buttons on it.
- To create a well designed letter with a working mail merge on it.
- To create a well deigned homepage with command buttons on it.
- The macro buttons should highlight all of the text inside it once clicked.
- The homepage must contain instructions and screenshots of the documents it opens.
- The auto date must update every time the document is open.
