SESSION 2

System Analysis Analyzing Requirements PART 1 One day, you invited Encik Azhar the sales manager to your office to learn in detail regarding the sales order entry process. Below is the description of the process: Customer orders currently can be received in two ways: by phone or by mail. Upon receiving order from customers, sales person will refer to customer file. If the order is from existing customer, the sales person will look for any new information i.e. change in customers address and update the customer file. However, if the order is from new customer, a new record is created in the customer file. The next step is to check for customers credit limit. This information is also available in the customers file. If the order exceeds the limit, then an order reject notification will be sent to the customer. Otherwise, the sales person will proceed with checking the availability of the products by referring to the inventory file. If the products are out of stock, a back order is sent to the purchasing department. As for the available products, the sales person will prepare 4 copies of sales order and 2 copies of picking ticket. One copy of the sales order is sent to the customer for confirmation of the order while another two copies are sent to shipping department and billing department respectively. The picking ticket is sent to the warehouse. A copy the picking ticket is filed together with a copy of the sales order in the sales file. Every Friday, a summary report of weekly sales is generated from the sales file and sent to the management. Sometimes customer also make phone call to enquire about products or status of their orders. Usually customer services will response to these inquiries by referring to either the sales file or the inventory file. Required: a) Prepare both context and intermediate data flow diagram for the above process using the Microsoft Visio software.

PART 2 After that meeting, you had another discussion with Encik Rashdan and mentioned to him regarding your intention to purchase ready-made software from the market to solve the problems in sales department. I dont think that is a good idea, replied Encik Rashdan. What we need is actually just a simple database system and I believe we can ask the staff in the sales department to create it using Microsoft Access. I can guide them and we can save money, he added. b) c) Explain steps involves in procurement of software package Besides Encik Rashdan argument, what are the disadvantages of purchasing ready-made software? Identify the design strategy that was suggested by Encik Rashdan. Discuss both the advantages and disadvantages of this strategy.

d)

Why purchased software is cheaper compared to other design strategies in developing computer based information system?

SESSION 3
(NOTE: Students must have completed the MS Access exercise in Chapter 11 before doing this PBL) System Design The following week, Encik Rashdan started to design the database. He found that the following documents are required for the sales order processing system: CUSTOMER REGISTRATION FORM Customer Number: Customer Name: Street Address: Postal Code: Outstanding Balance: @@@

Telephone (Office) Telephone (Mobile) City: State: Credit Limit:

SALES REPRESENTATIVE REGISTRATION FORM Sales Rep. ID: Sales Rep. Name: IC Number:

Date Joined: Telephone (Mobile): Commission Rate:

PRODUCT REGISTRATION FORM Product Code: Product Name: Category: Description:

Supplier Name: Unit Price: Quantity on Hand: Picture:

@@@

SALES ORDER FORM Customer Number: Customer Address: Telephone: Product Code

xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx

Sales Order Number Date: Sales Rep. ID: Sales Rep. Name: Quantity Sold Unit Price xxxxxx xxxxxx

xxxxxxxxx Total (RM) xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx

Product Name xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx

GRAND TOTAL:

On top of that, Encik Rashdan was also furnished with the following additional information concerning orders: i. ii. iii. A customer can place many orders (i.e. in different sales order form) but each sales order form is only for single customer. A sales representative can take many orders from customers (i.e.sales rep. can prepare many sales order forms) but each sales order form can only be prepared by one sales representative. An order may contain several line items (i.e. customer may order several products within a sales order form) but each line item may only include a single product. For example, Product X cannot appear on multiple lines within the same order.

Required: a) b) c) d) e) Identify and list the entities and the attributes of those entities. Define primary key, secondary key and concatenated key. Give an example each from the information provided above. Identify the primary key for each of the entity. Specify the relationship among these entities. Is there any many-to-many relationship? How do we implement many-to-many relationship in Microsoft Access? Draw the entity relationship diagram (ERD) depicting the relationship between these entities. You also need to explain to Encik Rashdan the characteristics of bad systems in order for him to detect if something is wrong with the current or new systems? Explain in detail to Encik Rashdan what are the information systems elements that need to be designed?

f)

System Construction g) Using Microsoft Access, create a database for Sales Order Processing system. Your database should include the followings: i. Tables for each entity that you have identified in your ERD plus any other appropriate tables. You may add other attributes to suit your business or product. Since you are not doing a complete system, data for fields marked with @@@ are not necessarily being automatically updated every time you create sales transaction. ii. Forms for new customer registration, sales rep. registration, product registration and sales order form. Use your creativity to design these forms. Remember that good paperless input design should minimize keystrokes, so use dropdown menu, checkbox etc. where appropriate. To minimize errors, the fields marked with XXX in the sales order form must be auto-completed. iii. Queries for your products, customers and sales reps such as: a. Specific product (user can view picture and description of the product) b. Product by category (make, size, colour etc.) c. Product by price range

iv.

v. vi.

vii.

d. Other relevant queries Reports for your products, customers and sales reps such as: a. Sales by product category b. Sales by sales representative c. List of all available products d. List of all customers e. Other relevant reports A main menu with buttons linking to the forms, queries and reports. You need to help the users to navigate through the database. Create this page using form in form design. A start page with your company logo, name of the system and two buttons (one linking to the main menu and labelled with ENTER and the other for user to quit the application and labelled with EXIT). Use similar steps as for creating the main menu. You must set this page to appear when user first enters into the system. Dummy data to test your database. You are required to create at least 10 customers, 5 sales representatives and 20 sales transactions.

h)

The implementation team wishes to ensure that the users find the new information system easy to use and that managers extensively use the enquiry and reporting facilities. What are the activities done in the implementation phase?

END OF PBL SESSION