FACULTY OF COMMERCE

P BAG 9055, GWERU

TELE: (263) 54 2260641/2260210

FAX: (263) 54 2260311/2260029

www.msu.ac.zw

INFORMATION SYSTEMS HONOURS DEGREE

NAME REG NUMBER

Calton Mukahiwa

Jira Support System

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CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.1 INTRODUCTION
Organisational operations basing on use of modern technologies such as information systems is
fast spreading to most countries and many organisations have adapted to the use of information
based systems. Most organisation are now adjusting to the use of web- based systems with
functions that automate their business processes. This periods of technological improvements
made the use of electronic devices become part of everyone’s life. It is now difficult for
organisations to withstand in their sectors without the use of cutting edge technology. Jira
Support System is a web-based system that is used to automate many processes within the
organisation. The system is also capable of accommodating future changes and adjustment. This
chapter will explore all the steps to be applied to the proposed system for it to be justifiable. The
chapter will also explore the Methods and Instruments that are going to be used to come up with
the new proposed system as well as the methods that are to be employed to gather data of how
the current system operates.

1.2 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

As the computer revolution change from century to century computers have become popular due
to the emergence of a global economy, transformation of the business enterprise and the
emergence of digital firms. This development to the computer age enables the use and the
increase of the electronic way of operating as the market tends to be growing year by year.
Information technology has become a gate way in problem solving. Different sectors of the
economy are pushing to have most of their processes under the umbrella of Information
technology. According to Brenner (2014), recent changes in the technology landscape, coupled
with the widening intricacy of IT, perpetual developments and technology updates, have made
the development of an effective risk management a challenging task. Thus, with the changing
nature of IT and the increase in issue complexity, the researcher saw it necessary to rethink how
end-users can obtain effective support from the proposed system, with improved issue resolution
by fast escalation of incident and prioritization and customer satisfaction. Before we talk about
the complete system ready for use, we should focus first on the process of initiating an idea,
develop that idea until it becomes a complete system

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The information service delivery always comes with time obligation that is time is very
important in project development and delivery. Therefore, to overcome these hurdles, the learner
proposed an information system tool (system) that will be thoughtfully designed to cater for Jira
Support System adjustments. It is also important to consider the system availability and
reliability. According to Mackey (2011), in competitive markets, maintaining a higher
operational uptime is essential for organisations to satisfy the needs of internal and external
customers.

1.2.1 BACKGOUND OF THE ORGANISATION

The Ministry of Health was a government ministry of Southern Rhodesia first established in
1948, with the establishment of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland the responsibility for
health was a federal responsibility from 1954 to 1963.[1] The ministry returned to Southern
Rhodesia from 1963 with the end of the Federation and then Rhodesia from the country's self-
proclaimed independence in 1965 to 1979, when the country transitioned from white minority
rule to the multiracial democracy of Zimbabwe.

1.2.2 ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE

This is perceived as the real representation of the formal relationship of the organisation’s
employees (Jewell, 2004). It is of importance within the organisation to have a clear span of
control for both the management and employees. Employees should know who reports to whom
and have the full knowledge if the decision making is centralized or decentralized. Bruice Jewell
(2004) pointed that to eradicate conflicts within the organisation, employees should have their
roles and responsibility clearly defined. At Ministry of Healthy, al the CD they report to the PS
as shown in the diagram below and authority will be passed up the hierarchy until it reaches the
minister. and then the deputy minister will report to the minister. All other users below top
management have their duties, roles and responsibilities clearly defined within their departments

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 Fig 1.1 Organogram of Department of Civil Protection

1.2.3 VISION

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1.2.4 MISSION STATEMENT
The overall purpose of the Ministry of Health and Child Care is to promote the health and quality
of life of the people of Zimbabwe. In pursuing this, the Ministry of Health and Child Care is
committed to:
 Equity
The Ministry of Health and Child Care seeks to achieve equity in Health by targeting resources
and programmes to the most vulnerable and needy in our society.

 Primary Health Care

The Primary Health Care approach will be the main strategy for health development.
 Priority Health Issues
Priority Health problems will be identified and resources will be targeted to alleviating those
problems.
 Quality Programmes
The Ministry will seek to provide high quality care which is accessible and appropriate.

 Health Promotion Programmes

These will emphasize on Health promotion and disease prevention. In summary the Ministry of
Health and Child Care aims:
To keep as many people as possible in good Health in the Community.
To provide appropriate quality services for those needing care in the community.
To provide high quality hospital services at the appropriate level for those requiring that form of
treatment and care.

1.3 PROBLEM DEFINITION

The current Jira Support System need to be added new functionalities that we have already
proposed during our attachment and they were approved. In the present system, the IT Support
team have to assign technicians reported tasks. Upon completion, the technicians should go to
the first line support team to give the feedback such that the issue could be closed. The
technician they do not have the capability to close issues in the system on their own soon after

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resolution. Also when laptops want to be transferred to different places, first line support team
have to print three asset transfer forms. One of the forms will left out in the IT department the
other one at the security desk and last one will be ferried together with the goods. From our
proposed idea, support team have to log asset details into the system then it moves to the security
side for approval once approved it then moves to the person who is supposed to receive that asset
for final approval. Furthermore, within the organisation when employees want to apply a leave,
they have to print a copy which will then be signed by the supervisor and filed in the cabinet.
This is one of the major drawbacks in the system which needs special attention because one
cannot know how many leave days he or she is entitled per year as well as how many used and
how many remaining. These all processes contain paperwork, time consuming process flow,
laborious work environment for employees, difficulty to access old data records at anywhere. It
is not possible to avoid disasters, but suffering can be minimized by applying effective ICT tools
for risk management such as fire, floods because it is easy to backup electronic data than manual
data. ICT can help in this, and this research provides a web-based disaster management system to
manage disaster by spreading disaster awareness, forecasting of disaster and response upon
public’s complaints. Pre disaster management and post disaster management demands rapid
access to reliable and accurate data and the capacity to assess analyze and integrate information
from varied sources.

1.4 AIM
The research study aims to develop a computerized Jira Support System that will curb the
problems currently encountered by the existing system by integrating information systems
process.

1.5 OBJECTIVES

 To allow users to log their IT problems into the system and keep track of the progress
 To allow IT team to request for user rights to IT resources and approval/disapproval by
managers.

 Allowing IT support team to re-assign all logged issues with respect of their priority.

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  To allow online leave application by all the workers, and approval/disapproval by
managers.

 Allow IT team to escalate complicated issues.

 To automate asset, transfer process.

1.6 INSTRUMENTS AND METHODS

The following three methods highlighted will be used to gather information on how the current
manual system is operated. The proposed system will be developed using the following tools.
 Front End (HTML & PHP): Hypertext Markup Language is basic language to develop
Webpages. PHP means Hypertext Preprocessor, but originally it means Personal Home
Page. PHP is a server-side scripting language. Server-side scripting means the output of
actual code comes after executing it into web server. PHP code executes on web server
and provides output as normal web page.

 Back End (MYSQL): MySQL is relational Database Management System software

which is commonly used with PHP. MySQL is very fast reliable and flexible Database
Management System. It provides a very high performance, and it is multi-threaded and
multiuser Relational Database management system. MySQL provides high security and
easy user interface.

 Application Server (WAMP): Wampp Server is a Windows web development

environment. It allows creating web applications with PHP and MySQL database. Other
programs may also be included in a package, such as PHP MyAdmin which provides a
graphical user interface for the MySQL database manager.

 IDE: (Integrated Development Environment): An IDE normally consists of a source

code editor, compiler, interpreter, debugger/ Tester.

 Microsoft Expression web 4: An integrated development environment (IDE) (also

known as integrated design environment, integrated debugging environment or
interactive development environment) is a software application that provides

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 comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development. Expression
Web 4 gives you the tools you need to produce high-quality, standards-based Web sites.

1.7 JUSTIFICATION AND RATIONALE

The presentation of this proposed framework will have an urgent influence on the way our first
line support team operates. It will go a long way in supporter retention and making sure that
employees are kept satisfied. No data loss will be experienced since this system will have a
backup mechanism and real-time update to main server as well. This system will also go a long
way in reducing costs involved in paper work processes. Time taken to deliver responses to
technicians and computer users will be reduced thereby reducing the number of queries. A great
deal of trust can be built by use of this system between other departments and IT team. The
platform will be very user friendly thereby making it easy for users to navigate around other than
command prompt which demands users to always know and remember codes. Data errors are
also reduced since there will be restriction on type of data to be enter in different cells or areas.
Reports from this system can be easily be generated even by someone who is not well versed
with computers since they will be clearly appearing under reports tab with simple English titles.

1.8 CONCLUSION

In conclusion, this chapter managed to highlight the weakness of current system and how the
problems will be resolved in the proposed system. Subsequently, it specifies the scope and
overall objectives of the research whereby a synopsis of the current system processes was looked
at and some goals of the proposed system were established. The major problems encountered due
to the use of the current manual system has been pointed out and the solutions that can be
employed as a remedy to these problems has been proposed. The developer has also mentioned
the methods and instruments to be used for gathering data as well as the developing tools that
will be used to develop the proposed system. The development duration of the proposed Jira
Support System will be highlighted in the next chapter in form of a work plan.