DECLARATION

This research project is our original work and has not been presented for a credit/degree in
any other university or any other award. We also do declare that complete list of references is
provided indicating all the sources of information quoted or cited.

We therefore declare that, this work is our own contribution for the partial fulfillment of the
award of A1 advanced diploma in Information Technology at TUMBA COLLEGE OF
TECHNOLOGY.

Signed by:

Yves MAZIMPAKA GS14169

…………………….

Felix MUHOZA GS14086

……………………

J. Claude KWIZERA GS14150

……………………..

Jeannine KWIZERA GS14262

……………………...

Date: ……./10/2015

i
TUMBA COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY (TCT)

IPRC - NORTH

P.O.BOX 6638 RULINDO

Tel: +2502802501514/+2502802501515

E-mail: info@tct.ac.rw

Website: www.tct.ac.rw

FACULTY OF TECHNOLOGY

DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

C E R T I FI CAT E
This is to certify that the project work entitled “Courier Management Information
System” is a record of the work done by Yves MAZIMPAKA (GS14169), Felix
MUHOZA (GS14086), J. Claude KWIZERA (GS14150), and Jeannine
KWIZERA (GS14262) in a partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of
A1 advanced diploma in information technology during the academic year 2014-
2015.

Supervisor: Head of IT Department

Mr. Oscar KALIMA Mr. Oscar KALIMA

……………………………………… ……….…………………………..

Submitted as Final Year Project held at TCT on .……../10/2015

DEDICATION
This Book is dedicated to:

ii
Our Almighty God

Our Families and relatives

Our Brothers and Sisters for their inspirations

TCT Staffs and Lectures

Our all friends and colleagues for their support

iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Our acknowledgements go to the Almighty God who protected us through all the hardships of
our study all along.

Acknowledgements also go to the government of Rwanda which gave us the scholarship fees.

Thanks to TCT authorities and lectures that provided us with a package of knowledge and
skills.

We are indebted to our supervisor Mr. Oscar KALIMA for his advices and guidance we owe
you a lot.

Thanks to people who helped us to find data for our research, I mention Mr. MUGANGA J.
Pierre.

Thanks also to people who helped us to test Mr. Oscar KALIMA.

iv
ABSTRACT
The project entitled “COURIER MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM” is
developed to reliably aid in transferring the packages/items and personal messages or mails
from one place to another by managing information of the item and controlling that item to be
couriered safely and taken by the right receiver.

Today people like to send the letter and other things with the help of couriers from different
courier companies. Because this method maintains the timing and the minimum expenditures.
The international and shipment/cargo trading can be done in this courier system. This project
is provided for making this work as computerized one. So the manual works can be reduced
by this valuable processing.

This courier system can be used in domestic as well as remote areas. The branches of Courier
Company are provided all over the world. The courier system is much faster than the postal
letters, so the people like to have this kind of approaches and this system can also be used to
maintain courier company information such as offices and few employees’ information, it can
also assist to generate daily report of incoming and outgoing shipments and it can also notify
customer by sending SMS to his/her cellphone for delivery of his/her item to the nearest
office branch and sending other SMS notification to the customer when item is taken,
returned and SMS reminder in order to take his/her item on time.

The project is developed using the front-end PHP, JavaScript and HTML and as a back-end
we used MySQL, so the storage of data for different modules are easy and viewing the data
can be done in the forms organized in the database.

v
Table of contents

DECLARATION......................................................................................................................I

C E R T I F I C A T E.............................................................................................................II

DEDICATION.......................................................................................................................III

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT....................................................................................................IV

ABSTRACT.............................................................................................................................V

TABLE OF CONTENTS......................................................................................................VI

LIST OF FIGURES...............................................................................................................IX

LIST OF TABLES..................................................................................................................X

LIST OF ABREVIATION....................................................................................................XI

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................1

1.3. OBJECTIVE OF THE PROJECT.......................................................................................................................2

1.3.1. GENERAL OBJECTIVE..........................................................................................................................2
1.3.2. SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES..........................................................................................................................2

1.4. METHODOLOGY................................................................................................................................................3

1.5. SCOPE OF THE PROJECT.................................................................................................................................3

1.6. STUDY JUSTIFICATION....................................................................................................................................3

1.7. ORGANIZATION OF THE PROJECT..............................................................................................................4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW..............................................................................5

2.1. Introduction............................................................................................................................................................5

2.2. Definition of terms.................................................................................................................................................5

2.2.1. Courier (1)....................................................................................................................................................5
2.2.2. Management (2)...........................................................................................................................................5
2.2.3. Information (3).............................................................................................................................................5

vi
 2.2.4. System (4)....................................................................................................................................................5
2.2.5. Administrator (5)..........................................................................................................................................5
2.2.6. Customer (6).................................................................................................................................................5
2.2.7. Employee (7)................................................................................................................................................5
2.2.8. Web browser (9)...........................................................................................................................................6
2.2.9. Web Server (10)............................................................................................................................................6
2.2.10. HTML (11)..................................................................................................................................................6
2.2.11 .Host (12).....................................................................................................................................................6
2.2.12. Database (13)..............................................................................................................................................6
2.2.13. XAMPP Server (14)....................................................................................................................................7
2.2.14. Apache (15).................................................................................................................................................7
2.2.15. PHP (16)......................................................................................................................................................8
2.2.16. JAVASCRIPT (17).....................................................................................................................................8
2.2.17. MySQL database (18).................................................................................................................................8
2.2.18. PHPMyAdmin (19).....................................................................................................................................8
2.2.19 CSS (20).......................................................................................................................................................9
2.2.20. Adobe Photoshop (21)................................................................................................................................9
2.2.21. Notepad ++ (22)..........................................................................................................................................9

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY...............................................................10

3.1. Overview...............................................................................................................................................................10

3.2. Methodology and techniques of research used..................................................................................................10

3.3. Techniques of data collection..............................................................................................................................10

3.3.1. Interview..................................................................................................................................................10
3.3.2. Observation..............................................................................................................................................10

3.4. SOFTWARE TOOLS..........................................................................................................................................11

3.4.1. XAMPP Server......................................................................................................................................11
3.4.2. Apache.....................................................................................................................................................11
3.4.3. Adobe Photoshop.....................................................................................................................................11
3.4.4. Notepad ++..............................................................................................................................................12

CHAPTER 4: SYSTEM ANALYSIS AND DESIGN........................................................13

4.1. Design overview....................................................................................................................................................13

4.2. System analysis.....................................................................................................................................................13

4.3. System requirements...........................................................................................................................................13

4.3.1. Hardware and software requirements......................................................................................................13

4.4. System design.......................................................................................................................................................14

4.4.1. Unified modeling language (UML).........................................................................................................14

CHAPTER 5: SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION...............................................................22

5.1. INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................................22

5.2. Description of tools..............................................................................................................................................22

vii
5.3. MySQL database tables.......................................................................................................................................23

5.4. Some web pages....................................................................................................................................................24

5.4.1. Home page...............................................................................................................................................24
5.4.2 Welcome to the Administrator Login Area..............................................................................................24
5.4.3 Welcome to the Administrator Tab..........................................................................................................25
5.4.5. Welcome to the Employee Tab................................................................................................................27
5.4.6. List of all added shipments......................................................................................................................28
5.4.7. Customer track shipment tab...................................................................................................................28
5.4.8. Customer tracking result..........................................................................................................................29
5.4.9. SMS sent to Receiver cellphone when shipment delivered.....................................................................30
5.4.10. SMS sent to Sender cellphone when shipment taken by the Receiver..................................................30
5.4.12. SMS Reminder sent to Receiver cellphone for 15 days left..................................................................31
5.4.13. SMS Reminder sent to Receiver cellphone for 5 days left....................................................................31
5.4.11. SMS sent to Sender cellphone When shipment returned.......................................................................32

CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION..........................................33

6.1. CONCLUSION................................................................................................................33

6.2. RECOMMENDATION.......................................................................................................................................33

REFERENCES.......................................................................................................................34

viii
List of figures
FIGURE 1: FUNCTIONAL DIAGRAM.................................................................................................15
FIGURE 2: ELEMENTS OF BASIC ENTITY RELATIONSHIP DIAGRAM..............................................16
FIGURE 3: ENTITY RELATIONSHIP DIAGRAM..................................................................................16
FIGURE 4: SYMBOLS OF USE CASE DIAGRAM................................................................................17
FIGURE 5: USE CASE DIAGRAM......................................................................................................18
FIGURE 6: DATABASE AND TABLES IN PHPMYADMIN..................................................................23
FIGURE 7: HOME PAGE...................................................................................................................24
FIGURE 8: WELCOME TO THE ADMINISTRATOR LOGIN AREA.......................................................25
FIGURE 9: WELCOME TO THE ADMINISTRATOR TAB.....................................................................26
FIGURE 10: WELCOME TO THE EMPLOYEE LOGIN AREA...............................................................27
FIGURE 11: WELCOME TO THE EMPLOYEE TAB............................................................................27
FIGURE 12: LIST OF ALL ADDED SHIPMENTS..................................................................................28
FIGURE 13: CUSTOMER TRACK SHIPMENT TAB.............................................................................28
FIGURE 14: SHIPMENT TRACKING RESULT....................................................................................29
FIGURE 15 : SMS SENT TO RECEIVER CELLPHONE WHEN SHIPMENT DELIVERED..........................30
FIGURE 16: SMS SENT TO SENDER CELLPHONE WHEN SHIPMENT TAKEN BY THE RECEIVER.......30
FIGURE 18: SMS REMINDER SENT TO RECEIVER CELLPHONE FOR 15 DAYS LEFT.......................31
FIGURE 19: SMS REMINDER SENT TO RECEIVER CELLPHONE FOR 5 DAYS LEFT.........................31
FIGURE 17 : SMS SENT TO SENDER CELLPHONE WHEN SHIPMENT RETURNED..............................32

ix
List of tables
TABLE 1: SHIPMENT.......................................................................................................................18
TABLE 2: OFFICE............................................................................................................................19
TABLE 3: EMPLOYEE......................................................................................................................19
TABLE 4: ADMIN.............................................................................................................................20

x
LIST OF ABREVIATION
CPU: Central Processor Unit

CSS: Cascading Style Sheet

DBMS: Database Management System

xi
ERD: Entity Relationship Diagram

GUI: Graphical User Interface

HTML: Hyper Text Mark-up Language

HTTP: Hyper Text Transfer Protocol

IP: Internet Protocol

JSP: Java Server Pages

LAMP: Linux Apache MySQL PHP

PHP: Perl Programming Language

RDBMS: Relation Database Management System

SQL: Structured Query Language

TCP: Transmission Control Protocol

URL: Uniform Resource Locator

WWW: World Wide Web

XAMPP: (Window/Linux) Apache MySQL PHP

XHTML: Extensible Hyper Text Mark-up Language

TCT: Tumba College of Technology

IT: Information Technology

SVG: Scalable Vector graphics

XML: EXtensible Markup Language

OS: Operating System

UML: Unified Modeling Language

SMS: Short Message Service

xii
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Overview

In modern age, as time increase, needs and requirements of the person are also increased.

They want more facilities and try to do their task quickly and within time. But they cannot get
all the things at nearest market or area, so they have to import the things from any place in the
world.

Within the country, the things can be imported through post services. But it consumes the
time and sometimes problem of damage or missing occurs whereas in the international
markets, the one way is shipping. But it also requires more time.

The courier services are one of the solutions of these problems. It is used to send things to
any person in the world within time.

The courier company has number of branches, which are spread over the country or the world
so that when person wants to send things he/she then has to go at the nearest courier branch.
The courier company save all necessary information about the customer ‘s item and creates
the schedule to ship it .The courier services work as destination office and source office .The
source office branch receives the order means consignments from the customer and sends it
to the destination courier branch.

Using the courier service person can easily send his/her parcels/packages to other person in
the particular destination within the time. Nowadays many companies and people use the
services of various courier companies.

1.2. PROBLEM STATEMENT

People when transfer their products using any courier service wants to know whether their
products has been shifted or delivered to the right place, if not then by what time it will be
shifted or delivered and where it is now. Taking all these information manually is very
difficult. To handle all these activities include various processes in existing system and
because technology is making everything in every domain easier than before. The process of
writing shipments, employees and even office information in papers consumes a lot of time.
Also the information on written material can be easily lost, burnt and even stolen.

1
1.3. OBJECTIVE OF THE PROJECT

1.3.1. GENERAL OBJECTIVE

The general objectives of Courier Management Information System are to provide online
delivery facilities. This system can be used for daily activities such as an assistance in
sending and receiving an item from one person to another safely and also maintaining
company details include employees and offices information.

1.3.2. SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES

 Customer can send and receive an item safely
 Customer can Track the item and know its status (whether it arrives (delivered) or not
to their nearest branch of a courier company or if it is still in transit, taken, returned
and returned-taken)
 Saving time of going to the nearest branch office of a Courier Company to enquire if
the item is arrived or not.
 Reduce cost of travelling to the courier company
 If an item is missed while it was shipped, it is easily to know its details by using the
database of this system.
 It contains better storage capacity.
 Accuracy in work.
 Well-designed reports.
 Access of any information individually.(each employee accesses only information
concerning his/her office)
 Better search of information in short time
 Work becomes very speedy.
 Easy to update information.
 This system can notify customer by sending SMS to his/her cellphone for delivery of
his/her item to the nearest office branch.
 This system can also send other SMS notification when item is taken by the receiver
and returned to the source office because the receiver didn’t take it.
 This system can send SMS reminder to allow customer to take his/her item on time.

2
1.4. METHODOLOGY
We have done interview with employees and their customers in different courier companies
that provide courier services in this country then we did discussion about the problem which
was found.

We used documentation in TCT library to improve our knowledge which helped us to carry
out the implementation of our system.

We had used the research on the internet.

1.5. SCOPE OF THE PROJECT

Courier management information system is web application that can be used by different
courier companies in Rwanda and even the whole world but we limited this system to be used
by some courier companies where customers need to send or receive their items should go to
their nearest branch of that courier company to do so.

And also because this system is not hosted over the internet it cannot share information
among them for example when shipment is sent from office1 to office2, office2 should access
information about that shipment to hand over them to the receiver of that shipment accurately
and this can be accomplished when there is a connection between two offices over the
internet and even if this system is used to manage employees but it doesn’t manage their
salaries and attendances.

1.6. STUDY JUSTIFICATION

Across the world many people want to send and receive certain items among them even when
they are in different places and when they do so using courier companies ,they really want to
know whether their items has been shifted or delivered to their desired place but because
some courier companies still use existing system which is not computerized, to know their
items information they should ask to their nearest courier company or sender can ask receiver
and vice-versa but in this modern system even sender/shipper or receiver of the item can
know if the item is shifted and also delivered to the right place or not by tracking it and also
via SMS customer can be notified to his/her cellphone if his/her shipment delivered, taken
and returned and also SMS reminder can be sent by this system to customer ‘s cellphone in
order to allow customer to take his/her item on time.

Courier companies that still use existing system they store information about shipments in
papers which is no longer secure and also information can easily be stolen, burnt and lost but
in this computerized system to save information of shipments, employees and offices is
secure and not easy to get lost and stolen. Actually this modern system will be useful to solve
all the above mentioned issues.

3
1.7. ORGANIZATION OF THE PROJECT
This project is divided into five chapters. The introduction, problem statement, objectives of
the project, Methodology, scope of the project and study justification as the chapter one. The
literature review as the chapter two is introduced to discuss on what other people has done
that is in relation with DBMS and Design and implementation of Courier Management
Information System. It justifies the use of solution, techniques and procedures used to resolve
the problems in this project work.

Chapter three discusses on which methodology approach used by indicating methods,

techniques and procedures used to get the information, Chapter four is the unified modeling
language and design that presents the result of this project research in relation to the project
goals.

Chapter five indicates the implementation part. Chapter six presents conclusion and
recommendation based on main findings and experience.

4
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. Introduction
This chapter explains the process used during our research in order to gather information
from other sources related our final year project. It also includes the work that was done by
others we used to develop the courier Management Information System application and the
background of the system. It also explains technologies and techniques used with view of
providing an overview for the concept of the system’s design.

2.2. Definition of terms

2.2.1. Courier (1)

Courier is a person who delivers messages, packages, and mail.

2.2.2. Management (2)

Management is the process of ensuring that an organization or company is able to operate in
both the immediate and near future.

2.2.3. Information (3)

Information (shortened as info) is that which informs, i.e.an answer to a question, as well as
the form which knowledge and data can be delivered (as data represents values attributed to
parameters and knowledge signifies understating of real things or abstract concepts).

2.2.4. System (4)

A system is a set of interacting or interdependent components forming an integrated whole.

2.2.5. Administrator (5)

Administrator is a person responsible for the performance or management of administrative
business operations.

2.2.6. Customer (6)

A customer (sometimes known as a client, buyer, or purchaser) is the recipient of a good,
service, product, or idea, obtained from a seller, vendor, or supplier for a monetary or other
valuable consideration

2.2.7. Employee (7)

An employee contributes labor and expertise to an endeavor of an employer and is usually
hired to perform specific duties which are packaged into a job.

1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courier
2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management
3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information
4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System
5
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrator
6
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer
7
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment#Employee

5
2.2.8. Web application (8)

A web application or web app is any program that runs in a web browser. It is created in a
browser-supported programming language (such as the combination of JavaScript, HTML
and CSS) and relies on a web browser to render the application.

2.2.8. Web browser (9)

A web browser (commonly referred to as a browser) is a software application for retrieving,
presenting and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information
resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI/URL) and may be a web page,
image, video or other piece of content.

2.2.9. Web Server (10)

A web server is an information technology that processes requests via HTTP, the basic
network protocol used to distribute information on the World Wide Web

2.2.10. HTML (11)

Hypertext Markup Language, commonly referred to as HTML, is the standard markup
language used to create web pages.

2.2.11 .Host (12)

A computer system that accessed by a user working at a remote location, typically, the term is
used when there are two computer systems connected by modems and telephone lines. The
system that contains the data is called the host, while the computer at which the user sits is
called the remote terminal. A computer that is connected to a TCP/IP network, including the
Internet, each host has a unique IP address.

2.2.12. Database (13)

A database is an organized collection of data. It is the collection of tables, queries, reports,
views and other objects. The data is typically organized to model aspects of reality in a way
that supports processes requiring information, such as modeling the availability of rooms in
hotels in a way that supports finding a hotel with vacancies

8
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_application
9
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_browser
10
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_server
11
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML
12
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/H/host.html
13
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database

6
2.2.13. XAMPP Server (14)
XAMPP is a free and open source cross-platform web server solution stack package,
consisting mainly of the apache http server, MySQL database, and interpreters for scripts
written in the PHP and Perl programming languages.

XAMPP’s name is an acronym for:

X (meaning cross-platform like window 7, 8 etc…)

Apache http server

MySQL

PHP

Perl

The program is released under the terms of the GNU general public license and acts as a free
web server capable of serving dynamic pages. XAMPP is available for Microsoft windows,
Linux, Solaris, and Mac OS x, and is mainly used for web development projects. This
software is useful while you are creating dynamic web pages using programming languages
like PHP, JSP, and Servlets.

2.2.14. Apache (15)

Apache is primarily used to serve both static content and dynamic Web pages on the World
Wide Web. Many web applications are designed expecting the environment and features that
Apache provides. Apache is the web server component of the popular LAMP web server
application stack, alongside My SQL, and the PHP /Perl /Python programming languages.
Apache is used for many other tasks where content needs to be made available in a secure
and reliable way.

One example is sharing files from a personal computer over the Internet. A user who has
Apache installed on their desktop can put arbitrary files in the Apache's document root which
can then be shared Programmers developing web applications often use a locally installed
version of Apache in order to preview and test code as it is being developed.

14
https:// codinglogbook.com/web-development/xampp
15
http://www.memoireonline.com/07/12/5995/
m_Online-ordering-and-inventory-system23.html

7
2.2.15. PHP (16)
PHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for web
development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into
the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module,
which generates the web page document. It also has evolved to include a command-line
interface capability and can be used in standalone graphical applications.

PHP was originally created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1995. The main implementation of PHP is
now produced by The PHP Group and serves as the de facto standard for PHP as there is no
formal specification. PHP is free software released under the PHP License which is
incompatible with the GNU General Public License due to restrictions on the usage of the
term PHP.

While PHP originally stood for "Personal Home Page", it is now said to stand for "PHP:
Hypertext Preprocessor", a recursive acronym.

2.2.16. JAVASCRIPT (17)

JavaScript also known as ECMAScript (the untrademarked name used for the standard), is a
dynamic programming language. It is most commonly used as part of web browsers, whose
implementations allow client-side scripts to interact with the user, control the browser,
communicate asynchronously, and alter the document content that is displayed. JavaScript (at
least the strict subset asm.js) is also considered an "assembly language of the web “a compile
target of source-to-source compilers for making client side web applications, using other
programming languages, supported by all the major browsers without plug-ins. It is also used
in server-side network programming with runtime environments such as Node.js, game
development and the creation of desktop and mobile applications. Environments such as
Node.js, game development and the creation of desktop and mobile applications.

2.2.17. MySQL database (18)

MySQL is a relational database management system (RDBMS) that runs as a server
providing multi-user access to a number of databases. It is named after developer Michael
Widenius ‘daughter, MY. The SQL phrase stands for Structured Query Language.

2.2.18. PHPMyAdmin (19)

PHPMyAdmin is an open source tool written in PHP intended to handle the administration of
MySQL with the use of a Browser. It can perform various tasks such as creating, modifying
or deleting databases, tables, fields or rows; executing SQL statements; or managing users
and permissions.

16
http://cocoate.com/book/what-php
17
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript
18
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MYSQL_database
19
http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhpMyAdmin

8
2.2.19 CSS (20)
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the look and
formatting of a document written in a markup language. While most often used to change the
style of web pages and user interfaces written in HTML and XHTML, the language can be
applied to any kind of XML document, including plain XML, SVG and XUL.

2.2.20. Adobe Photoshop (21)

Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Systems for
Windows and OS X.

Photoshop was created in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, it has become the
factor industry standard in raster graphics editing, such that the word "Photoshop" has
become a verb as in "to Photoshop an image," "photo shopping," and "Photoshop," etc. It can
edit and compose raster images in multiple layers and supports masks, alpha compositing and
several color models including RGB, CMYK, Lab color space (with capital L), spot color and
duotone. Photoshop has vast support for graphic file formats but also uses its own PSD and
PSB file formats which support all the aforementioned features. In addition to raster graphics,
it has limited abilities to edit or render text, vector graphics (especially through clipping
path), 3D graphics and video. Photoshop's feature set can be expanded by Photoshop plug-
ins, programs developed and distributed independently of Photoshop that can run inside it and
offer new or enhanced features.

Photoshop's naming scheme was initially based on version numbers. However, in October
2004, following the introduction of Creative Suite branding, each new version of Photoshop
was designated with "CS" plus a number; e.g., the eighth major version of Photoshop was
Photoshop CS and the ninth major version was Photoshop CS2. Photoshop CS3 through CS6
was also distributed in two different editions: Standard and Extended. In June 2013, with the
introduction of Creative Cloud branding, Photoshop's licensing scheme was changed to that
of software as a service and the "CS" suffixes were replaced with "CC". Historically,
Photoshop was bundled with additional software such as Adobe Image Ready, Adobe
Fireworks, Adobe Bridge, Adobe Device Central and Adobe Camera RAW.

2.2.21. Notepad ++ (22)

Notepad++ is a text editor and source code editor for use with Microsoft Windows. Unlike
Notepad, the built-in Windows text editor, it supports tabbed editing, which allows working
with multiple open files in a single window. The project's name comes from the C operator.
Notepad++ is distributed as free software. At first the project was hosted on SourceForge.net,
from where it has been downloaded over 28 million times, and twice won the Source Forge
Community Choice Award for Best Developer Tool.

20
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading_Style_Sheets
21
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Photoshop
22
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notepad%2B%2B

9
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1. Overview
This chapter explains methods which are used to collect data during research and software
tools.

3.2. Methodology and techniques of research used

The satisfactory result gaining is encouraged by the good choice of methods and techniques
used for the collection of data. For making that, in this project, we are going to put
clarification, methods and techniques that we used to observe the reality and to reach
objectives that we fixed ourselves.

3.3. Techniques of data collection

It is not easy to imagine a system of information like courier system without having complete
knowledge of what happens within the courier company and how its daily activities are
carried out.

To reach this, it is necessary to use different methods to collect the necessary information
coming from different people like courier, employees and others that work in different
courier companies and even their customers .In our research we used two techniques of data
collection like the interview and the observation. These techniques give a good output when
they are used together.

3.3.1. Interview
The interview is a technique of getting data by asking a number of questions to a person or a
group of persons.

During our research we interviewed some employees, courier who are working in different
courier companies in our country about how the current system works and what are
challenges they face when using it.

3.3.2. Observation
The observation is a type of research strategy. Observation of the functioning of the existing
system gives the idea for the design of the new system. This will figure of the pitfalls of the
Current system. It is helpful to understand and study the entire current
system. By observation we can point out the changes needed to the existing system. It also
gives a better understanding of the workloads and pressures faced. During our observation we
found courier companies still write shipments information in papers and other information
related to the company such as employees and office information. We also observed that
customers have to go to their nearest courier companies to know whether their items have
arrived or not.

After these observations we decided to develop Courier management information system to

handle or solve all these above mentioned problems.

10
3.4. SOFTWARE TOOLS

3.4.1. XAMPP Server

XAMPP is a free and open source cross-platform web server solution stack package,
consisting mainly of the apache http server, MySQL database, and interpreters for scripts
written in the PHP and Perl programming languages.

XAMPP’s name is an acronym for:

X (meaning cross-platform)

Apache http server

MySQL

PHP

Perl

The program is released under the terms of the GNU general public license and acts as a free
web server capable of serving dynamic pages. XAMPP is available for Microsoft windows,
Linux, Solaris, and Mac OS x, and is mainly used for web development projects. This
software is useful while you are creating dynamic web pages using programming languages
like PHP, JSP, and Servlets.

3.4.2. Apache
Apache is primarily used to serve both static content and dynamic Web pages on the World
Wide Web. Many web applications are designed expecting the environment and features that
Apache provides. Apache is the web server component of the popular LAMP web server
application stack, alongside MySQL, and the PHP /Perl /Python programming languages.
Apache is used for many other tasks where content needs to be made available in a secure
and reliable way. One example is sharing files from a personal computer over the Internet. A
user who has Apache installed on their desktop can put arbitrary files in the Apache's
document root which can then be shared Programmers developing web applications often use
a locally installed version of Apache in order to preview and test code as it is being
developed with PHP.

3.4.3. Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Systems for
Windows and OS X.

Photoshop was created in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, it has become the
factor industry standard in raster graphics editing, such that the word "Photoshop" has
become a verb as in "to Photoshop an image," "photo shopping," and "Photoshop," etc. It can
edit and compose raster images in multiple layers and supports masks, alpha compositing and
several color models including RGB, CMYK, Lab color space (with capital L), spot color and
duotone. Photoshop has vast support for graphic file formats but also uses its own PSD and
PSB file formats which support all the aforementioned features. In addition to raster graphics,
11
it has limited abilities to edit or render text, vector graphics (especially through clipping
path), 3D graphics and video. Photoshop's feature set can be expanded by Photoshop plug-
ins, programs developed and distributed independently of Photoshop that can run inside it and
offer new or enhanced features.

Photoshop's naming scheme was initially based on version numbers. However, in October
2004, following the introduction of Creative Suite branding, each new version of Photoshop
was designated with "CS" plus a number; e.g., the eighth major version of Photoshop was
Photoshop CS and the ninth major version was Photoshop CS2. Photoshop CS3 through CS6
was also distributed in two different editions: Standard and Extended. In June 2013, with the
introduction of Creative Cloud branding, Photoshop's licensing scheme was changed to that
of software as a service and the "CS" suffixes were replaced with "CC". Historically,
Photoshop was bundled with additional software such as Adobe Image Ready, Adobe
Fireworks, Adobe Bridge, Adobe Device Central and Adobe Camera RAW.

3.4.4. Notepad ++
Notepad++ is a text editor and source code editor for use with Microsoft Windows. Unlike
Notepad, the built-in Windows text editor, it supports tabbed editing, which allows working
with multiple open files in a single window. The project's name comes from the Cooperator.
Notepad++ is distributed as free software. At first the project was hosted on SourceForge.net,
from where it has been downloaded over 28 million times, and twice won the Source Forge
Community Choice Award for Best Developer Tool.

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CHAPTER 4: SYSTEM ANALYSIS AND DESIGN

4.1. Design overview

System design is the application of the system theory to product development .One could see
it as the process of defining the architecture, components, modules, interfaces and data for a
system to satisfy specified requirements.

The purpose of the system design phase is to show how you gave the solution of the problem
specified by the requirement document.

4.2. System analysis

System analysis is the phase that helps the people to understand well the importance of new
system by analyzing the old system or old methodology that they were using before .They
analyze it by showing the inconveniences and the weaknesses of old system and by showing
how those problems can be solved.

Our system focuses on Courier Management Information and it has the functionalities as
justified below. Firstly, our system will help courier companies to manage well their
shipments information from any place and at any time wherever the employee of the courier
company will be can manage them and it can also help to generate the report of those
shipments.it can also assist courier companies to manage few information about their
employees and offices(branches). With the help of this system the customers can be able to
send and receive their items safely and also they can track it to know its status if it’s still in
transit, delivered, taken, returned and returned-taken without going to the branch of the
courier company to enquire about their items and also when the shipment delivered customer
can be able to know how many days are left to take his/her item ,depend on the policy of the
courier company, for example courier company can set a rule of taking shipment within a
month since the day an item delivered and if a customer didn’t take it within that time the
shipment should turn to the source office to be taken by the sender(the one who sent it)and
the system notifies customer how many days are left his/her item to be expired in his/her
nearest office(branch) in other words how many days are left to return to sender and also via
SMS customer can be notified to his/her cellphone if his/her shipment delivered, taken and
returned and also SMS reminder can be sent by this system to customer ‘s cellphone in order
to allow customer to take his/her item on time.

4.3. System requirements

The system requirements are those that are necessary for the implementation of the project.
They include the software and the hardware requirements. Thus these are optimum
requirements to implement the system in an efficient manner. The output of the system will
be efficient only with these optimum requirements.

4.3.1. Hardware and software requirements

Software:

Operating system : Graphical user interface OS like Windows 7, 8, XP etc...

Browser : Any browser like Google chrome, Opera, and Mozilla Firefox
13
Web Server : Apache Service

Database Package : MySQL

Front-end : PHP, JavaScript and HTML

Editor : Notepad++, Macromedia Dreamweaver, Net beans

Hardware:

Processor : Any

RAM : 1.00 GB or below, 2.00GB or higher

Hard Disk : Any

Key board : Standard Windows keyboard

Mouse : Normal

Monitor : Normal

CPU speed : 2.00 GHz, Below or Higher

4.4. System design

System Design (SD) is the process of designing internal structure of the target system that
satisfies the requirements defined in Requirement Analysis and Definition (RA&D) process.
System design or module design is the composition of the entire system into many parts. This
is done to reduce the complexity of the system and to easily understand the system’s
requirements and process. Module design is implemented in sequence manner and all the
modules are finally composed together and merged into a single system.

4.4.1. Unified modeling language (UML)

The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is an object-oriented, general-purpose modeling
language for system analysis and design. UML uses standardized graphical notations to
describe the structure and behavior of the system in various types of diagrams, which are
known as “UML diagrams”.

Overview of UML 2.0 diagrams

There are total of 13 types of diagrams in UML 2.0. They can be divided into two categories:

Structural diagrams and Behavioral diagrams. For quick understanding, they are like this.

Structural Diagrams = Static structure or Snapshots of a scene at a moment

Behavior Diagrams = Story (scenario) of changing scene along the time

14
Structural diagrams are used to capture the physical organization of the things in the system.
Behavioral diagrams are used to capture the activities and actions that occurs within or with
outside of the system. Among behavioral diagrams, there is a group of diagrams called
Interaction diagrams, which more emphasize the flow of control along the timeline.

4.4.1.1. Function diagram

A Functional diagram is a diagram that indicates the functions of the principal parts of a total
system and also shows the important relationships and interactions among these parts.
Therefore in this project is used to indicate functions of the main part of total system and
shows interaction between the parts.

Courier Management Information System

Add Update Status Modify Shipment Send

Track
Report

Delivered
Shipment In transit Shipment SMS to
customer's
Taken Cellphone
Employee Employee Shipment
Delivered

Returned
Office Taken Office
Returned-taken
Returned

Generate
Returned-Taken

Figure 1: Functional diagram

4.4.1.2. Entity relationship diagram
Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD) is a data model for high-level descriptions of conceptual
data models. It is typically used in system design process in order to analyze and design the
data structure inside the system, and it describes information needs and/or the type of
information that is to be stored in the database. ERD is normally used in System Design
phase of data oriented approach, but is also sometimes used in requirements definition phase
if the system is almost pure database system with rather clear requirements of data structure
for the database from the beginning.

15
 Attribute Entity Relationship Entity

Figure 2: Elements of basic Entity Relationship Diagram

id username password

admin

1
1 1
Manages off_name city
Controls
oid ph_no Adds & Tracks
n
reg_date n
email n
employee 1
position assigned to
1 office office_time
office_name

ph_no eid
1
email 1
emp_name Has details of
pass gender Adds & tracks
uname n
n
added_time smsStatus
status

pick_time

pick_date
sid
deltime
ship_name
delivered_date
phone

destination shipment
s_email

source s_id

mode
rev_name
weight
r_phone
freight r_email
r_id
type c_phone c_name
cons_no c_email

Figure 3: Entity relationship diagram

16
4.4.1.3. Use case Diagram

Describe the interaction between a primary Actor and the system itself, represented as a
sequence of simple steps. As the name implies, use case diagram has been developed to
describe the use case of the system from the user’s viewpoint, and hence is well suited for use
case analysis and its representation in RD process. UML use case diagram basically consists
of 3 components: actor, use case, and association.

Association
Use case
Actor

Figure 4: Symbols of use case diagram

17
 Login

Add/Delete/Edit/View Employee

Manage offices
Admin

Post News

View News

Employee
Add/Delete/Edit/View Shipment

Customer

Generate report

Track Shipment

Send SMS

Receive SMS

Receive item

Figure 5: Use case Diagram

18
4.5. Structure of the database

Table 1: shipment

Primary key: sid

Description: Table for shipments

Field Type Description

Sid Int Primary Key, shipment id

ship_name Varchar Shipper name

Phone Varchar Shipper phone number

s_email Varchar Shipper email

s_id Varchar Shipper Identity Id or Passport Number

rev_name Varchar Receiver name

r_phone Varchar Receiver phone number

r_email varchar Receiver email

r_id Varchar Receiver Identity Id or Passport Number

c_name Varchar Name of the courier

c_phone varchar Courier phone number

c_email Varchar Email of the courier

cons_no varchar Consignment/shipment number

Type varchar Type of the shipment

weight varchar Weightsa of shipment

Freight varchar Charge for transporting shipment

Mode Varchar Transportation mode

Source Varchar Source branch of the courier company

Destination varchar Destination branch of the courier company

pick_date varchar Pickup date of the shipment

pick_time Time Pickup time of the shipment

delivered_date Varchar Delivered date of the shipment

deadline Varchar Deadline date that shipment should be taken after its delivery

Status Varchar Status of the shipment

added_time datetime Time shipment was added

smsStatus varchar SMS Status of shipment

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Table 2: office
Primary key: oid

Description: Table for offices

Field Type Description

Oid Int Primary Key, office id

off_name Varchar Office name

City Varchar City of the office

Email varchar Office email

ph_no varchar Office phone number

office_time time Office timing(Work time of office)

Table 3: employee
Primary key: eid

Description: Table for employees

Field Type Description

Eid Int Primary key, employee id

emp_name varchar Employee name

Gender varchar Employee gender

Uname varchar Employee username

Pass varchar Employee password

email varchar Employee email address

ph_no varchar Employee phone number

office_name varchar Office of the employee

Position varchar Position of the employee in the company

reg_date datetime Registration date of the employee

Table 4: admin

20
Primary key: eid

Description: Table for admin

Field Type Description

Id Int Primary key, admin id

Username varchar Admin username

Password varchar Admin password

CHAPTER 5: SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION

5.1. INTRODUCTION
This chapter will explain the technologies and methodology used in implementation the
proposed system. It will give detailed on the programming language and others tools used in
implementing Courier Management Information System.
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5.2. Description of tools
In designing the front-end of the Courier Management Information System we have used
XAMPP, Notepad ++ as tools and PHP, JavaScript and HTML as Programming Languages
Tools.

1. XAMPP is an acronym that stands for cross platform or combination of Linux WAMP for
Windows, Apache, MySQL, and PHP for Perl or (python). It is a web development platform
that defines the operating system (windows),web server(apache),Database(MySQL),and
scripting language(PHP, Perl, or python).HTML: Hypertext Markup Languages has been
employed to design the web pages, forms, tables, and creating some links.

2. Notepad ++: Notepad++is a text editor and source code editor for use with Microsoft
Windows. Unlike Notepad, the built-in Windows text editor, it supports tabbed editing, which
allows working with multiple open files in a single window.

3. PHP

PHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for web

development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into
the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module,
which generates the web page document. It also has evolved to include a command-line
interface capability and can be used in standalone graphical applications.

4. JavaScript: JavaScript (JS), also known as ECMAScript (the untrademarked name used
for the standard), is a dynamic programming language. It is most commonly used as part of
web browsers, whose implementations allow client-side scripts to interact with the user,
control the browser, communicate asynchronously, and alter the document content that is
displayed.

5. HTML: Hypertext Markup Language, commonly referred to as HTML, is the standard

markup language used to create web pages.

6. The database was designed using MySQL

All these tools have been well discussed in chapter three and two of this report.

5.3. MySQL database tables

Database and tables are created by using phpMyAdmin tool which a tool is written in PHP
intended to handle the administration of MySQL with the use of a Web browser.

22
Figure 6: Database and tables in PHPMyAdmin

5.4. Some web pages

5.4.1. Home page

This homepage as the first page shows admin login area, employee login area and from this
page customer can click on track item button in order to track the status of his/her item into
the system. Customer can also view the news, view detailed information about the company
23
that owns this system by clicking the about us button and contact that courier company by
clicking the contact us button and customer can get help in order to use the system properly
with terms and conditions by clicking the help button.

Figure 7: Home page

5.4.2 Welcome to the Administrator Login Area

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Figure 8: Welcome to the Administrator Login Area

5.4.3 Welcome to the Administrator Tab

25
Figure 9: Welcome to the Administrator Tab

5.4.4 Welcome to the Employee Login Area

26
Figure 10: Welcome to the Employee Login Area

5.4.5. Welcome to the Employee Tab

Figure 11: Welcome to the Employee Tab

27
5.4.6. List of all added shipments
This is the list of all added shipments that are not yet being shifted (that has In Transit status)
and this list also shows that others are already delivered, taken, returned and returned-Taken.

Figure 12: List of all added shipments

5.4.7. Customer track shipment tab

Customer can track his/her item by using this tab in order to know all information about
his/her item.

Figure 13: Customer track shipment tab

28
5.4.8. Customer tracking result
All information about the item that customer sees after searching them using
consignment/shipment number.

Figure 14: Shipment tracking result

29
5.4.9. SMS sent to Receiver cellphone when shipment delivered
SMS sent by the system to notify customer (Receiver) for delivery of his/her item

Figure 15 : SMS sent to Receiver cellphone when shipment delivered

5.4.10. SMS sent to Sender cellphone when shipment taken by the Receiver
SMS sent by the system to notify customer (sender) when he/she sent item has successfully
taken by the receiver

Figure 16: SMS sent to Sender cellphone when shipment taken by the Receiver
30
5.4.12. SMS Reminder sent to Receiver cellphone for 15 days left
SMS sent by the system to remind customer (Receiver) to take his/her item on time

Figure 17: SMS Reminder sent to Receiver cellphone for 15 days left

5.4.13. SMS Reminder sent to Receiver cellphone for 5 days left

SMS sent by the system to remind customer (Receiver) to take his/her item on time

Figure 18: SMS Reminder sent to Receiver cellphone for 5 days left

31
5.4.11. SMS sent to Sender cellphone When shipment returned(replace)
SMS sent by the system to notify customer (Sender) when item returned to the source office
because Receiver didn’t take it within given time

Figure 19 : SMS sent to Sender cellphone when shipment returned

CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

6.1. CONCLUSION
This project is user-friendly and GUI based. The project meets all the requirements as
described in the objective of the system and satisfies user requirement to a great extent. The
32
application thus developed is easy to maintain and is quite user friendly. We have
successfully completed our project “Courier Management Information System” in the
given time. The given modules were tested separately. Testing of the whole system has been
done with sample data and output obtained accordingly to the requirement.

The “Courier Management Information System” reduces wastage of time that the
customers customarily spend to go to the nearest courier company branch to enquire about
the arrival of their items. It provides different services to the courier companies like to keep
shipment details, few employees and offices information and it can also help to generate
report of all shipments. It ensures proper authentication, authorization and security of
sensitive data of the Application which is not available in the existing system.

6.2. RECOMMENDATION
This project entitled” Courier management Information System” has been achieved and
done but for us and assistance of our supervisor and classmates and we delight to highly
recommend courier companies to use this system in order to provide better and quick services
to their customers, to improve employee productivity and even company income also courier
companies can secure their information intensely.

Since this system is very useful and needed by many people to send and receive their items
on time, it should be able to be used by everyone who speaks any language that is why we
strongly recommend upcoming graduates in IT department or other researchers to ameliorate
and make some improvements to this system including making it multilingual system.

References
1. [Online] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courier.

2. [Online] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management.
33
3. [Online] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information.

4. [Online] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System.

5. [Online] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrator.

6. [Online] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer.

7. [Online] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment#Employee.

8. [Online] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_application.

9. [Online] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_browser.

10. [Online] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_server.

11. [Online] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML.

12. [Online] http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/H/host.html.

13. [Online] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database .

14. [Online] https:// codinglogbook.com/web-development/xampp.

15. [Online] http://www.memoireonline.com/07/12/5995/m_Online-ordering-and-inventory-

system23.html.

16. [Online] http://cocoate.com/book/what-php.

17. [Online] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript.

18. [Online] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MYSQL_database.

19. [Online] http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhpMyAdmin.

20. [Online] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading_Style_Sheets.

21. [Online] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Photoshop.

22. [Online] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notepad%2B%2B.

34