Introductory System Analysis and Design Assignment

•    This is a group assignment and you are required to be in a group of 3 depending on the number of students in your tutorial.  In no case should the group size exceed 3. You must form groups from within your tutorial.
•    Each group must have a group leader as the point of contact for the group. The group leader is also responsible for project management activities.

Unit Learning Outcomes:

•    Apply appropriate problem solving processes based on logical and critical thinking to produce the system’s scope, analyse system requirements and design potential Information System solutions.
•    Prepare a business case for a proposed business problem solution and produce a suitable system specification report.

CASE STUDY

GP Professional IS

GP Professional IS (General Practitioner Professional Information Systems) is a small company that develops and supplies information systems to general practitioners. This company also equips whole medical practices with computer hardware and peripherals and installs computer networks on which their own information system runs.

The company was founded in 1987. All client relevant information is being stored in folders and support is being provided over the telephone. The company also takes orders over the phone and on-site by specialised sales personal.

Over the years several issues have come up where clients did not get the support they needed. This is being caused by support personal that took notes on notepads but did not convey this information to their colleagues. From time to time support staff answered the phone without knowing that the exact same problem has already been discussed with another staff member. It also happened that, when a specific staff member was on sick or annual leave, support tasks were not handled properly or not at all.

Software bugs and feature requests that have been confirmed by management have always been discussed between a support specialist and a systems analyst from the development team. Notes have been taken by the systems analyst and the bug or feature request has been worked on by applying a proper systems development life cycle. Because there was no tracking system, it happened that the development team could not finish tasks in time. More importantly the support staff could not inform the customers properly about the status of their support requests.

The sales team visits clients all over the country and accepts ordersfrom clients. These orders are only passed on to the sales department inside the company manually and only once per fortnight. Sometimes the time period between order and actual shipment was too long for the customer.

Frederick Smith, a Systems Analyst from the IT consulting firm you work for was asked to analyse and design an appropriate business information system for GP Professional IS. Duringinterviews with the appropriate departments the following information was gathered by Frederick.

Support

Support staff answers phone calls and tries to help customers with their need. If the support task takes too long or the problem is too complicated notes are taken and the problem is being discussed with the head of department, then solved via remote maintenance when there is more time. If it is a bug in the software or a feature request this bug or feature request will be discussed with the management which approves the development. A systems analyst that is also part of the development team then takes over the initial request and follows the systems development lifecycle to analyse and fix the bug or develop the feature request.
The management requires weekly reports of open support tasks to find out and analyse open points. Each support task has to have a title, a description, a due date and a date of receipt. Also the status of each support task has to be noted, who is responsible for it in the support team and whether or not there is a development task assigned to it together with a link to the the actual development task.

Development

A developer who is also the designated systems analyst takes over the initial requirements from the customer and does further requirement elicitation if necessary, analyses the problem, designs the solution and distributes the development work before it is being tested and then deployed by system maintainers (technical staff). The problem is that there is no communication with the support staff after the initial discussion and the support staff who is also responsible for the successful deployment of the bug fix or the new feature does not see the status of the development process and sometimes they do not know at all whether someone is working on the identified task.
The management requires a weekly report on the development tasks (bugs and feature requests) the development team works on together with its status and information about the owner / developer of the development tasks and related subtasks if necessary.

Sales

The sales team visits customers, analyses their needs and offers additional hardware packages or software modules to the customers. The sales team member returns to the office once every fortnight where the orders that have been placedare then further analysed with an internal sales officer to choose the best hardware / software package for the client’s needs. If this information could be transferred earlier from the external sales team member to the internal sales officer the delivery process could be improved.
The management requires monthly reports about the orders the sales team is working on, the sales information as well as the day the sales person received the order, the name of the responsible sales person, and the items that were ordered together with their prices.

Assignment Requirements

Unfortunately, Frederick has left the organisation and you, as a trainee systems analyst in the IT department, have been asked by your manager to finish the job. By analysing the information gathered from the interviews and using appropriate fact-finding techniques, prepare a Functional Requirements Report
A suggested guide for the report is detailed below.
1.    Needs and/or Problem description and proposed solution (system capabilities)of new system.
2.    Major (must have) use cases and their descriptions for a new system. You must provide a:
a.    Use-Case Model Diagram
b.    Use-Case Glossary that shows the name of each use case, a briefdescription of the use case and the actors for the use case. The use cases should be presented in a “logical” sequence. Look at the assignment example (in the assignment folder on BB) for an example of a brief description of a use case.
3.    Description of data requirements of the new system. You must provide:
a.    An ER Diagram
b.    The name, description and an example of the data stored in each of the attributes for each entity and relationship (where applicable). You can make some reasonable assumptions when describing the attributes. You must indicate which attribute is the identifier for each entity.
4.    Input screen(s) to record
a.    an order for an existingcustomer.
b.    a support request (bug or feature request) for an existing customer
Indicate which data entry control is used for each input field and which fields are display only fields.List the flow of activities i.e. the key steps followed for the dialog with a written description of what the user and system do at each step.
5.    Output reports and input screen (for generating the reports) for parts a. and b. below. You must include example data in the output reports.
a.    Management requires a weekly report about open support tasks and their status. See further information above.
b.    Management requires a weekly report about open development tasks and their statuses. See further information above.
c.    Management requires a monthly report about the orders that came in and the status of the orders together with the total of each order and a total of completed orders. See further information above.
Note: Each report should have control breaks where applicable and the data should be sorted.
Appendix
6.    Assignment plan and progress reports signed by your group and your tutor.
General Assignment Requirements

1. Questions about the assignment requirements

Time will be set aside in the lecture and tutorials to answer queries you may have about the assignment and its requirements. Your tutor will act as the user and you should treat that part of the class as a time for you to clarify the requirements.
Remember that you should be using a user-centred or participatory approach as much as possible when gathering your requirements. So ask any questions you may have at the lecture and in the tutorials.

2. Workload of team members

The work should be evenly divided between group members. This division of work should be decided before you start the assignment. Your group must have an assignment plan showing the distribution of work and get it signed by your tutor.

It is recommended to split the modelling between the group members. For example, one group member could do the use cases, another member do the ERD and another member do the input screen and output reports. This is good way of checking the models (created from each member’s perspective) against each other as they are being developed.

When you have finished your assignment, you must clearly identify in the Marking Scheme each task of the assignment with the names of the student who actually did the task. Group members are rewarded for the work they do. This means that if you do not contribute equally to the assignment you may get a lower mark than your group members. If there is a dispute about the allocation of marks you should see your tutor as a group. Your tutor will make a final decision on the allocation of marks. If you are having problems within your group that you are unable to resolve, please remember to speak to your tutor about the problems early. Your group will have to provide a progress report in the tutorials. Use the format of the progress report on Blackboard.
Start your assignment early; do not wait to the last minute. Get help early from your tutor if you are having problems with the assignment.

3. Submission of assignment document

Each report must be presented as one word-processed document (including any diagrams) with page numbers and a table of contents. The contents of the completed report should follow the order shown in the Marking Scheme. You must use Times Roman 12 point single spacing for all text.

The assignment should be submitted electronically through Blackboard and a hard copy of the assignment must also be dropped in the assignment box on level 8 in building 402.

Attach a completed Assignment Cover Sheet and Marking Scheme to the front of your assignment. If the Assignment Cover Sheet is not completed, marks will be deducted and you will not get a final mark. Please also indicate who the group leader is.