Introductory System Analysis and Design Assignment

Date due: Please refer to your unit outline.

• 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 - Staff Kiosk System

Background

International College (IC) has approximately 3000 staff. IC has experienced a 10 percent increase in staff over the past two years, and long-range projections show that trend continuing for the next three years.

James Taylor, the Human Resources (HR) director, is thinking of putting in place a Staff Kiosk System (SKS) that will provide the capability for staff to maintain some their personal information so it is always accurate and up to date.  The SKS should also allow staff to only view but not change other information.

Current practices now have each of the changes to staff personal information being processed by an extensive manual effort in which staff fill out forms and HR staff then input the data into the HR system. This manual effort often results in a time lag of several days between the time the staff submits the forms and the update of the information in the HR system. This delay has caused several problems, including unacceptable lag time resulting in mailings (including pay cheques) being sent to the wrong address. Another problem of the present system is the staff directory, which is printed every three months. It seems to be out-of-date as soon as it is printed with incorrect information on staff who have changed addresses or been transferred.

The plan for the new system is to provide the capability for staff to update data themselves in real time reducing if not eliminating the problems mentioned above. The printed staff directory will be replaced by an intranet-based online directory that will be always up-to-date.

Gloria Gaynor, a systems analyst from your consulting firm, has done some preliminary investigation (through interviews) with James Taylor and Jean Walker (Human Relations Manager) and this is the information she has gathered so far:

Information gathered from interview with James Taylor

It appears that there are a lot of inefficiencies in the current system and its operating costs are excessive. The current system itself is a combination of manual and automated processes. The automated processes reside in the legacy mainframe system. James thinks it is too costly and risky to get rid of the current legacy mainframe system. They are currently concentrating on reengineering the current HR System to meet their needs.

James said that staff go through an orientation program on their first day of work. During that program they are required to complete some personnel forms that include information such as addresses, phone numbers and emergency contact information. HR staff then input the data into the legacy mainframe system, which is a COBOL-based system using obsolete database and file technology.

Every time another system within the institution needs staff data, they have to send them a sequential file sometimes daily, weekly, or monthly. There are therefore multiple copies of staff information throughout the systems, which may or may not be synchronised. For example, if staff need to change any of their personal information that is on file, they must complete a form and submit it to HR to be input into the system. Currently, it could be weeks before that change gets distributed across all the necessary systems. This is especially critical for payroll. Staff are not happy if they don't receive their pay on time because they have moved and the payroll system doesn't have their current address.

On a quarterly basis IC also produces and publishes a staff telephone listing, sort of a telephone book, which consists of the job title, work telephone number and work location of staff. Because IC is such a dynamic and growing organisation, Alice (a HR staff) spends quite a bit of her time maintaining the information. Each quarter IC produces 3000 copies of the book and distributes them across the organisation. Currently this process costs IC about $16000 a year. However the book is usually out of date the day it is published as IC is a large and growing organization. Every day at least someone is hired or transferred, moves offices, or is terminated. These events all trigger a change to the listing.

Currently only HR staff can directly use the HR system. James would like to see that changed so that staff can be responsible for maintaining some of their own personal information e.g. maintaining their own address or telephone details. The data would be more current and it would reduce the labor support in HR. Currently, to process each change in staff information costs about $15 in labor and computing costs and 1,500 changes were processed last year alone which is quite substantial.

Everyone in the institution uses a PC and James feels that staff should also be able to access and change their information from the office and home via the Web.

Another problem is that they have multiple copies of the same staff data across multiple systems. Whether it is the HR system or the payroll system, each application has its own database of staff data. James was thinking of having, in the future, one integrated database that all applications could access, eliminating the problems of the data being out of sync across the applications, excessive interfaces among systems, and current data not being available in real time.

James envisions a Staff Kiosk System that is easy to use, intuitive, with a graphical user interface. It should be accessible from every desktop in IC and from home via the Web. The interface should have a folder metaphor. For example, if one were a staff entering the system, one would be presented with a series of folders or tabs. Each folder would consist of a certain type of information, such as personal information, leave application and training.

James feels that the system should contain an online organisational telephone book that contains the job title, phone number and work location of staff, so that staff can easily locate each other. This would eliminate the need for the hardcopy phone books.

The executive steering committee has allocated a budget of $25,000 to complete this phase of the project and expects it to be completed in six months. James feels that it can be done for less money.

Information gathered from interviews with Jean Walker

The following information was gathered by Gloria in her interviews with Jean.

Jean is thinking of putting in place a Staff Kiosk System (SKS) where staff can maintain some of their own personal information. Staff should also be able manage their leave, check leave balances, view previous leave taken. Staff should also be able to apply for internal staff training courses offered by IC and view courses taken.

Staff should be able to view their qualifications and current and previous job appointment details within IC. However all changes to a staff member's job or qualification require paperwork that has to go through HR.

Jean wants a staff directory that shows the phone number, office location, organizational unit, and job title of staff. It should be driven by some sort of search screen e.g. search by first or last name or combinations of them. This is confidential information that can't be open to the public.

The information that the system requires is as follows:

a) Staff ID and name, work location, home and work phone, address, date hired, job title, start date, end date, organizational area, qualification title, qualification major, completion date, institution and country where qualification was obtained, and title, name, relationship, address and contact number of emergency contacts.

b) The internal courses attended and the date attended

c) The type of leave taken, start date and end date, whether a medical certificate has been provided, and the option to put in a comment. If the staff has a medical certificate, there must be a facility to upload the certificate.

Information about courses and their duration, qualifications, organizational areas and jobs is maintained by Human Resource staff.

Assignment Requirements

Unfortunately, Michael 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 analyzing 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 new system. You must provide a:

a. Use-Case Model Diagram. Group logically related use cases in the diagram.

b. Use-Case Glossary that shows the name of each use case, a brief description 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. Design input screen(s) for 3 of the use cases (identified in part 2 above) that staff use to record/update information.

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. Design output reports and corresponding input screens (where applicable) for 3 of the use cases (identified in part 2 above) where staff was the "actor".

Note: Each report should have control breaks where applicable and the data should be sorted. You must include example data in the output reports

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.

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.