HealthWise Requirement Analysis - Case Study Example

?HealthWise Requirement Analysis Introduction HealthWise is an Australian health product marketing firm operating in Mackay for last three years. The firm deals in skin, hair dental, health, home and sun care products. Presently the firm is operating at a mix of paper based and loosely integrated Microsoft Access database system. Mrs. Samantha Allwood, the executive director of HealthWise has decided to induct a fully integrated Information Systems (IS) into her firm in order to streamline various ordering, supply, financial and administrative issues. Mrs. Samantha has tasked Technologies & Solutions Pvt. Ltd. to conducts a requirement analysis to establish the needs and requirements of the proposed Information System. Requirement analysis is basic software development activity. The purpose of this phase is to outline business needs based on user interviews, study of existing system of information conducted in the client environment and through other information gathering techniques. Requirement analysis provides the foundation for a solid application development. It is a technical document prepared and finalized by a requirement analyst, which provides user specific details of the proposed system to help software engineers in the development of actual application. It contains several functional and non-functional requirement, user analysis and details of required forms and reports that are deemed essential to fulfill operational needs of the organization and the implementation of the system in client’s environment. Grady (2006, p. 4) states the detail of this process in these words, “System requirement analysis is a structured or organized methodology for identifying an appropriate set of resources to satisfy a system need and the requirement for those resources that provide a sound basis for the design or selection of those resources.” 2. System Overview HealthWise is presently using a paper-based system to look after corporate accounts, inventory and processes. The system has a limited scope and does not provide adequate decision support to the management. There are several other complications in the system beside its inability to support decision-making. The system possesses several redundancies that not only cause confusions but also result in the wastage of precious resources like human effort and time. Secondly, the HealthWise is rapidly gaining customers’ confidence and the management can foresee a major expansion of the business network around the globe in the near future. This expansion will not only require a streamlined information system in place but it should also be able to accommodate a fair amount of information supposed to be generated with the business growth. Therefore, HealthWise new Information System (HWIS) is required to be design with this future expansion in mind and should be reasonably sizeable to support the functions of a medium sized enterprise. Keeping in view the problems with the current paper-based system a web-based management information system is proposed by the Technologies & Solutions Pvt. Ltd. The system will facilitate decision-making process through its predefined and custom queries and reports. The system will store all information related to distributor, customers, sales and payments in a database. The system will accept input in structured web forms and will provide on the fly reports pertaining information about distributors, sales volume in dollars, distributor groups and relative performances etc. HWIS will store and present information on all six product lines in an efficient manner. Moreover, HWIS will also accept direct purchase orders from the customer and will provide support to HealthWise staff and distributors to log into the system remotely through Virtual Private Network (VPN) connections to access web-based system. HWIS will provide web-based access to its database on verification of authorized login credential in an efficient and timely manner. 3. Design Specifications The system will be designed to support all business processes presently maintain by the paper-based system. It will collect all information in carefully designed web forms. These forms may contain any of the controls that may be deemed needful to collect and present information efficiently and effectively. However, HWIS may present different information to each user on recognition of user role based on login credentials. Following are few roles used in HWIS, (i) User Roles Executive Director Sales Manager Accounts Manager Coordinator Facilitator Distributor Customer Guest Based on their roles users may have a variable level of access and privileges on the system resources. (ii) Forms Forms are not only most important element in an interface design but they also provide the basic functionality to the system. Therefore, each element on a form will be developed with a precise functional objective while fulfilling the requirements of effective human computer interaction principles. The layout of each form will assist user in completing the required task in efficiently. The elements and controls on a form will be designed with respect to the particular business processes. There will be a close mapping between the order of the process and the arrangement and symmetry of controls on the form. (iii) Reports Reports are very important for various operational requirements in HWIS. These reports are of two types. The first type of reports will present the records as they are stored in the system and the other type of reports will generate various types of summaries. These reports will use calculated controls to present information in a meaningful manner. User can generate custom reports through a form that prepares the query on particular criteria. 4. User Requirements Beyond technical specifications user will also require specific characteristics in forms and report. These characteristics may help or facilitate the use of these forms and reports. (i) Forms Data entry should be facilitated through various tools for remembering information, default values, auto complete features, minimization of data entry through the use of list and check boxes etc. Moreover, the forms should be efficient in presenting and storing information. Beside detailed documentation various controls should provide adequate help on-the-fly as the user is entering or retrieving information from the system. (ii) List of Required Forms (a short paragraph for each) a) Login Each user of the system has to have a user id and password before can use the system. However, new customer and distributors can use the system to place online requests for user id and password. Login is essential only for placement of order rest of the general details can be view directly without logging into the system. b) Order Form This form will be utilize by the customers and distributors to place their order for various products of HealthWise. The form will provide stock details for the product, quantity ordered, unit price, total price, and other related information for each selected product. The form will generate a payment request on order placement. User can change his order in any respect before final submission of the order. c) Payment Form The customer and distributer will use this form to provide the payment details of their order. HWIS will also accept direct payments via credit cards. This form will also generate a payment ID for each successful transaction that can be used later for reference by the payer. d) Order Status Customers and distributers can track the status of an order after making full payments. However, these orders cannot be cancelled online. e) Product Inventory The staff at HealthWise will use this form to check the stock availability for a particular product. Customer and distributer cannot see the whole inventory. However, they will be prompted by the system if a product is out of stock at the time of order placement. f) New Stock The staff at HealthWise will use this form to enter new stock information into the system. g) New Product If a product is not present in HWIS previously, it can be added to the products list. Adding new products in the system will require privileges of manager or executive. h) Change Profile Any of the user of HWIS including customers and distributors can change their personal information in the system. i) Custom Report This form will be used to generate custom reports based on the available controls on the form. User can view any report before sending print request to the system. j) Default Report This form can be utilized to view or print default reports. User authentication will be applicable to see various reports generated by the system. (iii) Sample Form (iv) Reports Report will be generated by various user of the system based on their role. Users can print default reports and can use Custom Report form to generate custom reports. (v) List of Required Reports a) Stock Report This report will generate the updated stock details for all or a single product. b) List of Distributors This will print the list of distributors. c) Distributor Ranking This report can only be generated by executive or manager role. The report will list all distributors in the order of their ranking based on sales performance. d) Sales Performance This report can only be generated by executive or manager role. The report will list performance details for all or a single distributor. The report can also be generated for a particular period. e) Sales Report This report can only be generated by executive or manager role. The report will list sales for a particular distributor, customer or period. f) Payment This report can only be generated by executive or manager role. The report will list payment details for a particular distributor, customer or period. g) List of Customers This will print the list of customer. h) Best selling Customer This report can only be generated by executive or manager role. The report will list best customer for a product or period. i) Best selling Product This report can only be generated by executive or manager role. The report will list selling product for a period. (vi) Sample Report 5. Functional Requirements (i) Goals: A computerized application in which the records of all transactions of purchasing and selling are saved in application’s Database, also managing the accounting section by a standard process. (ii) Objective: Objective of developing this application is the management of transactions, purchases, accounts, distributors and customers information. One more main functional of the system is to generate reports on daily, monthly and yearly bases. Reports can be categorized in different dimensions that depend on the requirement managerial staff. (iii) System Components These requirements include the requirements of system hardware and software for running application at user computer. Hardware Requirements: a. Intel Pentium IV and above processor b. Minimum 500 MB RAM c. Minimum 200 GB Hard disk d. Internet connection with at least 1 Mbps Speed e. Printer (Optional) Software Requirements: a. Internet Browser b. Dot Net Framework c. Crystal Reports 6. Non-Functional Requirements Non-function requirement are the supportive elements that may enhance the productivity, availability and security of a software system. The nature of these requirements is not critical but they can make a difference in the overall performance of the system as an integral part of the organization. Defining non-functional requirement Chung, Nixon &Yu (2000, p.6) states, “In software engineering, a software requirement that describes not what the software will do, but how the software will do it.” Following are the few non-functional requirements identified for HWIS implementation; (i) Safety Requirements To avoid a single point of failure application a mirror server will be prepared. A single machine will act as Application Server and Database Server and Web Server. These servers may be placed on different machine as the load on the system increases with the passage of time Complete Data backup will be taken weekly and an incremental backup will be taken on daily basis. (ii) Security Requirements User based single entry point authenticated access to the system. Secure remote access through Virtual Private Network (VPN) connections. Protection against viruses and scripts. Physical security of system and information will the responsibility of HealthWise. (iii) User Documentation An important part of any system is its documentation, the technical manuals that describe the operation and use of programs. These documents will come in these basic categories: j) Manuals These manuals will provide basic guideline the users that how they use various feature of the HWIS application. k) FAQ FAQ will be used to answers frequently asked questions. 7. Assumptions In order to streamline various developmental tasks following assumption are made about system, users and processes; System users have basic computer literacy to operate information systems and they can understand various elements displayed on a form or report like Radio Buttons, Check Box, and Command Buttons etc. Out of four Additional computers one web server is approved by the administration to support remote access of HWIS System maintenance and administration will be outsource to the solution provider as no addition staff is permissible Staff training will be the part of solution for basic know how of the system Transformation of existing paper-based information into database will be the responsibility of HealthWise staff, however the solution provider will develop data entry forms and reports well before the implementation of the system into organizational environment so that a smooth conversion to online web-based HWIS may be materialized without any lose of data and time. References Chung, Lawrence , Brian A. Nixon, Eric Yu, 2000, Non-functional requirements in software engineering, Springer, USA. Grady Jeffrey O., 2006, System requirements analysis, Academic Press, USA. Read More