Create a visual representation of the data flow

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I. Introduction: Provide an overview of your selected case. Be sure to provide appropriate citations and reference to the case study you have selected.

a) Background: Establish a context for understanding your systems proposal. Specifically, explain any essential paradigms, processes, and activities of the existing information technology systems.

b) Problem Statement: What is the problem that needs to be solved? Why is it a problem? What are the impacts to the enterprise?

c) Audience: Who are your audiences for this systems proposal? How will you effectively communicate the information of your proposal to these diverse groups?

II. Systems Requirements: Detail the specific requirements of your case. Be sure to include screenshots of all relevant diagrams, charts, and tables.

a) Requirements Modeling: Assess the current system to identify the requirements for the new system. Be sure to address each of the following aspects: outputs, inputs, processes, performance, and controls (i.e., security).

b) Data Process Model: Create a visual representation of all relevant data processes that represents a logical model of the requirements of the system based on the systems development life cycle.

c) Data Flow Diagrams: Create a visual representation of the data flow based on the systems development life cycle.

d) Data Dictionary: Create a data dictionary that annotates your system requirements to build clarity in communicating with the relevant audiences.

e) Object Modeling: Use appropriate object modeling techniques and tools to describe the system requirements.

f) Use Case Diagrams: Create (a) use case diagram(s) that outline the system requirements based on the systems development life cycle.

III. Systems Design: Propose a solution that addresses the identified problem in your case. Be sure to include screenshots of all relevant diagrams, charts, and tables.

a) Specifications: Provide a physical design that will meet the specifications outlined in the systems requirement document.

b) Data Design: Create entity relationship diagrams that accurately describe the proposed solution, including 3NF table designs.

c) User Interface Design: Illustrate the user interface design. Specifically, be sure to address your proposed human computer interactions (HCIs) and graphical user interfaces (GUIs). Your proposals should follow user-centered design principles and address all design requirements.

d) System Architecture: Describe the system architecture. Specifically, be sure to address the corporate organization and culture, enterprise resource planning, total cost of ownership, scalability, integration and interface requirements, and security.

e) Feasibility Analysis: Provide supporting details that justify why your proposed solution is appropriate for solving the problem. In your defense, be sure to address operational, technical, economic, and scheduling feasibility. Be sure that you frame your response for communicating effectively to your target audiences.

IV. Project Plan: Illustrate your recommended implementation and management strategies. Be sure to include screenshots of all relevant diagrams, charts, and tables.

a) Work Breakdown Structure: Describe all of the essential roles and functions required for implementing the solution. Who will be doing the work and what, specifically, will they need to do?

b) Project Monitoring and Control Plan: How are you going to ensure that the project is going smoothly? What is your plan of attack to ensure that all controls are adhered to? What is the defined critical path? Be sure that you frame your response for communicating effectively to your target audiences.

c) Timeline: What is the estimated amount of time for implementation? Create a visual representation that captures your timeline (e.g., Gantt chart) based on the systems development life cycle.

Willowbrook School Chapter 1

Willowbrook School is a small private school that has retained your services as a systems analyst to assist in the development of a new information system for the school's administrative needs.

Background

Willowbrook School is a small, private school in the Midwest United States. For the past 20 years, it has offered a curriculum for preschool through 6th grade. Five years ago it expanded to offer after-school care, usually referred to as after care, on premises. After care is not only offered to Willowbrook's students, but also for students of other schools in the area.

As an independent systems analyst, you work as an IT consultant, specializing in developing IT solutions for small businesses. You have been contacted by the director, Victoria Owens, to discuss the possibility of setting up a computer system to handle some of the school's administrative and financial tasks. She explains to you that Willowbrook is experiencing significant increases in enrollment applications for all programs. Increases in applications, coupled with increased demand for after-school care, have led to a very high workload for the administrative personnel and staff. The principal and teachers have stepped in where possible, but the demand is becoming too great. Willowbrook School is a non-profit, and is not in a position to hire another full-time administrative position, which is what the principal and director think would be needed to handle the increased workload. You agree to meet with Victoria and the principal, Kathy Gilliard next week to discuss the school and its need for an information system.

You sit down with Victoria and Kathy on Wednesday to ask them some questions to help you determine what type of information system they need. You explain to them that information systems bring computer hardware and software together with people, processes, and data to produce specific results. They are excited to tell you about their situation and what they have in mind for a computer system to help with some of the work load. To help you with planning for the information system, you ask them about what personnel they have, as well as some questions to determine what types of information each person needs to do their job.

Victoria explains her role as the executive director of the school. She administers the activities of the school in accordance with the mission, vision, and policies established by the Board of Directors. She supports the educational staff and oversees the financial, payroll, and human resources functions for the school. She also prepares all necessary reports and evaluations for the state and local school boards. Kathy says that as the principal of Willowbrook she handles the academic and curricular issues that arise, and ensures that the school meets all federal and state educational standards. Kathy and the teachers who report to her make decisions jointly about admissions and assignments to classrooms. The two kitchen staff personnel, a head cook and an

assistant, also report to the principal. She also coordinates students' bus transportation schedule. The school contracts with a local bussing company to provide transportation for some students in the area. Some after care students are dropped off by the local public school district's busses, and she coordinates with the district's transportation department. Kathy also substitutes in any of the school classrooms when a teacher is out.

Susan Brown is the vice principal. She is responsible for the after-care program. While students must be pre-registered for after-care required on a daily basis, the school does offer "drop-in" care on an "as space allows" basis. Susan handles all requests for drop-in care in consultation with the after-care teachers. She also maintains the school calendar, prepares handouts and reminders for parents, keeps track of special dietary needs of the students, and administers the "camps" that run during the two weeks that the school is not in session during the spring, and the summer programs that run through July and August.

Michelle Madrid is the administrative assistant. She sends out monthly bills for tuition and after- care, records payments, and handles bank deposits. She has traditionally handled or been responsible for all administrative tasks related to tuition and after-care fees. She maintains all student records, and ensures that contact and pick-up lists for all classrooms and after-care programs are up-to-date. Currently, Michelle handles all her responsibilities using Microsoft Word and Excel. She is comfortable with the applications, but finds that maintaining records and producing reports, payroll, etc. results in a lot of duplication of effort, as she has to copy a lot of information from one worksheet or document to another.

There are eleven full-time teachers at Willowbrook, three for the pre-school program, two for the kindergarten program, and one for each grades 1-6. There are five teacher's aides, for the pre- school-kindergarten and the grades 1-3 programs. Teacher's aides report to their respective teachers. Each teacher is responsible for keeping attendance records and recording them in the student files.

There are six part-time after-care teachers, three for the pre-school/kindergarten group, and three for the primary grades. After-care teachers report to Susan Brown. Each after-care teacher has part-time assistants assigned to the program. Assistants report to the after-care teacher. The number of students pre-registered in the after-care program determines the number of assistants. The after-care teachers are responsible for keeping time sheets for their part-time assistants and submitting them every two weeks to Susan Brown. In addition, the after-care teachers are responsible for submitting weekly summary sheets to Susan Brown detailing any hours above those pre-registered for that students spent in the after-care program, so that parents are billed for the additional time. Like many other non-profit schools, Willowbrook relies on volunteer time from parents to accomplish many of the tasks essential to the running of the school. A financial committee examines monthly financial reports, a fund-raising committee evaluates possible

fund-raising projects and handles approved fund-raising. In addition, individual parents step in as needed to do routine office tasks, such as copying and distributing handouts, to free up Michelle Madrid for other tasks. Parents also fill in as assistants in the after-care programs when needed, and qualified parents step into the classroom as teachers' aides whenever possible to reduce the reliance on substitute teachers.

You explain to Victoria and Kathy that this meeting has given you enough background information to get started and you will prepare some material for the next meeting.

Tasks

1. Use the background information you have gathered, along with some creative writing based on research you conduct on other private schools, to develop a business profile for Willowbrook School.

2. Create an organization model of Willowbrook School's paid staff. Make sure you include not only the title/position, but the person's name if known. You can create the chart using Microsoft Word or a similar program, or you can draw it by hand. In Word 2010, click the Insert tab on the Ribbon, then SmartArt, then Organization Chart.

3. Generate a simple business process model to represent a process of Willowbrook School. The model should include events, processes, and results.

4. Based on the organization chart that you created, give examples of information or reports that each person or position will need from a business support system. Place this information in a two-column table for easy identification and viewing.

Willowbrook School Chapter 2

Willowbrook School is a small private school that has retained your services as a systems analyst to assist in the development of a new information system for the school's administrative needs.

Background

After an initial conversation with Victoria and Kathy, the school's administrators, they have decided that pursuing the possibility of an information system is a good idea.

Michelle, the administrative assistant, in particular is feeling the strain of the increased workload associated with the rapid growth in the student population. The system that she has been using, of spreadsheets and word processing documents, worked well when enrollments were smaller, but now the amount of time spent copying information from one place to another is daunting, and the possibility of errors is increasing. An information system is necessary to cope with the growing administrative workload. After your meeting you developed a business profile, organization model, business process model, and began to identify information and processes for Willowbrook School's new information system.

Based on your initial conversation and the work that you prepared, you begin planning to conduct a preliminary investigation. You call Victoria and discuss with her the strategic plan for the school including its mission and vision. You explain to her that planning IT systems and projects requires a similar approach to strategic planning as the school likely took when it initially created its mission, vision, and strategic plan. She begins to ask you questions about the next steps for developing the information system. You tell Victoria that you will put together a memo for detailing the need for strategic planning and describing the stages of preliminary systems investigations.

Tasks

1. Write a memo to Victoria detailing the need for strategic planning and describing the stages of preliminary systems investigations. Make sure the memo contains the proper formal heading and formatting. It should also include two sections. The first should define strategic planning and how Willowbrook School would benefit. The second section details the six stages that you will go through in the preliminary systems investigation.

2. You need more information about the proposed system for your plan and need to conduct fact-finding. Make a list of people whom you might want to interview. Also, suggest other fact-finding techniques you should consider.

3. Consider the internal and external factors that affect information systems. Which factors, in your opinion, will have the greatest impact on the system proposed for the school? Explain your answer.

4. At the conclusion of the preliminary investigation, you will deliver a written summary of the results and deliver a brief presentation to Willowbrook School's administration and probably its executive board. Prepare a list of recommendations that will help make your written and oral communications more effective. Put your list in priority order, starting with what you consider to be the most important suggestions. Before you complete this task, you should review Part A of the Systems Analyst's Toolkit, which provides suggestions for oral and written presentations.

Willowbrook School Chapter 3

Willowbrook School is a small private school that has retained your services as a systems analyst to assist in the development of a new information system for the school's administrative needs.

Background

In the previous chapter, you prepared a memo detailing your plans for Willowbrook's preliminary investigation for the school's director, Victoria Owens. You sit down with Victoria to discuss your memo and the preliminary investigation. During your discussion she asks you about how you plan to control costs and make a quality system within a reasonable timeframe. You begin to explain to her the concepts of project management and how they are used in developing an information system.

Project Management

You tell Victoria that project management involves managing the cost of the project, staying on its time schedule, and keeping it within the scope that is defined for the project. The first step begins with listing all of the tasks that are required to complete a project. You explain to her that in the case of Willowbrook School:
• The first thing to do is develop a plan, part of which we are doing right now.
• In the next step, we will spend a few weeks on the analysis phase of development.
o In the first part of this phase we will determine the requirements for the new system, which involves conducting interviews, documentation reviews, surveys, and other research.
o The next step is to model the data and processes of the new system based on our research.
o After the data and processes are modeled, we will decide if we are going to purchase or build the new system in-house.
• After the analysis phase is completed, we will begin the system design phase.
o This phase of the project includes the user interface; screens that users will work with and reports that are generated from the system.
o The next step in this phase is data design where we will work with components of the data that is flowing through the system.
o The final step of this phase is designing the system architecture. This will largely be based on whether we decide to purchase a system from a third party, outsource the system to a cloud service, or build the new system ourselves.
• The next phase of the new system will be implementation where we will install the hardware, software, and train the users.
o The implementation phase will include the "go live", which will be a date where the new system will start and the old system will stop.
• The final phase will be ongoing support and maintenance of the new system.

You go on to explain to Victoria that for project management, all of these major tasks and more specific, detailed tasks go into a chart that is used to create a work breakdown structure (WBS). You describe to her the main types of WBS - Gantt charts and PERT charts and how they are used. You offer to show her the WBS charts you will create for Willowbrook's project.

At the end of your discussion, Victoria tells you that it is clear that project management techniques will be needed for Willowbrook's new system and she tells you she is excited to see the Gantt and PERT charts for the project.

After your meeting you sit down to set up the project management for Willowbrook's new information system by organizing the tasks to be done, creating a WBS, and identifying the critical path for the project.

Tasks

1. Create a list of tasks that need to be completed for the new information system based on the information given in the case. Organize your list by estimating how long it will take to complete each task, and list each task's predecessor task or tasks. Use Figures 3-25 and 3-30 from the text as examples.

2. Using the task list you developed, create a Gantt chart using software such as Microsoft Project or GanttProject.

3. Create a PERT chart (called a network diagram in Microsoft Project) based on your task list. How is the PERT chart different from the Gantt chart? What advantages or disadvantages do you see in each? Which do you prefer and why?

4. Identify the critical path for the project. Explain how the critical path is determined. How will you use the critical path as the project manager for Willowbrook School?

Willowbrook School Chapter 4

Willowbrook School is a small private school that has retained your services as a systems analyst to assist in the development of a new information system for the school's administrative needs.

Background

Willowbrook School has decided to proceed to the systems analysis phase, based on the findings and proposal you presented after the preliminary investigation. A summary of your fact-finding is as follows:

Fact-Finding Summary

Registration for Willowbrook School has two components, regular daily students and children in after-care. Regular daily students are divided into groups, dependent on whether the child is in pre-school, kindergarten, or primary school. Children in after-care are divided into two groups, those students who are pre-registered and those who use the service on a "drop-in" basis. Most of the students who are pre-registered for after-care attend the school during the day but some are bussed in from other schools. For a student to be registered, tuition payments must be in good standing.

There are two payment options for tuition and the pre-registered component of after-care, monthly or weekly. Regular daily tuition is based on the academic program in which the student is enrolled. A discount of 5 percent is applied to fees for parents choosing the monthly payment option. Parents who have more than one child enrolled at Willowbrook are eligible for an additional 5 percent multi-child discount on tuition for all enrolled children. Discounts are lost for any payment that is overdue by more than seven days.

Charges for after-care used on a "drop-in" basis are based on an hourly rate, billed in fifteen minute increments. Parents are billed monthly for regular students, and charges are added to the monthly and weekly bills. New bills are generated weekly for "drop-in" care for children who are not pre-registered for after-care or regular daily students. For parents who pay monthly, tuition bills and after-care fees are due on the first of the month, and are distributed to parents one week prior to their being due. For parents who pay weekly, payments are due on Mondays with bills generated on Fridays. Parents who have more than one child enrolled in Willowbrook receive a separate bill for each child. The student's account must be in good standing for a student to be registered. For the account to be considered to be in good standing, the tuition payment must not be over seven days late. Tuition payments that are over seven days late may be overridden by the director; these cases are handled on a case-by-case basis.

The current registration system is done using Microsoft Excel. Michelle Madrid, the administrative assistant, sets up a new workbook for each academic year. Each month Michelle creates a new worksheet in the workbook. The worksheet contains one line per student, and each line contains the following registration and billing information for the student:

Student Name Parent Name

Address

Academic program (pre-school, kindergarten, primary school grade 1-6) After-Care (Yes/No)

Weekly tuition fee

Billing cycle (Monthly or Weekly) Tuition discount

Multi-child discount

Amount of discount (calculated field) Additional care, after-care "drop-in" fees Total monthly fee (calculated field) Payment received

Amount paid to date (calculated field) Amount outstanding (calculated field)

The entry for each student is updated monthly when bills are prepared, each time a payment is made, and when Michelle enters the data from the after-care reports detailing all "drop-in" hours for each student. Michelle manually calculates the time and the spreadsheet calculates the charges. Monthly statements are generated from the spreadsheets using the mail merge tool in Microsoft Word.

A summary monthly report is generated for the Board of Directors from this spreadsheet summarizing fee collections for tuition and after care. The financial committee, who provides regular oversight for the Board, also receives separate monthly reports detailing payroll expenses for all employees. Reports need to be ready for distribution at the financial committee meeting that is scheduled for the second Tuesday of every month.

Michelle has indicated that the most useful new feature that could be added to the system would be the ability to generate one bill per family, listing each student's charges separately, and an overall total. Also useful would be the ability to generate a receipt at the time payments are recorded. This receipt should contain information required for reimbursement requests from different types of dependent care and tuition accounts, including name, location, and federal tax ID number of the school. In addition, parents have asked for a separate statement accompanying their bill itemizing all drop-in after-care hours for that statement.

Tasks

1. List the system requirements with examples for each category. Review the information that you gathered, and assume that you will add your own ideas to achieve more effective outputs, inputs, processes, performance, and controls.

2. Are there scalability issues that you should consider? If so, what are they?

3. If you want to conduct a survey of parents of current, former, and prospective students to obtain their input, what type of sampling should you use? Why?

4. Draw an FDD that shows the main operations described in the fact-finding summary.

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