Software Proposal - Based off of information that has been provided. All Excel, MS Project, and Visio attachments must be included separately and not linked to proposal.
Software Proposal draft: - Microsoft Project and Microsoft Visio 1. Project Plan: Define the project tasks and the task interdependence's in an MS Project GANTT Chart and Network diagram. See the Course Resources folder for helpful resources on getting started with MS Project. 2. Project Scope: Create a Project Scope document. 3. Feasibility Analysis: Define the feasibility of the project using MS Excel/Word. Use Excel for the economic feasibility and Word for the other five feasibility categories. Your Feasibility Analysis includes (*Economic, Operational, Technical, Schedule, Legal & Contractual and Political). To assist with guesstimating the Economic cost of developing or tweaking an existing system complete an internet search. *Economic Feasibility Analysis: You may use a table to show this information. Be sure to include the: Tangible Benefits, Costs (one-time), Costs (recurring), Intangible Benefits and Costs. In this section actual dollar figures will need to be assembled. You may guesstimate your cost based on internet research. 3. Requirements Gathering: Define the Requirements Gathering Process/Methods. Be sure to expand in detail the requirements gathering process. For example, if you are planning to use interviews - who exactly will you interview and what will you ask them. For observations, who will you observe and what will you be looking for. For documentation - what documentation will you collect, how that will assist you and what are you looking for. (Use a high-level of detail in this section as requirements gathering is one of the most important planning tasks, for example if you plan to use the interview method, include the interview questions and the associated audience). 4. Context Diagram: Using Visio create two diagrams: a simple context diagram and then another one which expands on the processes. Please embed a link to your Visio file into this weeks Software Proposal document or you may submit the Visio file to the dropbox. 5. Use-Case: Create four diagrams in Visio, each of your four diagrams must contain at least 3 actions. (See examples in Unit 4 Resource Folder and view the How to create a Use Case Diagram). Please put all four diagrams in the same Visio file in separate tabs. 6. Dialogue Diagram: Using Visio to create a dialogue diagram which represents your systems interface. A dialogue diagram can represent sequence, selection, and iteration; Figure 11–18 illustrates these three concepts. There should be a box in the dialogue diagram to represent every screen, report, form, etc. in your system. 7. Prototypes: Prototypes are sometimes referred to as wireframes. Using Visio create a prototype for all screens, webpages, reports, and forms within your system. Link or embed the prototypes of all the reports, forms, and dialogues into your software proposal. Note: Visio has a Prototype template resource that can be used to create your Prototypes. 8. Implementation Plan: List the activities associated with the implementation of your plan and how each activity will be implemented in the project. Include: Coding Plan, Testing Plan, Installation Plan, Documentation Plan, Training Plan, Support Methods, and Maintenance Plan. 9. Future Development Plan: Complete the last section of your proposal Future Development Plan (150-word count minimum). You may submit your prototype document(s) independently 9 Table of Contents Table of Figures2 Business Case3 System Development Approach5 Systems Acquisition Approach7 Project Scope10 Project Plan9 Feasibility Analysis Economic Feasibility Tangible Benefits One-Time Costs Recurring Costs Operational Feasibility Technical Feasibility Schedule Feasibility Legal and Contractual Feasibility Political Feasibility Requirements Gathering Context Diagrams Use Case Dialogue Diagram Prototypes Testing Plan Installation Plan Documentation Plan Training Plan Support Maintenance Future Development Plan Table of Figures Figure 1 – Link to Project Plan Gantt Chart file Figure 2 – Link to Economic Feasibility Analysis file Figure 3 - Tangible Benefits Analysis Figure 4 - One-Time Costs Figure 5 - Recurring Costs Figure 6 - Simple Context Diagram Figure 7 - Detailed Context Diagram Figure 8 – Link to Use Case Diagram file Figure 12 - Dialogue Diagram Figure 13 - Prototype Interface 1 Figure 14 - Prototype Interface 2 Figure 15 - Prototype Interface 3 Figure 16 - Prototype Interface 4 Business Case Executive Summary The purpose of this proposal is to revamp the information system for the Teatulia Tea Bar in order to put our resources to work for us and to create a clean interface while having integrated reports, predictions, labor, sales, loss, and other key components and data to guide the organization to financial success for the upcoming quarters. The problem: Currently the organizations information system doesn’t integrate with one another. The POS doesn’t link to any of the applications used. Reports are incomplete and aren’t current. Discounts can be created; however, the back end doesn’t report the different types of discounts, just discounts which isn’t effective when running current data reports of promotions, marketing, vendor meetings, etc. The back end of the system doesn’t offer in depth reports of most/least popular items or include an inventory system to track loss. There’s no offline payment system for when unexpected internet outages occur leaving the business vulnerable to missed transactions when systems are down, Although the system allows for the storage of customers personal information such as name, phone number, address, it doesn’t offer any marketing aids such as text and email blasts, though we are able to manually import the information to an excel sheet. Scheduling isn’t linked to profits or payroll which make processes more steps than it needs to be. Reports of sales and profits turn up incomplete due to the need of synergy. Benefits to the system revamp proposal: -Current data reports lead to effective business decision making such as promotion and marketing budgets and where to cut back. -Having descriptions of items helps prevent recipe and ingredient errors. -Inventory reports provide a tracking system of all goods and keeping track of sale of goods and loss will show where more ordering is needed and where less ordering is needed to lower loss and increase profit. -Offline payment system prevents loss of sales and potentially loss of product due to giving product away because payment system is down. - A loyalty program is a great way to bring repeat customers, using the customer information such as emails is a great marketing tool to send current offers and promotions and is a great way to bring people back in as well as offer exposure to the tea company itself. The new system will consist of 2 ends, the front end for client use for day to day transactions and the back end to input data, generate reports, view predictions, keep track of inventory, Track sales, customers, transactions, and deliver promotional ads. The system will be clean but functional. The front end will be user friendly and inventory of items and sale of specific items will be accessible through the front end as well as the back end. For convenience, all reports ran through the front end such as daily sales, sales of specific items, inventory that is low, and discounts can be saved and directly sent to the users email in the form of an Excel sheet or in the form of a Graph sheet. The back end will carry more complex stats such as hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly sales, stats of sales compared to previous years, Stats of sales of items compared to previous years, discount stats, inventory, customer information, transaction information, a full inventory area, Loss/ waste stats, email/phone list for advertising, labor vs. sales profits generator. Each area will have its own tab separated into categories and all information available through the back-end dashboard feature can be generated and emailed to the user in the form of excel sheets or graph sheets for any continual logging or other purposes. System Development Approach I recommend the system development life cycle (SDLC) with this project. Although it’s not favorable for small projects, SDLC is easier to control the risk since high risk tasks are completed first. The best method moving forward is through Computer-aided software engineering also known as CASE tools. The biggest downfall to CASE is the cost, it can be costly. Benefits of CASE tools are increased accuracy due to ongoing debugging and error checking; it increases speed as it reduces the time to complete tasks. and CASE methods offers better documentation. Overall, I believe CASE tools is the best option. Other available options: · Agile methods- Though Agile methods can be beneficial for smaller companies because it can be tailored down to smaller projects. Agile methods can be unpredictable, difficult for simple designs, and thrives in chaos. (Hoffer, 2017, p. 19) For the success of this method everyone needs to be on the same page and understand the requirements and have the time to commit. Since agile methods seems to open the door to more mistakes, I don’t recommend this method. (Fridman, 2016) · Extreme Programming- Extreme programing is also an option, it’s a programming team where the customer is on site during the developing process and though this may seem like the preferable method because there’s more communication and is a faster way to get this project completed. It isn’t for everyone and I don’t believe such an extreme approach would be beneficial for this project. Commitment, lack of documentation, and design quality typically suffer with this approach. · Object oriented analysis and design – Object oriented analysis and design also known as OOAD is a system methodology and technique that is based on objects versus data or processes. (Hoffer, 2017, p. 20) Although OOAD is becoming a favorable method due to its reduced maintenance, real world modeling, and flexibility, I don’t recommend this approach because it’s just an approach to method design without any changes to the existing software and is not a technology in its own. Systems Acquisition Approach I would recommend using a packaged software producer. Software packages are all compatible with one another and interrogatable. Inventory, waste, costs, profit, scheduling, labor, reports, sales, marketing, customer data, mass promotional emails, data comparison to previous years and quarters, continued maintenance, and support are all readily available for one price. All the customer would need to do it input current data and the systems would generate the appropriate results. Making this approach the most valuable in terms of convenience, services, and support. Other options available are: · Outsourcing- Using an outside vendor to run the program and services for the company on behalf of the company isn’t necessarily needed for this project as our organization needs to be more hands on. · Information Technology Services Firms- When a firm does the required Information systems tasks for the company. Typically, this is useful when the organization doesn’t have anyone with IT expertise and isn’t large enough of a company to hire someone to perform these small tasks. Information technology firms will handle tasks such as the network and email