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Integrated Inventory Management & Online Customer Order

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1. Feasibility study Test i Implementation A Fig 2 0 system development life cycle and the water fall model 13 2 5 Selecting appropriate Database System According to C J DATE 5 a Database System is basically a computerised record keeping system i e it is a computerised system whose overall purpose is to store information and to allow users to retrieve and update that information on demand The information in question can be anything that is of significance to the individual or organisation concerned anything in other words that is needed to assist in the general process of running the business of the individual or organization Various database applications exist such as MS SQL Server MySQL MS Access and PostgreSQL but it is important to carefully select the appropriate application to use in any given situation as some lack sophisticated functionality to achieve a particular task such as web site connectivity 2 5 1 MS SQL Server SQL is an example of a Transform Oriented Language designed to use relations to transform inputs into required outputs As a language SQL has two major components A Data Definition Language DDL and a Data Manipulation Language DML for retrieving and updating data Connolyn amp Begg 7 MS SQL Server is a product of Microsoft Corporation It is very efficient in optimising features such as Trigger Managements Microsoft claimed that it is the next generation Data Management and Analys
2. As expected Test successful 2 Online Ordering System Test Expected Result Actual Result Comments Open a web browser and enter the URL Welcome page shown with company logo and appropriate buttons on the sidebar menu non editable data As expected Test successful Use the quick shopping button to open the form and submit shopping lists Quick shopping form opens record shopping lists and emailed to store non editable data As expected Test successful Start shopping Opens the store categories page and list item categories non editable data As expected Test successful View items on mouse click on item category Show lists of items under category with prices non editable data As expected Test successful 73 Move to View details of selected item by clicking on item listed under category Display item s image description and price non editable data As expected Test successful Add item to shopping cart Item added to shopping cart and shopping cart displayed and option given to continue shopping or check out non editable data As expected Test successful Move to remove item from shopping cart Item successfully deleted from shopping cart and evident shown in shopping cart non editable data As expected Test successful Checking out Invalid or no details entered o
3. Write up technical documentation Deploy system Evaluate system Write up Final Report 01 11 2005 21 11 20053 wks if 08 11 2005 14 11 20051 wk 15 11 2005 28 11 20052 wks 22 11 2005 28 11 20051 wk 29 11 2005 05 12 20051 wk 31 01 2006 07 02 2006 14 02 2006 21 02 2006 31 01 2006 13 02 2006 2 wks et _ oo 14 02 2006 27 02 2006 2 wks C oa 28 02 2006 07 03 2006 14 03 2006 21 03 2006 28 02 2006 27 03 2006 4 wks 28 03 2006 04 04 2006 11 04 2006 18 04 2006 25 04 2006 28 03 2006 11 04 2006 2 wks 11 04 2006 17 04 2006 1 wk 11 04 2006 17 04 2006 1 wk 18 04 2006 24 04 2006 1 wk 18 04 2006 24 04 2006 1 wk 28 03 2006 01 05 2006 5 wks Note Number 7 feasibility study eliminated from the final project report 64 APPENDIX D A UML Activity diagram showing the current method of processing customer orders Customer Shop assistant Shop manager Place Customer orders order l Pick order Item Yes available No Deliver order Yes Initialise Purchase order p o P O Arrived Stock shelve i l Chase P O 65 APPENDIX E create table customer Customer_id int not null primary key auto_increment first_Name varchar 30 not null Surname varchar 20 not null Address1 varchar 50 not null Address2 varchar 40 not null city text PostCode varchar 10 not null Tel_No varc
4. when a customer places an order the order is automatically marked pending and populates relevant tables store_items store_orders and strore_orders_items tables The resulting data is then displayed on the screen see Figure 5 7 5 or the user can print a hard copy of this report by simply clicking on the file print icon on the users browser get_order select soi order_id soi sel_item_id si item_title si item_desc soi sel_item_qty soi sel_item_price so order_date so order_name so order_address so order_tel from store_orders_items as soi inner join store_orders as so on soi order_id so order_id inner join store_items as si on soi sel_item_id si item_id where so status pending order by order_id get_order_res mysql_query get_order or die mysql_error Figure 5 7 4 Mysql gery to retrieve new orders 48 New Orders order_id item id item_title item_desc qty price order_date name address telephone 34 14 maltina Nigerian maltina drink 3 2 67 2006 04 02 16 15 07 cummings 67 carr manor drive 01122039558 34 16 blended crayfish small blended pack of crayfish 2 3 98 2006 04 02 16 15 07 cummings 67 carr manor drive 01122039558 34 10 magic hair for hair styling and curly hair for men 1 3 50 2006 04 02 16 15 07 cummings 67 carr manor drive 01122039558 35 16 blended crayfish small blended pack of crayfish 2 3 98 2006 04 02 16 17 37 lennox cummings 89 carr 8495856782 35
5. Contains see Figure 4 2 1 with three participating entities namely Order Invoice and Product Thomas amp Begg 18 refer to relationship of degree three as Ternary The purpose of this is to represent the situation where an invoice contains a customer order and a customer order contains product The relationship between the Customer and the DVD Borrow is a weak entity which has its own attributes see Figure 4 2 2 According to date amp darwen 23 A weak entity is an entity that cannot be uniquely identified by its own attributes alone therefore it must use a foreign key in conjunction with its attributes to create a primary key The foreign key is typically a primary key of an entity it is related to Therefore this would make use of the customer id and the DVD_ID A Customer can place one or more Order which results in a one to many relationship between both relations A customer has the following attributes Customer id first name surname addressl address2 Telephone number town and postcode One Customer Order contains one or more Product One Invoice contains one Order One Employee creates one or more CustomerAccount One Customer has one CustomerAccount One Customer borrows one or more DVD 4 2 2 The Database Schema Elmasri and Navathe 19 state that to ensure a sound database design database schema must adhere to entity and referential integrity These ensure that the primary key is never null and no unmatched
6. aiding integrity maintenance as suggested by Atkinson 26 The system user need not worry about maintaining primary keys for the store_orders new customer customer_accounts employees and store_orders_item tables The item categories store_items and DVD tables does not use auto_increment because these tables contain items that already have a unique identification numbers The borrow table contains a composite key referencing the primary keys on DVD and Customer tables respectively This will allow for the system to tie the customer and DVD tables in other to recognise the borrower of any listed DVD and retrieve their details The composite keys are two or more columns designated together as the primary key Data Types The vast majority of the data type used within the system was the VARCHAR which allows inputs of alphanumeric data items These were used for post code and address fields All the tables that required date time the DATE data type were used to maintain integrity The DATETIME data type was used where a time was needed to be stored such as the storage of new orders in the store_orders_items and store_orders table All Prices fields used the FLOAT data type with a format of 6 2 This imposes all prices to have a maximum of two numbers after the decimal place Other Constraints The fields in the system that should not be left empty in other to maintain data integrity were flagged NOT NULL to ensure that the database
7. recognition rather than recall and aesthetic and minimalist design Recognition is fulfilled by the system menu buttons which are of the same format and color With this basis continued throughout the whole system i e the Inventory Management System and the Online Ordering System the users ability to memorise functions will be reduced which in turn will improve efficiency The aesthetic and minimalist design will not only present information to the user that is relevant it will ensure that the user is not overloaded with information Neilsen 21 Interface of the Inventory Management System USET 7 ES eY DAER DID www adofood com Welcome le Br mew mw O wee Figure 5 2 1 The final iteration of the interface Interface of the Online Ordering System 2KG FOR 71 00 YANS PLANTAINS AND E le UAU Onterpris j e O a a ee o Online Store SHOP ai Figure 5 2 2 The final iteration of the interface 42 The final user interface has been built using HTML Cascading Style Sheets CSS PHP and Java scripts Together these techniques have built functionality validations and usability into the application Following several iterations the final interface was finalised as depicted on Figure 5 2 1 and Figure 5 2 2 These interfaces included further principles outlined by Nielsen 21 Help was a key issue identified that would aid a user considerably althoug
8. 60 Appendix A Project reflection At the beginning of the project I thought I had a clear idea of what I need to do in order to produce the software solution for the client I totally underestimated the workload involved in the development I designed a Gant chart and worked steadily as scheduled on the Gant chart but when I had my mid project meeting with my project supervisor and assessor I soon realised that the Gant chart I was working with is not as realistic as I had thought when I was advised by my assessor and supervisor that I was somewhat 8 weeks behind on the entire project I quickly had to readjust and accelerated the pace of the project My advice to future students is not to underestimate or take for granted the amount of time required in software development and beware project development may take longer than originally anticipated as there may be some unforeseen obstacles that could be encountered such as debugging codes and or something is not working on the code Here goes the old saying earlier the better I would advise all future students undertaking similar project to start at the earliest possible time do not make the same mistake I made by underestimating the amount of time required as this project is very time consuming After the mid project meeting with my supervisor and assessor I had to work late night and on average 14hrs a day in order to complete the project Following the completion of all the neces
9. Display quick shopping page AS Test shopping expected successful Submit quick Send details to store for processing AS Test shopping expected successful form Start shopping Display item category page allow customer to As Test browse for products add items to cart remove expected successful items from cart calculate total amount for that order Checking out Display checkout form that must be filled in AS Test and on submit generate order receipt expected successful 76 Appendix I System screen dumps Welcome To Adonai Virtual Store Categories Please Select a Category to See its Items Please View Your Shopping Cart COSMETICS From hair care products to body creams etc DRINKS Nigerian soft malt drinks to fanta and many more GROCERIES Food items MEAT FISH Fresh and stock fish cowfoot beaf and more Internet Figure 1 Interface of the online ordering system ORE VISIT INSTORE FOR DETAILS Inside Store Item Detail You are viewing GROCERIES gt Fresh tomatoes Description Fresh tomatoes for coocking stew Price 1 00 Select Quantity E Cadoc to Cart k internet Figure 2 Viewing item under groceries categories 77 Figure 3 Viewing the shopping cart SPECIAL OFFERS Your Shopping Cart A Title Size Price Qty Total Price Action Fresh tomatoes 1 00 3 3 00 remove
10. Iterative development approach through the use of PHP scripting language and cascading style sheets were appropriate helps promote consistency of the system However as the development progresses and further functions implemented the system became more and more complex in structure The web based ordering system should enable customers to browse stock availability The prototype ordering system implements the functionality to allow for the browsing of stock and checking of stock availability Figure 7 1 below depicts this action in a screen shot taken from the ordering system www adofood com Inside Store Item Detail ou are viewing COSHETICS gt Clear essence Description body cream skin beutifying milk Price 5 50 Select Quantity Add to Cart Figure 7 1 Browsing items online Develop a prototype inventory management database The inventory management system has been developed and implemented beyond the prototype specifications Figure 5 2 1 in section 5 3 of this report depict the screen dump of the inventory management system A detailed documentation of the implementation and functionality of the inventory management system can be found in Chapter 5 implementation of this report The database should be able to store and retrieve stock information The database has been implemented such that it is able to stock as well as retrieve stock item information Figure 5 6 1 in Cha
11. MySQL version 4 0 21 Apache Web Server version 2 0 52 and PHP version 5 0 2 These software programs were installed on the developer s computer for development purposes Installing Apache and PHP on the developer s computer were achieved through the use self extracting versions of the Apache and the installation of the PHP was achieved by referring to configuration documentation which can be found in PHP amp MYSQL 25 5 2 Database Implementation The initial phase of the implementation was creating the database and its tables As discussed in Chapter 2 MySQL was the chosen database technology This tool allowed for the rapid creation of schema and all tables constructed via a MySQL graphical user interface GUI application called Mysqlyog The Mysql statements that were used to create each table can be found in Appendix E 36 5 2 1 The Database Tables There were twelve tables created that relates to the system s functionality When creating tables in MySQL each table is assigned a name and the table fields are specified Each field specified contains its own name a primary key foreign keys if appropriate data type and field length Primary Key Constraints Some of the tables were assigned with a primary key that was set to auto_increment The primary key would ensure record integrity by uniquely identifying each record entry within the system The auto_increment flag automatically assigns integers in sequence to new records
12. Neilsen 21 Users should not have to wonder whether different words situations or actions mean the same thing by using consistency in system colours to represent the different features available Such design enables users to gain system familiarity The consistency in the inventory management online customer order processing system is in accordance with the general principles of usability defined by Nielsen 21 and will aid the employee and customers as all users quickly becoming accustomed to the system is paramount A number of colours will be tested to identify the ones that best match the menu bar and headings Furthermore Nielsen 21 advised the use of contrasting colours where necessary All errors will be flagged in red colour to stand out against a white background Using contrasting colours will enable users to quickly read data off screen Create Retrieve Update Delete and View actions are dark blue help and information displays are white in a black background Cascading Style Sheets CCS support will be incorporated into every web page According to W3Schools 22 specifying format attributes in one CSS file makes all changes global i e to all pages using the style sheet This also allows for interface consistency throughout the system and easy modification if required All buttons within all forms will be of the same size and all forms containing text boxes will enforce tab indexation and dropdown option lists where necessar
13. S rvet Pages ISP isdscjantivndunieincsiinndinaduadein 17 2 6 3 Hypertext Pre Processor PHP 125 2cci 04 aieteet ieee ecient 17 2 1 Usability ISSU Sinani oane dee sin AE DE E avis 18 2B SECULILY KS AEE E E E E EE 19 2 8 1 Secure Sockets Layer SSL issssscctastcseyseintvsceeecsnyabansvetestetsaeiess 19 2 9 Hosting Web Server Selection 2isssivesseccscvassdasssavnceaceaieseduvaanseacedandeses 19 2 10 Project Amendments ssssssessssesesesssesssssresesseersssseesssereesaseresessseesso 20 RAIDAN IE IAA E E E 20 3 1 Analysis of the Current Business Process sssssseesseeesssssseerrreesssssssee 20 3 2 Current Customer Ordering Process sicher ieee ease 20 3 3 Current Purchase Ordering Process ccssseeccceeeeeeeeeenneeeeeeeeeeeeeenaaees 20 Ded The Existing System aese eaa ea e e a a e Ea Reie 20 3 6 Shortfalls of the Current System cece cesccecceceeeeseeesnneeeeeeeeeeeeeeenaaeees 21 3 7 Analysis of an off the shelf Systems ssssosesseeesssssseeseeeessssssserrreesssssssee 21 3l OrderW Bennie eneret a ie a e ee E aes 21 ZTA Stoekit nondndsaamunon numen n a eRe 23 3 8 The Business Analysis and IT Strategy cccceeeeeeesnnteeeeeeeeeeeeeenaeees 23 3 8 1 IT SWOT Strength Weakness Opportunity and Threats 24 3 9 User R gu ir mentS eseon ea aa ia A a ea RT EnS 25 Requirements Gathering Techniques ccsseeececeeeeeeeeeenneeeeeeeeeeeees 25 3 9 1 Functio
14. Sas ote Ea EE aia ag eee 33 4 5 1 User Interface Desig ms sissasacedsctecy ses saad vatesaeassateasayainsda tc catecsayaasenivaes 33 AS Usability DESIGN 23 4 c0dyseassauceveaveteawan av grnostbedesveveseeyoanss dene eesaeenasaeneiauns 34 4 6 System ArChitectUr essri oni i eE etna we asi aoe eee eee Ga 35 5 0 Implementation eessssssseseseesecceesseceecececsesseceseeseceeceesesesecesessssseseesessessssee 36 5 1 Software Installation accsicsseyssscdascsiecesayassoeadeaatsaeedeststayadnssaasccrsasaveabeasayaes 36 5 2 Database Implementation a 244 ccas0ssyuse eoauacaasasanes de wusaes sponse ce eeasoarocner ens 36 5 21 The Database T aDiSS swith ods nacscsteutesie caer a Remtewbe tare es 37 Primary Key Constraints 234 cscs ccaisdesastasdanadisdes eaves tastes oaaebeauedanaaas 37 DAA TE Ves cies sa e ea e S E E EE A AEE Et 37 Other Constraints serce erehe n E ha ee a ie ieee eons 37 5 3 Implementing the Ordering System cccccccccceeeeeeeeetteeeeeeeeeeeeeenanees 38 5 3 1 The Ordering System Pables cjccsssssasckstestessssnssteachepheszaseanteuetestaszedeses 38 5 3 2 Displaying Categories of Items 2i icccsccccsesaesdeassaanccecstvescsvecaateacedenees 38 5 3 3 Displaying Items Information ssseeesseesssssseeeseeesssssstesrreessssssserreee 39 5 3 4 Implementing the Shopping Cart basket ccccceceeeeeeeeeennteeeeeeees 39 5 3 5 Adding Items to Cart basket ccccccccccceeessesssnneeeeeeeeeeseeennnaeeeeeeees 40
15. a table When a user is not logged in the shop name will only be displayed with limited functionality buttons Shackle amp Richardson 20 state that the user should not be able to access parts of the system that are not appropriate to them Therefore the Menu buttons on the side will display the number of buttons available to a user depending on their access privilege The contents will be displayed in the middle of the page a Help button will also be available on each screen and finally a search box will be located near the menu buttons on the side And other marketing information such as discount offers and adverts will be present across the top of the page in the INFO BAR PHP HTML JavaScript are used to create the interface Browse SHOP LOGO y Search box INFO BAR Menu buttons Page Contents Menu buttons Help Figure 4 5 1 Website Interface Layout oni 33 4 5 2 Usability Design The basic usability framework used in the design of the system is such that it promotes ease of use In three summarised easy steps a typical customer can complete a basic task by simply browsing for items then choose item and then checkout The chain of event will be mapped across the top off every page indicating what stage the customer is in within the page in the form of a simple diagram as shown below in Figure 4 5 2 Consistency according to
16. and on this occasion Java server pages will not be chosen at the moment however it may be considered during the course of the project should it be necessary to do so 2 6 3 Hypertext Pre Processor PHP The PHP Hypertext Pre processor is a scripting language that allows web developers to create dynamic content that interacts with databases PHP is basically used for developing web based software applications Wikipedia com 10 17 PHP can be used on all major operating systems including Linux and many Unix PHP has also support for most of the web servers today This includes Apache Microsoft Internet Information Server Personal Web Server Netscape and iPlanet servers Oreilly Website Pro server Caudium Xitami OmniHTTPd and many others For the majority of the servers PHP has a module for the others supporting the CGI standard PHP can work as a CGI processor So with PHP there is the freedom of choosing an operating system and a web server Furthermore there is a choice of using procedural programming or object oriented programming or a mixture of them Although not every standard OOP feature is implemented in PHP 4 many code libraries and large applications including the PEAR library are written using only Object Oriented Programming OOP code PHP 5 fixes the OOP related weaknesses of PHP 4 and introduces a complete object model With PHP there is no limitation to output HTML PHP s abilities includes outputting im
17. be validated within the client s browser to reduce error and increase throughput in processing of orders Test successful The execution of user demands as rapidly and efficiently as possible Test successful To be able to handle the anticipated volume of data including throughput and storage Test successful 81 Maintenance Allowing shop manager to undertake simple routine housekeeping tasks such as database backing up Test successful The system shall be scalable it shall be able to grow with the business allowing future updates and modifications to the system Test successful To have security features such as passwords where necessary for access to the system Data Protection Act and backup procedures Test successful Usability Result To be able to operate on any platform Such as Microsoft Windows and Mac Operating systems Test successful To be able to operate within any major web browser such as Internet Explorer Netscape Mozzilla and others Test successful Use of uniform colours and text layout throughout the system maintaining consistency within the Interface Test successful Allow a user to cancel an action and navigate forward or backward within the application Test successful System should have familiar and easy to use interface that can be learned in a short period of time by the user Test successful
18. capabilities 21 The OrderWise systems key features that could meet the summarised below user requirements are Key Features Product audit e User trail e Pronet groping configurabl Batch e Product usage forecasting e fields traceability e Seasonal trend forecasting A gee Serial no e Fast amp flexible product configurabl traceability searching e grids Expiry date e Stock turnover control traceability Reet uae Expy Date Compatible Single item Fe R k locati with most traceability reels 2 tp estoc ocanons leading of cable bars of Flexible customer pricing accounts sieele vats of Discount Structures Price packages li quid etc Lists Special Prices Special Canbe Multiple product Se e Global used as a purchase and sale Ree anue standalone unit quantities ROPAS system Table 3 7 1 source www orderwise co uk Strengths OrderWise can be used as a standalone system and it enables the user of the system total control over inventory information This would be a key feature of any system Adonai would want to implement as stock is the main asset of the company OrderWise also offer the ability to control stock turnover and flexible customer pricing Implementing these tools in a system would be welcomed by customers Weakness OrderWise is a system that deals with stock control and all issues related to good inventory management however it does not fully address the issue of online custome
19. customers 7 The system shall automatically calculate the price that the customer must pay for an order 8 The system shall allow the user to add edit and delete customers product and orders to and from the system 9 The system shall be able to produce the following reports e Customer Details e Product Details e Stock Level Details e Overdue Dvds e Lists of Debtors e Dvd Details e Dvd Borrowings e Employees Details 10 The system shall allow for the issuing of dvd to customers 11 The system shall record dvd details include id title and description 12 The system shall record employee name address tel no post code 13 The ordering system shall allow user to add items to the shopping cart 14 The ordering system shall allow user to remove items from the shopping cart Constraints 1 Storage of address entries to a maximum of two excluding the City and Postcode fields 2 The system should not allow an order to be confirmed if the order line shopping basket is empty 3 Numeric integrity constraints will be enforced on fields which must contain numeric data 4 The system should not allow an order to be confirmed if the order the delivery details formed is not filled in 26 3 9 2 Non Functional Requirements Performance All user inputs must be validated within the client s browser to reduce error and increase throughput in processing of orders The execution of user demands as rapidly
20. die mysql_error redirect to showcart page header Location showcart PHP exit Figure 5 3 7 Viewing the Shopping Cart 5 3 8 Checking out Orders The checking out process is very straight forward as there will not be any credit card processing involved due to the requirement of the client A form checkout html and checkout php has been created to tackle the checking out process The html file uses java scripts and HTML to take and validate users input before calling the php file to process the form and send the orders to the inventory management system by automatically populating relevant tables within the system 5 4 User Interface Implementation using Iterative Approach To conform to SDLC and the Waterfall model methodology defined in Chapter 2 a standard interface prototype was created thus allowing the developer to further improve the design during numerous iterations whilst adhering to the usability framework as identified in Chapter 4 According to Neilsen 21 this process is advantageous as it allows designers to take advantage of any insights into user needs that emerge from the tests these insights can then be used to improve the interface from iteration to iteration The Standard Interface Prototype Figure 5 1 The first iteration of the interface 41 The initial iteration of the interface design dealt with the important principles identified by Neilsen 21 such as
21. end of development However the analysis and design phases were examined to ensure that all the requirements were being catered for It may have been better to also iterate these phases to ensure that requirements were met while possibly saving more time for development The original and revised Gantt charts are illustrated in Appendixes B and C respectively Initially a time period was dedicated to the feasibility study phase however it was later decided by the developer that this would consume more project time and therefore it would be more appropriate to include the feasibility stage with the analysis phase of the project thereby saving some much needed development time 7 5 Evaluation of Chosen Technologies PHP scripting language was considered to be far easier during the implementation phase and the developer felt PHP script were a superior choice particularly when connecting to MySQL The Apache PHP MyAdmin interface catered for connectivity between the MySQL database and PHP views MySQL database allowed for all the requirements to be fulfilled However MySQL does not currently support views Therefore this downfall required the explicit creation of displaying particular fields each with a specified alias and resulted in rather complex queries To ensure consistency throughout the system CSS implementation allowed all pages to adhere to the same textual and layout format Changing the properties in a single CSS file meant changes were
22. global to the entire system and therefore timesaving 55 7 6 Evaluation of Design Stage The preliminary database schema needed to be readjusted and further entities were identified and introduced were necessary as the development progresses Most entities were further decomposed and normalised to an appropriate degree The usability design also had to be reworked to adhere to the defined usability issues identified in Chapter 2 and cater for varied users such as experts and novices 7 7 Evaluation of Implementation The process of implementation was carried out effectively and thoroughly which resulted in the delivery of an effective solution In the initial implementation installation and configuration of the required software applications Apache PHP and MySQL on the developers computer was one of the problematic task And also the creation of the shopping cart for the online ordering system was problematic This required successful operation between the MySQL database PHP engines and Apache webserver The implementation was adhered to a rapid and iterative development approach of the system as it was divided into sub phases which helped the developer concentrate on one phase at a time This ensured that the developer could test the system at each stage and ensuring that all requirements were met before developing the next phase of the system 7 8 Usability Evaluation A number of potential users have been tasked to evaluate the onlin
23. of the project and a greater degree of confidence about the probability of success for the project should be justified otherwise a decision to abandon the project would be reached Avison and Fitzgerald 1 criticised this model as only the most important requirements are defined and implemented first Following feedback from the client more sophisticated functionality is implemented The major problem with this approach is that if the client has unintentionally missed an important requirement late into the development process such changes could prove very costly This can occur easily if the client developer or even both parties misunderstand the requirements specification More over this methodology is said to be more useful with large scale projects Therefore it would not be appropriate for this project 2 4 Methodology Choice I have decided to use the SDLC methodology while incorporating an iterative approach borrowed from the Waterfall model in the implementation and testing phases As I have earlier mentioned the client Adonis shop and the developer has a clear idea of what is required of the system therefore revisiting analysis and design phases of the project extensively could result in bottleneck and valuable project time could be consumed unnecessarily To ensure that the implementation provides a functional solution for the client iteration will be carried out at Testing and Implementation phases respectively See diagram below
24. successful Showitem php file Provide option to add to Test successful successfully linked to add item to cart and addtocart php showcart Showcart php file Open checkout form Test successful successfully linked to checkout html Checkout html Successfully generate Test successful successfully linked to order receipts and clear checkout php shopping cart on completion of shopping Integrating all buttons and links Test Expected result Comment Maintenance menu button Display login page Test successful successfully linked to login php file Quick view button Display pages Test successful successfully linked to appropriate pages corresponding to appropriate button 79 View Edit and Delete links successfully linked to individual file View performs view php functions Edit performs edit php and Delete performs delete php functions accordingly Test successful 80 APPENDIX K USER ACCEPTANCE TESTING Functional requirements Result The database shall be able to store and retrieve stock information such as an item id quantity in stock price minimum level and description Test successful The database shall be able to store and retrieve customer details such as The name address town postcode and their telephone number and id Test successful The web based inventory system shall allow for the creation of customer accounts Test succes
25. system and will be granted access to update modify delete and or amend any record within the system A customer can access the website without loging in however they will be restricted to certain functions and will not be able to modify any inventory record The reason for this technique is that research evidence suggests that passwords and logins can be problematic for customers and could also deter potential customer thereby resulting in loss of sales 35 4 6 2 Physical design for the website StreamlineNet PHP webserver 5 i MySQL J gt gt O gt J g lt n Customer P Inventory system Inventory management ee online customer order processing system Ordering system Figure 4 6 2 Employee 5 0 Implementation This Chapter details the tasks which was performed in order to implement the Design as described in Chapter 4 The installation of relevant software required for the system development was explained This Chapter documents the sequences of operations performed in order to implement a system that would meet the requirements The Chapter will also discuss database server applications and security implementation that occurred during this phase of the project 5 1 Software Installation The software necessary for creating the required system was available through a CD ROM that came with a textbook called PHP MYSQL amp APACHE 24 The CD ROM includes
26. the reasons it has been decided that MySQL would be the choice of database to be used as procedures that are faster tend to be more efficient Easy to learn ease of learning determines how quickly new users can learn to accurately perform a task procedure for example the steps taken for a particular customer to open a new customer ordering account online should be kept to an absolute minimum as research evidence suggests that the fewer steps a procedure contains the easier it is to learn Error tolerant Error tolerance is determined by how well errors are prevented how easily they are detected and identified when they occur and how easily they are corrected once they are identified Brink Gergle amp Wood 13 The stock control and customer order processing system would be automated and minimise the number of manual entries when customers are placing their orders in order to reduce input errors extensive input validations will be performed within the browser at run time without even accessing the database in the server 18 2 8 Security Issues 2 8 1 Secure Sockets Layer SSL Secure Sockets Layer is a system for encrypting data sent over the Internet including e commerce transactions and passwords With SSL client and server computers exchange Public Keys PK allowing them to encode and decode their communication Due to the nature of this project security will depend entirely on the web server hosting company However it i
27. the software and the shop manager using it briefly The results of the testing procedures can be found in Appendix K 7 0 Evaluation This Chapter deals with the evaluation of the entire project by starting with the assessment of how the minimum requirements were achieved The project will then be evaluated against the functional requirements defined by the user this will verify whether the project meets the needs of the user by solving the problems as specified at the beginning This will then follow by the evaluation of the system s usability This is because poor usability was one of the major drawback of the previous system In addition methodology used in the project will be evaluated to determine whether project management was carried out effectively And finally the system will be compared against similar existing systems to enable the evaluation of the quality of the system and also help conclude whether the development of this system was worthwhile 7 1 Meeting the Minimum Requirements Develop a prototype web based ordering system The Design and Implementation Chapters of this report document how the web based order system was designed and implemented Section 5 3 Figure 5 2 2 shows the interface prototype of the ordering system Detailed screen dumps of the ordering system can be 51 found in Appendix I Following the development of the system s prototype implementing other function to enhance the system was a clear cut
28. 14 maltina Nigerian maltina drink 3 2 67 2006 04 02 16 17 37 lennox cummings 89 carr 8495856782 38 16 blended crayfish small blended pack of crayfish 1 1 99 2006 04 03 15 47 15 livingstone turker 54 carr manor drive 01132178741 38 20 Crayfish Dried crayfish not blended 2 3 98 2006 04 03 15 47 15 livingstone turker 54 carr manor drive 01132178741 38 15 YAM fresh yam 1 50 kg Tyne Line Error 2 50 2006 04 03 15 47 15 livingstone turker 54 carr manor drive 01132178741 Figure 5 7 5 Resulting picking list from new orders Checking Stock Level The stock level details can be retrieved by using the lowitems php file to lookup the store_items table and return all quantities less than or equal to the minimum stock level Again the result will be displayed on screen or the user can print out a hard copy The SQL statement for this is get_lowitems select item_id item_title item_desc item_price qty_instock from store_items where qty_instock lt item_minlevel order by qty_instock get_lowitems_res mysql_query get_lowitems or die mysql_error Retrieving Lists of Debtors This is achieved by clicking on debtors button which then looks up all customer accounts and retrieve payment outstanding over a specified period of time This implementation was achieved by concatenating relevant tables within the database as shown below get_debtors select a customer_id a outstanding_balance c first_na
29. 17 the purpose of the analysis phase is to Figure out what the business needs The purpose of the design phase is to decide how to build it This Chapter will deal with the logical physical design and architecture design of the proposed system The design phase has been split into three different parts The System s Process Modelling which involves the creation of Data Flow Diagrams DFD showing the overall business process and the data flows to and from external entities and data stores The second part is the design of the Data Modelling which involves the creation of Entity Relationship Diagrams for the database and the third part deals with the design of the overall System Architecture which involves the hardware and network connectivity Normalisation Functional Dependencies and Database Constraints will be dealt with in this Chapter also The final component of this Chapter will detail the design of the user interfaces 4 1 Process Modeling 4 1 1 The Context Data Flow Diagram DFD of the Proposed System The context DFD shows the overall business process as just one process ie the Integrated Inventory Management system online customer order processing system itself D1 customer information D2__ inventory information Add edit delete item from order Inventory adjustments inventory Display items Browse for items Stock update Customer Shop Manager Integrated in
30. 3 1 0 Introduction This chapter details a general overview of Adonai African and Caribbean shop business strategy It outlines the aims and objectives for the project specifies the minimum requirement possible extensions discussed and it identifies the deliverables In addition the chapter gives a brief overview of the project significance to the developer s degree program and a brief information on the layout of this report 1 1 Overview of Adonai Shop Adonai shop specialises in selling African and Caribbean groceries and household products and also offers a number of services which includes money transfer abroad and the renting of DVDs and VCRs of African films The shop opened in 2001 in Leeds The vast majority of Adonai products are export goods although some of the products are purchased from other wholesalers in the UK mainland such as London and Manchester The shop is currently managed by the staff the manager and the till cashier With the implementation of new e commerce technologies the manager hopes to expand the business and employ more staff 1 2 Problem Definition Adonai shop is a small business striving to compete in a segmented market share Sales revenues have gone up since the shop opened in Leeds There are a number of regular customers in and around cities near Leeds that purchase items from the store on credit and their details are written on paper Customers can place orders via the phone and the infor
31. 5 3 6 Viewing the Shopping Cart basket eeeeeeesseeeeceeeeeeseeetnneeeeeeeees 40 5 3 7 Removing Items from the Shopping Cart basket eeeeseeeeeeeees 41 5 3 8 Checking out Orders sseeesseesssssseeeeeessssssesereerssssssserreeesssssssereeee 41 5 4 User Interface Implementation using Iterative Approach 00 41 5 5 System File Structure sc vccsesccussascsigedoavssnouaseawsetecaloseaseaa ease eais eai 43 3 6 SECURELY and Privacy seede a a a E RE e a ER E ma aaaee 45 DO PASS WOES ae a a r a E e a a i elec 45 5 6 2 Session Enabling oesisrecnseenute dinana 46 5 6 3 MySQL Injection Vulnerability eee eeeenneecceeeeeeeeeennneeeeeeeees 46 5 7 System PUNCHOMALIY 21s seaes 20 ee peses eveavadeaceseneei cetenddascevenvescceneuiveceteseuediacess 46 5 7 1 Viewing Editing and Deleting Records ee eeeeeeeseeeeeeeeneeeeeee 46 5 1 2 Addim Records asini esii isen tienes daria sien aetn E E E Ea ak 47 5 13 Searching Tot Recordsa E a deosoaceaneueeeeee 47 5 1 4 Generating REPOrtS 5 55 504 ieestssss tenceresi grst copei eses btao teses 48 Retrieving Customer Orders esssseeesesseeeeseressssretssserersrsrrersssrreeessee 48 Checkins Stock Level scssi piripi n ar E pis 49 Retrieving Lists of Debtors eessssseesesssersssrressssrressserersrsrrersssrressseree 49 Retrieving Products and Customer Details eeeseeeeeseneeeeeeeeees 49 6 0 System Testiht nessis essre sisseseade asees issau aaiae 49
32. 6 1 Sample Data Deployment sssseeeesseeeessseeesssressssresrssrersrsrreerssrressssress 50 6 2 Software Module Testing ssssseeeeseeesssssseeeeeeesssssserreeeessssssserereeessssseee 50 6 3 Black Box Testing sississcicccsassdavsssesi insiren tns eni niei aan 50 64 White BOX Testina oera E ea R E e E A A RRN 50 6 5 System Integration Testing ihc tienes tein Aste tee ee ee eles 51 6 6 User Acceptance Testing ciicsss cassassacccniescseinssensacaceaconanaaaactaadeacsetnavannaaadeae 51 7 0 Evaluation oi ds casas ceded iesdicaasassecnceueds aiseressasnsesdsceaseedstaasescededsusconsasasdscsacuedsass 51 7 1 Meeting the Minimum Requirement 2 0 0 0 eeeeeeeeeeessneeeeeeeseeeeeeenaes 51 7 2 Exceeding the Minimum Requirements is2 i2 2022testessicendeedetegsessieceeesteseie 54 7 3 Future System Enhancement x s21 d 0 issccdstssudecetsivectetieiausdeseseatavdevadase 54 7 3 1 Customer Online Accounts Creation eeeceeeesseeeeeeesneeeeeeenneeeeeeseaes 54 7 3 2 Improved Administrator Features 22 is sedsenntesinlien ies aiinientinviatins 54 7 3 3 Automatically Generate Purchase Orders c cccceeeeeseeeeeneeeeeeeeeeeeees 55 7 3 4 Customisable Interface and Page Layout cc ccceeeseeeenteeeeeeeeeeeeees 55 7 4 Evaluation of Chosen Methodology ceseessseeecceceeeeeeeennneeeeeeeeeeeeeees 55 7 5 Evaluation of Chosen Technologies eseseesseeeceeeeeeseeeenneeeeeeeeeeeeeees 55 7 6 Evaluation of D
33. CK af Rename this folder g Move this folder IN P Copy this Folder mi 2 Publish this Folder to the Web VOICES fad Share this folder 3 6 Shortfalls of the Current System Following the analysis of the current system several limitations will need to be addressed in the new system Firstly it is not often apparent when stock levels are running low Due to the nature of the system data duplication is inevitable as several spreadsheets hold individual customer suppliers addresses which was already recorded elsewhere The system needs to reduce the amount of paper work to improve speed of order processing and efficiency of inventory management and eliminate data inconsistency Usability issue as I have earlier discussed in Chapter 2 has not been considered during the design of the current system as it is very unusable to novice without good excel knowledge 3 7 Analysis of an off the shelf Systems There are a number of similar off the shelf System available on the market some of those systems offer a variety of functionalities which caters for most of the problems specified above Following some research two off the shelf packages have been identified and the systems will be fully examined to determine whether the solutions they offer could be adopted 3 7 1 OrderWise OrderWise is a stock control and order processing software its developers claimed that it could expand your current stock control and order processing
34. Fundamentals of Database Systems 4 edition 2003 Addison Wesley 20 Shackle amp Richardson Human Factors for Informatics Usability Cambridge University Press 1991 21 Jakob Neilsen s Ten usability heuristics 2002 cited 04th February 2006 Available from http www useit com papers heuristic heuristic_list html 22 CSS tutorial http www w3schools com css default asp cited 05th februry 2006 23 C J Date Hugh Darwen Nikos A Lorentzos Temporal Data and the relational model 2003 Morgan Kaufmann 24 Julie C Meloni PHP Mysql and Apache second edition 2005 SAMS 25 Vikram Vaswani how to do everything with PHP amp MYSQL 2005 McGrawHill 26 Atkinson L Core MySQL The Serious Developer s Guide 2002 Prentice Hall 27 Sommerville I Software Engineering 6th Edition 2001 Boston Addison Wesley 28 Jennifer Niederst Webdesign in a Nutshell A Desktop Quick Reference Second Edition 2001 O Reilly amp Associates Inc 29 Paul Bocij Dave Chaffey Andrew Greasley amp Simon Hickie Business Information Systems 3 Edition 2006 Prentice Hall 30 G Winfield Treese Lawrence C Stewart Designing Systems for Internet Commerce Second Edition 2002 Addison Wesley 31 Donald Yeates and Tony Wakefield System Analysis and Design Second Edition 2004 Prentice Hall 32 Alan Dennis Barbara Haley Wixom Systems Analysis Design Second Edition 2003 John Wiley amp sons
35. IIS internet information server and therefor this made it platform dependent i e MS Windows Operating systems only ASP would not be suitable for this project due to its limitation for sole use with IIS and the cost of purchasing it 2 6 2 Java Server Pages JSP Java Server Pages JSP technology enables Web developers and designers to rapidly develop and easily maintain information rich dynamic Web pages that leverage existing business systems As part of the Java technology family JSP technology enables rapid development of Web based applications that are platform independent JSP technology separates the user interface from content generation enabling designers to change the overall page layout without altering the underlying dynamic content In Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition J2EE v1 4 JSP technology has simplified the page and extension development models with the introduction of a simple expression language tag files and a simpler tag extension API among other features This makes it easier to build pages based on JSP technology java sun com 12 In comparison with PHP JSP there are similarities in both scripting languages However JSP offers more advanced features and capabilities such as the Standard Tag Library JSTL The main benefit of this library is that it has the ability for a simple formatting of data within the JSP page without altering the database in the server Although PHP does offer a more flexible choice
36. INTEGRATED INVENTORY MANAGEMENT amp ONLINE CUSTOMER ORDER PROCESSING SYSTEM FOR ADONAI AFRICAN amp CARIBBEAN SHOP BY Livingston C Turker COMPUTING amp MANAGEMENT SESSION 2005 2006 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is their own and the appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others I understand that failure to attribute material which is obtained from another source may be considered as plagiarism Signature of Student ccccccsssssssssscrceees Summary The aim of the project was to design and implement an Inventory Management and Online Customer Order Processing Systems for Adonai African amp Caribbean Shop The shop specialises in selling African and Caribbean products from groceries items to cosmetics The shop also offers various services which includes renting out African films and Money transfers Adonai Shop currently use basic Ms Applications to manage inventory records and all business related processes Due to the constantly changing business environment which has led to an increase in the number of credit customers and product range available Adonai therefore recorgnised the need for a system that would enable them in the processing of customer orders and managing the inventory records and also assist in the provision of other business services such as the renting of the DVD films and thereby improving the efficiency of business processes The p
37. MS note pad 5 3 1 The Ordering System Tables In total three tables are required namely store_categories store_items and store_item_size Although the table named store_items has already been implemented in previous section during the implementation of the inventory management database Table Name Attributes store_categories Cat_id cat_title cat_desc store_items Item_id cat_id item_title item_price item_desc item_image store_item_size Item_id item_size Table 5 3 1 ordering system tables The store_category table has two attributes besides the cat_id attribute cat_title and cat_desc for the title and description The cat_id is the primary key and cat_title is a unique field because there s no reason to have two identical categories In the store_items table the cat_id attribute relates the item to a particular category in the store_categories table This attribute is not unique because we will want more than one item in each category The item_image attribute will hold a filename in this case its assumed to be local to the server which will be used to build an HTML lt IMG gt tag when it is time to display the item information The store_item_size table is optional However it has been implemented for the purpose of system scalability as specified in the user requirement in Chapter 3 This will enable the client to store complex items information in the future if for examp
38. Requirements seseeeeseeesessreeesseressssrresrsereesssrrersserresssereess 10 1 6 Possible Extensions necerto oaeen ates cect eects 10 1 7 Deliverables i ssiscedecciyisasvuineid irea EE EEE EE E E iia 10 1 8 Project Relevance to Degree Program sssseesseessssssseeserersssssseereres 10 1 9 Pr ject Scheduleriin Oe ee tiie ee eerie 10 1 10 Progress Report sic2 cisec2e4 Hadeteavdaistia veetvesendeast sa dariniais 10 2 0 Background research sisicsssscssdascesdicaacecdecantacdicancnsdadaatesdacaateseacencessadiadacdaces 11 2 1 Methodology Process models and technology selection 11 2 2 Structured System Analysis and Design Methodology SSADM 12 2 3 System Development Life Cycle eseeeeeeeeeeeseeseeresererssserersssrrersserrees 12 2 3 1 The Waterfall Model x sss 3 4sscecteseesaahssiscsdnviesncsdas eed baxeseanaianedeccoress 12 2 3 2 The V Model veir ansees a a a a a a a iSS 12 2 3 3 The Spiral Model issssiiisssiinenisiteniciseniis kaiini kiniinin 13 2A Methodology CHOICE srsti sssigoise roiret veis eenei e 13 2 5 Selecting appropriate Database System sssseesssesssssseerereesssssseerreee 14 ASEMS SOL Server Caa a oats a dasvsgaagi acs da masteds 14 2 9 2 POstgreSQ D e e enie eean ie sa Gia eaan oa AE bana ta oi ieii 14 Dedede S O EEE A S 14 2 6 Selecting a Server Side Scripting Language cccccceeeeeeeeeenteeeeeeees 17 2 Ol Active Server F ABER hac rb i WR moe eect beara R A 17 2 0 2 Java
39. Result Actual Comments Result Click dvd List of all the dvd id title and As Test successful button from description in dvd table non editable expected sidebar menu data Click List of all the dvd transactions to date As Test successful dvd_history including CUSTOMER _ID expected button from DVD_ID DATE BORROWED sidebar menu DUE_DATE FINE RETURNED Y N in borrow table non editable data Click account List of all customer accounts details As Test successful button from including ACCOUNT_NO expected sidebar menu CUSTOMER_ID CREDIT LIMIT OUTSTANDING BALANCE ORDER ID from customer_accounts table non editable data Click on Generate picking lists for all new and As Test successful New_orders pending orders by listing the expected Although the initial button from following data order_id item_id test failed and sidebar menu item_title item_desc qty price corrective actions order_date name address telephone where taken to non editable data rectify the query Click on List all the inventory records AS Test successful product button including ITEM_ID CAT_ID TITLE expected Although the initial from the PRICE DESCRIPTION test failed and sidebar menu MIN_STOCK_LEVEL QUANTITY corrective actions IN STOCK in the store_items table where taken to non editable data rectify the query Click on the Display the menu page for report AS Test successful Reports button creation with different report buttons expected from the a
40. SWOT Analysis of Adonai Current Information System Applications Application SWOT Conclusion Action BT AOL Internet Adequate as it provides Keep broadband access to the internet with email client Microsoft Excel Inadequate as its Discard spreadsheets drawback outweigh the benefits it brings to the business with little functionalities Email Adequate as it is useful for Keep communicating with suppliers and customers Table 3 8 1 The Strength Weakness Opportunity and Threat SWOT analysis above clearly shows that the current application used at Adonai shop does not meet the requirements of the business Microsoft Excel spreadsheet does not offer the full functionality that is required to meet the business objectives Therefore the Excel spreadsheet should be discarded The AOL Internet broadband is adequate for the business as it provides useful benefits to the business suppliers and its customers The use of e mail clearly advances the business and 24 allows customers suppliers to communicate with Adonai shop in a more convenient manner According to Davis amp Benemati 15 e mail is one of the most powerful co operative tools however commercial use of e mail is still relatively immature and despite it s widespread use few businesses understand its nature constraints benefits and issues For these reasons it was concluded that both the e mail and the AOL Internet broadband should be kept an
41. Smoked Prawn 3 99 3 11 97 remove Clear essence 5 50 2 11 00 remove Total Amount 25 97 Please continue to shop Check out items gt AORE VISIT INSTORE FOR DETAILS Delivery details Please enter details below fields marked must be filled in otherwise we will not be able to process your order POST_CODE TEL_No i E MAIL checkout out Figure 4 Checking out form 78 Appendix J System Integration Testing Integrating Inventory Management System with the Online Ordering system Test Expected result Comment File viewitem php on ordering system to interact with inventory management system Items retrieved from database and displayed on ordering system Test successful File checkout php on ordering system to interact with inventory management system Auto populate store_orders store_orders_items tables on the inventory management system Test successful Global system integration using CSS file Test Expected result Comment Default css file to format all page layout within the inventory management system Uniform colours and fonts displayed across all pages Test successful Integrating appropriate php and html files for the systems Test Expected result Comment File seestore2 php successfully linked to view item php and showcart php Display items via link and show cart via link Test
42. System will help the client carry out the tasks and achieve their goals effectively and efficiently by using drop down lists where appropriate Test successful System shall keep response times to user interaction to a minimum Test successful 82 APPENDIX L LEVEL 1 DFD SHOWING THE INVENTORY MANAGEMENT ONLINE CUSTOMER ORDER PROCESSING SYSTEM Reserve item Browse for item 1 4 D display item lt Take customer order Inventory record 4 D2 Order record select item Customer details Credit limit 2 Login details Create customer account Customer record D4 Customer accounts Create new customer 3 Update stock level Employee Retrieve stock report Update inventory Inventory adjustments Customer detail 4 4 Ds Employee Due date Issue DVDs VCRs DVD record D6 Borrow record 83
43. The purpose of Unit Testing is to ensure that each software module in the system functions properly as specified in the requirements This testing strategy was applied to each module in the system These test procedures ensured that valid input data was accepted and invalid data was rejected Each unit within the application was tested to verify that all links and buttons navigated as expected Usability testing has also been incorporated to examine whether error messages are clear and understood The database schema was also monitored to ensure insertions updates and deletes were occurring and with the expected changes The results for software module Testing can be found in Appendix F All the tests have proved successful For those tests which failed initially the causing factor was identified and remedial action was taken in order to pass the test concerned The detail of remedial action taken has been documented in Appendix F 6 3 Black Box Testing The purpose of Black Box or functional testing is to assess the system s internal workings However the overall aim of this test strategy is to examine results without knowing how the system arrived at that result In effect a tester only requires knowledge of the system specification rather than underlying architecture This caters for such testing to be performed from an end user s perspective rather than a Designer s perspective Furthermore any ambiguities that may exist between the Black B
44. Write up technical documentation Deploy system Evaluate system Write up Final Report START 01 11 2005 01 11 2005 08 11 2005 15 11 2005 22 11 2005 29 11 2005 31 01 2006 31 01 2006 14 02 2006 28 02 2006 28 02 2006 28 03 2006 11 04 2006 11 04 2006 18 04 2006 18 04 2006 28 03 2006 FINISH DURATION 01 11 2005 08 11 2005 15 11 2005 22 11 2005 29 11 2005 14 11 20052 wks 21 11 20053 wks 14 11 20051 wk 28 11 20052 wks 28 11 20051 wk 05 12 2005 1 wk 06 02 2006 1 wk 13 02 2006 2 wks 27 02 2006 2 wks 27 03 2006 4 wks 27 03 2006 4 wks 11 04 2006 2 wks 17 04 2006 1 wk 17 04 2006 1 wk 24 04 2006 1 wk 24 04 2006 1 wk 01 05 2006 5 wks 31 01 2006 07 02 2006 14 02 2006 21 02 2006 28 02 2006 07 03 2006 14 03 2006 21 03 2006 28 03 2006 04 04 2006 11 04 2006 18 04 2006 25 04 2006 M 63 APPENDIX C PROJECT SCHEDULE FINAL GANT CHART No TASK OORUN 0 m 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 START FINISH DURATION 01 11 2005 08 11 2005 15 11 2005 22 11 2005 29 11 2005 Problem definition aims and requirements 01 11 2005 14 11 20052 wks Meetings with Adonai manager Interview with Shop assistants Methodologies amp technologies research Finalise methodoly and technology Finalise mid project report System investigation and analysis System design Implementation The inventory manager Implementation The ordering web site System testing amp Integration Write up a User Manual
45. a selection of different methodologies technologies and indicates their level of importance in a given information system development It also gives detailed justification of the chosen methodology that the project will adhere to This chapter also looks at usability and security concerns and their importance to the overall proposed system 2 1 Methodology Process Models and Technology Selection An Information Systems Methodology is defined as a collection of procedures techniques tools and documentation aids which will help the system developers in their efforts to implement a new Information System Avison and Fitzgerald 1 There are a number of methodologies to be chosen from when developing an information system Selecting which one to be used depends entirely on the nature of the project being considered If the conventional Software Development Life Cycle SDLC is to be used therefore it is important that the chosen methodology covers all or the vast majority of the individual phases in the SDLC Figure 1 depict various methodologies and their scope in terms of what aspects or phases of the SDLC they covered METHODOLOGIES SDLC PHASE STRADIS MERISE JSD OOA ISAC EHTICS SSM PI Strategy Feasibility Analysis Logical design Physical design Programming z Testing Implementation Evaluation M
46. ages PDF files and even Flash movies using libswf and Ming generated on the fly You can also output easily any text such as XHTML and any other XML file PHP can auto generate these files and save them in the file system instead of printing it out forming a server side cache for a dynamic content Php net 11 One of the strongest and most significant features in PHP is its support for a wide range of databases Writing a database enabled web page is incredibly simple And most importantly for the purpose of this project and the requirement of the client PHP supports MySQL Therefore it would be appropriate to use PHP as the scripting language as the choice of database as earlier mentioned is a MySQL 2 7 Usability Issues Usability is defined as the degree to which people users can perform a set of required tasks It is the product of several sometimes conflicting design goal Brink Gergle amp Wood 13 Functionally correct the primary criterion for usability is that the Customer ordering system and Inventory management system correctly performs the functions that the users need such as purchase items online If the system does not allow customers to do this it would be rendered useless Efficient to use efficiency can be measured by the time or actions required to perform a task for example transaction time with regards to customer details retrieval from the database via the web interface should be reasonable This is one of
47. aintenance LEGEND Phase addressed in detail Phase Not fully addressed Figure 1 0 C Basics of phase addressed Blank phase not covered at all Source Avison and Fitzgerald 1 As shown in fig 1 0 above the shaded areas indicate that the methodology covers the stage in some details which may include the provision of specific techniques and tools of support An unshaded area means that the methodology addresses that area 11 but in less detail and depth and the broken lines indicate areas that are only briefly mentioned in the methodology 2 2 Structured System Analysis and Design Methodology SSADM SSADM is a methodology developed for and by the British Government for use in the Public Sector This methodology is largely developed to cater for the implementation of database system although it can be applied to other non database systems Avison and Fitzgerald 1 As the vast majority of this project involves a database inventory management system development it would be appropriate to consider or use this methodology along side others in order to achieve the requirements of the client and the project 2 3 System Development Life Cycle According to Chrisanthi Avgeron and Tony Cornford 2 the System Development Life Cycle SDLC is one of the more traditional approaches to software development as the model has been used extensively for more than 30 years SDLC is a model for d
48. and efficiently as possible The system will rollback transactions such as update appointment incase of hardware or software failure To be able to handle the anticipated volume of data including throughput and storage Maintenance Allowing shop manager to undertake simple routine housekeeping tasks such as database backing up The system shall be scalable it shall be able to grow with the business allowing future updates and modifications to the system To have security features such as passwords where necessary for access to the system Data Protection Act and backup procedures Usability To be able to operate on any platform Such as Microsoft Windows and Mac Operating systems To be able to operate within any major web browser such as Internet Explorer Netscape Mozzilla and others Use of uniform colours and text layout throughout the system maintaining consistency within the Interface Allow a user to cancel an action and navigate forward or backward within the application System should have familiar and easy to use interface that can be learned in a short period of time by the user System will help the client carry out the tasks and achieve their goals effectively and efficiently by using drop down lists where appropriate System shall keep response times to user interaction to a minimum 27 4 0 Design According to Allan Dennis
49. archar 50 unique cat_desc text create table store_items item_id int not null primary key auto_increment cat_id int not null item_title varchar 75 item_price float 8 2 item_image varchar 50 item _desc text not null item_minlevel int not null qty_instock int not null FOREIGN KEY cat_id REFERENCES store_categories cat_id create table store_item_size item_id int not null item_size varchar 25 FOREIGN KEY item_id REFERENCES store_items item_id 67 create table store_shoppertrack shop_id int not null primary key auto_increment session_id varchar 32 sel_item_id int sel_item_qty smallint sel_item_size varchar 32 date_added datetime create table store_orders order_id int not null primary key auto_increment order_date datetime order_name varchar 100 order_address varchar 255 order_city varchar 50 order_postcode varchar 10 order_tel varchar 25 order_email varchar 100 item_total float 6 2 status enum processed pending create table store_orders_items order_item_id int not null primary key auto_increment order_id int sel_item_id int sel_item_qty smallint sel_item_size varchar 25 sel_item_price float 6 2 FOREIGN KEY order_id REFERENCES store_orders order_id 68 APPENDIX F UNIT TESTING 1 Inventory Management System MENU BUTTONS AND QUICK VIEWS Test Expected
50. arching for Records The search facility available on the system uses a wild card to perform a query on all available fields within a given table The wild card matches any inputs such as strings characters and numbers QUERY Field like _POST QUERY 47 Home borrow customer Search in the records customer account __ dud employee invoice R View Records store item size store items item_id j cat_id item_title item_price fitem_image item_desc store orders E ee eee ee 5 7 4 Generating Reports Functional requirements number 12 defined in the requirements specification outlined in Chapter 3 were features identifying reporting needs The majority of the reporting needs defined in the specification were such that they must not only be viewable on screen but also printable It has been decided that most of the reports will be based on the user s screen however if the user wishes to print a hard copy of the report this can be achieved by clicking on the file print option from the browser Retrieving Customer Orders To view and generate a picking list for new orders the button on the menu of the Inventory Management System has been assigned to a file called view_neworders php which is activated once the button is clicked The script together with an integrated MySQL query see Figure 5 7 4 is used to query the following tables and retrieve new and pending orders only
51. ble tables within the database such as borrow customer_accounts DVD etc the file main php incoporates all other php files using the PHP function require config php The file config php defines all the tables and the security checks required for login onto the system and the file database php is used to defined and establish the connection to the database Tablelist php file is used to fetch all the available tables from the database and then passes them to main php for display Difining these configuration and functional files as a separate software module allows a consistent mimalist design to be achieved throughout the system and hence helps the user more easily adapt to different functions For example the add hpp delete php edit php and view php files where defined once but called to perform their function where required on different tables rather than defining them separately on individual tables I e add php file will enable the user to add new customer to the customer table and can also be used to add new items accounts DVD and all other tables in the database 5 5 2 The Online Ordering System File Structure Index html Seestor2 PHP Quickshopping html y Show items PHP z addtocart PHP l removefromcart PHP showcart PHP checkout html checkout PHP Figure 5 5 2 The Online Ordering System File Struct
52. category the query simply joins the table and the category id to find the category name Sample implementation code below get_item select c cat_id c cat_title si item_id si item_title si item_price si item_desc si item_image from store_items as si left join store_categories as c on c cat_id si cat_id where si item_id _GET item_id get_item_res mysql_query get_item or die mysql_error Figure 5 3 3 Displaying Items Information 5 3 4 Implementing the Shopping Cart basket In order to successfully implement the shopping cart two new tables has to be created in addition to store_order table that was created for the inventory systems earlier The new table will be called store_shoppertrack it will be used to hold items as users add them to their shopping cart Appendix E depicts the SQL statements that were used to create the new tables However for the sake of clarity in the following explanation I will include the attributes of the store_shoppertrack table in this report as follows Table Name Attributes store_shoppertrack Shop_id session_id sel_item_id sel_item_qty sel_item_size date_added 39 Notice from above that the only key in this table is the shop_id attribute The session_id cannot be unique otherwise the users could order only one item from the ordering system which is not a good business practice The value stored in the session_id attribute identifies th
53. d Wakefield 31 the development of an IT strategy is a vital ingredient in the success of any business that uses computers 23 Following several informal meetings with the store manager the manager has told the developer that they currently do not have any Business Strategy According to Ward 14 for any business to achieve and sustain a competitive advantage the business must define and adopt a business strategy together with its IS IT strategy which must be implement in line with the business strategy A business strategy can be defined by the business drivers an organisation uses to operate Ward 14 Adonai s business drivers are summarised below gt To continue to satisfy existing customers gt To continue to attract new customers and find new markets gt To be able to expand and open more stores in and around Leeds area Competitive advantage will be achieved by aligning the IS strategy with the business strategy Ward 14 state that The essence of business strategy lies in creating future competitive advantage faster than competitors do Adonai will create future competitive advantage through the implementation of a new IT system 3 8 1 IT SWOT Strength Weakness Opportunity and Threats SWOT analysis has been applied for many years as a structure and tool for strategy development It identifies the features of a proposal or idea against the Strength Weakness Opportunity and Threats of a business
54. d improved upon 3 9 User Requirements Requirements Gathering Techniques The developer believed that it would be important to understand the order processes and systems that already existed in Adonai shop because they would have to be closely integrated with the Web ordering system Three requirements gathering techniques proved to be helpful in understanding the current systems and processes document analysis interviews and observation First the developer collected existing reports such as order forms screen shots see section 3 5 That shed light on the current system The developer was able to gather a good amount of information about the brick and mortar order processes and systems in this way When questions arose the developer conducted a short informal interview with the store employee Next the developer interviewed the store manager Mr Japhet Uhu for the order and inventory system to get a better understanding of how those systems worked Finally the developer spent some time visiting the shop and observing exactly how the order and inventory management processes worked in the brick and mortar facilities To ensure correct analysis of the problem user requirements were then identified from the result of previous sections by using the requirement gathering techniques mentioned earlier which includes the analysis of user interviews business documents as well as observations of the current business processes The identifie
55. d user requirements for the new system have been divided into functional and non functional requirements According to Lawrence Chung 16 functional requirements are functions that the system must be capable of performing These are software requirements that describe the behavior of the system Non functional requirements are the requirements that describe not what the system will do but how the system will do it Non functional requirements can be grouped into the system performance requirement the system quality attributes and the systems external interface requirement The requirements are as follows 3 9 1 Functional Requirements 1 The database shall be able to store and retrieve stock information such as an item id quantity in stock price minimum level and description 2 The database shall be able to store and retrieve customer details such as the name address town postcode and their telephone number and id 3 The web based inventory system shall allow for the creation of customer 25 accounts 4 The web based ordering system shall be able to generate order confirmation and receipts T7 The web based ordering system shall allow customers to order items 5 The system shall store an order_id item quantity item code description unit price and total price 6 The system shall provide efficient search facilities for locating stock orders and
56. dependencies is important as it will be useful in the normalisation process later 4 3 3 Primary Key Constraints Primary Key constraints are used to ensure that all rows in a table are uniquely defined and are vitally important especially when using insert update and delete commands Exploiting the benefit of primary key constraints will be achieved through using the auto increment and not null features of MySQL and will be employed throughout the tables An example of this would be the Customer table and the attribute CustomerID The system must at all times ensure that this constraint be correct so as to ensure data consistency 4 3 4 Domain Constraints According to Elmasri amp Navathe 19 Domain constraints specify that within each tuple the value of each attribute A must be an atomic value from the domain dom A ie these types of constraints specify what data type the attribute will accept and the format with which this data type will be accepted For example the Customer table specifies that the CustomerID of a Customer must be an AutoIncrement hence the domain constraint on this attribute is that it must be of type that increments automatically as new customers are added to the system 4 4 Normalisation According to Thomas amp Carolyn 18 Normalisation is a technique for producing a set of relations with desirable properties given the data requirements of an enterprise Elmasri amp Navathe 19 further def
57. e Waterfall Model The Waterfall Model takes the main stages within systems development and represents them diagrammatically as a series of sequential steps with the flow of time and information from left to right Tudor amp Tudor 3 The major benefit of this model is that it allows project completion time to be forecast with more confidence than with some more iterative approaches allowing projects to be controlled effectively Hughes and Cottrell 4 This feature would be useful in this project development as a later stage within the life cycle phases may reveal the need for some extra work at an earlier stage 2 3 2 The V Model The V Model is also a diagrammatic representation of the life cycle however its additional strengths over the Waterfall Model are that the products which result from each stage are passed to the following stages and the products against which various levels of testing of the system can be performed Tudor amp Tudor 3 Due to the nature 12 of extensive testing involved this model would not be appropriate for this project due to the limited amount of time allocated 2 3 3 The Spiral Model The Spiral Model according to Hughes and Cottrell 4 can be portrayed as a loop or a spiral where the system to be implemented is considered in more detail in each sweep Each sweep terminates with an evaluation before the next iteration is embarked upon A greater level of detail is considered at each stage
58. e a purchase order from suppliers 3 3 Current Purchase Ordering Process The store manager purchases stock from various suppliers Some purchase orders are delivered to the shop by the suppliers and the store manager also travels to suppliers to purchase stocks The invoices are paid immediately 3 5 The Existing System The current system is mainly a paper based system with the support of Microsoft Excel Spreadsheets The spreadsheets hold information about customers suppliers addresses and products inventory information The system uses Excel macros and report calculating tools to perform statistical operations on the data held on the spreadsheet to help generate stock reports and summaries of debtors 20 The major drawback of this system is that understanding the process of reporting using Excel Spreadsheets is highly complex The statistical operations executed on the spreadsheet are such that a user must have a great deal of knowledge as to how the system works The difficulty of understanding the method by which these queries run on the data indicates a system that not only has evolved beyond its original specification but is one that is no longer efficient Chapter 1 outlined most of the drawbacks of the system within the problem definition section FILE SYSTEM File Edit View Favorites Tools Help ex amp 5 po search E Folders mi Norton Antivirus B Y a 7A File and Folder Tasks A a CUSTOMERS J SUPPLIERS Gd STO
59. e shopping system and also the staff and the manager at Adonai shop were asked to evaluate the inventory management system Each user had the same set of tasks to perform under the new system The tasks undertaken by the nominated users were to create a new order updating an existing customer item data on the database creating a new account for customer and searching for records Create Customer Account User Time in old system Time in new system mins mins Mr Japhet shop manager 4 07 3 10 Florence shop assistant 5 04 4 12 Tasks involves recording customer details retrieving accounts number customer ID Issue DVD to Customer User Time in old system Time in new system mins mins Mr Japhet shop manager 2 09 2 11 Florence shop assistant 2 05 3 08 Task involves recording borrowers DVD details 56 Update Editing Records User Time in old system Time in new system mins mins Mr Japhet shop manager 6 10 1 05 Florence shop assistant 8 06 2 04 Tass involves retrieving appropriate records editing it and save Searching Records User Time in old system Time in new system mins mins Mr Japhet shop manager 5 09 0 09 Florence shop assistant 6 02 0 09 Task involves searching for a specific record or data and displaying the results Online Shopping User Time in old sys
60. e user it matches the value of the PHP session ID assigned to them The sel_ attributes hold the selections by the user the selected item quantity of the item and the selected size if applicable Finally there s a date_added attribute Many times users place items in their cart and never go through the checkout process This practice leaves straggling items in the tracking table which need to be cleared periodically For example the system administrator may want to delete all cart items more than a week old this is where the date_added attribute is helpful 5 3 5 Adding Items to Cart basket A file addtocart php has been implemented to tackle this requirement This file will simply write information to the store_shoppertrack table and will automatically redirect the user to view of the shopping cart To start with the file initialises a PHP session using the function session_start This is important because the system needs to recorgnise and capture the user s session ID to write to the store_shoppertrack table Sample code shown below lt PHP session_start addtocart insert into store_shoppertrack values PHPSESSID _POST sel_item_id _POST sel_item_gqty _POST sel_item_size now mysql_query addtocart Figure 5 3 5 Adding Items to Cart 5 3 6 Viewing the Shopping Cart basket A file showcart php continues the user s session using the session ID with the records in the st
61. ecords and viewing records and therefore the same testing procedures that was applied to the table Borrow was applied to all other tables which includes customer dvd customer_accounts employee store_items store orders and store_order items 71 APPENDIX G BLACK BOX TESTING 1 Inventory Management System Test Expected Result Actual Result Comments Open a web browser and enter the URL Welcome page shown with company logo with buttons on the sidebar menu As expected Test successful Login via the maintenance menu button Display the main menu listing all the available table on the system As expected Test successful Attempt to work with tables after session timer times out Advise user to re log onto system As expected Test successful Attempt to navigate to a page without logging onto system Redirect user to login menu As expected Test successful View Reports Display the reports creation page with all links and buttons As expected Test successful Create a New customer and customer_account New accounts and customer creation procedures executed and New customer and accounts information shown in all Individual appropriate views As expected Test successful Edit customer or customer accounts Edit procedures executed and edit evident for those fields shown in view all customers or customer accounts As expected T
62. esign Stage ssssssesesseessssssserereesssssseerrreeessssssererreess 56 7 7 Evaluation of Implementation ssseseseseeeeeseeeeserersssrresrserresssereesssrresssseee 56 Tey SATE YC VANE ALIO Ms E E E ssuscc E EE 56 7 9 Comparisons to Alternative Systems ee eeeeesseeeeeessneeeeeessseeeeeeenaes 58 TOA COMCISION iien essieu tees GN ahead 58 Referentes se dasccics casiossicceseecseastdess chacddsicasedassdicduicsconadedsdeadessocasssseduedusdceaaausssass 59 APPENDIX A scassaveccsicassacounsecccetseveasssocecacsescacecoteencacsssencacvontssccnineroesnsnancasrenaest 61 APPENDED sca saccosescccisssvsensssexwicsvinssescotessceddsesensssiasventusgeasteveedsseaseccourievcen 63 APPENDIX Cs ccrctecsisiscovesetinswscsvanecewebssanssabansdewncatensusveeasaceseuavcesvarsdevatsieccionseas 64 APPENDIX Dy wecesicesasececactnssdcadewadicaaundsdncasdesecastaksdeed easetckatessecadeuedecesbuksaceaseeonee 65 APPENDIX Was ccsscsvacsoscesassvantsteasasaqsnadecdetasoncasssseastusuabacenasesscandescasavceabastuecsoeesd 66 APPENDIX EE EEE E AE TEE 69 APPEND DGG PE E E E E AE 72 APPENDIX H nions e ee 75 APPENDIX D ccsaccnsccacssosncsavsnsaneksnseaseesnuesscosnsesaccncecssecoudcocesnsecececsstaretsnsectekones 77 APPENDIX J ciccsscsesisssnssisvoanssteasssapecasendedasonatsesesascecuasssenacesandsdesasasecatasanacsnses 79 APPENDIX Ke is cpeiccishytanccasaite coaveteeseasensnscasntacccansdeoecsdevensessaesgoesetorgeaseveessshores 81 APPEND D C DEE EEE E EERE 8
63. esign stage incorporate these requirements successfully Analysing sample documents observations at the shop and the interview with the user helped in understanding how and what is recorded in the shop in order to model the proposed system to closely match the current business process and help implement the IS IT strategy The Chapter concludes with an investigation into existing similar systems to see whether they could solve the problems and or meets the user requirements as well as conform to the IS IT strategy of the business 3 1 Analysis of the Current Business Process According to Maciaszek 13 in order to determine the requirement the developer must understand how the Business processes are currently performed Appendix D depicts the current ordering processes using a UML activity diagram The diagram shows the users involvement at each stage 3 2 Current Customer Ordering Process Customers can place their orders over the phone or visit the shop in person to purchase their goods items When orders are placed over the phone the shop assistant takes the order details on A4 sheet of paper with the customer address The address is then compared with the ones stored on the Microsoft spreadsheet to see if the customer is already known or registered If he she is a new customer the spreadsheet is updated and the customer order is picked and then dispatched to the customer If for example any item is out of stock the manager will then initiat
64. est successful Delete Customer or customer accounts Deletion procedures executed and delete evident for those fields shown in view all customer or customer accounts As expected Test successful Issue dvd to customer All borrowing processes procedures executed Borrowing evident for those fields shown in view all As expected Test successful 72 borrow table Process new orders All order processing procedures executed new orders evident for those fields shown in view all customer accounts store_orders table and store_orders_items table As expected Test successful initial test reveals a number of errors which were rectified accordingly Add new dvds All insert procedures executed and new dvd evident in view all dvd As expected Test successful Delete dvd All delete procedures executed and deletion evident in view all dvd As expected Test successful Add new employee All insert procedures executed and new employee evident in view all employee As expected Test successful Delete employee All delete procedures executed and deletion evident in view all employee As expected Test successful Add new items All insert procedures executed and new item evident in view all store_items As expected Test successful Delete item All delete procedures executed and deletion evident in view all store_items
65. eveloping a system based on traditional problem solving with sequential steps and options for revisiting steps when problems appear However the System development Life Cycle does has its drawbacks It has been criticised as an inappropriate or over rigid guide to information system development due to its linear pattern of tasks which may result in inflexibility in software project management TUDOR amp TUDOR 3 Hughes and Cottrell 4 also explains that if a particular phase needs to be refined the traditional SDLC methodology is insufficient Although Avgeron and Cornford 2 argued that the original linear form of SDLC has been modified in various ways to overcome its most dysfunctional aspects such as the ability to effectively manage the long and complex development process Also the life cycle provides a simple structure which is easily understood and by following the life cycle it becomes easier to plan and manage that tasks of systems development The SDLC Methodology can be useful when the production of deliverables are an end result as it involves extensive requirements analysis is needed whilst using SDLC the methodology slows down the project as producing a solution could take longer than expected Since the client Adonai shop has a clear idea of what the solution should perform which is to manage inventory and enable customer to process orders online therefore the requirements have been well defined and understood 2 3 1 Th
66. file When a user logs onto the system through the file login php this file then activates config php which checks the user s supplied password against the predefined one if there s a match access is granted onto the Inventory 45 Manager system otherwise the user is advised login failure The config php file is hidden in the server and cannot be accessed without access to the servers control panel which is administered by the hosting company called Streamlinet If a user s login is successful then a session is started signifying that a valid user is working on the system 5 6 2 Session Enabling After a session has been initialised a session variable is created for the user this variable is currently set to true and will expire when the system is idle for a PHP predefined period of inactivity When this occurs the user is redirected to an error page and is advised to login again 5 6 3 MySQL Injection Vulnerability According to Vikram Vaswani 25 SQL injection is a technique for exploiting web applications that use client supplied data in SQL queries without stripping potentially harmful characters The threat can be dealt with in a number of ways such as the use of a PHP function called stripslashes to strip off all the slashes in all inputted strings or data For example the query below uses stripslashes to remove any potential harmful characters such as backslashes from a string value item category descrip
67. foreign key values exist respectively Entity Integrity is achieved by setting particular fields to NOT NULL and Referential Integrity by recording the foreign key value for the primary key in the referring table Using low level detail from the Analysis project phase the schemas can be designed now to include entities attribute details and relationships between them The following are lists of entities and their associated attributes identified from the initial Entity Relationship Diagram depicture in Figure 4 2 1 30 ENTITIES ATTRIBUTES Customer Customer_id first_Name Surname Address1 Address 2 city PostCode Tel_No Store_Orders Order_id Product_id Quantity Customer_id Date TotalAmount order_name order_address order_tel order_postcode status Store_Item item_id description Quantity_in_Stock Price Min_stock_level Invoice Invoice No Order_id Customer_id Date CustomerAccount Account_No Customer_id Credit_Limit Outstanding_balance Order_id Employee Emp_id first_name surname address1 address2 city tel_No DVD Dvd_id title description Borrow Customer_id dvd_id date_borrowed due_date fine returned LEGEND Primary keys are underlined and emboldened Foreign Keys are italicised Figure 4 2 2 The Initial Database Schema The entities and attributes listed above may be subject to some changes and adjustment where necessary in o
68. h the preference for any system is that help should not be necessary a little help to guide the user can be hugely beneficial The menu bar offers a help button with different help topics available to the user Also the menu bar used words which are relevant to the business as oppose to system oriented descriptions such as the start shopping button on the customer interface Nielsen 21 also indicated that Flexibility and efficiency of use in a system is of very importance and the use of accelerators should be used to enable users to work more effectively The Quick Views buttons on the Inventory Manager menu see Figure 5 2 1 was implemented to enable common user tasks to be performed faster than the original method This keeps the amount of processing time to a minimum 5 5 System File Structure 5 5 1 The Inventory Management System Files Structure Index PHP Q J e y N Login PHP JS tC y Main PHP A x database PHP validator PHP searches PHP execute PHP Config PHP add PHP delete PHP view PHP Tablelist PHP Figure 5 5 1 The Inventory management system file structure 43 The file named index php is used to present the login instructions to the user which after a successful login the file main php is executed with lists of all the availa
69. har 25 email varchar 40 create table Invoice Invoice_No int not null primary key auto_increment Order_id bigint 20 not null Customer_id int not null Total_amount float not null Invoice_Date date not null FOREIGN KEY order_id REFERENCES store_orders order_id FOREIGN KEY customer_id REFERENCES customer customer_id create table Customer_Account Account_No int not null primary key auto_increment Customer_id int not null Credit_Limit float not null Outstanding_balance float not null Order_id bigint 20 not null FOREIGN KEY customer_id REFERENCES customer customer_id FOREIGN KEY order_id REFERENCES store_orders order_id create table DVD Dvd_id varchar 10 not null primary key title text not null description text create table Borrow Customer_id int not null dvd_id varchar 10 not null date_borrowed Date not null 66 due_date Date not null fine float returned_yes_no text not null FOREIGN KEY customer_id REFERENCES customer customer_id FOREIGN KEY dvd_id REFERENCES dvd dvd_id create table employee Emp_id int not null primary key auto_increment first_name text not null surname text not null address1 varchar 40 not null address2 varchar 40 not null city text post_code varchar 10 not null tel_No varchar 25 CREATE TABLE store_categories cat_id int not null primary key auto_increment cat_title v
70. ined normalisation of data as a process of analyzing the given relation schemas based on their functional dependencies and primary keys to achieve the desirable properties of 1 minimizing redundancy and 2 minimizing the insertion deletion and update anormalies The purpose and benefits of normalization can be deduced from the definitions above and for the purpose of this report the data contained in the schema depicted in Figure 4 2 2 has been normalized as the full normalization process is beyond the scope of this project and therefore will not be covered in depth 4 4 1 Boyce Codd Normal Form Adhering to a particular normal form ensures a level of consistency and data integrity will be achieved Four different normal forms are commonly used to normalise system schemas with Boyce Codd Normal Form BCNF adhering to the strongest constraints C J Date 5 It can be concluded that all tables in the schema in Figure 4 2 2 adhere to 32 third normal form This states that any attributes dependant on each other must be separated to be dependant upon the super key for that class 4 5 System Views Design 4 5 1 User Interface Design A standardise template has been created see Figure 4 5 1 to ensure consistency in the layout of the web site The header content will change according to which part of the system the user has navigated to When a user has logged into the system the header will display options to chose from and work with
71. inventory management system 3 The ability for the web based ordering system to be able to take and process customer orders 4 The functionality for the ordering system to be able to generate receipts with order reference 5 The ability for the inventory management system to integrate the functionality to loan DVDs to customers 6 The functionality to allow customers do quick shopping 7 The ability to generate picking lists for customer orders 8 The implementation of user login and online help for the Inventory Management System 9 The provision of a user manual 10 The provision of online help for the ordering system 11 The functionality to list debtors and their details 12 The functionality to list overdue DVDs that has not been returned Figure 7 4 System enhancements 7 3 Future System Enhancements 7 3 1 Customer Online Accounts Creation The ability for the system to allow customers to create their own online accounts would further improve efficiency and delegate some of the back office information processing to the customer thereby freeing valuable amount of time for the staff to concentrate more on other tasks within the store 7 3 2 Improved Administrator Features At present the store manager has to use the tool called MySQL PHP Administrator platform available via the hosting company streamlinenet to perform a backup or restore of the database s contents a more user friendly interface c
72. is Software that delivers increased scalability availability and security to enterprise data and analytical applications while making them easier to create deploy and manage Microsoft com 8 Inevitably all these features come at a price and also another down side to MS SQL is that it is not platform independence Therefore it would not be the appropriate choice for this project and the client 2 5 2 PostgreSQL Looking at fig 2 1 below the obvious choice between PostgreSQL and MySQL would be the former PostgreSQL seems to overcome all the shortfalls of MySQL For example PostgreSQL supports features to create for all trigger management as indicated in the diagram Although there is a downside to using PostgreSQL as it is very slow within a web based development environment Considering the fact that customer would like to browse their details and stock information online the use of a slowly responding database would not be appropriate in this circumstances More over in any given e commerce website response time is considered to be of high importance as the impatient customers or potential customers gets frustrated very quickly Therefore as this project involves web applications and response time is one of the requirements PostgreSQL would not be appropriate 2 5 3 MySQL MySQL is an open source Relational Database Management system RDBMS that uses Structured Query Language SQL the most popular language for adding accessing a
73. ity for the system to automatically generate order references although these references are set to automatically populate appropriate tables within the database system which will reduce the amount of entries staff had to perform thereby also reducing input errors and validations and also improve efficiency and accuracy of stored data The ability to calculate orders total automatically means no more complicated amendments on excel spreadsheets 57 Overall the client was impressed with the system s features and is eager to commission the system as soon as possible 7 9 Comparisons to Alternative Systems Chapter 3 of this report details the analysis phase of this project of which two existing products where identified namely OrderWise and StockIt Systems Figure 7 9 below shows a comparison between the two systems against the new Adonai Inventory Management and Online Customer Ordering System solution The table clearly identifies that although the new system does not offer all the functionality that a combination of OrderWise and StockIt Systems offer it must be distinguished that Adonai system is tailored to meets the requirements of Adonai s business Functionality Adonai Systems OrderWise StockIt Stock control Yes Yes Yes Issue DVDs Yes No No Create customer accounts Yes No No Web based ordering capabilities Yes No No Process orders in house Yes Yes Yes Login Passwo
74. le they do decide to extend their product range to include items with varied sizes such as clothing 5 3 2 Displaying Categories of Items Using PHP scrip a file named seestore2 php has been implemented to list categories and items The system has been implemented such that all categories and items will not 38 be listed at once as soon as the page is displayed instead the user is given the option to immediately pick a category see its items and then pick another category In other words the file seestore2 php will serve two purposes it will show the categories and then show the items in that category Sample implementation code is shown below Show categories first get_cats select cat_id cat_title cat_desc from store_categories order by cat_title get_cats_res mysql_query get_cats or die mysql_error Then Show items get_items select item_id item_title item_price from store_items where cat_id cat_id order by item_title get_items_res mysql_query get_items or die mysql_error Figure 5 3 2 Displaying Categories of Items 5 3 3 Displaying Items Information The file showitem php is used to display all the items information including the item image MySQL query has been implemented and issued to retrieve the category and item information The query is a table join Instead of selecting the item information from one table and then issuing a second query to find the name of the
75. ll system function correctly when combined to form a single working application Integration Testing was performed at the end of each phase of the development to prove that the system still maintained functionality The benefits become more apparent as the system increases in size and functionality For example at the completion of the Online Ordering System and the Inventory Management System were two separate systems at that point in development However the addition checkout php in the Ordering System relies on successful integration with the Inventory Management System by automatically populating some database tables within Inventory Management System For such reasons testing occurred at each phase s completion to verify that new additions have not affected existing functionality Navigation from one part of the system to another was also examined by testing the links within the system s sidebar menu the Quick Views The implementation of CSS helps to uphold a consistent layout format as mentioned in Chapter 5 for each page in the system This was also examined The result from the integration testing can be found in Appendix J 6 6 User Acceptance Testing User acceptance testing was conducted at the end of the implementation phase in order to determine that the system had met the requirements defined in Chapter 3 the shop manager and the developer has gone through a series of evaluation which involves the developer demonstrating
76. lt link rel stylesheet type text css href lt PHP print CSS gt gt The css file defines the format of the interface such as the font sizes and predefined colours for the pages The html files contains data such as the HTML for the navigational menus as well as the header bar displays This reuse of code allowed a consistent minimalist design to be achieved throughout the system and hence assist the user by adhering to one of the defined usability issues in Chapter 2 In a number of circumstances the interface was improved by validate all user inputs within the client s browser rather than the database and the use of drop down lists such as the selection of item sizes this idea will help mitigate the issue of referencial integrity within the database The completed interface design was embedded onto a html lt frameset gt this technique allows the interface to remain constant such that when a user navigates to a different page within the system the interface will remain unchanged only the content area will change 5 6 Security and Privacy 5 6 1 Passwords Password protection was a system requirement specified by the non functional user requirements in Chapter 4 Password protection is only required within the system maintenance interface to prevent unauthorised user accessing customer accounts and inventory information Therefore the username and password for the system has been defined in the config php
77. mation is recorded on paper and then the store delivers to the customer s home Sometimes paperwork goes missing and the customers don t receive their orders and this causes loss of business and trust from customers as they are often frustrated with the quality of service The manager uses spreadsheets and physical stock check to manage inventory This method has been deemed inefficient as it is not often apparent when stock levels are running low Due to the nature of the customers been served by Adonai shop customers are currently not able to purchase items from home or browse the internet to see what is available before driving to the stop only to find that the item they required has been sold out or has to be ordered from a supplier abroad In addition to selling food and house hold items the store also rent out DVDs and VCRs movies and several of these DVDs and VCRs go missing without knowing who borrowed them last Inventory is currently managed by spreadsheets and other basic software applications which is not very efficient as most items go unaccounted for 1 3 Project Aim The aim of this project is to develop an integrated inventory management and online customer order processing information technology solutions to manage inventory and daily services and transactions at Adonai African amp Caribbean shop 1 4 The Objectives of the Project The overall objectives are to develop a thorough understanding of Adonai s business pr
78. me c surname c tel_no email from customer_account as a inner join customer as c on a customer_id c customer_id where outstanding_balance gt 0 Retrieving Products and Customer Details This can be done by login onto the Inventory Manager system and selecting the appropriate option to view its details The system uses the file advview php to generate views for all the table The file view php is used for viewing individual customer or product records 6 0 System Testing The purpose of the testing procedures used throughout the system is to ensure that the system functions as intended by the developer The processes of the testing phase partly occurred during the system s implementation The idea is to allow individual system software modules to be assessed as well as overall system functionality This Chapter discusses the use of realistic sample data testing methods undertaken and their results 49 6 1 Sample Data Deployment The sample data was obtained from data stored on the current manual system Existing customers details items details and the new pending orders were used to populate the system s database In addition each order has more than one order lines associated to it This allowed for the system s functionality to be examined and help simulate a real world environment by shopping online and entering appropriate data onto fields and selecting items from the database 6 2 Software Module Testing
79. n the check out form Do not allow the user to proceed to check until details are entered on required fields of the form non editable data As expected Test successful Checking out valid details entered on required fields of the check out form Proceed to check out generate order receipt with order reference number total amount and a message for the customer non editable data As expected Test successful initial test failed and corrective actions where taken to rectify the fault with order reference and total price display 74 APPENDIX H WHITE BOX TESTING 1 Inventory Management System Test Expected Result Actual Comment Result Log onto Execute config php file to validate AS Test system username and password and grant access if expected successful valid user View help Return help page AS Test expected successful View dvd Query of dvd table and return results AS Test expected successful View dvd Query of borrow table and return results AS Test history expected successful View accounts Query of customer_accounts table and AS Test return results expected successful View orders Query of store_orders store_orders_items As Test and store_items table and return results expected successful View product Query of store_items table and return AS Test results expected successful View reports Return report page men
80. n some phases which left me with little time to spend on others My advise to future students would be to pay detailed attention to the preliminary background reading before making decisions with regards to their choice of technologies and methodologies to use This is because by the time I realised that there were problems with my chosen technologies it 61 was too late to alter it I had to deal with all the consequences that came with it and also this can be frustrating for the developer and time consuming Finally my opinion is that this project is very challenging and if any future student could pull it off it is also equally rewarding as I have learnt a great deal in software development time management and application of various methodologies to solving real world business problems This project has enhanced my computing skills portfolio plus it looks good on the CV as well 62 No ouarhwWhNn 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 APPENDIX B PROJECT SCHEDULE INITIAL GANT CHART TASK Problem definition aims and requirements Meetings with Adonai manager Interview with Shop assistants Methodologies amp technologies research Finalise methodoly and technology Finalise mid project report Conduct feasibility study System investigation and analysis System design Implementation The inventory manager Implementation The ordering web site System testing amp Integration Write up a User Manual
81. nal Requirements ssssesssseesssssseeeseeeesssssserereesssssssererreesss 25 Ao ORISET ALIS as isteneit ses e ese iaioa nesi 26 3 9 2 Non Functional Requirements c ccccceeceseeseeenteeeeeeeeeeeeeenneees 27 P rformance tsari R TE EEEE 21 Ma inten nee oii Siesta ities toe a i n aun 27 Usability cessit sra ea er a ea E aaa aei asas 27 PADS t EER E scene en EEE EIRE EEEE 28 AT Process Modeling siccin irana na E a EEN rS EERS 28 4 1 1 The Context Data Flow Diagram DFD of the Proposed System 28 4 2 Data Modeling 2 2 civcsisysanssaccaivieaievausonssacvees eestusaansadoecdvyacbeusscativedavedtesvusaes 29 4 2 1 Entity Relationship Diagram eessceccecceeeeeeeeetneeeeeeeeeeeeeeenaaeees 29 4 2 2 The Database Schema orenen Maser deen Ane EE Move eases 30 4 3 CONStrAINS 2355 hccedcaveaaueas s eurie Lanak K Ar EG AA KEN ONEENS COREEI KEAREN EEEE raaa 31 4 3 1 B sin ss Constraints issis ne nn etiese rietser ET n iSt 31 4 3 2 Functional Dependencies wsscicsaasisse tiotianteantinencksateneie 31 4 3 3 Primary Key COMSUCAINES ooo tces fact ses ossseaes he ev eaussssetece soe eee Rae 32 4 3 4 Domain CONS AIMS dsssisessseseseehesessnsusnonscedelesseaxiesadentelassesevonasgetereue 32 4 4 Normalisation caceccscoaieesd aacedssesatuaisadanndeasveasass atadiacectvada nia N En Eiri Raat 32 4 4 1 Boyce Codd Normal Form eeesseesssssseeesseesssssssessreeesssssssrrreesssssssee 32 AD System ViICWS aseri coisa esate rial
82. nd processing data in a database MySQL is noted mainly for its speed reliability and flexibility Most agree however that it works best when managing content and not executing transactions shop script com 9 The rapid increase in connectivity between MySQL and PHP Hypertext PreProcessor will have to be taken into consideration when also determining Server Side Scripting Some disadvantages of such an implementation include the fact that MySQL is not able to implement triggers and be efficiently supportive where the database can have many front ends shop script com 9 14 The benefits of using MySQL outweigh the cost and disadvantages From the diagram below fig 2 1 the only major shortfall of MySQL is that it doesn t implement full use of triggers Apart from this MySQL is robust and reliable cost effective way for small business like Adonai shop to adopt Scalability means as the client s customer base increases in the near future the database system will still be fully functional to cope with an ever changing business environment Platform independent would mean that the client wouldn t be tied up with various software licensing contracts from vendors as they can switch at any time Therefore it would be appropriate to use MySQL for the sake of the client s requirements and this project 15 Comparison between MySQL and PostgreSQL MySQL PostgreSQL Database Connections soli Muti V Feature supp
83. ocess and analyse the current business strategy whilst developing methods for improvements by using appropriate information systems methodology to design and implement the new system 1 5 Minimum Requirements Develop a prototype web based ordering system The web based ordering system should enable customers to browse stock availability Develop a prototype inventory management database The database should be able to store and retrieve stock information The database should be able to store and retrieve customer details The database should be able to store and retrieve DVDs details 1 6 Possible Extensions The database shall be able to list stocks that are running low The web based ordering system shall allow for the creation of customers account The web based ordering system shall be able to take and process customer orders The web based ordering system shall be able to generate receipts with order reference The Inventory Management System shall integrate the functionality to loan DVDs to customers The inventory management system shall implement login password and username for security A User Manual The Inventory Management System shall implement functionality to list debtors and their details 1 7 Deliverables A database system that stores customer items DVDs and order details A dynamic website that allows customers to browse stocks and place orders The full project report 1 8 Project Relevance to Degree P
84. ore_shoppertrack table This has been implemented with a joined SQL query in which the user s saved items are retrieved The shop_id sel_item_qty sel_item_size attributes are extracted from store_shoppertrack and the item_title and item_price attributes are retrieved from the store_items table based on the matching information from store_shoppertrack If there are no results the user has no items in the store_shoppertrack table and a message is written to the user advising accordingly Sample code shown bellow lt PHP session_start check for cart items based on user session id get_cart select st shop_id si item_title si item_price st sel_item_qty st sel_item_size from store_shoppertrack as st left join store_items as si on si item_id st sel_item_id where session_id PHPSESSID get_cart_res mysql_query get_cart or die mysql_error Figure 5 3 6 Viewing the Shopping Cart 40 5 3 7 Removing Items from the Shopping Cart basket The file removefromcart php is used to issue a query and redirect the user to another script showcart php It enables users to remove unwanted items from their cart This is based on the users session ID with the records in the store_shoppertrack table Sample code shown below lt PHP session_start if _GET id delete_item delete from store_shoppertrack where shop_id _GET id and session_id PHPSESSID mysql_query delete_item or
85. orted X Feature not supported External or unofficial support Fig 2 1 source http www devx com 2 6 Selecting a Server Side Scripting Language Wikipedia com online encyclopedia 10 defined a Server side scripting as a web server technology in which a user s request is fulfilled by running a script directly on the web server to generate dynamic HTML pages It is usually used to provide interactive web sites that interface to databases or other data stores This is different from client side scripting where scripts are run by the viewing web browser usually in Java script The primary advantage to server side scripting is the ability to highly customize the response based on the user s requirements access rights or queries into data stores 2 6 1 Active Server Pages Active Server Pages ASP is Microsoft s server side scripting technology for dynamically generated web pages that is marketed as an add on to Internet Information Services IIS Programming ASP websites is made easier by various built in objects Each object corresponds to a group of frequently used functionality useful for creating dynamic web pages such built in objects are Application ASPError Request Response Server and Session Session for example is a cookie based session object that maintains variables from page to page Wikipedia com 10 However it does have its drawbacks Microsoft co orporation has purposely developed Active Server Pages for its
86. ould be built in to the system A useful feature here would be allowing Administrators to perform a back to a specified file location at the click of a button 54 7 3 3 Automatically Generate Purchase Orders Another useful feature for the inventory management system s user would be to quickly generate a purchase order from the system by referencing all items running bellow minimum stock level This can be achieved by storing suppliers details along with each product the idea would be that the system will be able to obtain suppliers information relating to any item running low and then use that information to automatically produce purchase orders 7 3 4 Customisable Interface and Page Layout Implementing the functionality to allow users to be able to sort results by any column heading by clicking on that column would be beneficial and improve efficiency as data are currently displayed in a predefined sorting format Furthermore allowing users to customise page layout and colour schemes improves overall system usability for distinct user 7 4 Evaluation of Chosen Methodology As mentioned in Chapter 2 the chosen project methodology was a variation of the Software Development Life Cycle This catered for the implementation and testing phases to be iterated using an iterative approach This approach proved useful in these phases as debugging the system during the process of implementation was probably less costly than finding errors at the
87. ox test results and the original specification are easily detectable as an unexpected output would occur The results of Black Box testing can be found in Appendix G The tests performed here are based around a user s input and actions The expected and actual system output for each test case has been documented 6 4 White Box Testing The purpose of White Box testing is to certify that the underlying system architecture functions correctly This contrasts to Black Box testing which examines system output from knowledge about the system s use of syntax White Box testing has been undertaken for this system in order to examine the changes of state for each of the database tables within the system White Box testing has two immediate benefits Firstly by examining the table states during update create and delete processes for example the developer is able to verify that the right tables are being queried or affected Furthermore the developer can query the record contents to ensure the correct and relevant fields in one or more tables have been correctly queried or affected as appropriate The second benefit is more aimed at the client as such testing can simulate 50 system stress that it may endure once deployed to see how it reacts The results of the White Box testing can be found in Appendix H 6 5 System Integration Testing The purpose of performing Integration Testing is to ensure that the different parts that make up the fu
88. pter 5 shows the retrieval of stock information and Figure 5 6 0 shows the stored inventory data The database should be able to store and retrieve customer details Figure 7 2 below shows the storage of customer details in the database The retrieval of customer details has been implemented and can be achieved through the use the view button to the right hand side of the table Details of this process can be found in section 5 6 1 in Chapter 5 of this report 52 Home Search in the records borrow customer EEE customer account dvd Search invoice store categories View Records store item size store orders store orders items store _shoppertrack Figure 7 2Customer records The database should be able to store and retrieve DVDs details The database is also able to store and retrieve DVD details from the diagram above Figure 7 2 It is clearly shown on the menu items the lists of DVD records stored on the database also see Figure 7 3 below DVD RECORDS bee meena mina ea ed ee ESUE DVO Biba TITLE DESCRIPTION Figure 7 3 stored retrieved DVDs 53 7 2 Exceeding the Minimum Requirements Figure 7 4 below shows the list of enhancements that were implemented No Functionality 1 The ability to be able to list stocks that are running low 2 The functionality to allow for the creation of customers account on the
89. r order processing The system also does not integrate any web based interface to enable the store manager to operate in different locations Most importantly the system does not implement any function which may help Adonai rent out any of its DVDs and VCR films to customer The system is also too expensive costing between 1000 9000 and this is out of the store manager s budget Conclusion OrderWise offers most of the solutions required to cater for the inventory management problem at Adonai but it does not deal with all other requirements and also the cost of the system is another concern for the manager as this is a small business Therefore OrderWise would not be a suitable system 22 3 7 2 Stockit Stockit is another inventory management system according to the developers this dynamic product will bring tangible benefits to any small to medium enterprise needing to improve stock handling efficiency In addition to inventory management Stockit system offers other functionality such as report builder The key features of Stockit System is as follows High performance industry standard relational database Secure multi user access Easy creation of multi level parts lists Minimum stock levels and order thresholds Automatic order creation Product serial numbers Stock valuation Report Builder for custom reports Strength In addition to complete inventory management the Stockit system enables the user
90. rd protection Yes Yes Yes Remote access via Internet Yes Yes Yes Maintain customers and debtors information Yes No No Minimum stock levels and order thresholds Yes Yes Yes Provide sales statistics No Yes Yes Produce Marketing promotional materials No Yes Yes Table 7 9 Comparison with existing systems 7 9 1 Conclusion The development of the new system has helped improve the short falls of the existing systems by implementing most of the OrderWise and StockIt Systems functionalities together with the requirements of Adonai s business which then makes a complete system fully customised to suit the business process Therefore it would be concluded that the development of this system is a success and was worthwhile 58 References 1 Avison D F G Information Systems Developments Methodologies Techniques amp Tools 2nd Edition 1995 Mc Graw Hill 2 Chrisanthi Avgerou and Tony Cornford Developing Information Systems Concepts Issues and Practice 2nd edition 1998 MacMillan 3 D J Tudor amp I J Tudor Systems Analysis and Design A comparison of structured Methods 1995 NCC Blackwell 4 Bob Hughes and Mike Cotterell Software Project Management 3rd edition 2002 Mc Graw Hill 5 C J DATE An Introduction to Database systems 7 edition 2000 Addison Wesley 6 http www devx com Open Source Database Feature Comparison Matrix 7 Thomas Connelly Carolyn Begg and Anne Strachan Da
91. rder to fall in line with the business rules database constraints functional dependencies and normalization process 4 3 Constraints Detailed constraints of which the inventory management and online customer order processing system will be tested for are as follows 4 3 1 Business Constraints e Customers cannot check out their orders if the delivery details form is not completed e Customer cannot place any order if the amount of the order exceeds his her credit limit e A customer cannot purchase an item if the required quantity is greater than quantity_in_stock These constraints will be executed on the client side within the browser 4 3 2 Functional Dependencies Thomas amp Carolyn 18 describes functional dependencies FD as the relationship between attributes in a relation For example if A and B are attributes of relation R B is 31 functionally dependent on A denoted A B if each value of A is associated with exactly one value of B The Customer table is such that functional dependencies exist Notice the above schema Figure 4 2 2 CustomerID first_Name as CustomerID is unique and determines the firstname of a customer However we can deduce that CustomerID is not functionally dependant on first_Name because the first_Name does not uniquely identify CustomerID as two customers may have the same firstname Consequently we can say the firstname is truly functionally dependent on CustomerID Understanding functional
92. required data to be present for those particular fields Furthermore some fields were initialised with a default flag being set if no data was persisted for that field For example when an order is confirmed corresponding entries for the appropriate order lines are made in the store_orders_items table with a default value of PENDING which indicates this is a new order Referential integrity constraints between tables as defined in the Design section in Chapter 4 of this report is upheld by referencing primary and foreign keys within each relevant table in the form FOREIGN KEY field_name REFERENCES parent_table field_name If a particular action violates this constraint type such as deleting a record in the parent table MySQL will generate an error Below is an example of MySQL syntax extracted from Appendix E to demonstrate constraints and some data types discussed 37 create table Customer_Account Account_No int not null primary key auto_increment Customer_id int not null Credit_Limit float not null Outstanding_balance float not null Order_id bigint 20 not null FOREIGN KEY customer_id REFERENCES customer customer_id FOREIGN KEY order_id REFERENCES store_orders order_id 5 3 Implementing the Ordering System The following section will document the procedures techniques and software use in creating the ordering system The PHP files were implemented using a programme called PHP Designer and a
93. rogram The project is relevant to my Degree Program as it will enable me to put together and utilise a number of skills I have acquired throughout my degree course and also to develop new skills and insight into the development of e business solution to support a small business The project covers skills acquired from a wide range of the school of computing taught modules which includes Information Systems IN11 and Software Project Management SE22 which enables the application of appropriate methodologies usability and time management consideration Internet Systems Technologies SY22 Advanced Databases DB3land DB21 will help in the development of the database design and the web based solution respectively 1 9 Project Schedule The initial Project Schedule can be found in Appendix B and may be subject to change during the course of the project due to a number of uncertainties that might be encountered 1 10 Progress Report I have met the milestones numbers 1 6 as indicated in the Project Schedule which can be found in appendix B I have critically examined and understood the problem situation and as a result I have performed a preliminary research into what technologies methodologies and tools that will be required to provide solutions to the problem 10 I am currently in the process of conducting various feasibility studies and analysis of the proposed solution 2 0 Background Research This chapter detailed
94. roject required the developer to adhere to software project management techniques in order to successfully obtain the company s requirements before designing implementing testing and evaluating the system p o Acknowledgements I would firstly like to thank my project supervisor Dr Kristina Vuskovic for her assistance during the project and my project assessor Martyn Clark for his valuable feedback during the progress meeting Secondly I would like to thank Edison Bundy and Helen Robinson for the time and effort they have put into proof reading my reports Finally I would like to acknowledge Lennox Cummings and Monica Z Wang for their kind words when times were hard Thank you Table of Contents Or EE TE E E EE EIEEE TEET Page SUMMAT osrin ARER EENE REEE EE ae i PLCKTIO WIE BDOTIGIIG se caste ccncscces ucts dantexddeassaegiveatecdcancaees dias enusaness ceases nasencdees canes ii Table of Contents ioc sccseccasdticscscosavecosontsccancsacecassossscsdeusssonsnseceensovececssouseises iii v 1 Introduction ss cos esses sates ices te ca He edie see secentecesuete sede terincieeinetonswensesuceseneee 9 1 1 Overview of Adonai Shop vcstiies sieektetie Haee este ise eaeeeaknaes es 9 1 2 Problem Definition siccssissaeceidcetissaeecinsess sat becvesuteses nena becasyedoaeas canbsereesiens 9 LS PROJCCl Alsters ee e eena aare aeea eea eso iaaeaie iese Mints 9 1 4 The Objectives of the Project cose ie et 9 1 5 Minimum
95. s important that the appropriate hosting company that has a server which supports SSL or equivalent security application is used More below 2 9 Hosting Web Server Selection Following research into various web hosting companies and package deals available it has been decided that StreamlineNet is the preferred choice The reason for this is that StreamlineNet web server offers unlimited gigabyte web space and bandwidth its server supports PHP and MySQL databes which are the choices of scripting language and database for this project The cost is reasonably low and having spoken to the client he has agreed to proceed with StreamlineNet Finally and most importantly StreamlineNet Web Server supports Secure Sockets Layer for secure connectivity and communications as specified above 19 2 10 Project Amendments Following the return of the Mid Project Report further research was conducted The Gant Chart showing the project schedule was slightly readjusted in order to be in line with the actual progress of work The revised Gant Chart is depicted in appendix C 3 0 Analysis This Chapter outlines the issues that affect Adonai s Business Process as well as the analysis of the current system The implementation of an Information Systems Information Technology Strategy will be discussed the resulting information from the IS IT strategy will enable the identification of the requirements for the proposed system which will help the d
96. sary preparation I began to implement a prototype of the system and then rapidly implementing all the required functionalities by applying knowledge and concepts acquired from the School of Computing modules including but not exclusive to Database Principles and Practice COMP2400 Software project Management COMP2660 Information Systems Strategy IS31 and Internet Systems Technologies SY23 Doing this project has not only assured these skills but has allowed me to develop new skills in both technical and non technical areas as well as gain real world experience in solving business problems Most of the interviews I conducted during the gathering of the requirements were rather informal However there were some occasions where I had to present myself in a professional manner and communicate as a Computing Professional this enabled the client to have more faith in me and my proposed software solution My advice to future students who may want to conduct interviews in the future is to be prepared and have a basic understanding of business environment processes and practices and use less technical jargons as this would be irrelevant to business people and could probably bore them to the point where the interviewer will not be able to collect all the necessary information required If I have the opportunity to do the project all over again I would be more disciplined in terms of time management and literature research as I placed a huge emphasis o
97. sful The web based ordering system shall be able to generate order confirmation and receipts Test successful The web based ordering system shall allow customers to order items Test successful The system shall store an order_id item quantity item code description unit price and total price Test successful The system shall provide efficient search facilities for locating stock orders and customers Test successful The system shall automatically calculate the price that the customer must pay for an order Test successful The system shall allow the user to add edit and delete customers product and orders to and from the system Test successful The system shall be able to produce reports Test successful The system shall allow for the issuing of dvd to customers Test successful The system shall record dvd details include id title and description Test successful The system shall record employee name address tel no post code Test successful Constraints Storage of address entries to a maximum of two excluding the Town County and Postcode fields Test successful The system should not allow an order to be confirmed if the order line shopping basket is empty Test successful Numeric integrity constraints will be enforced on fields which must contain numeric data Test successful Performance Result All user inputs must
98. t link on the borrowing table display the successful maintenance menu search box and the add record form Click on the link Display the corresponding As expected Test view on the right record on a single row with all successful hand side of the the details table To search for Display result that matches As expected Test record enter id or the input in the box successful a wildcard caracter 70 in the search box Adding new dvd Insert a new record onto the As expected Test for loan enter a borrow table and display successful valid successful insert message Customer_id dvd_id date_borrowed due_date returned_yes_no enter invalid Display error message and As expected Test date_borrowed advise invalid input successful due_date Click on the Edit Retrieve the corresponding As expected Test link to edit record dvd on loan details and successful displayed in a editable form for editing Alter records on Update record and display As expected Test the editable form message advising successful successful and click edit editing button Viewing a recored Delete record and display As expected Test click on the view message on screen advising successful link on the right delete successful hand side of the table Note All the order tables used the same php file which was implemented globally for adding new records editing records searching r
99. tabase Systems a practical approach to design implementation and management 2 edition 1998 Addison Wesley 8 Microsoft com Cited 22 November 2005 available here http www microsoft com sql howtobuy default mspx 9 http www shop script com glossary html m Cited 29 November 2005 10 Wikipedia com Encyclopedia cited 02 December 2005 http en wikipedia org wiki Server side_scripting 11 PHP NET cited 02 December 2005 http uk php net manual en intro whatcando php 12 Java sun com cited 02 December 2005 http java sun com products jsp 13 Macaizek L Requirments Analysis and System Design 2001 Addison Wesley 14 John Ward and Joe Peppard Strategic Planning for Information Systems third edition 2002 John Wyley amp Sons LTD 15 Davis amp Benamati E commerce Basics technology foundations and e business applications 2003 Addison Wesley 16 Requirements in Software Engineering Available here John Mylopoulos Lawrence Chung Stephen Liao Huaiqing Wang Eric Yu Exploring Alternatives During Requirements Analysis IEEE Software v 18 n 1 p 92 96 January 2001 cited 10 December 2005 59 17 Allan Dennis Babara Haley Wixom System Analysis and Aesign second edition 2003 Wyley 18 Thomas Connolly and Carolyn Begg database systems a practical approach to design implementation and management Third edition 2002 Addison Wesley 19 Elmasri and Navathe
100. tem Time in new system mins mins Monica customer N A 4 10 Lennox customer N A 4 04 Livingstone customer N A 3 50 Task involves purchasing a maximum of two items and checking out Creating customer account produced slightly varying results compared with the current system whereas updating an existing record showed faster results compared to the current system and searching for records was significantly faster and straight forward process in the new system It is anticipated that more use of the system will increase operational familiarity as far as users are concerned Therefore the time taken to process orders and update customer account and issue DVDs should decrease over time with more system usage Users provided verbal feedback of the system after the test procedures All users were generally pleased with the system s look and feel and that features were highly specified and easy to master The shop manager liked the idea of being able to view and manage details away from the premises when required as access to the system is via http Internet Although when the system was demonstrated via a URL www adofood com the system was slightly slower taking nearly 5 seconds extra to respond to some actions However the response time depends on the speed and type of connection of the user s Internet Results shown here were demonstrated using ADSL broadband Internet connection The shop manager appreciated the abil
101. tion cat_desc cat_desc stripslashes cats cat_desc 5 7 System Functionality 5 7 1 Viewing Editing and Deleting Records Individual records are viewed by clicking on the view button built in every item line when a user clicks on this the item details is displayed in full To edit a record when the edit button is clicked the a query is issued and the required data is retrieved from the database and returned to pre fill a form see Figure 5 6 1 below the data in the form can then be altered and saved A record set can be deleted by clicking on the delete button store orders store shoppertrack 2 1 ekes z250 chikegosing igge 7 Vew Eat Delete Figure 5 7 0 View Edit and Delete Menu 46 Editing record clear essence 5 50 clearessence gif body cream skin beutify 5 0 Edit Figure 5 7 1 Editing Record 5 7 2 Adding Records All data are inputted onto the system via text fields as shown below in Figure 5 6 2 When the user clicks the submit button each and every field is checked against the constraints that the variable must meet If for any reason the input does not meet the constraint defined for that particular variable the input will not succeed and the user will be advised accordingly through an error message wr BIE ard ie eae Add A Record Figure 5 7 2 Adding a record 5 7 3 Se
102. to manage inventory at remote locations which is additional benefit for the manager The system also offers some automation of order processing and report building interface for custom reports of inventories Another advantage is that it offers some sort of security features Weakness The system places a great emphasis on the issue of inventory management and does not address the overall issue relating to IS IT strategy such as continuing to build customer relationship and attracting new customers while delivering cost effective products which is required by Adonai in order to achieve competitive advantage It also does not offer full functionalities as indicated in the user requirement The order processing is mainly internal and does not offer any online customer ordering processes And finally the functionality that allow for the renting out DVDs and VCR to customers has not been implemented Conclusion The solutions offered by Stockit system deals with the issue of inventory management but it does not fully cater for the overall user requirement and online customer ordering systems The order processing functionality of the system is mainly internal and does not allow the customers to place orders online The cost of multiple user licensing of the system is also too expensive for the business Therefore Stockit system would not be a suitable solution for Adonai shop 3 8 The Business Analysis and IT Strategy According to Yeates an
103. u AS Test expected successful View Query of employee table and return results As Test employees expected successful Create Insert into customer_account table As Test customer expected successful account Edit customer Update specified customer account fields AS Test account for a given id value expected successful Delete Update field of customer_account table to As Test customer 1 expected successful account Issue dvd for Insert into borrow table AS Test loan expected successful Edit Update specified borrow fields fora given As Test borrowings id value expected successful Delete Update field of borrow table to 1 AS Test borrowing expected successful record Add new Insert into customer table AS Test customer expected successful Edit customer Update specified customer fields for a AS Test 75 given id value expected successful Delete Update field of customer table to 1 AS Test customer expected successful Add new items Insert into item table AS Test expected successful Edit items Update specified store_items fields for a AS Test given id value expected successful Delete item Update field of store_item table to 1 AS Test expected successful Process orders Auto populate store_orders table and store As Test orders items expected successful 2 Online Ordering System Test Expected result Actual Comment result Enter quick
104. ure 44 The file quick shopping html is used to execute the processing of customer shopping list This is a HTML form which when submit will send an email to the back office inventory manager system for staff to pick the items The file seestore2 php is used to list the store item categories the idea here is that a customer do not have to see all the different items available at once The listed categories must be click or selected by a customer to allow them to display available items under that category The file showitem php is executed when a customer clicks on any given item category this file looks in the database and fetch the required item from the selected item category The addtocart php file is executed when the addtocart button is clicked this then picks the selected item and build a shopping cart for the customer The file removefromcart php is used to delete specified item from the shopping cart Checkout html file contains the form which is used by the customer to submit their delivery details once the information is entered onto the form the file checkout php is then executed to populate the database with the new order and also retrieve and output the new order id onto the screen for the customer record Detailed implementation of these files will be discussed later Cascading Style Sheets CSS was embedded onto PHP and HTML files replicated throughout the system in the form
105. vailable sidebar menu Click on the List of all employees details AS Test successful employee including EMPLOYEE_ID FIRST expected button on the sidebar menu NAME SURNAME ADDRESS_1 ADDRESS_2 CITY POST CODE TEL No in the employee table non 69 editable data Click on the Display the welcome interface AS Test successful home button expected from the sidebar menu Click on help Display help page non editable AS Test successful button from the data expected sidebar menu SYSTEM LOGIN Test Expected Result Actual Comments Result Click maintenance Display login page with As Test successful menu button on the username and password box expected sidebar menu provided Enter invalid orno Display error messages As Test successful username and click advising Login fail expected login button Enter invalid or no Display error messages As Test successful password and click advising Login fail expected login button Enter a Display error messages As Test successful combination of advising Login fail expected invalid username and password Enter a valid Display login ok and grant As Test successful username and access to the system expected password and click login BORROWED DVDS TABLE VIEWING SEARCHING ADDING EDITING AND DELETING RECORDS Test Expected Result Actual Comments Result Click on borrow Display the records from As expected Tes
106. ventory Create an account management online Reports Reserve items Update retrieve customer information customer information Reserved items alert Reserved item confirmation Employee 28 Figure 4 1 Context Diagram for the overall system Above is a very high level DFD of the entire system showing the input and output from the system and interactions between the internal and external entity The next step was to create a more detailed lower level DFD for each process within the proposed system and this can be found in Appendix L 4 2 Data Modeling Data model describes the data that flows through the business processes in an organization It is a formal way of representing the data that are used and created by business system it illustrates people places or things about which information is captured and how they are related to each other 17 The Data Modeling Technique that is used is Entity Relationship Diagram ERD 4 2 1 Entity Relationship Diagram An entity relationship diagram is a picture that shows the information that is created stored and used by a business system Below is the entity relationship diagram created inline with the user requirements listed in previous Chapter 1 Invoice 1 Customer Customer Account N Employee Ploy Figure 4 2 1 Entity Relationship diagram KKH 29 Notice above is a relationship of degree three
107. y Required fields are also marked with a to minimise users receiving validation error messages The login logout button will be at the top for easy access The user will be warned if they attempt to delete information about an entity that will affect corresponding tuples in connected tables The user will then be prompted to decide whether they wish to continue even if corresponding tables will be affected Browse for item Choose item Check out Cancel and or go back Figure 4 5 2 Process Mapping 34 4 6 System Architecture The architecture of the system is depicted below using a logical and physical design The logical design shown in Figure 4 6 1 is a data flow diagram that describes the flow of information requests and responses for the system The physical design shown in Figure 4 6 2 describes the hardware and software needed to realize the logical design 4 6 1 Logical design for the website Customer 3 Verify login information sss Website http request optional for customers Customer employee Employee ses Accept reject visitor Website Display product Customer page Inventory record Order shipment confirmed Deliver order Fulfil order Purchase product a Order record Figure 4 6 1 The idea behind the logical design is that the system will be accessible to both employee and customers via web interface using http request an employee can log onto the

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