System Analysis and Design for PIBT: Challenges and Documentation

This assignment covers the system analysis and design tasks for PIBT, a Melbourne-based publishing house. It includes information about the scope, challenges, and documentation of the current system. The report also covers data dictionary, process descriptions, and diagrams like event table, context diagram, DFD diagrams, and entity relationship diagram.

Executive Summary
In this assignment the primary consideration of the assignment is to perform the system analysis
and design tasks for the PIBT. It has helped to gain knowledge about understand the scope and
channelings of the current system when an organization is interested to perform a new system
implementation project. It has also helped to understand how system design tasks are carried out.
The outcomes of all learning activities are presented in the report.
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Organization Background................................................................................................................4
Scope of the Current System...........................................................................................................5
Challenges........................................................................................................................................5
Documentation.................................................................................................................................6
Data dictionary.............................................................................................................................6
Process descriptions.....................................................................................................................9
Task 2.............................................................................................................................................11
Event Table....................................................................................................................................11
Context diagram.............................................................................................................................13
Lev 0 DFD Diagrams.....................................................................................................................14
Level 1 DFD Diagram...................................................................................................................14
Entity Relationship Diagram.........................................................................................................16
References......................................................................................................................................17
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Introduction
Before developing a new system for a business, it needs to understand the requirements for the
information system. In a software development life cycle, system analysis and design phase
comes before the actual system development phase. And it helps in understanding the current
system, exploring the requirements and then preparing the system requirement specification
document and the system designs. Together, the designs and the requirements will help the
developers to develop the information system in such a way that it will meet the requirements of
the business. There are various activities performed in the system analysis and design phase
(Dennis, et al., 2012). This is important as it determines the system requirements and the degree
of accuracy of the system analysis and design phase determines how successfully the proposed
information system will be integrated with the existing business operations and processes. So, it
improves the agility of the business operations and makes the business more profitable. It allows
customisation in the proposed new system so that the new system can meet the requirements of
the business and get more integrated with the business process (Coronel & Morris, 2016).
The primary purpose of the assignment is to gain knowledge about system analysis and design
processes being followed in real-life information system development projects. The given case
study is about a publication that wants to implement suitable information technology solutions
for their business. First, it needs to gain solid understanding of the current information system
and then to find out the functional and non-functional requirements, scope of the current system
and system design of the current information system (Shelly & Rosenblatt, 2012). So, the
assignment will help to learn about system design and modelling techniques and system design
processes also.
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There are many sections and subsections of the report. First half of the report covers the system
analysis aspects of the current system at the publication house. Then on the second half, it covers
the system design aspects of the current system at the organisation. In the system analysis part,
there are information about the scope of the current system, functional and non-functional
requirement, how to develop use case model etc. The next section covers context diagram, event
table, data flow diagrams to understand the scope, boundaries and behaviour of the current
system.
Data have been collected from relevant sources including academic sources mainly. The
academic sources are mainly the books, papers etc.
Organization Background
PIBP or Printing Incorporated Book Publishing is a Melbourne based publishing house operating
in the Australia. They publishes feminist eBooks mainly and are strict to their niche. They
already have a suitable online presence and most of their revenue comes from selling eBooks
over online platforms like their own storefront on their website, online stores like Amazon etc.
They are operating online since 1995. They also have detailed online catalogue of their business
and the list of books online. However, the internal business processes are not well integrated to
the IT process and the organisation is interested in integrating the same. And that is causing them
serious problems and making it challenging to running their business smoothly.
First, sales persons approaches to different authors. As there is no synchronised system among
the sales persons, so they can’t understand whether an author is getting approached by two or
more sales persons or not. However, all call details and sales records are maintained by the sales
persons individually by themselves. Once an author agrees, the author shares the manuscript. The
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manuscript then goes through different stages of development of an eBook. The staffs keep the
manuscripts in bins for each stages. And they add notes on the scripts on the process. Once the
eBook is published, it is up for the promotion and sales. The staffs then focus on the promotion
and sales.
The customers can register to the website and can become the member to get discounts and
benefits. Otherwise they can search through the catalogues and buy books as guests. Once the
payment is confirmed, then the sites allow them to download eBooks. All of their books are in
PDF, MOBI and ePub versions. Some of the versions are print friendly. Rest are suitable for
reading on mobile devices, computers and eBook readers like Amazon Kindle, Nook etc.
The management is interested in fetching and collating the sales records collected from the
internal sales persons and the external sources like the other online stores, Amazon etc. and to
assess the performance of the sales persons, sales volumes of different books and so on. It is
difficult because there is no centralised database and it requires manual effort to collect and
prepare all data for different business analytics tasks. The accounts persons also fetch data from
the individual database and other sources to collect the accounts related information, sales
figures and so on.
Scope of the Current System
Currently, the PIBP is following a semi-manual process. Most of their business operations are
carried out with manual effort. They are using basic information and communication
infrastructure for their online sales processes and to record business data individually on the PCs
of the sales persons. The scope of the process is very limited and it is not supporting the growth
of the organisation.
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Challenges
The process of approaching to the authors is the first place where it lacks efficiency and as a
result, it takes too much time to finish the process and wastage of effort. For example, if two
staffs are unknowingly approaching to the same author then the deal will be done with one only.
And the effort of the other sales persons is wastage. He could put the effort in making another
deal and that would be beneficial for the business.
In the publishing process, the manuscripts are not preserved digitally. Manual handling and
adding notes may damage the manuscripts over time. It leads to loss of resources, effort, and
fund. It also takes time to search for a manuscript to check the status while searching through all
bins and all submitted manuscripts. There are chances of getting manuscripts lost from the
process.
During the process of reporting, there are issues like, it needs considerable manual effort to
collect and process data from external sources and then using the same to process manually or
using spreadsheet applications. As there is no centralised system, so it is very difficult to
implement business analytics on the top of the data collected from various sources.
Documentation
The section contains information about the data dictionary for the ER diagram given in the
Appendix section and the process descriptions for the DFD processes. The DFD diagrams are
given in the appendix section.
Data dictionary
The data dictionary is a crucial part of any database design project. Stating from the initial
conceptual design, a database design and development process goes through multiple stages like
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logical design, physical design, development, and implementation. The data dictionary contains
information about the metadata of the current system at the PIBP. It contains the records about
every entity set, attribute set and other objects of the database. Other information includes
information about the ownership about data, uniqueness constraints, data types etc.
Table Attribute Data type Keys
Book bookID Integer Primary key
bookTitle Varchar (n)
subTitle Varchar (n)
numPages Integer
sellingPrice Decimal(m,n)
unitCost Decimal(m,n)
freqSales Decimal(m,n)
onHandQty Integer
royalty Decimal(m,n)
authorSSN Varchar (n) Foreign key
catID Integer Foreign key
Category catID Integer Primary key
catName Varchar (n)
catDesc Varchar (n)
Channel chID Integer Primary key
netSalesValue Decimal(m,n)
DatePubSale Decimal(m,n)
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DatePromoSale Decimal(m,n)
Task taskID Integer Primary key
taskName Varchar (n)
daysComplete Integer
salesQtr Decimal(m,n)
startDate Decimal(m,n)
finishDate Decimal(m,n)
Author SSN Varchar (n) Primary key
nameAuthor Varchar (n)
address Varchar (n)
penName Varchar (n)
timeToCall Time
[phoneNumber] Varchar (n)
callDate Date
callTime Time
notes Varchar (n)
Employee empID Integer Primary key
empName Varchar (n)
baseSalary Decimal(m,n)
pubComm Decimal(m,n)
promoComm Decimal(m,n)
Order orderID Integer Primary key
custID Integer Foreign key
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amt Decimal(m,n)
orderDate Date
itemQty Integer
purchasePrice Decimal(m,n)
offerPrice Decimal(m,n)
paidAmount Decimal(m,n)
Customer custD Integer Primary key
fullName Varchar (n)
email Varchar (n)
[phone_numbers] Varchar (n)
isMember Boolean
membrID Integer
paymentAC Varchar (n)
Process descriptions
The DFD Level 1 has 6 processes and one data store. The description of the 6 processes are
given below.
1.1. Handling Manuscripts
Once an author submits manuscripts it goes through multiple phases of the publishing process
and goes through the bins assigned to the process. Staffs handle manuscripts manually and attach
notes to the manuscript. The input of the process is the manuscript from the author and notes
from the staffs. Then it produces the output as the eBook in desired format.
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1.2. Publishing Book
Once the eBook is created, it is made ready for the publishing, promotions etc. so that it is ready
to be sold. The input to the process is the eBook and sales records. The output are the sales
figures and promotional information.
2.1. Managing Sales
Once an eBook is ready to be sold, it is sold through multiple sales channels. The sales records
from channels are collected and saved in the system. The inputs are eBook and promotional data.
The output is the sales figures.
2.2. Processing Orders
Once a customer places an order, it asks for payment. Once the payment is processed the site
allows the customer to download the eBook. When the eBook is downloaded, the order is
completed. The input is payment and order details from customers and the output is the eBook
set to the customer.
2.3. Communicating with Authors
Sales persons communicates with the authors. All details are recorded in call details. The input
are the calls and similar information. The output are call records.
3.0. Generating Report
Management generates report based on the sales data. It is for the assessment of the sales
activities by the sales persons. The reports are generated for the accounts persons also. The
inputs are data from data store and other processes. The output are reports.
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Task 2
It contains the diagrams, event table and other information.
Event Table
The event table with the event names, triggers, source, use cases and destination are summarised
in the following table.
Event Trigger Source Use Case Destination
Sales person calls an
author
Author makes a
deal
Author Call Author Sales person and
author
Author submits
manuscript
Submission of
manuscript
Author Submit
Manuscript
PIBP
Staff places the script
in bins
Publication process
starts
Author Add to
Publication
Staff
Staff adds notes on
manuscripts
Notes are added to
manuscript
Staff Add Notes Publication staff
An author gets
published
eBook is published PIBP Publish Book Customers
A customer places an
order
An order received. Customer Place Order PIBP
Customer makes
payment
Payment is
confirmed
Customer Make Payment PIBP
Management
generates report
Report is prepared Sales persons Generate Report Management
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Accounts retrieves
reports
Accounts details
are found
Sales persons Get Accounts Accounts
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Context diagram
The context diagram showing the current process as the whole system, and the external entities
with data exchange with the process are given below.
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Lev 0 DFD Diagrams
The level 0 DFD with 3 main processes and one data store is given below. There are the external
entities exchanging data with the processes and the data store is also given below.
Level 1 DFD Diagram
The level 1 DFD diagram is given below. It shows the processes, data store, external entities and
the communications among them.
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Entity Relationship Diagram
The high level entity relationship diagram is given below.
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References
Coronel, C. & Morris, S., 2016. Database Systems: Design, Implementation, and Management.
s.l.:Cengage Learning.
Dennis, A., Wixom, B. H. & Roth, R. M., 2012. Systems Analysis and Design. NY: John Wiley
& Sons.
Ramez Elmasri, S. B. N., 2016. Fundamentals of Database Systems. s.l.:Pearson.
Roebuck, K., 2012. Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC). Aspley: Emereo Publishing.
Shelly, G. B. & Rosenblatt, H. J., 2012. Analysis and Design for Systems. NY: Cengage
Learning.
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