Sample Final Report

ALLABOUTPETS

OFFICEAUTOMATION

FINALREPORT

TEAMACT

HARRIETBRICHTA

CHIH‐HUNGCHUNG(HANS)

SUYUANXI(STEPHEN)

DATEDUE

DECEMBER13,2011

BCIS5120Fall,2011

TeamACTAllAboutPetsOfficeAutomation

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Introduction ______________________________________________________________ 5 Overview ________________________________________________________________________________ 5 Current Process ___________________________________________________________________________ 5 Problems with the Current Process ___________________________________________________________ 7

II. Business Case ____________________________________________________________ 8 Executive Summary ________________________________________________________________________ 8 The Business Problem ______________________________________________________________________ 8 Alternative Solutions _______________________________________________________________________ 9 Anticipated Outcomes ____________________________________________________________________ 10 Justification _____________________________________________________________________________ 11 Project Description _______________________________________________________________________ 12 Goals and Objectives ______________________________________________________________________ 13 Project Assumptions ______________________________________________________________________ 14 Project Constraints _______________________________________________________________________ 14 Major Project Milestones __________________________________________________________________ 15 Strategic Alignment _______________________________________________________________________ 16 Cost Benefit Analysis ______________________________________________________________________ 17 Alternatives Analysis ______________________________________________________________________ 19

III. Feasibility Study _______________________________________________________ 20 Executive Summary _______________________________________________________________________ 20 Description of Products and Services _________________________________________________________ 20 Technology Considerations _________________________________________________________________ 21 Product/Service Marketplace _______________________________________________________________ 21 Marketing Strategy _______________________________________________________________________ 22 Organization and Staffing __________________________________________________________________ 22 Schedule _______________________________________________________________________________ 22 Findings and Recommendations _____________________________________________________________ 22

IV. Preliminary Project Scope Statement _______________________________________ 24 Project Objectives ________________________________________________________________________ 24 Project Boundaries _______________________________________________________________________ 24

V. Project Charter __________________________________________________________ 26

VI. Human Resource Plan ___________________________________________________ 28 Introduction ____________________________________________________________________________ 28 Roles and Responsibilities __________________________________________________________________ 28 Project Organizational Charts _______________________________________________________________ 29 Recognition and Rewards: _________________________________________________________________ 30

VII. Communication Management Plan ________________________________________ 31 Introduction ____________________________________________________________________________ 31

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Communications Management Approach _____________________________________________________ 31 Roles __________________________________________________________________________________ 31 Project Team Directory ____________________________________________________________________ 34 Communications Matrix ___________________________________________________________________ 35 Guidelines for Meetings ___________________________________________________________________ 36

VIII. Change Management Plan _______________________________________________ 38 Introduction ____________________________________________________________________________ 38 Change management Process _______________________________________________________________ 38 Change Request Process Flow Requirements___________________________________________________ 38 Change Request Form and Change Management Log ____________________________________________ 39 Evaluating and Authorizing Change Requests __________________________________________________ 39 Change Control Board _____________________________________________________________________ 41

IX. Scope Management Plan ________________________________________________ 42 Introduction ____________________________________________________________________________ 42 Scope Management Approach ______________________________________________________________ 43

X. Work Breakdown Structure ________________________________________________ 44

XI. Project Management Plan _______________________________________________ 48 Project Management Plan in MS Project ______________________________________________________ 48 Project Network Diagram in MS Project _______________________________________________________ 49

XII. Procurement Management Plan __________________________________________ 55

XIII. Cost Management Plan __________________________________________________ 56

XIV. Quality Management Plan _______________________________________________ 57 Introduction ____________________________________________________________________________ 57 Quality Management Approach _____________________________________________________________ 57

XV. Schedule Management Plan ______________________________________________ 59 Introduction ____________________________________________________________________________ 59 Schedule Management Approach ___________________________________________________________ 59

XVI. Risk Management Plan __________________________________________________ 61 Introduction ____________________________________________________________________________ 61 Table of Risks ____________________________________________________________________________ 62

XVII. Risk Register _________________________________________________________ 64

XVIII. Systems Requirements Analysis _________________________________________ 65 Overview _______________________________________________________________________________ 65 System Requirements Documentation ________________________________________________________ 65

XIX. Systems Design, Database Construction, and Graphical User Interface Development 76 Overview _______________________________________________________________________________ 76 Deliverables ____________________________________________________________________________ 76

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XX. The All About Pets Office Automation System ________________________________ 78 Security first ____________________________________________________________________________ 78 Introductions second ____________________________________________________________________ 78 It’s All About the Customer _______________________________________________________________ 79 Business Functions _____________________________________________________________________ 86 Reports ________________________________________________________________________________ 88

XXI. System Implementation ________________________________________________ 100 Overview ______________________________________________________________________________ 100 Coding and Testing ______________________________________________________________________ 100 Installation _____________________________________________________________________________ 101 Security _______________________________________________________________________________ 104 Project Closedown ______________________________________________________________________ 105

XXII. System Maintenance _________________________________________________ 106 Overview ______________________________________________________________________________ 106 Automating What Can Be Automated _______________________________________________________ 106 Managing What Cannot Be Automated ______________________________________________________ 107

Appendix A: Change Control Log ______________________________________________ 109

Appendix B: Risk Register ____________________________________________________ 111

Appendix C: System Service Request Form _______________________________________ 112

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I . INTRODUCTION

OVERVIEW

All About Pets is a pet grooming company established in 1985 as a general partnership

operating out of a leased building on McDonald Street in McKinney, TX. All About Pets is owned

by Gloria Swanson and her daughter, Tina Williams. For the last 26 years, the shop has

groomed various types of pets, including birds, cats, and dogs. Services provided at All About

Pets include nail clipping, a bath with face and feet, and a full groom.

All About Pets was the first full service pet grooming shop in McKinney. The facility is not fancy,

but the staff truly love animals and know how to work with pets, thereby causing them the

minimum of distress. It is the devotion to animals and caring for pets that causes customers to

return for additional services and to refer their friends to the shop.

Rescue groups and animal shelters are frequent customers at All About Pets. These groups

seek out Gloria because she gives them large discounts on services provided to abandoned

pets. In fact, many times the services are provided free of charge.

CURRENTPROCESS

The current process used to process customers is completely manual. 5” X 7” cards are used to

track customer-pet combinations. The name of the client, their phone number, and the pet’s

name are handwritten at the top of the card. The lines beneath the customer information are

used to track services the pet receives. Each line includes the date, the type of service, the

groomer who took care of the animal, and the cost.

The workday begins with a stack of cards on the table, which were pulled the previous afternoon

for the next day’s business. When a customer calls to make an appointment to have an animal

groomed, if it is for a future date, the pet’s name and owner are written into the desk calendar. If

it is for the current date, the office manager makes a decision based on her instincts about

whether the animal can be accommodated. If there is time to service the pet, the pet’s card is

pulled and put on the table with the cards pulled the previous afternoon.

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All About Pets also accommodates walk-ins if there is groomer time available. Sometimes if the

pet is horribly matted or appears to be in distress, the office manager makes the decision to fit

the animal in the queue for the pet’s sake. In fact, the office manager may even reduce the price

if the customer does not have enough cash to pay the full price. All About Pets office manager is

not a softie. Instead, she truly cares about the welfare and well-being of all animals.

When the manager is away from the front desk, the bathers or groomers may answer the phone

and pull cards for same day appointments. Where the person puts the card depends on who

takes the call and their mood at the time the call is taken.

When animals arrive, the office manager marks the services the owner wants, the office

manager makes a decision. If the service request is for a nail trimming, the office manager takes

the pet directly to the groomer, the service is completed and the animal is returned to the

customer who pays for the service. If the service requested is a “face and feet” or a “full groom”,

the office manager gives the card to the groomer and the animal to the bathers if a bath is part

of the service. Baths are not part of a nail trim service. If the bathers are busy, the animal is put

in a cage in the bathing room. When the animal is bathed, the bather gives the animal to a

dryer. If both dryers are busy, the bather puts the animal in a cage in the bathing room. When

the animal is dried, the dryer takes the animal to the groomers’ room and notifies the

appropriate groomer the animal is ready.

When the groomer has completed the animal, the groomer initials the card, puts the animal

back in a groomers’ room cage and takes the animal’s card to the office manager. The manger

calls the pet owner to advise them that their pet is ready. If customers do not pick up their pets

in a timely manner, the cages in the groomers’ and bathers’ rooms become over-crowded and

the animals are kept on a floor rug and attached with a lead to the outside of a cage. Giant pets

are also attached with a lead to the outside of a cage.

When the customer picks up the pet, the money is taken and the card is filed.

Every Saturday, the office manager manually calculates salaries, social security and income

taxes, and writes the payroll checks.

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On a quarterly basis, the office manager calculates the total revenues for All About Pets and

sends an estimated tax check to the IRS.

PROBLEMSWITHTHECURRENTPROCESS

When the desk is very busy, cards may be filed hurriedly leading to misfiling. Sometimes the

staff puts a card under the pet’s name rather than the owner’s name. Sometimes the staff

cannot read the handwriting of the person who made up the card. Other times the paper card

becomes ripped, torn, or wet making the card almost unusable.

Frequently, the office manager cannot locate the animal’s card because it has been misfiled or

because it has been placed somewhere on the desk that the desk staff does not know about.

When a card cannot be located, a duplicate card is sometimes created.

Often, the office manager calls the number on the card to alert the owner that their pet is ready

only to learn the number is incorrect or unanswered.

Some people make an appointment, but fail to show up. The office manager makes a guess

about how many will not show and then accepts a certain number of walk-ins or same-day

appointments. This process leads frequently leads to over- or under-scheduling.

Under the current practices, when an appointment is made, there is no notation of the animal’s

size, the time it takes to groom the animal, the preferred groomer, or the individual groomers’

schedules. All that is recorded is the customer’s name and the pet’s name. Not until the cards

are pulled the afternoon before the appointment can the size be inferred from the prices

previously charged for services.

All About Pets does not have a business continuity plan. The office manager and co-owner,

Gloria, is 75 years old. There are no succession plans for Gloria should she become ill or die.

Tina has never calculated payroll or taxes. Nor does Tina have an interest in doing so. Tina has

never written payroll checks or checks to the IRS. Gloria wishes she could take more time off

work and dreams about retiring someday, but she worries that her daughter would have

difficulty carrying on the business by herself.

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II. BUSINESS CASE

EXECUTIVESUMMARY

This business case outlines how the Office Automation Project will address current business

concerns, the benefits of the project, and recommendations and justification of the project. The

business case also discusses detailed project goals, performance measures, assumptions,

constraints, and alternative options.

THEBUSINESSPROBLEM

All About Pets currently performs all office operations manually. Customers and the services

they receive are written on 5” X 7” paper cards. These cards are easily damaged and misfiled

causing office inefficiencies since duplicate customer cards are often created when the original

card cannot be found. Another problem involves customers who make appointments but fail to

keep them. The office manager estimates the number of cancellations, but this frequently leads

to over- or under- scheduling of the groomers.

All About Pets owners purchase pet supplies, such as shampoo, conditioner, deodorant spray,

flea protection, collars, leashes, and dog sweaters. With some products there are expiration

dates. With other products there are fashion concerns. With all the products, there are storage

and spoilage issues. The disadvantages of carrying these products are increasing to the point

that the owners are considering no longer carrying the items.

Another critical business problem involves finance and business continuity. For the last 26

years, shop Income has been hand written into a ledger. Payroll and taxes are calculated by

hand and checks are hand-written for the employees and the IRS. There is one person who is

responsible for all of the financial operations. Others help as a receptionist when the office

manager is on break or out of the office, but no one else helps with the company’s finances.

One person is solely responsible for all financial record keeping – accounts payable, accounts

receivable and fixed assets for All About Pets. That person is Gloria Swanson, a 75 year old

woman who co-owns All About Pets with her daughter, Tina Williams. The owners do not have a

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business continuity plan in case Gloria becomes ill or dies. That is a serious problem especially

because of Gloria’s age.

ALTERNATIVESOLUTIONS

There are several alternative solutions to the business problems currently experienced by All

About Pets owners. For example, the owners may rationalize that an automated system is not

worth the capital expenditures or the effort. An alternate solution might be to type the card

headers and place the cards in protective plastic sleeves. Further, two small boxes could track

the cards for the current day – one box for scheduled appointments and one box for completed

services. This solution would make it easier to locate and re-file records because the type

written information would be easier to read. Moreover, the plastic sleeve would drastically

reduce the problem of cards becoming damaged or destroyed. It is important to note that this

solution does not address the problem of business continuity should the office manager become

ill or die. Still the alternative would reduce some of the stress the office manager experiences

today.

Another solution is a web-based office automation system, wherein the application would reside

on a managed server. Such a solution would allow customers to interact with the web site to

make appointments, see if there dog is ready to be picked up, or send messages to the office

manager. A web-based solution would also allow All About Pets owners to increase their

business by supporting a market place option so that customers could order shampoo,

conditioner, deodorant sprays, flea protection, collars, leashes, and clothing for their pets. A

customer could use a charge card to make such purchases ensuring there would be an account

to charge when the supplies arrived. Customers could pick up the merchandise at All About

Pets for free, or have the items shipped to their home address for an additional fee.

The online office automation has many advantages for increasing business and providing

excellent customer service. There are two significant disadvantages of the web-based office

automation system. Such a system would require Internet access from the shop and a web

hosting site. Both owners expressed a firm objection to the required fees for a web-based office

automation system. Perhaps, the online system is too big of a change for the owners to handle

at one time. Hence, the web site solution is not a valid alternative for this project.

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The simplest solution is to do nothing. Keep the system exactly as it is today and has been for

the 26 years that All About Pets has been in existence. Keeping the status quo is appealing

because it involves absolutely no effort on the part of All About Pets employees. Moreover, the

“do nothing” solution is certainly the least expensive solution mentioned thus far; however, it

fails to address any of the challenges facing the organization. More importantly, the status quo

solution would not satisfy the BCIS 5120 team project requirements.

In contrast, a local office automation solution – an automated system that resides on the

owners’ laptops – addresses all of the business problems identified in the introduction, keeps

out-of-pocket expenses to a bare minimum and satisfies the course requirements. Thus, the

local office automation solution, hereafter referred to as the office automation solution, is the

option chosen by the project team and All About Pets owners. The anticipated outcomes further

justify the selection of this choice.

ANTICIPATEDOUTCOMES

The automation of the office functions directly addresses important company goals. Customer

records and appointments maintained in a database provide multiple advantages. First, it will be

easier to locate a customer and their pets, which will save time in making and recording

customer appointments. In addition, the primary key in the customer and pet tables will prevent

duplicates, improving record keeping accuracy. Second, it will be possible to initiate reminder

calls to customers two days in advance of an appointment and request notification if the

customer needs to cancel. Advance notification of cancellations will allow for more accurate

scheduling of the groomers avoiding the addition cost of support staff staying longer or the loss

of potential revenues. Third, the database will permit analyses that are currently infeasible. For

example, there is no current capability to examine business trends for cyclic or seasonal

variations. Nor is there the capability to identify how long it takes a specific groomer to perform a

specific service on a specific pet. The data in the new database will permit such analyses.

Fourth, the office automation will enable other employees to more easily take over the

responsibilities of the office manager during the latter’s absences. Automating payroll

calculations, Social Security, and income taxes for employees and the company will produce

quicker and more accurate results, saving the valuable time of the office manager. Year-end

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taxes will be completed quicker, more easily and with stress if computerized records are utilized,

again saving time of the office manager.

JUSTIFICATION

This section justifies why the recommended project should be implemented. Quantitative

support is provided where applicable. Initial savings and additional earnings estimates for All

About Pets Office Automation Project are detailed in the table below.

All About Pets Office Automation Estimated Savings and Additional Earnings SourceofSavings

Manpowerequivalentorothermeasure

$SavedorEarnedAnnually

Save time re-writing ruined or lost cards .01 187.20

Save time looking for misplaced cards .02 374.40

Reduced time scheduling appointments .10 1,872.00

Reduce training for front desk substitutes .02 374.40

Over-scheduling groomers – support staff stays longer .10 1,872.00

Under-scheduling groomers – 25% of lost revenues 260appointments@$30average 1,950.00

Save time income and tax reporting .05manpower 936.00

Save time year-end tax recording 20hours 200.00

Appointment reminder calls

Examine business trends for seasonal variations – Increase business by mailing coupons in anticipation of slow season.

520appointments@$30average

3,900.00

Increased customer satisfaction leading repeat business 260appointments@$30average 1,950.00

Calculation of the time it takes a groomer to perform specific services on a pet increasing groomer scheduling accuracy.

1,911.00

Totals

$15,527.00

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PROJECTDESCRIPTION

All About Pets Office automation project will include the design and construction of a database

for maintaining customer information and appointments. A graphical user interface (GUI)

comprising MS Access forms and reports will be constructed to meet the business needs of the

organization. Specifically, locating a customer-pet combination will be achieved by entering part

of the pet’s name or part of the customer’s name on a form. This action will produce a listing of

customer pet combinations meeting the criteria. When the correct customer-pet combination is

located, a click on the row will bring up a form with the customer information for verification.

After the address and phone number have been verified, another click will bring up a form to

schedule an appointment. If a particular groomer takes care of the pet, the groomer’s schedule

will pop up to show availability. Over time, as groom times are collected, the appointment

function will also take into account the average time required to perform a particular service on a

specific pet.

The project tracks the progress of the semester and the required team reports correspond to the

milestones specified in the course syllabus. A pictorial representation of the project schedule

according to the course requirements is shown below.

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GOALSANDOBJECTIVES

All About Pets Office Automation project directly supports several of the corporate goals and

objectives identified during the requirements gathering phase. The following table lists these

corporate goals and objectives and demonstrates how the proposed project supports them.

Business Goal/Objective Description

Timely and accurate reporting

All About Pets Office Automation project will permit

automatic, timely, and accurate reporting of business

data, including business trends, employee salaries,

Social Security and income taxes.

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Business Goal/Objective Description

Improve staff efficiency

All About Pets database will replace manually generated

and filed 5X7 paper cards to track customer services.

The database will also replace the manual scheduling of

appointments.

Create front desk employee

interchangeability.

The office manager will achieve greater autonomy and

flexibility when other employees can easily perform front

desk operations.

Business Continuity

The automated office system will eliminate the

dependence on one individual to perform all of the

financial functions and instead provide a system the

provides the same functions, while offering a system of

checks and balances for accuracy.

PROJECTASSUMPTIONS

Gloria Swanson and Tina Williams have basic computer skills and will be comfortable with a

well-designed graphical user interface (GUI). The co-owners will be willing to use their own

(home) computing devices for the system implementation. There are three team members and a

little over three months to complete the project. Full effort by every team member will be

required to complete the project successfully.

PROJECTCONSTRAINTS

All About Pets is a small business – a very small business. As such, they have limited resources

to spend implementing the solution. The co-owners do not want to incur any out-of-pocket

expenses for the development or implementation of the system. The cost of networking their

home computing devices will be covered by Harriet Brichta, one of the team members. There

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are three team members and a little over three months to complete the project. Full effort by

every team member will be required to complete the project successfully.

MAJORPROJECTMILESTONES

The following are the major project milestones identified at this time. As the project planning

moves forward and the schedule is developed, the milestones and their target completion dates

will be modified, adjusted, and finalized as necessary to establish the baseline schedule.

Milestones/Deliverables Target Date

Select a Business Problem 09/25/2011

Develop a Business Case to Support the Project 09/25/2011

Draft the Project Charter to Formally Authorize the Project 9/23/2011

Develop Project Workbook with Project Documents 09/27/2011

Prepare Documents for Milestone I 9/27/2011

Milestone I Complete 09/27/2011

Determine System Requirements 9/28/2011

Develop Logical Business Process Flow DFDs and Visio 9/30/2011

Develop Logical Business Process Flow with Decision Tables 9/30/2011

Develop Physical Business Process Flow ER Diagram 9/30/2011

Review System Requirements 10/3/2011

Prepare Documents for Milestone II 10/4/2011

Milestone II Complete 10/4/2011

Database design and construction 10/7/2011

Input existing data 10/11/2011

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Milestones/Deliverables Target Date

Prototype forms and reports to meet business functions 10/11/2011

Develop forms and reports 10/17/2011

Design LAN 10/19/2011

Prepare documents for Milestone III 10/24/2011

Milestone III Complete 10/24/2011

Complete coding 11/4/2011

Complete unit and system testing 11/8/2011

Prepare documentation and training materials 11/16/2011

Automate system maintenance functions 11/18/2011

Prepare documents for Milestone IV 11/22/2011

Prepare presentation 11/30/2011

Milestone IV Complete 12/6/2011

Closeout/Project Completion 12/6/2011

STRATEGICALIGNMENT

All projects should support the organization’s strategy and strategic plans in order to add value

and maintain executive and organizational support. All About Pets Office Automation Project is

in direct support of the organization’s strategic plans. By directly supporting these strategic

plans, this project will improve business and help move the company forward to the next level of

maturity.

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Plan Goals/Objectives Relationship to Project

2011 All About Pets

Plan for Information

Management

Improve record

keeping and

information

management

This project will allow for real-time

information and data entry, increased

information accuracy, and a consolidated

repository for all payroll, tax and

performance data

2011 All About Pets

Strategic Plan for

Human Capital

Engage the

workforce

This project allows the employee to take

an active role in managing his/her payroll

2011 All About Pets

Strategic Plan for

Customer Service

Improve customer

service increasing

retention and repeat

business

This project will automate customer

service functions freeing the manager to

focus on the little things that make

customers satisfied.

2011 All About Pets

Strategic Plan for

Business Continuity

Automate customer

processing functions

so that other people

can more easily fill

the position

This project will automate all office

functions making it easier for other

employees to substitute for the office

manager in performing front desk, payroll,

and tax payment operations.

2011 All About Pets

Strategic Plan for

Increasing Revenues

Identify upsell

opportunities by

charting business

trends

This project will provide reports showing

cyclical and seasonal trends in revenues

as well as customers who have not had

their pets groomed in specified time.

COSTBENEFITANALYSIS

The following table captures the cost and savings actions associated with All About Pets Office

Automation Project, descriptions of these actions, and the costs or savings associated with

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them through the first year. At the bottom of the chart is the net savings for the first year of the

project. (Please refer to the Justification section for the details behind the summary numbers.)

Action

Action

Type

Description First year costs

(excluding donation

from ACT team)

Design and build office

automation system Cost Initial investment for the project $0.00

Setting up a LAN for

connecting two laptops Cost

Cost for ACT Team to install

networking capabilities

between the grooming room

and the front desk.

$0.00

Reduce staff time

required due to office

inefficiencies

Savings

An immediate reduction in

overhead equal to the annual

salary of 3 HR specialists and 2

payroll analysts.

-$7,727.00

Fewer under-scheduled

groomers Savings

Accurate scheduling of

groomers prevents potential

revenue losses.

-$1,950.00

Increased Revenues Savings

Targeted marketing to

customers requiring grooming

services for their pet.

-$3,900.00

Increased Revenues Savings Improved customer satisfaction

leading to increased business. -$1,950.00

Net First Year Savings $15,527.00

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Based on the cost benefit analysis above we see that by authorizing the Office Automation

Project, All About Pets will save $15,527.00 in the first year alone. This represents a non-trivial

improvement in the costs and supports the benefit this project will have on the company.

ALTERNATIVESANALYSIS

The following alternative options have been considered to address the business problem.

These options were not selected for a number of reasons which are explained below.

Alternative Option Reasons For Not Selecting Alternative

Do nothing. Keep the current manual

office functions and financial record

keeping practices.

Unnecessary office inefficiencies.

Labor intensive and error-prone financial recording.

Lack of automation.

Print the tops of the 5X7 paper cards so

that they easier to read. Place cards in

protective plastic sleeve.

Non-trivial cost and effort with little gain.

Does not address business continuity.

Lack of automation.

Web-based office automation system. Cost of web hosting.

Cost of Internet access at All About Pets.

Too big of a change for the shop owners.

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III. FEASIBILITY STUDY

EXECUTIVESUMMARY

AllAboutPetsistheoldestandarguablythemostpopularfullservicepetgrooming

facilityinMcKinney,Texas.CustomerscomefromalloverCollinCountytohavetheir

petsserviced.AllAboutPetsdoesnotuseformaladvertising.Infacttheyhaven’tused

advertisingsincetheirfifthyearinbusiness.Theircompany’sbusinessisdrivenstrictly

byword‐of‐mouthcommentariesfromexistingcustomersandAllAboutPets’business

isconsistentlystrong.Youdonotseegroomersstandingaroundtryingtolookbusylike

youdoatPetSmartorPETCO.Instead,AllAboutPetshassteadystreamofcustomers

from8:00–11:30AM.Theyrarelytakeinpetsafternoon.Andallofthegroomingis

completedbetween1:00–3:00PM.Onaverybusyday,groomersmaybebusyuntil

4:00or5:00,buttheyprefertogohomeearlierintheafternoon.

DESCRIPTIONOFPRODUCTSANDSERVICES

AllAboutPetsperformsthreebasicservices:nails,faceandfeet,andfullgroom.Cutting

thenailsisa$3.00fixedpriceservice.Itdoesn’tmatterifthepetisaCockatoo,a

Siamese,aChihuahua,ora200poundMastiff.Thepriceisthesame.Forsomeanimals,

theofficemanagerhelpsthegroomerholdthepetduringnailtrimmingandthe

operationisusuallyoverintwoorthreeminutesatmost.

Thefaceandfeetservicetypicallyappliestodogsandincludesabath,nailcutting,and

earcleaning.Thefullgroomserviceincludesathefaceandfeetserviceplusaclipping

ofthehair.Thefaceandfeet($14‐$75)andfullgroom($30‐$120)servicesvaryinprice

basedonthesizeoftheanimal.

AllAboutPetsalsosellsproductstopetowners.Forexample,theycarryflea

preventative,collars,leashes,dogclothing,shampoo,conditioner,anddeodorantspray.

Sincetheshopissmall,theAllAboutPetsownersdonothavealotofspaceforstorage

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ofsupplies,particularlyout‐of‐seasondogclothing.Asaresult,theownersare

consideringdroppingdogclothingfromtheirproductsandservicesoffering.

Underthecurrentpractices,whenanappointmentismade,thereisnonotationofthe

animal’ssize,thetimeittakestogroomtheanimal,thepreferredgroomer,orthe

individualgroomers’schedules.

TECHNOLOGYCONSIDERATIONS

AllAboutPetsownersarebothcomputerliterate.EachownsalaptopwithMicrosoft

Office,whichtheycurrentlykeepathome.Successfulimplementationofthisproject

withouthardwarecostsrequiresthattheownersagreetobringtheirlaptopstowork

eachdayandhookthemupintheLANconfigurationcreatedbytheACTTeamforthe

twocomputerstocommunicatewitheachother.

Althoughtheownersarecomputerliterateandcertainlycapableoflearningan

applicationwithasmartGUI,theyarenotcomputerguruswhowouldbecomfortable

withsystemmaintenance.Asaresult,theOfficeAutomationProjectwillinclude

automatedmaintenancefunctions,suchasarchive,compactandrepair.Inaddition,the

GUIwillprovideaswitchboardwithformsandreportstoaccomplishthebusiness

objectivesstatedelsewhereinthispaper.

PRODUCT/SERVICEMARKETPLACE

AllAboutPetsislocatedinCollinCounty.In2006,themedianincomeforahousehold

inthecountywas$77,671,andthemedianincomeforafamilywas$91,881.Theper

capitaincomeforthecountywas$33,345.Approximately3.30%offamiliesand4.90%

ofthepopulationwerebelowthepovertyline.Basedonmedianhouseholdincome,as

of2007,CollinCountyisthesecondrichestcountyinTexasafterFortBend,andis

consideredoneofthewealthiestcountiesintheUnitedStates.

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MARKETINGSTRATEGY

Asstatedearlier,AllAboutPetsdoesnotadvertise.Ontheotherhand,ifthecompany

usedtrendanalysis,customer’slastservicedatereports,andmoreaccurategroomer

scheduling,theycouldincreasetheirrevenuesbyanestimated30%.Thegainisonly

limitedbythesizeofthebuildingandthenumberofcustomerstheycanaccommodate

onadailybasis.TheOfficeAutomationProjectwillcapturecustomeremailaddressesin

thefuture.Asimplereportcouldidentifywhichemailaddressestosendnoticesof

appointmentsuggestionsorcouponsforservices.Thecostforthistypeofmarketing

wouldbelimitedtotheamountofthediscount.Couponscouldalsobeemailedto

consumerswhohaven’tbeeninforserviceinawhileduringslowperiodstoimprove

yearroundbusinessflow.

ORGANIZATIONANDSTAFFING

TherearenoanticipatedchangesinAllAboutPets’organizationandstaffing,although

oneofthegoalsoftheprojectistoallowtheofficemanagerandco‐ownermorefree

time

SCHEDULE

AllAboutPetssalescampaignisexpectedtotakesixmonthsfromprojectapprovalto

launchoftheprogramsinceitwilltakeawhiletocollectcurrentemailaddressesand

customergroomingactivity.Manyofthefoundationsforthisprogram,suchashigh‐

speedinternetandwebservercapability,arealreadyavailableattheco‐owners’

homes.

FINDINGSANDRECOMMENDATIONS

Basedontheinformationpresentedinthisfeasibilitystudy,itisrecommendedthatAll

AboutPetsapprovestheOfficeAutomationProjectandbeginsprojectinitiation.The

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findingsofthisfeasibilitystudyshowthatthisinitiativewillbehighlybeneficialtothe

organizationandhasahighprobabilityofsuccess.

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IV. PRELIMINARY PROJECT SCOPE STATEMENT

ThisPreliminaryProjectScopeStatementdefinesthescopeofAllAboutPetsOffice

Automationproject.–needtowriteanintroductionparagraphhere.

PROJECTOBJECTIVES

TheobjectivesofAllAboutPetsOfficeAutomationprojectaretodesignanddevelopa

MicrosoftAccessdatabaseandGUIbyDecember6,2011.Thedatabasewillcontain

informationaboutcustomers,pets,services,appointments,andemployees.TheGUIwill

containaswitchboarddirectingtheusertoanyoneofthesupportedbusinessfunctions,

whichinclude:

1. Scheduleanappointment2. Checkthescheduleofagroomeronaspecificdate3. Enteranewcustomer4. Enteranewpetforanexistingcustomer5. Assignbathertoadate6. Calculatepayroll,includingSocialSecurityandIncometaxeswithheld7. CalculateAllAboutPets’quarterlytaxes8. Summarizerevenues,expensesbytype,salaries,andtaxespaidforyear‐endtax

reporting9. Showareportrevenuetrends,intotalandbygroomer10. Showareportofcustomerswhohaveanappointmentintwodays(forreminder

calls)11. Showareportofcustomerswhohavenothadtheirpetsgroomedinspecifiedtime

Inaddition,userdocumentationwillbecreatedtoanswerquestionsabouthowtousethe

systemorwhataspecificfieldmeans.Finally,atwo‐daytrainingsessionwillbeofferedto

AllAboutPetsafterthecloseoftheproject.

PROJECTBOUNDARIES

AllAboutPetsOfficeAutomationprojectincludesthecurrentlysupportedbusiness

functions.Newordesiredfunctionalitywillnotbepartofthisproject’sscope.Moreover,

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onlythefunctionalitydescribedinthisdocumentwillbeincluded.Additionalexisting

functionality,ifdiscoveredinthecourseofthisprojectwillrequireaformalChange

Requestform,whichmustbesignedbytheprojectsponsorandtheprojectmanageraftera

thoroughreviewoftheproposedchange’simpactontheprojecttimeline.

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V. PROJECT CHARTER

This Charter formally authorizes a project to develop and implement an automated office system

for managing All About Pets’ customers and the services provided to those customers. A

project plan will be developed and submitted to the Project Sponsor for approval.

Commencement of project activities will begin upon approval of the project plan and the

resources to execute it by the Project Sponsor. Included in the project plan are to be a scope

statement; schedule; cost estimate; budget; and provisions for scope, resource, schedule,

communications, quality, risk, procurement, and stakeholder management as well as project

control.

The purpose of All About Pets Office Automation project is to simplify office procedures allowing

the employees to spend more time doing what they do best – caring for pets. Specifically, this

project meets All About Pets ’s need for business continuity and business planning, while

simplifying tax reporting, payroll functions, and appointment scheduling. The office automation

database will calculate payroll figures and taxes in reports. Reports will also be generated to

show the customers that have not had their pets groomed in the recommended time so that

customers can be called to increase business. Reports will also show the short term and long

term trends in business, allowing management to make decisions to control the flow of

business. An additional function of the office automation database will be a report showing the

appointments two days in advance. Hence, customers can be called to remind them of their

appointments and to encourage them to call if something will prevent them from keeping their

appointment. Such calls will help prevent over- or under-scheduling of groomers.

The Project Manager, Harriet Brichta, is hereby authorized to interface with All About Pets’

management as required, delegate responsibilities within the framework of the project, and to

communicate with all participants and management, as required, to ensure successful and

timely completion of the project. The Project Manager is responsible for developing the project

plan, monitoring the schedule, cost, and scope of the project during implementation, and

maintaining control over the project by measuring performance and taking corrective action.

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A completed project plan will be developed and submitted to the Project Sponsor for approval

by September 23, 2011. Upon approval of the project plan resources will be assigned to the

project and work will commence on the next business day and will be performed according to

the schedule provided in the approved project plan. The Project Manager will obtain approval

from the Project Sponsor for any schedule changes which impact the project completion

milestone. It is understood that the full project must be completed in time for the final delivery of

Milestone 4 on December 6, 2011. The project deliverables will include:

1. A complete list of breeds by size

2. All About Pets database

3. Forms for making appointments

4. Pop-ups to check specific groomer schedules for specific dates.

5. A set of reports

a. Weekly payroll, including Social Security and income tax withholding

b. Quarterly taxes for All About Pets

c. Annual summary of revenues, expenses by types, and taxes paid to simplify

year-end tax preparation

d. Revenue trends for All About Pets and individual groomers over specified time

interval

e. Customers who have not had their pet groomed within the recommended time

f. Customers with appointments scheduled two days in advance (for reminder calls)

6. User documentation for the system

The budget for All About Pets Office Automation project is $50, which is to be funded by the PM.

Signing of the Project Charter indicates approval of all the project management documents

included in this project workbook.

Approved by the Project Sponsor:

________________________________________ Date: __________________

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Gloria Swanson.

All About Pets co-owner and office manager

VI. HUMAN RESOURCE PLAN

INTRODUCTION

Human resources management is an important part of All About Pets Office Automation Project.

The human resources management plan is a tool which will aid in the management of this

project’s human resource activities throughout the project until closure. The human resources

management plan includes:

Roles and responsibilities of team members throughout the project

Project organization charts

Staffing management plan to include:

a. How resources can be tutored to achieve necessary coding skills

b. Recognition and rewards system

The purpose of the human resources management plan is to achieve project success by

ensuring the appropriate human resources are acquired with the necessary skills, resources are

trained if any gaps in skills are identified, team building strategies are clearly defined, and team

activities are effectively managed.

ROLESANDRESPONSIBILITIES

The roles and responsibilities for All About Pets Office Automation Project are essential to

project success. All team members must clearly understand their roles and responsibilities in

order to successfully perform their portion of the project. For All About Pets Office Automation

Project the following project team roles and responsibilities have been established:

Project Manager (PM), (1 position): responsible for the overall success of All About Pets Office

Automation Project. The PM must authorize and approve all project expenditures. The PM is

also responsible for approving that work activities meet established acceptability criteria and fall

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within acceptable variances. The PM will be responsible for reporting project status in

accordance with the communications management plan. The PM will evaluate the performance

of all project team members and communicate their performance to course instructor. The PM is

also responsible for ensuring team members know the location and hours of the course tutors in

case they are needed to complete assignments. Since this is an unusual project, the PM will

also serve as a technical lead, a design engineer, an implementation manager and a lead

trainer. The PM must possess the following skills: leadership/management, budgeting,

scheduling, effective communication, and technical skills.

Design Engineer (DE) (3 positions, including PM): responsible for gathering coding

requirements for All About Pets Office Automation Project. The DEs are responsible for all

design, coding, and testing of the system. The DEs will be responsible for timely status reporting

to the PM as required by the Communications Management Plan. DE’s performance will be

managed by the PM and communicated to the course instructor. DEs must be proficient in

programming MS Access or seek necessary tutoring in the BLB, Level 1, and Rooms 130-145.

Implementation Manager (IM) (1 position): The IM is responsible for the distribution,

implementation, and monitoring of the new system executable and documentation.

Training Lead (TL) (1 position): The TL is responsible for training all users on the features

provided by the new system. The TL will coordinate training times/locations with each person

requiring training. The TL will provide training status to the PM in accordance with the project

communications management plan.

PROJECTORGANIZATIONALCHARTS

The following RACI chart shows the relationship between project tasks and team members.

Any proposed changes will be proposed in accordance with the project’s change control

process. As changes are made all project documents will be updated and redistributed

accordingly.

Project Manager

Design Engineers

Implementation Manager

Training Leads

Project Sponsor

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Requirements Gathering A R R C C

Coding Design A R C C

Coding Input A R

Software Testing A R C I

Network Preparation A C R I

Implementation A C R C C

Conduct Training A R C

Key: R – Responsible for completing the work A – Accountable for ensuring task completion/sign off C – Consulted before any decisions are made I – Informed of when an action/decision has been made

RECOGNITIONANDREWARDS:

Although the scope of this project does not allow for time or funds to provide monetary rewards

there are several planned recognition and reward items for project team members.

Upon successful completion of the Requirements Gather and System Design marathon,

the PM will take the team members to dinner at Rudy’s to celebrate the success this

critical phase.

Upon successful completion of the system coding and testing, the PM will take the team

members to dinner at Applebee’s.

Upon successful completion of Milestone 4 deliverables and the team presentation, team

members will celebrate with an evening out at the Cracker Barrel.

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VII. COMMUNICATION MANAGEMENT PLAN

INTRODUCTION

ThisCommunicationsManagementPlansetsthecommunicationsframeworkforthis

project.Itwillserveasaguideforcommunicationsthroughoutthelifeoftheprojectand

willbeupdatedascommunicationneedschange.Thisplanidentifiesanddefinestheroles

ofpersonsinvolvedinthisproject.Italsoincludesacommunicationsmatrixwhichmaps

thecommunicationrequirementsofthisproject.Aprojectteamdirectoryisincludedto

providecontactinformationforallstakeholdersdirectlyinvolvedintheproject.

COMMUNICATIONSMANAGEMENTAPPROACH

TheProjectManagerwillplayaproactiveroleinensuringeffectivecommunicationsonthis

project.ThecommunicationsrequirementsaredocumentedintheCommunicationsMatrix

presentedinthisdocument.TheCommunicationsMatrixwillbeusedastheguideforwhat

informationtocommunicate,whoistodothecommunicating,whentocommunicateitand

towhomtocommunicate.

ROLES

ProjectSponsor

Theprojectsponsoristhechampionoftheprojectandhasauthorizedtheprojectby

signingtheprojectcharter.SincetheProjectSponsorisattheexecutivelevel

communicationsshouldbepresentedinsummaryformatunlesstheProjectSponsor

requestsmoredetailedcommunications.

ProgramManager

ThereisnoProgramManagerforthisprojectsinceitisbeingcompletedaspartofthe

courserequirementsforBCIS5120fall,2011.Inthebroadestsenseoftheterm,thecourse

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instructorcouldbeconsideredtheProgramManagersinceheismonitoringmultiple

projectsforthesameschoolterm.

KeyStakeholders

NormallyStakeholdersincludesallindividualsandorganizationswhoareimpactedbythe

project.ForthisprojectwearedefiningasubsetofthestakeholdersasKeyStakeholders.

Thesearethestakeholderswithwhomweneedtocommunicatewithandarenotincluded

intheotherrolesdefinedinthissection.TheKeyStakeholderforthisprojectisthecourse

instructor.

ChangeControlBoard

TheChangeControlBoardisadesignatedgroupwhichisreviewstechnicalspecifications

andauthorizeschangeswithintheorganizationsinfrastructure.Technicaldesign

documents,userimpactanalysisandimplementationstrategiesaretypicalofthetypesof

communicationthisgrouprequires.

Customer

Thecustomersforthisprojectaretheco‐ownersofAllAboutPets.Anadditionalcustomer

fortheprojectisthecourseinstructor.Asthecustomerswhowillbeacceptingthefinal

deliverableofthisprojecttheywillbeinformedoftheprojectstatusincludingpotential

impactstothescheduleforthefinaldeliverableortheproductitself.

ProjectManager

TheProjectManagerhasoverallresponsibilityfortheexecutionoftheproject.TheProject

Managermanagesdaytodayresources,providesprojectguidanceandmonitorsand

reportsontheprojectsmetricsasdefinedintheProjectManagementPlan.Astheperson

responsiblefortheexecutionoftheproject,theProjectManageristheprimary

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communicatorfortheprojectdistributinginformationaccordingtothisCommunications

ManagementPlan.

ProjectTeam

TheProjectTeamiscomprisedofallpersonswhohavearoleperformingworkonthe

project.Theprojectteamneedstohaveaclearunderstandingoftheworktobecompleted

andtheframeworkinwhichtheprojectistobeexecuted.SincetheProjectTeamis

responsibleforcompletingtheworkfortheprojecttheyplayedakeyroleincreatingthe

ProjectPlanincludingdefiningitsscheduleandworkpackages.TheProjectTeamrequires

adetailedlevelofcommunicationswhichisachievedthroughregularinteractionswiththe

ProjectManagerandtheprojectdocumentsavailableonline,suchastheprojectplan.

SteeringCommittee

TheSteeringCommitteeincludesmanagementrepresentingthedepartmentswhichmake

uptheorganization.Forthisproject,theSteeringCommitteecomprisestheco‐ownersof

AllAboutPets.ThepurposeoftheSteeringCommitteeistoensurethatchangeswithinthe

organizationareeffectedinsuchawaythatitbenefitstheorganizationasawhole.The

SteeringCommitteerequirescommunicationonmatterswhichwillchangethescopeofthe

projectanditsdeliverables.

TechnicalLead

TheTechnicalLeadisapersonontheProjectTeamwhoisdesignatedtoberesponsiblefor

ensuringthatalltechnicalaspectsoftheprojectareaddressedandthattheprojectis

implementedinatechnicallysoundmanner.TheTechnicalLeadisresponsibleforall

technicaldesignsandoverseeingtheimplementationofthedesigns.TheTechnicalLead

requiresclosecommunicationswiththeProjectManagerandtheProjectTeam.Inthecase

ofthisproject,theProjectManagerisalsotheTechnicalLead.

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PROJECTTEAMDIRECTORY

Thefollowingtablepresentscontactinformationforallpersonsidentifiedinthis

communicationsmanagementplan.Theemailaddressesandphonenumbersinthistable

willbeusedtocommunicatewiththesepeople.

Role Name Email Phone

ProjectSponsor GloriaSwanson 817‐357‐2952

ProgramManager ChangKoh [email protected] 940‐565‐3625

ProjectManager HarrietBrichta [email protected] 214‐293‐8951

ProjectStakeholders

ChangKoh [email protected] 940‐565‐3625

Customer GloriaSwanson

TinaWilliams

817‐357‐2952

972‐548‐9272

ProjectTeam Chih‐HungChung(Hans)

[email protected] 940‐297‐7618

SuYuanxi(Stephen)

[email protected] 940-297-7323

TechnicalLead HarrietBrichta [email protected] 214‐293‐8951

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TeamACT

AllAboutPetsOfficeAutom

ation

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COMMUNICATIONSMATRIX

Thefollowingtableidentifiesthecommunicationsrequirementsforthisproject.

Communicatio

nType

Objectiveof

Communication

Medium

Frequen

cy

Audience

Owner

Deliverable

KickoffMeetingIntroducetheprojectteam

andtheproject.Review

projectobjectivesand

managem

entapproach.

FacetoFace

Once

ProjectSponsor

ProjectTeam

Stakeholders

ProjectM

anager

Agenda

Meeting

Minutes

ProjectTeam

Meetings

Reviewstatusofthe

projectw

iththeteam

. FacetoFace

ConferenceCall

Weekly

ProjectTeam

ProjectM

anager

Agenda

Meeting

Minutes

Technical

Design

Meetings

Discussanddevelop

technicaldesignsolutions

fortheproject.

FacetoFace

As

Needed

Project

TechnicalStaff

TechnicalLead

Agenda

Meeting

Minutes

RegularProject

StatusMeetings

Reportonthestatusofthe

projectbyMilestones

completed

Subm

itted

Docum

ents

Approxi

mately

every3

weeks

PM

O

ProjectM

anager

Milestone

Reports

ProjectStatus

Reports

Reportthestatusofthe

projectincluding

activities,progress,costs

andissues.

Updated

ProjectPlanin

Dropbox

Subm

itted

Docum

ents

Approxi

mately

every3

weeks

ProjectSponsor

ProjectTeam

Stakeholders

PM

O

ProjectM

anager

ProjectStatus

Reportw

ith

Milestone

Reports

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GUIDELINESFORMEETINGS

MeetingAgenda

MeetingAgendawillbeannounced2businessdaysinadvanceofthemeeting.TheAgenda

shouldidentifythepresenterforeachtopicalongwithanestimatedtimelimitforthat

topic.Thefirstitemintheagendashouldbeareviewofactionitemsfromtheprevious

meeting.

MeetingMinutes

MeetingminuteswillbeavailableonlineinthegroupWorkingfolderwithin2business

daysfollowingthemeeting.Meetingminuteswillincludethestatusofallitemsfromthe

agendaalongwithnewactionitemsandtheParkingLotlist.

ActionItems

ActionItemsarerecordedinboththemeetingagendaandminutes.Actionitemswill

includeboththeactionitemalongwiththeowneroftheactionitem.Meetingswillstart

withareviewofthestatusofallactionitemsfrompreviousmeetingsandendwitha

reviewofallnewactionitemsresultingfromthemeeting.Thereviewofthenewaction

itemswillincludeidentifyingtheownerforeachactionitem.

MeetingChairPerson

TheChairPersonisresponsiblefordistributingthemeetingagenda,facilitatingthe

meetinganddistributingthemeetingminutes.TheChairPersonwillensurethatthe

meetingstartsandendsontimeandthatallpresentersadheretotheirallocatedtime

frames.

NoteTaker

TheNoteTakerisresponsiblefordocumentingthestatusofallmeetingitems,maintaining

aParkingLotitemlistandtakingnotesofanythingelseofimportanceduringthemeeting.

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TheNoteTakerwillgiveacopyoftheirnotestotheChairPersonattheendofthemeeting

astheChairPersonwillusethenotestocreatetheMeetingMinutes.

TimeKeeper

TheTimeKeeperisresponsibleforhelpingthefacilitatoradheretothetimelimitssetin

themeetingagenda.TheTimeKeeperwillletthepresenterknowwhentheyare

approachingtheendoftheirallocatedtime.Typicallyaquickhandsignaltothepresenter

indicatinghowmanyminutesremainforthetopicissufficient.

ParkingLot

TheParkingLotisatoolusedbythefacilitatortorecordanddeferitemswhicharen’ton

themeetingagenda;however,meritfurtherdiscussionatalatertimeorthroughanother

forum.

Aparkinglotrecordshouldidentifyanownerfortheitemasthatpersonwillbe

responsibleforensuringfollow‐up.TheParkingLotlististobeincludedinthemeeting

minutes.

Sincethisprojectisfocusedonasingleissuebyateambroughttogetherforthisspecific

purpose,itisnotexpectedthattangentialconversationswillbeaproblem.

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VIII. CHANGE MANAGEMENT PLAN

INTRODUCTION

This Change Management Plan documents and tracks the necessary information required to

effectively manage All About Pets Office Automation project changes from project inception to

delivery. Its intended audience is the project manager, project team, project sponsor and any

senior leaders whose support is needed to carry out the plan.

CHANGEMANAGEMENTPROCESS

The Change Management process establishes an orderly and effective procedure for tracking

the submission, coordination, review, evaluation, categorization, and approval for release of all

changes to the project’s baselines.

CHANGEREQUESTPROCESSFLOWREQUIREMENTS

Step Description

Generate CR

A submitter completes a CR Form and sends completed form to the Change Manager

Log CR Status

The Change Manager enters the CR into the CR Log. The CR’s status is updated throughout the CR process as needed.

Evaluate CR

Project personnel review the CR and provide an estimated level of effort to process, and develop a proposed solution for the suggested change

Authorize Approval to move forward with incorporating the suggested change into the project/product

Implement If approved, make the necessary adjustments to carry out the requested change and communicate CR status to the submitter and other stakeholders

Generate CR

Report Status

Log Updated Status

Implement CRAuthorize CREvaluate CR

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CHANGEREQUESTFORMANDCHANGEMANAGEMENTLOG

The change request form contains the following required fields and is to be completed by the

person requesting the change.

Element Description

Date The date the CR was created

CR# Assigned by the Project Manager

Title A brief description of the change request

Description Description of the desired change, the impact, or benefits of a change should also be described

Submitter Name of the person completing the CR Form and who can answer questions regarding the suggested change

Phone Phone number of the submitter

E-Mail Email of the submitter

Product The product that the suggested change is for

Version The product version that the suggested change is for

Priority A code that provides a recommended categorization of the urgency of the requested change (High, Medium, Low)

A log will be maintained that contains the same elements plus two additional columns

completed by the project manager – one column for the change request status and the other for

the change request type described below.

EVALUATINGANDAUTHORIZINGCHANGEREQUESTS

Change requests are evaluated using the following priority criteria:

Priority Description

High The project will have no value if this change is not included

Medium Business outcomes will be drastically reduced if this change is not included

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Low This change would positively impact business outcomes but is not necessary

Change requests are evaluated and assigned one or more of the following change types:

Type Description

Scope Change affecting scope

Time Change affecting time

Duration Change affecting duration

Cost Change affecting cost

Resources Change affecting resources

Deliverables Change affecting deliverables

Product Change affecting product

Processes Change affecting process

Quality Change affecting quality

Change requests are evaluated and assigned one of the following status types:

Status Description

Open Entered/Open but not yet approved or assigned

Work in Progress

CR approved, assigned, and work is progressing

In Review CR work is completed and in final review prior to testing

Testing CR work has been reviewed and is being tested

Closed CR work is complete, has passed all tests, and updates have been released.

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CHANGECONTROLBOARD

The Change Control Board (CCB) is a formally constituted group of stakeholders responsible for

approving or rejecting changes to the project baselines. This group may meet on a predefined

schedule or on an as needed basis. The table below provides a brief description of personnel

acting as the CCB and their role/level of authority within that group.

Role Name Contact Description

Leader Harriet Brichta 214-293-8951 Project Manager

Contributor Gloria Swanson 871-357-2952 Project Sponsor and co-owner

Contributor Tina Williams 972-548-9272 Co-owner

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IX. SCOPE MANAGEMENT PLAN

INTRODUCTION

Scope Management is the collection of processes which ensure that the project includes all the

work required to complete it while excluding all work which is not necessary to complete it. The

Scope Management Plan details how the project scope will be defined, developed, and verified.

It clearly defines who is responsible for managing the projects’ scope and acts as a guide for

managing and controlling the scope.

Project Scope Management follows a five step process; Collect Requirements, Define Scope,

Create WBS, Verify Scope, and Control Scope.

1) Collect Requirements – this first step is the process by which we define and document

the requirements needed to meet all project objectives. The foundation of this process is

the project charter and stakeholder register. From these, the team can identify

requirements, collectively discuss details associated with meeting each requirement,

conduct interviews and follow-on discussion to clarify the requirements, and document

the requirements in sufficient detail to measure them once the project begins the

execution phase. This documentation also serves as an input to the next step in the

process which is to define scope.

2) Define Scope – this step is critical to project success as it requires the development of a

detailed project/product description to include deliverables, assumptions, and constraints

and establishes the framework within which project work must be performed.

3) Create WBS – this process breaks project deliverables down into progressively smaller

and more manageable components which, at the lowest level, are called work packages.

This hierarchical structure allows for more simplicity in scheduling, costing, monitoring,

and controlling the project.

4) Verify Scope – this is the process by which the project team receives a formalized

acceptance of all deliverables with the sponsor and/or customer.

5) Control Scope – this is the process of monitoring/controlling the project/product scope as

well as managing any changes in the scope baseline. Changes may be necessary to

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the project scope but it is imperative they are controlled and integrated in order to

prevent scope creep.

The activities undertaken to complete Milestone 1 included the five steps above. Team ACT

collected the requirements, defined the scope, created the WBS, verified the scope, and created

the Change Management Plan, which provides the mechanism to control scope and avoid

scope creep.

SCOPEMANAGEMENTAPPROACH

For this project, scope management will be the sole responsibility of the Project Manager. The

scope for this project is defined by the Scope Statement, Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) and

the Project Plan. The Project Manager, Sponsor and Stakeholders will establish and approve

documentation for measuring project scope which includes deliverable checklists. Proposed

scope changes may be initiated by the Project Manager, the Sponsor, the Stakeholders or any

member of the project team. All change requests will be submitted to the Project Manager who

will then evaluate the requested scope change. Upon acceptance of the scope change request

the Project Manager will submit the scope change request to the Change Control Board and

Project Sponsor for acceptance. Upon approval of scope changes by the Change Control

Board and Project Sponsor the Project Manager will update all project documents and

communicate the scope change to all stakeholders. Based on feedback and input from the

Project Manager and Stakeholders, the Project Sponsor is responsible for the acceptance of the

final project deliverables and project scope.

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X. WORK BREAKDOWN STRUCTURE

The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) for All About Pets Office Automation project is depicted

in the table below.

BCIS 5120 Team ACT – All About Pets Office Automation Work Breakdown Structure

Project Initiation

Determine Project Team

Select Team Members

Select Project Manager

Select Team Name

Determine Business Problem

Generate ideas

Discuss via email

Select Business Problem to address

Business Case

Hold team meeting to discuss BC

Develop Business Case

Feasibility Study

Hold team meeting to discuss FS

Develop Feasibility Study

Preliminary Project Scope

Determine project scope

Secure project sponsorship

Define preliminary resources

Scope complete

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Project Charter

Hold team meeting to discuss PC

Develop Project Charter

Project Planning

Change Management Plan

Communication Management Plan

Cost Management Plan

Human Resource Plan

Procurement Management Plan

Project Management Plan

Quality Management Plan

Risk Management Plan

Risk Register

Schedule Management Plan

Scope Management Plan

Work Breakdown Structure

Milestone 1

Draft introduction

Assemble Project Initiation & Planning Documents

Project Milestone 1 Complete

System Requirement Analysis

Conduct needs analysis

Develop Logical Business Process Flow DFDs

Develop Logical Business Process Flow with Decision Tables

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Develop Logical Business Process Flow with ER Diagrams

Review software specifications

Develop delivery timeline

Obtain approvals to proceed (concept, timeline, budget)

Secure required resources

Analysis complete

Milestone 2

Prepare documents


Systems Design

Database design

Database construction

Input existing data

Prototype forms to meet business functions

Develop Forms

Develop Reports

Design LAN

Design complete

Milestone 3

Prepare documents


Systems Implementation

Complete coding

Complete Unit and System Testing

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Plan installation

Prepare documentation

Prepare training materials

Develop backup and restore procedures

Automate ongoing support (archiving)

Development complete

Milestone 4

Prepare documents

Prepare presentation

Deliver presentation


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XI. PROJECT MANAGEMENT PLAN

PROJECTMANAGEMENTPLANINMSPROJECT

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PROJECTNETWORKDIAGRAMINMSPROJECT

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XII. PROCUREMENT MANAGEMENT PLAN

The purpose of the Procurement Management Plan is to define the procurement requirements

for the project and how it will be managed from developing procurement documentation through

contract closure.

All About Pets Office Automation Project does not have the budget to make substantial

purchases. In fact, the only money that will be spent is being donated by one of the team

members and is intended to be used on the equipment required to connect the owners’ two

laptops in a LAN configuration.

For this reason a formal Procurement Management Plan is not required for this project.

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XIII. COST MANAGEMENT PLAN

The Cost Management Plan defines how the costs on a project will be managed throughout the

project’s lifecycle. It sets the format and standards by which the project costs are measured,

reported and controlled.

The Project Manager will be responsible for managing and contributing the project’s cost

throughout the duration of the project. As mentioned elsewhere in the document, the PM will

donate the money needed to connect All About Pets owners’ two laptops in a local area network

at the shop.

Since the costs are minimal and not covered by All About Pets, a formal Cost Management Plan

is not required for All About Pets Office Automation.

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XIV. QUALITY MANAGEMENT PLAN

INTRODUCTION

The Quality Management Plan for All About Pets Office Automation project will establish the

activities, processes, and procedures for ensuring a quality product upon the conclusion of the

project. The purpose of this plan is to:

Ensure quality is planned

Define how quality will be managed

Define quality assurance activities

Define quality control activities

Define acceptable quality standards

QUALITYMANAGEMENTAPPROACH

The quality management approach for All About Pets Office Automation project will ensure

quality is planned for both the product and processes. In order to be successful, this project will

meet its quality objectives by utilizing an integrated quality approach to define quality standards,

measure quality and continuously improve quality.

The quality standards for All About Pets Office Automation project will be defined by the

following criteria:

All About Pets Office Automation database will contain sufficient data to address the

business objectives identified elsewhere in this project workbook.

The application, including the GUI will run throughout the work day without errors or

cryptic error messages.

The application will not contain unsupported functions or unfinished forms.

All Macros will run error free and achieve their intended goal every time they are

executed.

Navigation of the Office Automation application will be intuitive to the average PC-literate

end user.

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Quality will be managed by utilizing thorough unit and system testing, as well as by soliciting

fellow students to try out the application’s screens and operations. Records will be kept on the

number of errors encountered by the volunteer students, together with the volunteers’

recommendations for improving the functioning or flow of the system pages.

The quality standard for the final product will be zero defects, operationally defined as

operations performing within six sigma using small group runs tests.

Quality improvements may be identified by any member of the project team. Each

recommendation will be reviewed to determine the cost versus benefit of implementing the

improvement and how the improvement will impact the final system. If an improvement is

implemented the project manager will update all project documentation to include the

improvement and the quality manager will update the organizational documentation the

improvement affects.

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XV. SCHEDULE MANAGEMENT PLAN

INTRODUCTION

The project schedule is the roadmap for how All About Pets Office Automation project will be

executed. Schedules are an important part of any project as they provide the project team,

sponsor, and stakeholders a picture of the project’s status at any given time. The purpose of

the schedule management plan is to define the approach the project team will use in creating

the project schedule. This plan also includes how the team will monitor the project schedule

and manage changes after the baseline schedule has been approved. This includes identifying,

analyzing, documenting, prioritizing, approving or rejecting, and publishing all schedule-related

changes.

SCHEDULEMANAGEMENTAPPROACH

Project schedules will be created using MS Project 2007 starting with the deliverables identified

in the project’s Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). Activity definition will identify the specific

work packages which must be performed to complete each deliverable. Activity sequencing will

be used to determine the order of work packages and assign relationships between project

activities. Activity duration estimating will be used to calculate the number of work periods

required to complete work packages. Resource estimating will be used to assign resources to

work packages in order to complete schedule development.

Once the preliminary schedule is developed, it will be reviewed by the project team and any

resources assigned to project tasks. The project team must agree to the proposed work

package assignments, durations, and schedule. Once this is achieved the project sponsor will

review and approve the schedule and it will then be baselined.

The milestones for the project schedule are determined by the requirements of the course for

which the project is being executed. Moreover, the Milestone delivery dates are pre-determined

and inflexible. Accordingly, the Milestones for the project include: Milestone 1 – Planning;

Milestone 2 – Analysis; Milestone 3 – Design; and Milestone 4 – Implementation and

Maintenance. The table below depicts the due dates, the relationship of the Milestones to

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chapters in the course text and the activities which will be performed to complete each

Milestone.

Since the milestones are inflexible it will be the responsibility of each team member to review

the project plan to identify the work packages for which each is responsible. It is imperative that

team members notify the project manager if any unforeseen circumstances materialize, such as

hospitalization or deportation. Otherwise, it is expected that team members will complete

their work packages according to the schedules defined in the Project Plan.

It is each member’s responsibility to communicate on a bi-weekly basis with the project

manager to update same with progress on assigned work packages. There are tutors that are

devoted to our class, BCIS 5120 located on Level One of the Business Leadership Building.

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XVI. RISK MANAGEMENT PLAN

INTRODUCTION

A risk is an event or condition that, if it occurs, could have a positive or negative effect on a

project’s objectives. Risk Management is the process of identifying, assessing, responding to,

monitoring, and reporting risks. This Risk Management Plan defines how risks associated with

All About Pets Automation project were identified and analyzed. It outlines how risk

management activities will be performed, recorded, and monitored throughout the lifecycle of

the project and provides a table for recording and prioritizing risks.

Risk identification involved the project team, appropriate stakeholders, and includes an

evaluation of environmental factors, organizational culture and the project management plan

including the project scope. Careful attention was given to the project deliverables,

assumptions, constraints, WBS, cost/effort estimates, resource plan, and other key project

documents.

Team ACT took time during the initial planning meeting to discuss potential risks. We identified

many, some of which are more important than others. The project manager then discussed risk

potential with All About Pets owners. Using input from the two activities, the team created a

table of potential project risks together with possible mitigation strategies to either take

advantage of positive effect risks or mitigate the impact of negative effect risks. The results of

Team Act’s actions are depicted in the Table below.

As risks occur during the project execution, they will be entered in the Risk Register in the next

section. A priority will be assigned based on the anticipated impact of the risk. Positive numbers

will be utilized for positive impacts and negative numbers will be used for negative impacts. If

revisions to the project plan are required, a formal change request will document the necessary

adjustments and will be submitted for approvals to All About Pets owners.

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TABLEOFRISKS

Potential Risk Risk Type

Proba-bility

System Impact

Risk Strategies

Theft – If it becomes known that All About Pets has 2 laptops on their premises, thieves may be tempted to prey on the shop owners.

Negative Medium High All About Pets shop owners will take their laptops home with them in the evening.

Computer crashes & system outages

Negative Low High Two laptops will be used – one in the grooming room and one at the front desk. If one fails, the other will be used until the failing unit is repaired or replaced.

Data Destruction – It is not uncommon to have accidental deletes or for data files to become corrupt or unusable during production use.

Negative High High 1. The system will limit accidental deletes by requiring a password to delete data.

2. Flash drive backups will be taken twice daily.

3. The system will reside in a Dropbox, which will be updated nightly, when the owners take their laptops home.

Software will become obsolete rendering the application useless.

Negative Low High The project has a short timeline. Plus, MS Office maintains support over several versions and makes their software backward compatible.

Catastrophes, such as tornadoes, earthquakes, and flash floods.

Negative Low High The Dropbox storage of the system will mitigate such catastrophes since the application can run on any PC with MS Office.

All About Pets owners will not like the system.

Negative Low High The team will involve the owners in the development of the application to reduce the likelihood of this outcome.

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The system will be inadequate and will not meet the needs of All About Pets owners.

Negative Low High The team will involve the owners in the development of the application to reduce the likelihood of this outcome.

All About Pets owners will sell the shop eliminating the need for the system

Positive Very Low

High Constant contact with the owners will alert the team to this possibility.

Freeware exists that will accommodate the needs of All About Pets owners.

Positive Very Low

High If freeware exists, the team will pursue customization of same to meet the owner needs.

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XVII. RISK REGISTER

During project execution, any risks that occur will be documented in the Risk Register, which has the format shown below. The Risk Register may be found in Appendix B.

Date

Priority

Risk Description

Mitigation Steps

Impact on Project

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XVIII. SYSTEMS REQUIREMENTS ANALYSIS

OVERVIEW

Systems analysis is the process of studying a current system and how it functions, as well as

the evaluation of what the process owners and other stakeholders would like to see in a new

system. Systems analysis is subdivided into two phases. In the first phase, analysts identify the

system requirements, while in the second phase the analysts structure the identified

requirements.

Traditional requirements gathering methods include interviews, observation, and collection of

procedures and other written documents. Unfortunately, the latter source of requirements is

unavailable for All About Pets, since there are no formal procedures or written documents. All

functions to manage All About Pets operations are performed from memory. Even when new

people are trained on answering the phones or taking the money, they are taught by word of

mouth and they perform the new tasks from memory.

One of the advantages of the new system is that procedures will finally be documented so that

they can be reviewed for accuracy. The system requirements were gathered by two methods.

We carefully observed the office manager while she worked for approximately 130 hours over a

period of three years. Tiffany is groomed every other week and we wait in the office until the

grooming is complete. We watched everything that Gloria did carefully. We know where she

keeps the current days revenues and we know where Gloria keeps her petty cash (to make

change). We have even manned the front desk when Gloria is busy elsewhere in the shop.

When the opportunity to provide an office automation database, We began the interview

process to pick up on the specifics about how Gloria calculates payroll and tax for employees

and for the shop. Gloria was very cooperative in providing the systems requirement information.

As a result of the interviews and hours of observation, the team assembled the System

Requirements Documentation.

SYSTEMREQUIREMENTSDOCUMENTATION

The first step in understanding the business requirements is to study the business process flow.

Although not discussed in our text, we find this step invaluable in understanding the underlying

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data requirements for a system. The business process flow can also identify repetitive or

inefficient steps that can be streamlined or eliminated. The Business Process Flow diagram

illustrating the main business processes used to conduct business at All About Pets is portrayed

in Figure 1. The three manual processes represented by trapezoids are the three processes our

team plans to replace with an automated database system.

The Business Process Flow Diagram also provides a convenient basis for examining the data

flow through the system. The data flow includes a financial component and as a result, revenue

amounts are captured as part of the data flow. The Data Flow Diagrams (DFDs) are presented

in Figures 2 through 5. Figure 2 depicts the context level DFD, which shows the entire system

as a single process labeled 0. There are inputs and outputs; however, there are no data stores

in the context level diagram. Throughout the remaining DFDs the inputs and outputs must be

balanced. That is, no new inputs or outputs may be included in the higher level diagrams.

The next DFD is the Level 0 diagram shown in Figure 3. The Level 0 diagram reveals the main

processes in All About Pets Office Automation System: 1. Receive and transform customer

grooming request; 2. Update All About Pets database; 3. Update the ledger; and 4. Produce

management reports. These four processes encompass the basic requirements of running All

About Pets business.

Figure 4 decomposes the Receive and Transform Customer Grooming Request process into

the processes required to make an appointment, route the grooming request to the appropriate

department (grooming room), and post revenues to the ledger. Figure 5 decomposes the

Management Report process. And finally, Figure 6 further decomposes the Make Appointment

process. The diagrams in Figures 2 through 6 embody the data flow requirements for All About

Pets Office Automation System.

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FIGURE 1. ALL ABOUT PETS BUSINESS PROCESS FLOWCHART

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FIGURE 2: ALL ABOUT PETS DATA FLOW DIAGRAM – CONTEXT DIAGRAM

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FIGURE 3: ALL ABOUT PETS DATA FLOW DIAGRAM – LEVEL 0 DIAGRAM

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FIGURE 4: ALL ABOUT PETS DATA FLOW DIAGRAM – LEVEL 1-01 DIAGRAM

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FIGURE 5: ALL ABOUT PETS DATA FLOW DIAGRAM – LEVEL 1-04 DIAGRAM

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FIGURE 6: ALL ABOUT PETS DATA FLOW DIAGRAM – LEVEL 2-01.3 DIAGRAM

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The next step in identifying system requirements involves constructing the conceptual data

model. The conceptual data model is a representation of the organizational data that shows as

many rules about the meaning and interrelationships among the data as possible. The people,

places, and things about which the business retains data are called entities. Each entity must

have a primary key which is a field or set of fields that uniquely identifies instances of the entity.

An entity also has attributes or named properties of the entity that are of interest to the

business.

The relationships between the entities in the conceptual data model identify the cardinality and

the rules of operations. The cardinality refers to the number of instances of one entity that must

(or may) be associated with each instance of another entity. The cardinality is represented by

crow’s feet to show one or more or a straight vertical line to represent one instance. A second

part of cardinality is whether the relationship is optional or required. Optional is represented by

an O, while required is signaled by a straight vertical line.

The rules of operation are depicted by text written along the line connecting the two entities. In

some cases the rules are written in both directions, whereas in other cases the rule is written in

one direction and the reverse assumed for the opposite direction.

The entities and their relationships are depicted in Entity-Relationship (E-R) diagrams. Figure 7

displays the E-R diagram for All About Pets Office Automation System. All of the relationships in

All About Pets system are binary. There are no unary (recursive) or ternary relationships in our

data model. Nor was it necessary to include any associative entities in the model.

The E-R diagram for All About Pets Office Automation System is presented in Figure 7. The

figure in Figure 7 utilizes the crow’s feet to identify cardinality. An alternate version of the same

E-R diagram, which uses Visio’s standard arrow format, is shown in Figure 8.

The E-R diagrams mark the completion of the logical data modeling for All About Pets Office

Automation System. The next step is to develop the system’s physical model, which is included

in Milestone 3 for the project.

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FIGURE 7: ALL ABOUT PETS ENTITY RELATIONSHIP DIAGRAM USING CROW’S FEET

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FIGURE 8: ALL ABOUT PETS ENTITY RELATIONSHIP DIAGRAM USING ARROWS TO DEPICT RELATIONSHIPS

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XIX. SYSTEMSDESIGN,DATABASECONSTRUCTION,ANDGRAPHICALUSERINTERFACEDEVELOPMENT

OVERVIEW

The All About Pets Office Automation project began with four key business objectives. The first

objective is to provide automatic, timely, and accurate reporting of business data, including

business trends, employee salaries, Social Security and income taxes. The second objective is

to improve staff efficiency by replacing the manually created 5X7 paper cards to track customer

services and the manual scheduling of appointments. The third objective is to create front desk

employee interchangeability, which is important if the co-owner and office manager wants more

free time. Having an automated system will reduce the training time and ease of use to perform

the basic functions of running the shop.

The fourth and final key business objective is to improve the company’s business continuity by

eliminating the dependence on one individual to perform all of the financial functions. Instead,

the Office Automation project can provide the same functions, while offering a system of checks

and balances for accuracy. The main goal of the last objective is to ensure the company can

continue to grow and thrive in the event that something happens to the co-owner and office

manager, Gloria Swanson.

To meet these four key business objectives, the team envisioned creating a graphical user

interface (GUI) containing a switchboard. Since Access 2010 no longer recommends or directly

supports switchboards, the team elected to use the tab feature, which presents the business

functions as tabs on a single form. The end user can move between tabs without affecting the

status of the remaining tabs.

DELIVERABLES

In the project Scope, the team provided more details of what would be required to meet the

overall project objectives. Specifically, the team identified eleven concrete and measureable

deliverables.

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1. Schedule an appointment

2. Check the schedule of a groomer on a specific date

3. Enter a new customer

4. Enter a new pet for an existing customer

5. Assign bather to a date

6. Calculate payroll, including Social Security and Income taxes withheld

7. Calculate All About Pets’ quarterly taxes

8. Summarize revenues, expenses by type, salaries, and taxes paid for year-end tax

reporting

9. Show a report revenue trends, in total and by groomer

10. Show a report of customers who have an appointment in two days (for reminder calls)

11. Show a report of customers who have not had their pets groomed in specified time

Deliverables one through four are collapsed into one tab called Customer Data. Deliverable five

is contained in its own tab. Deliverables six through ten are presented under Reports.

Deliverable eleven is not possible to demonstrate because of the “manufactured data” created

to illustrate the other deliverables. The data entry process was laborious and time consuming. In

total, the team entered 181 customers and 210 pets, which accounted for approximately 1,000

appointments. To demonstrate functions such as groomer schedules, income and tax

information, we added over 650 appointments for the months of November and December,

2011. As a result, every pet in our sample is groomed every week during November and most

have appointments in December. If the system is accepted by the company, fulfilling the

eleventh deliverable would be accomplished with a simple report.

Three additional deliverables were identified during the construction of the GUI. Specifically

forms to add or update employees, tax rates, and expenses were created and added as stand-

alone tabs. In all six tabs are used to realize thirteen deliverables. The remainder of the paper

will discuss the operations of the All About Pets Office Automation system.

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XX. THEALLABOUTPETSOFFICEAUTOMATIONSYSTEM

SECURITY FIRST

The login screen is the first screen displayed when the application is launched. The end user

enters a userid and password and clicks on the OK button or hits the enter key twice.

INTRODUCTIONS SECOND

The next screen is the welcome page. There is a bold reminder that the data contained in the

system is artificial and in no way reflects reality. When the end user clicks on the Proceed to

Office Manager Button or hits the Enter key, they are taken to the actual application section of

the system.

There are six tabs indicating the major functions of the application:

1) Customer Data

2) Add/Update Employees

3) Add/Update Taxes

4) Add/Update Expenses

5) Assign Bather

6) Reports

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IT’S ALL ABOUT THE CUSTOMER

Customers are critical to any business. The Customer Data tab is important because all of the

tasks pertaining to the customer are contained on this single form. For example, finding or

adding a customer is performed on the Customer Data tab. Then, a click of the Pet and

Appointment Data button takes you to a split form that contains the customer’s pet information

in the top half and the pet’s appointment data in the bottom half. The Pet and Appointment Data

form is not a separate tab in the application. The only way to get the form is from the Customer

Data tab. Once in the Pet and Appointment Data form, you can add or retire pets, check

groomer schedules, and schedule new appointments for the customer’s pets.

The Customer Data form opens to the first customer alphabetically in the database and the

cursor is in the Customer ID field. With the cursor in the Customer ID field, the end user can

click the Find Customer Button.

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By entering a few characters the end user can search through the customers until the correct

customer is identified. Identification is confirmed by verifying the phone numbers.

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If the customer does not exist in the database, then the end-user can click on the Add New

Customer button and enter the appropriate contact information. After completing the

information, the end-user clicks on the Save Record button so that when they advance to the

Pet Data, the customer will be added to the system.

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When the customer has been located or added and saved, the end-user clicks on the Pet and

Appointment Data button. The Pet and Appointment Data form is split into two halves. The top

half of the form contains the pet information with buttons to navigate through the customers

pets. The bottom half of the form contains the pet’s appointment data. As you scroll through the

customer’s pets, the bottom of the form changes to reflect the data for the current pet. When the

correct pet is located, a new appointment can be added at the bottom of the list or by pressing

the >* button if the list covers many pages. The end user only needs to enter the date. The Pet

ID is already populated. There is also a button to review the groomers’ schedules to make sure

the groomer has time available on the date in question.

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Once the date is entered in the bottom half of the form, the end user clicks on the newly

generated appointment id to advance to a screen for filling in the details of the appointment as

shown in the screen below.

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To add a new pet, the end user clicks on the Next Pet button until a black screen appears. The

customer id is populated and the pet’s age defaults to one year old. The correct date can be

entered using the calendar feature for the field. The remaining fields need to be completed.

When the pet data is complete, the end user checks the groomers’ schedule for an open date

and inputs the date in the bottom half of the field. Then clicking on the automatically generated

appointment id launches a form on which the appointment details can be entered.

The process is relatively simple as demonstrated by the time it took to explain the procedures to

one of the workers at the company. Upon completion of the 15 minute set of instructions, the

employee was able to find customers, add pets, and add appointments. Written procedures will

enhance the learning curve and answer questions that might arise during normal operations.

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BUSINESS FUNCTIONS

The second tab contains a form used to add or update information about the employees.

The third tab contains a form to add or update tax rates.

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The fourth tab is used to add or update expense data.

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The fifth tab contains a form to assign a bather for each work day. There are three employees

that perform the bather or dryer roles. The bather is assigned on a rotating schedule (once

every three days). The bather is paid 10% of the total revenues taken in for the day. The two

dryers are paid an hourly wage which varies based on their experience.

REPORTS

The sixth tab contains a list of the reports created to meet deliverables six through ten. The

business reports include:

1. (Customer) Reminder Calls

2. Groomer Appointments by Date

3. Weekly Salary Report

4. Revenues by Groomer

5. Quarterly Form 941 Report

6. Annual Form 940 Report

7. Annual Income Report (W2)

8. Annual Income Report (W3)

9. Annual Expenses by Type

10. Annual Revenues

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The remainder of the paper contains the sample reports. The titles provide information about the

report being depicted. For example, the appointment reminders report lists the people that need

to be called to remind them they have a grooming appointment in two business days. The query

uses a manipulation of the current date to determine which appointment date to draw from.

IIf(Weekday(Date())<6,DateAdd("d",2,Date()),DateAdd("d",4,Date()))

If the weekday is less than 6, the add two to the current date; otherwise add four to the current

date.

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The groomer schedules are created by select dates greater than or equal to today and showing

how many openings each groomer has for the different dates. A negative number means the

groomer is already overbooked. A positive number means that there are openings.

All four groomers are shown for each date in case a customer wants to select a different

groomer for a specific date.

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The Weekly Payrolls report calculates the gross income, the Federal tax, the Social Security

tax, the Medicare tax and the Net Income for each employee. The calculations take into account

the employee’s marital status and how many deductions they declared on their W4 forms. The

calculations also differ by the role the employee filled on each date. Bathers are given 10% of

the daily revenues; groomers are given 50% of the revenues they individually brought in; and

Dryers are given an hourly rate which varies by experience.

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The revenues by groomer show the high month, the low month, the average, and the sum of the

revenues brought in for the year. The numbers clearly show that the data was “manufactured”

because November is the only month with reasonable numbers. All of the remaining months are

artificially low.

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The Form 941 data are called into to the IRS quarterly and a check to cover the taxes is sent in

to the government.

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The Form 940 data is used to report and submit annual State and Federal unemployment taxes.

FUTA stands for Federal Unemployment Tax Act.

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The annual payrolls report contains the information needed to complete each employee’s W2

wage and tax reporting forms. The employee gets three copies and the government gets two

copies.

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The W3 report is the company’s reporting of the combined income and tax information for all

employees, which the government uses to make sure it received all of the W2 forms.

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The Expenses report is a compilation of the operating expenses incurred throughout the year

detailed by expense type and month. This report is taken to the tax preparer and provides

documentation to support the company’s tax filing.

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The Annual Revenues report summarizes total revenues by month and is also used in the

company’s tax preparation process.

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XXI. SYSTEMIMPLEMENTATION

OVERVIEW

System implementation is described by our text as the second most expensive and time-

consuming phase of the systems development life cycle (SDLC) after maintenance. It is time-

consuming because of the work that must be completed and expensive because so many

people are involved in the process. The text further describes the six major activities in the

systems implementation phase:

1. Coding

2. Testing

3. Installation

4. Documentation

5. Training

6. Support

CODINGANDTESTING

The coding and testing for the system were completed during the system design and

development phase of the project. In order to demonstrate functionality and utility of the forms

and reports, the team felt it was necessary code and test the system components using real and

manufactured data. Unit testing was completed as each form or report was completed. The

calculations shown in the reports were compared to calculations using the data exported to

Excel. The values were the same.

Integration testing was completed by adding the components to the tabbed form one by one on

new tabs. And system testing was completed with all of the tabs filled and the login executable

and the Welcome screen created. A random error caused a functional problem with the toggle

button on the Customer Data form. Specifically, the toggle button would stop working for an

unknown reason. A workaround was discovered during the testing. If the toggle button does not

work, you select the File pull down menu and a security warning will appear in yellow print.

Choose “accept security” despite the warnings. You will need to log into the database again, but

afterwards, the toggle button will work.

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The equivalent of stub testing was performed early in the system development phase. Stand-

alone queries were created to produce and check the results of SQL code before the code was

added to modules or macros.

As a final user test, we solicited the help of one of the workers at the dog grooming facility to

participate in a 15 minute test to uncover any problems or misunderstandings with the customer,

pet, and appointment forms. The only problem identified was that the end user needed to save

the customer data before proceeding to the child forms for pet and appointment information. A

button was added to the form to solve the issue. This experience should smooth the way for

acceptance testing which will occur after the class is complete.

Since the coding and testing are finished for our project, the discussion of systems

implementation begins with the installation of the system. Installation of the All About Pets Office

Automation system is complicated by the volume of data maintained by the shop. Limited by

time, the team only entered data for 181 customers, 209 pets, and 651 appointments. The

remaining thousand appointments were manufactured using the same customers and pets over

and over again for the months of November and December, 2011. The additional data made it

possible to demonstrate the functionality of the forms and reports.

INSTALLATION

The first step in the installation process will be the deletion of most of the data in the application.

This is necessary because some of the data are manufactured and other parts of the data have

been altered for shop anonymity. If the shop owners decide to implement the system, most of

the data will need to be re-entered from scratch. Certain tables such as Breed, Expense Type,

Service, and Tax Rates will remain intact and useful.

The requirement of having to enter the data from scratch limits the choice of implementation

strategies. The direct installation method of changing from the old to the new system is not

feasible because of the time requirements to enter the customer, pet, and appointment data.

Our brief experience with data entering showed that it takes about three hours to enter 100

appointments, which equates to 13 customers and 14 pets. It would take weeks, even months to

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enter the complete customer data and the shop cannot afford to be out of business for that

length of time.

Similarly, the single location implementation strategy does not imply in this situation since there

is only one location of the pet grooming facility. The phased installation is not relevant because

the entire system is already constructed and fully functional. That leaves only one

implementation strategy available for consideration – parallel installation.

In the parallel installation, the old and the new system exist side by side. The file cabinet full of

5X7 cards will continue to be used. The new system will exist with the employee and bather

tables loaded and the remaining tables either empty or intact (Breed, Expense Type, Service,

and Tax Rates). The tax rates will be checked and modified as necessary. The forms and

reports will work properly even with no data.

A day with slow traffic will be chosen for the installation date. Ideally, this will be on or before

January 3rd, the first working day of 2012. In addition, starting at the beginning of the year will

make the tax and income data contained in the system complete for yearend processing. Also,

business is typically slow after the first of the year.

As customers come in to have their pets groomed, their 5X7 card will be entered into the

system. If there is not enough time to enter all of the appointment data, the last line entered will

be highlighted and the card set aside in a box labeled “incomplete data entry.” When all of the

information on the card is entered into the system, the card will be alphabetized and put in a

separate cabinet drawer for completed data entry. During slow times, the incomplete data entry

can be completed and the card moved to the completed data entry drawer.

For the first two weeks after initial installation almost all of the customer cards will be new. After

two weeks, the biweekly regulars will be in the system, making it easier and quicker to set up

their appointments. After a month, the monthly regulars will be in the system. As time goes on,

more and more of the regular customers will be in the system. Eventually, it will become a

natural process to check the system before checking the old file drawer.

When only a few cards remain in the old file drawer, the last cards will be merged with the cards

in the inactive customers file. After system conversion is complete, the inactive customers’ file

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will only be checked if the person says they have visited the shop in the past, but they are not

found in the customer data table.

From the first week, the calculation of payrolls will be accurate. To make the shop owner feel

more comfortable, we will ask her to calculate the payroll using her manual method. The

resulting figures will be compared with the numbers on the report. As the shop owner

recognizes that the new system is accurate and makes the task quicker and easier, she will stop

calculating the payrolls manually.

A similar user test of the quarterly payroll and Form 941 reports will be conducted between the

reports generated by the system and the numbers manually calculated. And finally, the annual

reports generated by the system will be compared to manually calculated numbers.

Between the completion of the project and the implementation of the system, we definitely need

to create user documentation to make crystal clear to the end users how to use the system.

Much of the documentation is contained in this final report; however, the specific instructions

need to be extracted and presented in a short user’s guide. Undoubtedly, some questions may

arise during the first days of using the system in production. For these, the team has agreed to

avail themselves to the owners for clarification and updates to the user’s guide.

The system documentation is not really intended for the owners of the pet grooming facility.

Instead, the system documentation is intended for a database expert hired to modify the system

if the original designer is not available. Again, much of the system documentation is contained in

this final report, but the information needs to be extracted and put into a short system

documentation manual. Fortunately, the system is not that complicated and anyone with

moderate skills in Access and strong SQL skills should be able to maintain and change the

system.

As a final note on system documentation, the team acknowledges that there is one section of

the application code that could be greatly simplified. Making a program simpler by adding a new

feature is called refactoring in our text. The specific code in question is the calculation of

employee payrolls. It was not until the code was complete, that we realized it could have been

written in a simpler, more concise format. We were uncertain how long it would take to re-write

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and test the code, but we were certain the current version worked just fine. So, we decided to

keep the original code and not make any changes.

SECURITY

The application will not be web-based primarily because the owner of the shop does not want to

pay for Internet access. For this reason, security is less of a concern than it is in most web-

enabled companies. There still are security concerns. A disgruntled employee may try to trash

the system; an unexplained event may contaminate the system rendering it unusable; or the

entire system may crash. These and similar issues need to be addressed during installation.

The team recommends the owners use two networked personal computers to replicate the

database and transactions to it. That way, if one of the systems crashes, the other system can

be utilized as the main system until a replacement for the first system is secured. Additionally,

the team recommends that each day at noon and at business close, the database should be

backed up on a flash drive together with the daily transaction records. At least three copies of

backup files should be maintained on the flash drives with numbers indicating the day of the

data. For example Database0 represents the current day’s business, while Database-1

represents yesterday’s business, and Database-2 represents the day before yesterday’s

business. Three days of data should be sufficient for a database expert to rebuild a broken

system. If the owners choose to be more conservative, we may implement a seven data backup

system.

It is also recommended that two sets of flash drives be used so that alternate days of backups

can be kept on different flash drives. This will allow for one set of flash drives to be maintained

offsite further enhancing the security of the system. Keeping an offsite backup is especially

useful for natural catastrophes, such as tornados, fires, or other dramatic events.

A disgruntled employee may know the computer passwords and how to delete an application in

File Manager; however, it is unlikely that they know how to delete the transaction records. So,

with the previous day’s backup and the current day’s transactions, the database can be

reconstructed.

These are all worst case scenarios, but it is helpful to plan for the unexpected so that recovery

will be as painless as possible.

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PROJECTCLOSEDOWN

During project closedown, the team reflects on what they did right and what they could have

done better. The one thing our team could have done better is to have more member

involvement in the design and implementation phases. The team did have four multi-hour

sessions, during which all of the team members learned more about the class material, systems

design, and development. More of these sessions would have been valuable, but probably

impractical given other constraints on the team members.

One of the most impressive things the team did well was to design and construct an office

automation system that addresses the needs of a small pet grooming facility. The team also had

excellent communication once the team leader learned to use text messages and the other

members learned to check their email. The three members worked very well together as a team

and had strong feelings of comradery.

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XXII. SYSTEMMAINTENANCE

OVERVIEW

System implementation is most expensive and time-consuming phase of the systems

development life cycle (SDLC). Many systems survive for decades with little or no modification.

On the other hand, most systems require a considerable amount of modifications as end user

needs or government regulations change. After months of using a new system, people think of

additional data or functionality they would like to have available. Normal use can cause a

system to become sluggish over time. There are many reasons that successful systems require

maintenance.

AUTOMATINGWHATCANBEAUTOMATED

Certain tasks are required to keep a system operating at its best. For example, activities such

as adding, changing, modifying, and deleting records in a relational database cause a system to

become fragmented. “Fragmented” means that the adjacent logical records are not stored

physically adjacent to one other. Instead, pointers are required to locate the next record in a file.

Fragmentation slows down a system’s performance just as fragmentation of a hard drive slows

down the performance of a personal computer.

The solution to the fragmentation problem is the Compact and Repair function in the MS Access

database tools pull down menu. Instructions to perform the Compact and Repair function prior

to making a backup copy of the database is the easiest way to ensure the database is always

operating at top performance. In addition, the Compact and Repair function usually reduces the

size of the database; although, the differences may be too small to notice if the function is

performed regularly.

Taxes change quite frequently. The existing system includes a form to allow the owners to make

changes in the existing tax rates, but code change is required to add new types of taxes. We

talked about refactoring in the previous chapter. Refactoring is simplifying code by adding a new

feature. The code that calculates the taxes might be a good candidate for such a change. A

table driven calculation method wherein the code operates on each row in a table would provide

a more easily maintained method for handling taxes. It should be mentioned that the

corresponding reports would also need to be modified.

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MANAGINGWHATCANNOTBEAUTOMATED

In a large company, it is important to have a process for maintaining information systems.

Maintenance is the last phase in the SDLC. In fact, it is the maintenance phase that makes

SDLC a cycle as maintenance leads to the planning phase for system changes. The steps of

the SDLC are repeated until the change is implemented.

Our text describes the four major activities that occur during maintenance:

1. Obtaining maintenance requests

2. Transforming requests into changes

3. Designing changes

4. Implementing changes

It is important for large companies to have a formal process for obtaining maintenance requests.

Most companies have an official document called a System Service Request (SSR), such as the

one shown in Appendix C. The form includes information about the requestor, the type of

change (fix, modification, etc.), the urgency, a statement of the problem, and appropriate

authorizations.

Once approved, the change request becomes a miniature version of the original project

development. The planning, analysis, design, and implementation phases are all required for a

successful change request completion.

The importance of the maintenance phase of the SDLC cannot be overstated for large

companies. The target of this project is a very small, privately owned business. As such, it is not

expected that there will be many change requests created. The two refactoring projects

mentioned earlier in the paper are the two most important changes that could be requested

since they will make the system more flexible and easier to maintain. The first change is the

simplifying the payroll calculation queries. The second change is having table driven tax

calculations for employees and the business.

The team added a feature to the appointment form that the end user does not have experience

with. Specifically, the team added a start and end time for each grooming session. These times

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were added with a purpose in mind. Currently prices are determined by the breed’s size, but

there are dogs that are large for the breed or small for the breed. There are also dogs that are

easy to groom or difficult to groom. Keeping track of the time it takes to groom the animal will

provide valuable information. For example, queries could be run to find the minimum, maximum,

and average groom times for each breed. The time required to groom each breed could be

utilized to create pricing strategies that more closely reflect the time required to groom the pet.

The time tracking will also allow the business to more accurately gauge how long it takes

different groomers to perform their work. This knowledge may improve the scheduling accuracy.

Rather than focusing on the number of appointments a groomer has, the scheduler could

calculate the estimated time required to groom the scheduled animals for each groomer. Rather

than showing the number of openings a groomer has, the report could show the amount of time

available in the groomer’s schedule.

It is expected that once the pet grooming business owners recognize the value of the time

calculations and the new pricing strategy, they may request changes to the current system. With

the latter changes and the two refactoring changes, the All About Pets Office Automation

system should have a long and useful life.

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APPENDIX A: CHANGE CONTROL LOG

Date 10/18/2011

CR# 001

Title Add form to input new or update existing employees

Description Form to simplify data input for end-user

Submitter Harriet Brichta

Phone 214-293-8951

E-Mail [email protected]

Product All About Pets Office Automation

Version 1.0

Priority Low, but time required is minimal.

Date 10/18/2011

CR# 002

Title Add form to input new or update tax rates



Phone 214-293-8951



Version 1.0


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Date 10/18/2011

CR# 003

Title Add form to input new or update expenses



Phone 214-293-8951



Version 1.0


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APPENDIX B: RISK REGISTER

Date

Priority

Risk Description

Mitigation Steps

Impact on Project

11/5/2011 High The owners became concerned about the confidentiality of their records and operations and insisted that we use false names.

Since we had to “manufacture” data to demonstrate the forms and reports for the project, it is appropriate that we change the name of the company and its employees.

There is no real impact on the project from this risk. We are still able to create the application and demonstrate the deliverables.

If the owners decide to implement the Office Automation System, we need only change a few form titles.

To implements in production, all of the data would need to be deleted and the real client data would need to be entered.

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APPENDIX C: SYSTEM SERVICE REQUEST FORM

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