Untitled Document

My Assigned Project

My job was to develop a Management Information System for the support center. Dr. Frysinger expected me to be familiar with the software life cycle and programming. Each intern had his/her own project to work on, but we all were expected to be familiar with the Synthesis program. When Dr. Frysinger and I talked about what this Information System should do we came up with the following tasks: it needed to keep track of people, clients, log in/out times, phone calls, system errors, payroll, grants; people’s contact information, and projects. It should also be able to generate time-dependent reports about each section. We also discussed what documentation the system will require. Using software engineering principals, the Software Requirement Specification (SRS) was the first document to be done. As I typed up the requirements, I would give drafts to the staff at the support center. Since they are the ones who will be using it, I needed their input to gain more insight into the requirements. Weekly meetings were held for all staff members and each of us would report what we had done for the week. This gave me an opportunity to discuss the requirements of the system. Also, for further information about this system, I built a Java prototype from some of the general requirements for the system. During prototyping I realized a few things about system. Security must be a consideration. This came from a security issue from within Synthesis. We were handling documents that were sensitive to people’s privacy. With this in mind, I knew that if this system is going to store personal and financial information that it should only be accessed by those who are authorized to do so. This would require a system that people could log in and out of. Also I realized that the information handled and tracked by this system will best be stored in a database. After working with the prototype I was able to generate a list of requirements for the SRS. I created a presentation for the staff of Synthesis using the SRS. I used a PowerPoint slideshow (Slideshow Link) which included a storyboard based on the requirements. During this presentation Cally Oglesby asked if my system could keep track of events that did not have a client associated with it. In my requirements I had put the information about events with the information for clients. At the time I did not realize that an event does not have to link to a client. Someone on the support center staff could need to log an event that did not have a client. (i.e. log the new way to digitize information). This seemed to change a good part of the requirements for the system. To get a better understanding of the relationships of the system’s information I needed to display the relationships between the tables in the database. This was done by using MS Access. Dr. Frysinger and I discussed what the tables would need and the relationships between them. Having this it was then possible to build a working prototype. I feel that the limitations of Access, i.e. platform dependencies and limited web capabilities, lead to a need for a more independent application. I was fortunate enough to have an internship that allowed me to take classes and work part time, so I still have about 120 hrs. left to go to complete my internship. With this time I hope to get through the design phase and start to implement the code for the system. I feel that a Java Network Application running with a MySQL database should give the flexibility and versatility needed to meet all requirements.