Overview My Professional Outlook/Philosophy

– Client Approach– Information Systems Design

Clients– Nature’s Earthenware – Elements of Change– Massage’n’Moore– MIDWEST Alliance

With Each Client, We’ll focus on:– Their Needs– My Solutions– How Those Solutions Reflect My Philosophy– Skills Demonstrated

My goal here is to demonstrate some of the skills I have to offer clients and offer some insight as why I make to choices I do, so you might decide whether I have a place within your professional scheme.

Please Note: All data shown is “mock-up” data, not client data

Professional Outlook/Philosophy

Client Approach

Understanding a client’s job Every job grows out of a kernel of dissatisfaction Talk to the people who get their hands dirty

By talking to everyone, an IS developer bridges the gap between management and staff, building databases that lead the way while smoothing the ride.

Information Systems Design

Less is more People shouldn’t have to adapt to computers Avoid showing clients extraneous computer numbers

that hold no intrinsic meaning to them. Design and operation should mirror procedures

already in place Whenever possible, conserve system resources

Clients

Nature’s Earthenware

Nate crafts pottery of various sizes and colors. Though hand-crafted, his pieces are categorized by size and function. As a signature, he imprints a floral impression on to each of the pieces.

As far as I know, Nate has no showroom, that is, no walk-in customers. He sells everything at trade or craft shows or referral.

Nature’s Earthenware – Needs

Inventory Management SystemMarket TrackingUser-Level Security and Permissions

Nate needed a way to track his product from production to sales. He needed to know what was in stock to prepare for trade shows. Then, he needed to know what was selling and where so that he could tailor future production.

Because both employees and staff would be utilizing his database, user-level permissions were employed to make sure that team members only saw what pertained to them.

Although Nate’s pottery is individual and unique, it is also a product, a product that can be generalized with three aspects: a piece’s color, category, and imprint used.

Here you see input screens where all 3 dimensions are defined and quantified.

Here’s Nate’s Inventory screen, with its two panels. The right-hand panel shows his entire stock, whereas the left panel focuses on the selected item, complete with photo. The “Key” column, circled here in red, is not a computer thing, but something Nate wanted, a sticker placed on the item for cataloging during trade shows.

The Print button, circled in blue, appears on all of Nate’s pages, allowing him to make hard copies of everything.

Nature’s Earthenware kept two Legers, one for the current show, and a Sale History containing all sales.

All my database are filled with reports to help clients drill-down their data and find meaningful information to make sense of their business.

Nate runs this particular report after every trade show to emphasize how his inventory is changing.

Nate has a whole series of graphs to see what is selling when and for how much. They’re interactive, allowing Nate to change the parameters and answer new questions easily.

With user-level permissions, users see only what’s pertinent to them, allowing for greater customization and security.

Users also have write-permissions, allowing Nate to control who sees, edits, and deletes his data.

Nature’s Earthenware

Skills Demonstrated Custom toolbars Workgroup Wizard Knowledge of Recordsets OLE automation Pivot Charts

Elements of Change (EOC)

EOC is dedicated to reaching students “left behind” by the white, middle class bias in America’s educational system.

Workshops – reaching students 6th – 12th Seminars – Inviting educators to see Packages Events – Community events sponsored by EOC to

promote general “smartiness”, good cheer, and well-being.

Elements of Change – Needs

Contact Management system with a smidgen of Product Tracking mixed in.

The folks at EOC meet a lot of people in a lot of different capacities.

They needed to know which contacts are involved in which project.

EOC’s Contact Rolodex has three main divisions. The upper set of tabs hold contact info, addresses, phone #s, that sort of thing.

The lower set of tabs holds info on the contact’s role with EOC, such as how many events seminars they’ve participated in.

Finally, the buttons at the top cue various reports.

The information displayed changes depending the contact’s category. The contact shown above, being an artist, has an “Artist” tab, whereas the contributor below has his “Contributor” tab.

Service “packages” can be tracked as readily as goods.

My “Contact-on-the-Fly” feature allows you to add new contacts wherever you happen to be without interrupting workflow.

As with all my designs, the Print button is close at hand,

Using “Calendar” Button to Print an Activities Report for Contacts in the “Artist” category

Artist Example

I like to keep report buttons close at hand for an intuitive approach. I also like an WYSIWYG—What you see is what you get—approach to reporting. With the EOC database, I ‘slaved’ all their reports to the Access filter. This allows them to filter out desired records and sent those to the chosen report.

The next few slides show an example where the Artist contacts are filtered and printed out.

1. “Selection-Filter” the Artist category

Access has a range of filtering capabilities. The quickest, Filter-by-Example, is used here. Simply find a record, an example, that has what you’re looking for, highlight the desired field—in this case the “Category” field with Artist chosen—and click the “lightning funnel”.

Here circled in blue, you see the 10 Artists have been “filtered”.

2. Click the “Calendar” Report Button

3. Click “Filter” on the Report Dialog

The filtered subset, our 10 artists, have been sent to EOC’s Activities report.

Using “Envelope” Button to Print Specific Mailing Labels

Simpsons Example

1. “Filter by Form” to Find Simpson

Say we want to mail something to the Simpsons. Rather than print the entire mailing list, we could use Access’s Filter-by-Form to find records that have the Simpson surname, as shown above.

2. Click the “Envelope” Report

3. Click “Filter” on Report Dialog

Clicking the Mail button brings up a dialog asking if you wish to send the filtered results or the current record to the report.

Let’s choose “Filter”…

…and there’s our result.

Although your reports will be different, I think the ability to focus reports on filtered records gives you the freedom to highlight aspects of your business and exclude the extraneous.

Of course, if you don’t want it, you don’t have to do it. It’s your database.

Elements of Change

Skills Demonstrated VBA Programming UNION Queries Reports

Massage’n’Moore – Needs

Ross is a masseuse who: Would like a paperless office Would like to track client progress Is concerned about security

– Beyond password and encryption– Wanted both database on data on separate

portable media!

Beyond your basic contact info, Ross wanted his SOAP sessions in the database. SOAP is the therapy paperwork documenting the muscle groups worked on and changes in condition.

I integrated Access with Microsoft Paint. Ross is able to draw on his muscle diagrams by clicking on them.

Steps Taken to Secure Database

1. Split Database into Front and Back End2. Using Workgroup Wiz, Secure both Ends to Same

Workgroup3. Burn Entrance PIF, Workgroup and Front-End to

CD4. Delete PIF, Workgroup and Front-End from Hard

DriveResult: Database Only Accessible to those with CD

This setup is more elaborate than I would recommend. It’s really not a good idea to carry your database around with you on portable media—CDs, Zip drives—aside from archival copies.

Nevertheless, Ross insisted.

Massage’n’Moore

Skills Demonstrated: OLE Integration Workgroup Security

MIDWEST Alliance

The Midwest Alliance offers high quality, supportive programs designed to guide students with disabilities in Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin more efficiently and effectively toward careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM).

Direct Student Impact through mentorship, internship and enrichment programs that support, guide and inspire students with disabilities in their exploration of STEM.

Indirect Student Impact through presentations and workshops System Impact through creation and dissemination of successful practices in disability service provision and assistive technology Source: www.stemmidwest.org

MIDWEST Alliance – Needs

Currently, the MIDWEST database only caters to the first stated goal—Internships and Mentorships—and not presentations or policy advocacy.

A Contact System tracking both the Internship and Mentorship Programs with a shared Rolodex.

Network the database over university server. Maintain a “satellite” database with the Alliance of Illinois

Participant “matching” is notably absent from the database. MS Access could have highlighted probable Internship/Mentorship candidates and tracked the ongoing search, but the client felt that was heavy-handed and preferred doing it by hand.

MIDWEST Switchboard

Although students can be both Interns and “Mentees”, because MIDWEST staff typically focus on a single program, it was necessary for each program to have their own screens, accessing a central rolodex, so when students’ info changed, all the programs with which they’re involved are updated.

Answers at a glance

Every contact page has a set of tabs at the bottom showing what the contact has been involved with, like the tabs shown here at the bottom of the “Mentee” page.

The tab entries are also navigational, clicking on them will bring up the record involved in further detail.

Multiple Categories, Multiple Viewpoints

In the MIDWEST database, users can assign contacts to multiple categories, allowing them to view their contacts from many different angles. Users can rename categories or even create new ones.

Buttons, Buttons, Buttons

As usual with my designs, the MIDWEST database has lots of report buttons, putting valuable, printable information close at hand!

Network and Beyond

Although not responsible for the network itself, I placed and maintain the database on MIDWEST’s server. I also created a satellite database for the Alliance of Illinois that synchronizes routinely with MIDWEST.

Thanks for Your Time

Mike Jonesmikej@dataflowsolutions.uswww.dataflowsolutions.us

I look forward to discussing your needs and ideas. You don’t need any formal plans to brainstorm, just desires. The first hour’s consultation is free, so you’ve got nothing to lose. I know together we can improve your workload and streamline all the loose ends into an “idea machine”, framing your business in a clear picture which will reveal new areas of growth.