James Peterson4/3/15

Systems Analysis Report

US e-commerce growth is greatly surpassing overall retail sales. There is not a current system in place of an e-commerce website for the company. The project has been outsourced to an IT company that specializes in this industry, which will be more cost efficient as in-house mishaps would lengthen the duration of the project and may lead to expensive liabilities. When dealing with transactions online, it is important to get them right and to not put customers at risk. It is extremely important the login screen and order screen are secure. Thus the website will operate at the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), which manages server authentication, client authentication, and encrypted communication between servers and clients. With expected increasing popularity of the website, the system may require a Web host company to allocate space on a server; that will be able to handle the traffic and keep the system operation 24/7.

The design and execution will be based off of known effective models, which will be covered in the ladder of the report. Once the online system is up and running, it will fit in with existing warehouse systems to guarantee the final steps in the transaction between the customer and company are completed, including exchange of assets. The IT staff is responsible for maintaining functionality, updating the catalog, and validation of user accounts. Reports will be generated in a matter of seconds and sent to respective places. The Web site will report online volume statistics every 6 hours, and hourly during peak period. The system will create an error log file that includes the error type, description, and time.

DFD Context Diagram

The system consists of three main entities: users, administrators, and the warehouse.

Diagram 0

Users can login, search thru the catalog of products, add them to a shopping cart, and ultimately purchase the product. Admin have special access to provision of user data and update product info (catalog). Upon checkout, orders are processed and stored in a database. Items from the warehouse are delivered to the customer and available quantity is adjusted accordingly.

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Lower Level - Diagram 1

The user can create a unique username with associated password to establish a profile in the system. The profile at minimum consists of the customer name, email, address, and billing. The user can change this information at any given time. When logging in, the user will either be redirected to the homepage or asked to retry the username and/or password. The admin can remove your account upon suspicion of fraud or malicious intentions.

Diagram 2

The admin can make adjustments to the catalog, which consists of every product offering, its quantity in stock, and equivalent price. Users’ search thru the catalog to make purchases.

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Diagram 3

The user’s interests are stored in the cart database. The user can add and remove items from this list. When the user is satisfied with the products, he/she can check and proceed to the ordering stage.

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Diagram 4

When the user confirms the order, the warehouse sets aside the selected items so that someone else cannot purchase them. The warehouse database is reduced and the item is shipped to the customer. The system must then receive the customer information for payment of the items. The user will receive a receipt of the transaction and the system will also store the order details in a database.

Prototype:

Homepage

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Notice the options to sign in, go to cart, go to catalog, and go back to the homepage. Other features include access to social media sites on the homepage, acceptable payment options in the bottom-right corner, and an “About Us” tab to better know the company.

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Login Page

Under the “Forget your password” is the register component for new users to create a new account.

Products (catalog) Page

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With this being the first prototype, the website is limited to 3 products to briefly show our intentions. A picture of the product is shown along with its name and price. If the item is not available it is made clear by it saying sold out. The user can then select an item to learn more about it and add it to cart.

Cart

When selecting the cart link, the different products you’ve selected, the quantity of each, and the price are shown. You can update your cart further by removing unwanted items and click the checkout button when finished.

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Oder

Before entering any information, notice the lock to the left of the URL indication the user’s information is safe. To place an order you must have an account. The order summary is provided, which includes the items purchased, cost of the items, and total cost after shipping and taxes are included. Billing and payment information is required for the transaction to be finalized. This information will also be stored in the database for future transactions and can be edited later. Once you click “Place my order”, you will receive a receipt for the order.

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Concluding

As you can see, the prototype mirrors the entities, data flow, and processes established in the diagrams. At this point it is important that we get feedback from users and management to make sure the above designs run smoothly, are to everyone’s liking, and meet the requirements of the business. This is nowhere near the final project and inputs are encouraged in the hopes that any errors will be corrected.

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