300585 - Systems Analysis & Design Workshop 4 Workshops will run to cover the practical aspects of the topic each week via workshop case study (that runs across the whole semester) and other examples via 2 parts  Workshop Quiz o Students to visit app.gosoapbox.com, click Join and use access code ‘wsquiz’ to attempt the workshop quiz. Pls note this quiz is not assessable. Students must attempt this quiz in the time allocated by the workshop facilitator/tutor, followed by discussions on the student attempt and the topics  Workshop questions o This document contains 2 parts o Part A contains Classwork case study and questions that are done in workshop with the tutor in Groups of 2 students. Task 1 would always refer to Workshop Case study and some additional case studies in rest of the tasks o Part B contains questions and tasks related to case studies that individual students need to answer in their own time and submit as Portfolio exercises as per the Portfolio due dates given in the Learning guide. Part A: Workshop work to be done during the workshop Task 1 Case Study Willow Brook School Willow Brook School is a small private school that has retained your services as a systems analyst to assist in the acquiring of the new information system for the school’s administrative needs. Background Based on your earlier recommendations, Willow Brook decided to continue the systems development process for the new information system that is user friendly, would improve operations, reduce costs and some of the administrative workload. The school has identified that this new system should be operational in 3 months so that the staff are able to use it and familiar with it complete before the start of the next session. Considering the requirements identified and timeline, it is important to identify the various alternatives available to acquire this new information system. Options are in-house development, a commercial off the shelf package, customization or Software as a Service. Now, we are in the systems analysis phase and before system requirements are captured it is important to analyze system development strategies and give a presentation with the recommended option to the Willow Brook School’s management and board of directors. Many of the proposed system’s advantages were described during the fact-finding process.You must examine tangible costs and benefits to determine the economic feasibility of multiple alternatives. The finance and fund-raising committees will need to examine the costs and benefits to determine if the development process will go ahead. If Willow Brook School decides to go ahead with development, the system can either be developed in-house or purchased as a vertical package and configured to meet the needs of the school. Based on your research, you originally estimated that by working 35 hours per week an in-house development project can be completed in about 8 weeks. Your consulting rate as agreed by Willow Brook, is $35 per hour. One of the options is to design the new system as a database application, which can be acquired at approximately $1,500 for a networked commercial package. One of the parents at Willow Brook has extensive experience with this package as a Database Administrator at a local company, and has committed to voluntarily providing 10 hours per week working with you to develop the project. After the system is operational and the staff is trained, Willow Brook staff and volunteers have agreed to handle all routine maintenance tasks. If they continue to require your assistance, a contract rate can be negotiated later depending on the nature of the problem. As an alternative to in-house development is a SAAS software package called “School-Admin”, available for about $8,500. The software package has been used in schools within the country and is known for providing a quality solution to school administrative needs whilst the support is expensive. The system is proven for years to be quite robust and scalable and is supported by testimonials, indicating an overall tilt towards using their software. The vendor offers “School-Admin” as a lease-purchase package of $2,000 down payment, followed by two annual installments of $3,250 each. If Willow Brook buys the package, it would take you about three weeks of full time work to install, configure, and test. The vendor provides free support during the first year of operation, further-on Willow Brook must sign a technical support agreement at an annual cost of $750 for the duration of years. The package contains not all but many of the features that Willow Brook requires however most of the reports are predesigned and layouts difficult to modify. The requirements of the integrated information system required by Willow Brook are unique. You have agreed to provide five hours per week of training and support for the first two months of operation. After the new system is operational, it will need routine maintenance, backups, and updating. These tasks will require about four hours per week and will be performed by school staff or parent volunteers at an average hourly rate of $12.50. For both the in-house development and the SaaS software package, the necessary hardware will cost about $3,500. Hardware and network installation will be done by three parent volunteers. Tasks In order to recommend a development strategy to Willow Brook management, there is need to analyze whether to go for In-house development or SaaS software package. 1. To conduct this analysis, perform a total cost analysis of both the options and make recommendation as to which option should be chosen. 2. Justify the reasons behind your recommendationTask 2 Sandy Shores Time Shares Sandy Shores Time Shares is one of the largest time-sharing and rental brokers for vacation cottages along the North Carolina coast. After 10 successful years of matching up owners and renters, Sandy Shores decided to acquire a computerized reservation and booking system. Tim Burns, the owner of Sandy Shores, read an article about software packages, and he asked you, as an IT consultant, for your advice. Q1. Would the new reservation and booking system be a horizontal or a vertical application? Explain your answer. Q2. What software development and acquisition strategies should Sandy Shores consider? Q3. As a systems analyst, what would your role be in helping Sandy Shores develop a new system? Would the acquisition strategy affect your role? Why or why not? Task 3: Sandia Medical Devices (SMD) – Running Case study Q1. From the information given in the case study in the past weeks, determine what type of development strategy would be most suitable to acquire Real-Time Glucose Monitoring (RTGM) for Sandia medical Devices? Justify your determined strategy by listing the benefits. Q2. Are there any indications in the case study where the Real-Time Glucose Monitoring (RTGM) could potentially be sold as a commercial off the shelf package in the future? Q3. What are the advantages and disadvantages of buying a commercial off the shelf package or SaaS? Part B: Portfolio exercises to be included in Portfolio submissions Task 1 Case Study WUSU Transport Management Information System UWS has retained your services as a systems analyst to assist in the development of a new information system. Background WSU is experiencing a high number of student intakes and the immediate concern is the lack of adequate transportation facilities from major stations such as Parramatta. Further to this is the added complication of non-availability of free parking. The university has come up with solutionssuch as a dedicated bus route from University to Major bus interchange/station, mono rail link to Rydalmere station. The university is also looking to integrate the Opal ticketing system with their student database to track the number of students using public transport or the mono rail and offer travel concession to students on their travel costs when using the OPAL card wherein a tap on tap off at the University bus stop or monorail is recorded in the system and every student gets a travel concession up to 40 dollars per month. The following is the process flow/description for the WSU transport management information system. Firstly, the OPAL ticketing system is integrated with the University student database and they form an information system of student details, OPAL card details, Record the number of trips made by students to and from the university. The database is an Oracle based data base system supported by 2 high capacity servers of the university. When a student taps on or off at the university bus stop, the trip details is recorded in the information system and the OPAL card number is searched and matched with a student record in the database. Subject to student records being matched, the university IT admin staff generates a monthly report on the student information software which contains the total number of trips made by students and their relevant costs. This report is later sent to the data analytics team to segregate the number of students who have spent more than 40 dollars a week on transport to the university and process the concession for the students onto the accounting system. The accounting software then credits back the amount into the student’s bank account on a monthly basis. You have been allocated the responsibility of the Systems Analyst for this system project. Based on your research, it is estimated that an in-house development project could be completed in about three weeks. This time estimate is based on 60 hours a week split between you and another analyst from the IT department. Your consultancy rate is 45$ per hour. The IT department uses a charge-back rate of $40 per hour for work for other university departments. Three training sessions of four hours each will be required to train all staff in the new system. The charge-back cost of a training specialist from the IT department is $25 per hour. Training and technical support for the first year for the vertical software package is included in the initial price. The estimates indicate that the housing office can expect to have staff spend 10 hours a week performing maintenance, file backups, and updating of the new system, at $25 per hour. As an alternative to in-house development, a vertical software package is available for about $9,000, including an on-site day of training and technical support for the first year. If the department buys the package, it would take you about 3 weeks to install, configure, and test it, working full-time for 40 hours. The vendor provides free support during the first year of operation, but then the housing office must sign a technical support agreement at an annual cost of $10750. During your analysis of the vertical software package, you noticed that they do not have a sales and support center in your city and that customer reviews indicate that it often takes 3-4 days to respond back to queries and resolve issues. However, the company does conduct regular visits to their clients and inspects for any issues thereby having a system of preventive maintenance as well. For both the in-house development and the vertical software package, the necessary hardware will cost about $3,500. Network upgrading, necessary for either option, has been estimated at $4,000 by the network operations team.Before that you will now analyze whether to go for Development in house or an Outsourced software package. 1. Perform a total cost analysis of both the options and provide your recommendation as to which option should be chosen. ( please paste the cost analysis table on your word document) 2. Justify the reasons behind your recommendation Task 2 Refer to page 292 of the prescribed textbook (SAD by Rosenblatt 10th edition), read Capstone Case: New Century Wellness group as given below and attempt tasks Background Based on your earlier recommendations, New Century decided to continue the systems development process for a new information system. Now, at the end of the systems analysis phase, you are ready to prepare a system requirements document and give a presentation to the New Century associates. Many of the proposed system’s advantages were described during the fact-finding process. Those include smoother operation, better efficiency, and more user-friendly procedures for patients and New Century staff. You also must examine tangible costs and benefits to determine the economic feasibility of several alternatives. If New Century decides to go ahead with the development process, the main options are to develop the system in-house or purchase a vertical package and configure it to meet New Century’s needs. You have studied those choices and put together some preliminary figures. You know that New Century’s current workload requires six hours of office staff overtime per week at a base rate of $15 per hour. In addition, based on current projections, New Century will need to add another full-time clerical position in about six months. Neither the overtime nor the additional job will be needed if New Century implements the new system. The current manual system also causes an average of three errors per day, and each error takes about 20 minutes to correct. The new system should eliminate those errors. You estimate that by working full-time you could complete the project in about 12 weeks. Your consulting rate, which New Century agreed to, is $35 per hour. If you design the new system as a database application, you can expect to spend about $2,500 for a networked commercial package. After the system is operational and the staff is trained, New Century should be able to handle routine maintenance tasks without your assistance. As an alternative to in-house development, a vertical software package is available for about $12,000. The vendor offers a lease-purchase package of $4,000 down, followed by two annual installments of $4,000 each. If New Century buys the package, it would take you about four weeks to install, configure, and test it, working full-time. The vendor provides free support during the first year of operation, but then New Century must sign a technical support agreement at an annual cost of $600. Although the package contains many of the features that New Century wants, most of the reports are pre-designed and it would be difficult to modify their layouts. No matter which approach is selected, New Century probably will need you to provide about 10 hours of initial training and support each week for the first three months of operation. After the new system is operational, it will need routine maintenance, file backups, and updating.These tasks will require about four hours per week and can be performed by a clinic staff member. In both cases, the necessary hardware and network installation will cost about $12,500. In your view, the useful life of the system will be about five years, including the year in which the system becomes operational. Q1 Provide an overview of the proposed system, including costs and benefits, with an explanation and analysis of the various cost-benefit types and categories in a table (a sample is given in the table that outlines the tangible costs and benefits that are described in the Background statement on page 295 of the textbook). Q2. Provide a brief explanation of the various alternatives that should be investigated if development continues, including in-house development and any other possible strategies. Solution: Task 3 Atrium Bio-Medical Supply, Inc. Atrium Bio-Medical Supply is a medium sized regional supplier of medical and laboratory equipment. Since starting the company 12 years ago, Victoria Dawn has built Atrium into a competitive supply company across several metro areas, but her growth potential is limited because the firm does not have an integrated sales and logistics system. Victoria asked you to evaluate Atrium’s options for acquiring a new system. Q1 What options does Atrium have for acquiring a new system? Q2. What are the pros and cons (3 each) of in-house development versus purchasing a system? Q3 If the decision is made to purchase a new system, what are three options for customizing the software?