Information Systems M INFS 5093 SP2 2017 Systems AnalysisAssessment Introduction This assessment consists of • A case study which requires you to apply your learning from the systems analysismodule. • An ethical analysis which requires you to apply one of thereadings provided on the course website. • A conceptual development section which requires you to consider how systems analysistasks impact on a systems development project. The feedback sheet lists the assessment criteria. Look for it on the assessment’s webpage. Take note of which sections carry the most marks. Note that this assessment’s word count is 2727without any answers, so • Don’t worry if the final word count seems high. • Also, there are some diagrams in this assessment so don’t worry if your final word count seems low. Draw the diagrams by hand, photograph, and insert the photographs in this file. If you prefer, you can use Word’s drawing tools (or some other drawing or modelling software) but you may find working with pen and paper is faster, easier to amend, less cumbersome, and more reliable with respect to layout. When referring to the exemplars on the course website, read the old assessment specifications carefully because the assessments differ every study period. Instructions In the previous study period, teams spent an average of 41hours on this assessment. • Pace your team accordingly. • For best results o Do not attempt to complete the whole assessment in one session. o Work slowly and carefully. In addition to the instructions on the course website • Do not overlook the ‘Why?’ questions. • Read the case study carefully. • Keep track of the hours you spend. Make assumptions where necessary. Scope for assumptions has been deliberately included in this assessment because it is often necessary to make assumptions openly when dealing with a client who is under-informed with respect to information systems. Label assumptions clearly. Here’s an example from a previous study period, Assumption: As the passengers of Titanic II may be from any nation, I have assumed a currency converter is required for the ticket-purchasing function. Case study: Snacks Now From the Systems Planning assessment Dionne Worontschak and John Sawitt own and manage an independent supermarket in the inner suburbs of Adelaide, South Australia. They believe in hard work and acting to capture business opportunities. Neither of them went to university, but John holds a Certificate IV in business management from TAFE. They have developed a business concept and it is ready for systems planning. The concept is Snacks Now. Dionne and John have contracted IT Foundry for systems development. You are a systems analyst working at IT Foundry and your manager has allocated to you the systems planning tasks for the Snacks Now project. Snacks Now will offer home deliveries of groceries or fast food to customers who order via a website or smartphone app. Customers will be able to ‘like’ Snacks Now on Facebook and follow Snacks Now on Twitter; also they will be able to share and tweet their orders. When customers share or tweet an order they will accrue social points and once the points reach a certain level, customers will be rewarded with a 20% discount on their next order. Customers will also accrue loyalty points with every purchase. When a customer’s loyalty points reach a particular threshold, they receive a $20 discount on their next purchase. The menus of participating fast food outlets will be available via Snacks Now. Any groceries that are available in Dionne and John’s supermarket can be delivered, including dairy, delicatessen, fruit and vegetables. An online menu will be compiled from the supermarket’s inventory system and from the online menus of participating fast food outlets.When customers place an order, they pay via PayPal. Prices will be automatically updated once a week, on Wednesdays. Prices will account for all ongoing costs, plus a 5% profit margin, some of which will recoup start-up costs. Snacks Now will operate Thursday-Sunday nights from 8pm to 5am. If the Snacks Now business concept is successful and opportunity to expand exists, additional hours or nights will be added. As Dionne and John work full time on running the supermarket, they will hire a junior manager who will be responsible for the day-to-day management of Snacks Now. Dionne and John expect to hire one driver in the first instance. If Snacks Now expands, additional positions will be created. The junior manager will be based in the supermarket. He or she will be responsible for compiling orders and handling any issues that arise. The driver will collect an order from the supermarket or from participating fast food outlets. Then, he or she will deliver the order to the address specified by the customer. If no one is home, the order will be left by the front door. As Snacks Now is the first service offering such a wide range of delivered items in Adelaide, there is limited competition. However, it is important that the technology is available as soon as possible in order to capture early adopters. A social media viral marketing campaign is being designed by a local advertising company. Finally, you present your findings to your manager and to Dionne and John. Your manager and clients have requested a 15 minute presentation. You have completed systems planning and Dionne and John have approved the plan you prepared and they have approved progress to the systems analysis phase of the Snacks Now project. At IT Foundry, you have a regular lunch with one of your colleagues, Tanya Collins, who is an old friend from your days as a uni student. At your next lunch, you discuss the Snacks Now project: your recent project planning success, your forthcoming systems analysis tasks and the various plans Dionne and John have for Snacks Now. Tanya says, “So, it’s a late night home-delivery service? People can order their favourite pizza and maybe cleaning products and everything is brought in one delivery to their house?” “Not necessarily their house, it could be any address.” “Well, it’s perfect. I would order from them all the time. How are they going to staff it?” “One person in their supermarket will prepare the orders and a driver will deliver.” “One person? Alone in a supermarket all night long? That doesn’t sound very safe. It’s not a job I’d like to have.” You hadn’t thought of that, but you can see that Tanya has a point. You wonder if this is something Dionne and John have considered. You have a client meeting scheduled for the next day. You know that future staffing decisions are not really within a systems analyst’s purview, but Tanya’s comments are troubling you. New information The preliminary investigation you wrote up for the Snacks Now project enabled you to develop a basic understanding of the business context. Your scope lists and scope statement captured the project’s key elements and made a positive impression on Dionne and John. They have approved the project’s progression to system analysis and you have scheduled a meeting with them. 1. Prepare for this meeting. Write an agenda that includes six topics you would like to discuss with the Dionne and John (if you do not know what an agenda is, look it up on the internet). These topics should provide them with an opportunity to discuss data and processing in depth. Put your answer here. After this meeting, the following requirements are known: • The information you provided in the systems planning documents is confirmed, except where it conflicts with the following. • When an order is placed, the junior manager will gather items from shelves in the supermarket, scan them and package them for delivery. • When all the items are packaged, the junior manager will close the ‘packaging’ business process for the order; an alert and delivery address will be automatically sent to the driver’s mobile device. • When items are scanned, the supermarket’s inventory database is updated and the transaction is placed in the Snacks Now accounting system (it is not considered a transaction of the supermarket). • As the supermarket carries thousands of different products, and as the local fast food outlets also have specific ranges of products, the website and mobile app will have nested menus. • When a supermarket product is out of stock, it must not be displayed in the menus. For example, when a hurricane destroys the banana crop in Queensland. • The menus are updated dynamically in response to changes in the inventory. • Daily, weekly and monthly transaction reports are required. • Data analytics on the website and the mobile app are required. • A customer database will maintain customer details, transaction history, loyalty and social points. • In compliance with the Australian Privacy Principles, it will be possible for customers to opt out of storing any data that identifies them as individuals. • As yet, no decision has been made regarding the most effective way to present the items offered by local fast food outlets; suggestions are welcome. • Also, a final decision on which accounting software will be used for Snacks Now has not yet been made, but Dionne and John have expressed a preference for buying a second license for the accounting system they are already using for the supermarket. You make a start on systems analysis. It is clear that system response times are important. It is also clear that interfacing with the supermarket’s existing inventory database is important. However, you also realise more detailed information will come to light over time, which may require you to amend your current analysis. Data and process modelling 2. What is the purpose of a full set of data flow diagrams? Put your answer here. 3. Do data flow diagrams show system logic and decision points? Explain. Put your answer here. 4. Why is it important for a systems analyst to understand how data flows through an information system? Put your answer here. 5. Draw a context diagram for the Snacks Now information system. Put your answer here. 6. With respect to DFDs, what does ‘balanced’ mean? Put your answer here. 7. Draw two Level 1 DFDs for the new information system. Put your answer here. 8. Write your top five tips for how to read a set of DFDs. Put your answer here. 9. Name the data stores in the new information system. Put your answer here. 10. Draw a FDD for the new information system. Put your answer here. 11. Identify and name four functional primitives in the new information system. Put your answer here. 12. Draw a modular design for two of the functional primitives named in your previous answer. Put your answer here. 13. Draw a decision tree for the other two functional primitives. Put your answer here. Development Strategies 14. Explain how you will make the build or buy decisions for the new information system. Put your answer here. 15. You prepare a systems requirements document for Dionne and John. What sections will you include? Put your answer here. 16. For which components of the new information system will you recommend prototyping? Why? Put your answer here. Ethical analysis During prototyping, some database integrity issues arise. In the testing sandpit, your code passes data to the supermarket’s inventory system (YourInventory), but the inventory system does not update dataas it should. You have run 263 automated tests, the test results show the error three times and each time it was under a different set of test data with no apparent consistency. The error causes certain products to have incorrect inventory levels in the database and you are not able to explain it. YourInventory is not an IT Foundry product, it was developed by Retail Systems, Inc. You call a former colleague, Patrick, who works at Retail Systems and you discuss the inexplicable error. Patrick has never heard of this type of error and says there might be something wrong with the sandpit version of YourInventory if someone at IT Foundry had tinkered with its settings. At this point of the project, the budget for systems analysis is almost exhausted and further testing will add significant costs. You speak to your manager who advises you to demo the prototype for Dionne and John without mentioning the error, because it is unlikely to arise during the demo, Dionne and John are unlikely to be able to help you fix it, and it can be fixed during the design and implementation phases of the project. But you prefer to fix it now because it will be harder and more expensive to fix during design, and even more so during implementation. Analyse this scenario by responding the following questions. These questions encourage you to apply the stages of the ethical decision-making process described in O’Boyle (2002). This reading can be located on the course web site. Do not overlook the ‘Why?’ questions as these support the development of your certitude. 17. Stage 1, perception. Identify all ethical problems suggested by the scenario above. Put your answer here. 18. Stage 2, discernment. Which of the ethical problems is the most significant? Why? Put your answer here. 19. Stage 3, resolution. Articulate your resolve with respect to the most significant ethical problem. Put your answer here. 20. Stage 4, assessment. Are you qualified to act in accordance with your resolve or do you need to seek the advice of an independent expert? Why? Put your answer here. 21. Stage 5, decision. What are your professional duties in this situation? Why? Put your answer here. 22. Stage 6, action. Have stages 1-5 enabled you to form a commitment to action? Why? Put your answer here. Conceptual development So far, this assignment has supported the development of skills required in professional practice, including ethics. Now, it supports the development of professional expertise. 23. What is the overall purpose of the systems analysis phase of a project and how does it differ from the systems planning phase? Put your answer here. Consider the case study above and the analysis you have prepared. You may have completed the tasks with a lot of care. If so, your analysis is more likely to be effective in supporting future project activities. Consider a situation in which the analysis was conducted in a carelessmanner. 24. With respect to the systems analysis tasks completed above, identify problems that may arise for the following stakeholders. Your answer should have six unique problems (two per stakeholder). a. Snacks Now Put your answer here. b. Snacks Now’s customers or the wider community Put your answer here. c. Your own future work tasks (systems design tasks) Put your answer here. 25. With reference to three of the problems you have identified above, what are your conclusions about the importance of attention to detail with respect to systems analysis? Put your answer here. Recall the systems planning assessment asked you to draw some conclusions about the importance of attention to detail during systems planning activities. In this assignment, you are thinking about and demonstrating systems analysis. 26. Read and think about your answer to question 25 of the Systems Planning assessment. Compare it to your answer to question 25above. Identify and discuss two important differences in your answers. Note: this question does not ask you to compare systems planning and systems analysis. Instead, it asks you to compare what you think about these two topics. Put your answer here. Peer Review Everyone in your team must visit SparkPLUS and review their teammates. When reviewing one of your peers, tell them three things they did well and three things they can improve. NOTE: the systems design assessment will ask students to consider their weaknesses and strengths. If you do not tell them weaknesses and strengths, they will get lower grades in this future assessment. Warning: If one person skips the peer review, the whole team will receive a lower grade. Not for assessment How many hours did you invest in this assessment?This information will be provided to future students in this course. Put your answer here. Thank you for the time and effort you have invested. I look forward to reading your submission. References O'Boyle, E J 2002, 'An ethical decision-making process for computing professionals', Ethics and Information Technology, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 267-277. Tilley, S & Rosenblatt, H 2017, Systems Analysis and Design, 11th edition, Cengage Learning. [Add more references of your own. Don’t know how? Check the online study help.]