Some RE-type questions concerning our project
Here are the requirements questions I emailed to the team members.
Who are the actors for this solution?
Who needs/wants this solution?
What form of output would you like from this solution?
___ on-screen report only
___ on-screen with printable report
___ web page report
___ other:
Describe the business environment this solution will be used in.
Are there any hardware or OS issues to be addressed?
Would you prefer this solution to be a stand-alone application or
available via the Internet/Intranet?
Do you have a programming language preference for:
___ stand-alone application
___ web application
What is the absolute minimum information you require from this solution?
What would be "good to know"?
What would be "really nice" to know?
Who needs/wants this solution?
What form of output would you like from this solution?
___ on-screen report only
___ on-screen with printable report
___ web page report
___ other:
Describe the business environment this solution will be used in.
Are there any hardware or OS issues to be addressed?
Would you prefer this solution to be a stand-alone application or
available via the Internet/Intranet?
Do you have a programming language preference for:
___ stand-alone application
___ web application
What is the absolute minimum information you require from this solution?
What would be "good to know"?
What would be "really nice" to know?
posted by Mike @ 6:47 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Here are my thoughts on these questions:
Who are the actors for this solution?
The actors are: management at D1, the operator who will run the report, the installer who will set up and install the solution, and ourselves as the design and coding team.
Who needs/wants this solution?
Management at D1 and the users of the intranet support site.
What form of output would you like from this solution?
on-screen with printable report or a web page report
Describe the business environment this solution will be used in.
The intranet support server is currently maintained for the use of D1 suppport technicians as a technical resourse. The management at D1 would like to know how the server is being utilized to assist their support techs. The reported usage of the intranet server, as produced by the solution we are to create, will assist D1 management in determining whether or not to continue offering the intranet support server to their technicians. If the server is found to be useful and kept in place, D1 might be able to cut additional costs by reducing the number of on-call technicians they are required to have on staff (or future hires). Alternatives to the intranet server, if the server is determined to be inefficient, would be additional on-call technicians being hired or retained.
Are there any hardware or OS issues to be addressed?
The server itself is run on a Unix/Linux system using the Apache web server program. Management and technicians at D1 all are using various flavors of Windoze (mostly XP) for their daily activities. This solution would most likely be run under a Windoze XP environment. There are no known hardware issues to be addressed.
Would you prefer this solution to be a stand-alone application or available via the Internet/Intranet?
Personally, I am more in favor of a web-enabled solution. (But I feel that web-enabling applications is the future of computing.) :o)
Do you have a programming language preference for:
stand-alone application: Visual Basic using Access as the backend database (if required). Java would be the ideal choice due to cross-platform compatibility, however the development team has limited experience in java programming at this time.
web application: Ideally perl/cgi since text manipulation and report generation were the reasons perl was developed. Alternatively, ASP or PHP would be acceptable. Backend database, if required, could be either Access or MySQL - depending on where the solution is to be hosted and server resources available to support the solution.
What is the absolute minimum information you require from this solution?
1. How is the intranet server being used?
2. What is the most common info being requested? i.e.: which support pages are accessed the most?
3. Who is using the intranet server?
4. Is the server providing the information which the support techs need, or do they still end up calling the on-call techs for additional assistance?
5. If #4 is yes, do the on-call techs then use the intranet server to answer the support persons questions? If so, why was the support tech not able to find the information they needed easily on the intranet server?
6. What time period does the report generated by the solution cover?
7. How much of D1's bandwidth & computer resources is being utilized to maintain the support server?
What would be "good to know"?
1. What times are the server most heavily used?
2. How are people accessing the support server? via the home page/main entry point or via bookmarks to specific pages?
What would be "really nice" to know?
1. What browsers are the support techs using?
2. What OS are the support techs using?
Comments ... ?
Mike, I have on purpose not read your reply so that I can answer these questions without influence. Since I will be the main user of the software I guess I stand in as the customer as well as any regular jobs I may have during the semester.
*Who are the actors for this solution?
The main actor is myself. A possible future actor would be my replacement if I were to leave. Indirect actors are my supervisor and his boss who use the reports to justify the bandwith/people we have. (i.e. in a email to his boss, my boss said 'Airweb is a team player) (Airweb is the name that we have given the server.
*Who needs/wants this solution?
Indirectly my boss, he needs to report in his hand Friday morning when he calls his boss.
*What form of output would you like from this solution?
___ on-screen report only
___ on-screen with printable report
___ web page report
___ other:
On scree initally so that I can see trends and look for problems (abnormal spike on one day over others). Printable reports will do not good as it is all done by email. Any version of the report that can be read with out special tools (Office products and HTML are ok), would be fine.
I generate a report on Thursday night for the previous 28 days. He would also if possible like a monthly report. (that is limited by the log files themselves I think so that may be out of the scope of this project.
*Describe the business environment this solution will be used in.
Chaotic.... lol I cheated and look at yours Mike. I think you nailed it fairly much except for one thing. Our techs out in the field who can get behind the fire wall also use the site. Since many of are calls used to be part number calls and we keep a list of parts by machine availabe up there (really wish you could see the site sometime), that elimates those calls. So in some essence it is another member of our team and takes calls tha are not officially loged in out system as the tech is helping himself.
*Are there any hardware or OS issues to be addressed?
Server is on IBM RISC 6000 running Linux with Apache web server. The Apache server dictates the way the log files are generated (and the way the info is to be put in).
All other people involved that would use the equipment are using Windows (mostly XP). Program would have to run under the Windows OS as a minimum (2000 Windows would be lowest level machine it would ever be run on).
*Would you prefer this solution to be a stand-alone application or available via the Internet/Intranet?
Idealy, the application would be run on internet, I could point a link to my boss and say here it is. In fact, he could check numbers daily if he wanted if it was a CRON job on Linux.
Realistically, I know our skills and will be satisified with a stand alone application.
*Do you have a programming language preference for:
___ stand-alone application
any
___ web application
Perl or any other that can be run on linux machine.
*What is the absolute minimum information you require from this solution?
see current report that is gennerated.
*What would be "good to know"?
see above
*What would be "really nice" to know?
Adding charts to the exported file that I forward to my boss. He could see trends rather than have to transfer data to a spreadsheet to see it.
Now i went back and read yours and saw where I had a different take on the questions. I hope between the two we have a clue.
Bob M.
Post a Comment
<< Home