Correspondence Archiving & Tracking System

FINAL YEAR PROJECT
Correspondence Archiving & Tracking System

By
Ahmed Nazim (TP014166)

UC3F0909CWD Supervised by WONG CHUNG WEI
BSc (Hons) in Computing: Web Development
What is Correspondence Management? Correspondence management is the process of receiving, recording, processing and responding to the correspondence received to an organization A core component of the general process of enterprise content management
By Ahmed Nazim (TP014166)
START
RECEIVE CORRESPONDENCE
CEO
YES
NEED APPROVAL?
RECEPTION
NO RE-ROUTE TO THE RELEVANT DEPARTMENTS
IS APPROVED?
YES
DEPARTMENTS
NO
END
Problem Background In any organization, dealing with correspondence can be complex and time consuming
Paper documents are : Bulky and heavy Not easily searchable Difficult to manage Expensive
Solution Digitize paper documents Make the document searchable Manage the digital version with database Allow staff/users to access the documents without difficulty
Correspondence Archiving & Tracking System (CATS)
CATS is a computerized system developed to overcome the difficulties in managing the traditional paper documents Objectives:
To automate the correspondence management process Reduce and minimize the paper work Track or search documents easily Enable ubiquitous access to documents
Primary Research Interview

Interviewed a senior staff of Maldives Customs Service
Maldives Customs Service is a large governmental organization employing more than 700 staff across the country. There are more than 20 departments and the organization handles a daily average of 140 incoming and outgoing correspondences
Primary Research Interview

Findings:
Documents should be managed by following a proper folder management standard Electronic document approval cannot be implemented with the current legislation Providing PDA or mobile accessibility will be convenient Security and speed should be addressed in developing the application
Primary Research Questionnaire

Targeted to a wide range of staffs who are currently involved in the correspondence management process Information was gathered from more than 30 staff of Maldives Customs Service
Primary Research Questionnaire

Findings:
Frequent users of the system will be junior and middle level staff More than 83% users are familiar with web-applications Firefox and Internet Explorer are mainly used for browsing 97% users finds it useful to view documents from their mobile phone and 60% users prefer desktop browser to access the application
Secondary Research According to M. Rozzano (2009), the huge amount of incoming and outgoing documents in the companies has to be managed in a complete way, in order to:
Check the incoming and outgoing documents Be sure not to lose the documents Check the internal and external communications flow Ensure the documents confidentiality Perceiving of documents for future readability
10
Secondary Research D. Priestly (2008) and Dirven (2007), states the following reasons to migrate to electronic correspondence
Gain better control Cost Efficiency Environmental concerns Increase accuracy Free up employees to focus on more strategic tasks
11
Academic Research What programming language can be used?

C# .NET is among the top 5 programming languages used by developers
Which Database server can handle the correspondence data?

Microsoft SQL Server 2005
Which Web server will be compatible with the above database server and programming language?
Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS)
12
Academic Research What will be the best electronic document format?

Adobe PDF
How can the system be interfaced with a scanner?

Using Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) library
How can we extract document contents?

Using an Optical Character Recognition library
MODI OCR was the most appropriate library
13
Academic Research How can the system manage FAX?

Using Microsoft Fax Service
Any compatible FAX modem can be used
How to provide SMS functionality?

Using a GSM modem or GSM mobile phone
14
System Architecture
Organization A Organization B
Database File Server
Internal Module
External Module
Workstations
Application Programmer Interface (API)
Web Services
3rd Party Application
PDA
Laptops
15
Internal Module This module will be used within the organization only (Intranet)
Internal Module
Web-client
Windows Application
Scanner
Workstations
16
Internal Module 2 Applications were developed for Internal Module:

Windows Application:
Will be used by Administrators ONLY Will be interfaced with Scanner Should be installed to the computer
Web-based Application:
Will be used by all the Staff (including Administrators) Can be accessible using any computer within the network
17
Windows Application Developed using C# .NET Can communicate with any WIA (Windows Image Acquisition) compatible scanner Will scan and process OCR (Optical Character Recognition) using the client Computer memory Will upload scanned documents using FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
18
Web-based Application Developed using C# .NET, JavaScript and XML Will use web-servers memory to process OCR Will upload documents using HTTP Can be accessed from any kind of browser/OS platform Staff will be able to view their own documents (including documents of their department)
19
API Module API Module will provide functionality for developers to integrate other applications with CATS
Application Programmer Interface (API)
Correspondence Archiving & Tracking System (CATS) Web Services
Internal Module
Web-client
Windows Application
Scanner
3rd Party Application
Workstations PDA Laptops
20
API Module Written entirely in C# .NET Programming language independent for developers Provide information in the form of XML Enable to develop gadgets, widgets and mobile applications
21
Design Methodology Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) with Website Design Method (WSDM) were used Reasons to combine both methodologies:
SDLC phases are targeted more on the development phases, while WSDM is more usercentric and more appropriate for web applications WSDM covers audience modeling in a broader way compare to SDLC Preliminary phases of SDLC are very important in identifying the problems, opportunities and requirements
22
Audience Modeling Targeted audience will be divided into 3 main categories which are administrators, general staff and senior staff
General Staff & Executives
Administrative Staff
Provide Correspondence Information
Administrative Setup of System
23
Administrative Staff Will be accessible to most the functions of the system, except approving document which is only available for executive staff
Administrative Staff View External Documents View Internal Documents Send Internal Documents
Send Fax
Send External Documents Route Documents Departments Manage Designation System Settings Users Address Book
24
Executive and General Staff

General Staff View External Documents View Internal Documents Send Internal Documents Executive Staff View External Documents View Internal Documents Send Internal Documents
Send Fax
Send Fax
Approve Document
General staff can be regarded as an audience sub-class of executive staff. Executive Staff will be able to approve document
25
Database Design
26
HCI Design
Design Principles
Visibility
Simple design; logically organized, well labeled and related item in the interface will be grouped together in a pane The screen will not be cluttered and the menus will be placed in highly visible locations Colour simple color scheme used as the background color which should clearly distinguish background with foreground texts. High chrome colors used for important notices to attract attention of the users Text An easy to read font style Metaphors icons or small images such as a magnifying glass to represent the search option or a question mark symbol to represent the help option.
27
HCI Design Design Principles

Constraints
Cultural constraints rely on learned conventions (e.g. red colored fonts used to display error messages)
Restrict possible actions that can be performed by a specific user (eg: general user should not be allowed to approve a document)
28

Provide Feedback
Mouse hovered to links should display a different color or hover effect Active buttons and tabs could be highlighted to show that the user is viewing the current tab or buttons content
29

Mapping
Main menu will be placed right under the top banner which will be clearly visible to the user. The panel for all frequently accessed links will be located on the left hand side of the screen.
30
Interface Design (Web Application)
31
Interface Design (Windows Application)
32
Implementation Development Tools and Techniques

Visual Studio 2008 Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) - Scanning Microsoft Office Document Imaging (MODI) OCR PDFsharp and Ghostscript Library Windows FAX Service jQuery library
33
Major Functions & Features Password Encryption:

All the passwords will be encrypted using MD5 algorithm
FAX Management
FAX can be sent and received using the web-based application
34
Major Functions & Features Receive SMS notification:

Users can subscribe to receive SMS notification to their mobile phone
35
Major Functions & Features Scanning using the Application:

Windows Application can scan documents without using a scanning software
36
Major Functions & Features OCR Processing:

Extract contents of the scanned document using MODI OCR
37
System Testing Following test methods were used to ensure that the application met its expected result as well as overall performance
Deployment Test Unit Test Functionality Test Integration Test Performance Test Design and User Acceptance Test Browser Test
38
Problems Occurred during testing Could not test the actual faxing due to unavailability of fax line Could not test on multiple scanners Web-based OCR processing is slow compare to Windows based OCR
39
Degree of Success Considering the test results as well as the user acceptance test carried out with sampled users, CATS has been successful especially in the areas of user interaction with the Web based application and the overall visual appeal Significant success has also been recorded in the aspect of windows based application and API integration OCR processing was the only function which exceeds 1 second of response time
40
Limitations Almost all the requests are based on AJAX calls other than uploading the document. There are some difficulties on uploading files via AJAX technique. Due to this limitation, the uploading of documents will refresh the entire client page (traditional post back) OCR will be processed only on documents having English characters Theme or color scheme cannot be changed by the user
41
Future Enhancement
System can be integrated with staffs email Enable staff to email to the CATS (eg: cats@organization.com) system to register a document on CATS Support for multiple language OCR Integrate system with other in-house software like pay-slips (salary slip) etc Enable users to change their interface design by selecting themes Current system does not track the location of hardcopy
42
Lessons Learned
Advanced AJAX implementations OCR Processing Web-based faxing C# and JavaScript JSON, SOAP and XML Hardware communication Project Management
43
Conclusion Future enhancement to the correspondence process as a whole, and the developed CATS would definitely bring a much easier, faster, efficient and advanced correspondence management system in a ubiquitous manner
44
THANK YOU

Correspondence Archiving &amp; Tracking System

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FINAL YEAR PROJECT