MIS

System Analysis

In this an analysis of the problems of the existing system in undertaken, and

how the new system is likely to overcome these problem is specified. Tools
used for system analysis are Data Flow Diagram (DFD), Questionnaires,
Interviews etc. After that various alternative system are evolved and
Feasibility Study is undertaken to determine their suitability.
Need of System Analysis

1. System Objective : Many times it is observed that the system are historically
in operation and have lost their main purpose. Since we are going to develop
a computer based system, it is necessary to redefine the objectives.

2. System Boundaries: It will define system scope and coverage. This helps to
understand the functional boundaries of the system, department
boundaries and people involved in the system.

3. System Importance: Understanding system importance in the organization

helps the designer to decide the design features of the system.

4. Nature of the system: analysis of system help the designer to conclude

whether the system is the closed type or open and deterministic or
probabilistic.
Need of System Analysis cont….

5. Role of the System as an Interface: Sometimes the system acts as an

interface to other system, so it is important to understand the role of system
as an interface.

6. Participation of Users: system analysis involves participation of the people

to bring down the resistance to the new developed system.

7. Understanding of Resource Needs: It helps to determine the requirements

of hardware and software, so that the investment can be calculated.

8. Assessment of Feasibility: Analysis of the system helps to establish the

feasibility from different angles like technical , economic and operational.
System Analysis involves the following aspects of system development:

1. Feasibility Study
2. Requirement analysis
3. Structured analysis
Feasibility Study: It is the process of determining whether a system is
appropriate in the context of organizational resource and constraints and
meets the user requirements.

Types of Feasibility Study

1. Economic Feasibility
2. Technical Feasibility
3. Operational Feasibility
4. Legal Feasibility
Economic Feasibility: Determination of whether the given system is economically
viable. It is done through Cost/benefit analysis.

Technical Feasibility: Whether the hardware, software and technical resources

are available for the proposed system.

Operational Feasibility: Determines whether the proposed system will work

effectively within the existing managerial and organizational framework.

Legal Feasibility: Determines whether proposed system meets the requirements

of various information technology regulations.
Steps in Feasibility Study

1. Constitution of a Project Team: The purpose is to involve future user of the

system. Even some time outside consultants and information system
specialists may be included in the team.

2. Identification of Potential candidate systems: In this step different alternative

candidate systems are identified.

3. Identification of characteristics of candidate system: Identify the

characteristics of proposed system so that those system that do not meet the
initial selection criteria are eliminated.

4. Performance and cost evaluation: Detailed performance and cost evaluation is

carried for those system which pass successfully through the previous step.
Steps in Feasibility Study cont…

5. Weighing System Performance and cost data: Generally high performance

requires high cost and all system do not require high performance. So weights
are assigned to the performance and cost.

6. Selection of the Best System: Based on the weights assigned to different

systems, that system may be selected that has the highest weight score.

7. Preparation of Feasibility Report: Feasibility Report is a formal document for

management use and is prepared by the system analyst during or after feasibility
study . This report contains
Requirement Analysis

It is the crucial stage of system analysis in which an analysis is done who requires
what information in what form and when.

Tools to identify the requirements are

1. Procedure and Forms

2. On-Site Observation
3. Interview
4. Questionnaire
5. System used in other Organization
Structured Analysis

In analyzing the present system and future requirements , the analyst collects a
great deal of relatively unstructured data through different procedures. The
traditional approach is to convert the data into Flowcharts which support
future development of the system.

However system flowchart represents a physical rather than logical system. It

makes it difficult to distinguish between what happens and how it happens in
the system.

Structured analysis is undertaken which is a set of techniques and graphical

tools and allow the analyst to develop a new kind of system specifications that
are easily understandable to the users. It uses Data Flow Diagram.
Features of Structured Analysis

1. It is logical rather than physical.

2. It is conceptually easy to understand

3. The process used in structured analysis is partitioned so that a clear picture

of progression from general to specific in the system flow emerges.
System Design

The main objective is to produce a model of the system. It has two levels .

1. Top level design/ Logical Design/ Conceptual Design: In this the system is
broken down into different modules and their relationship to each other
as they appear to users. It shows what the system will do as opposed to
how it is actually implemented physically. It contains input/ output
specifications.

2. Detailed Design/ Physical Design: In this the focus is given on the internal
design of each module. The main objective is to describe the system in
such details , so that the development or coding phase can begin
Logical Design Physical Design

System Procedure
Specifications Specifications

Program Software Files

Input / Output
Specifications Data Entry

Access Communication Master File

File Enquiry Transaction File
Specifications
File/Update/
maintenance
Processing
Specifications Backup/ Recovery
Output Design

A output is that which is produced in order to satisfy the information

requirement of the user.

Output can be prepared in following forms

1. Tabular Form: Financial data, sales data and inventory data can be well
presented in Tabular Form

2. Graphic Form: Information is presented in the form of charts, diagrams,

bars etc. well suited for comparison studies.

3. Printed Form: Tabular and Graphic presentation of information may be

either in printed form or screen display

4. Screen Display Form: Sometimes printed report is not required and can be
shown in the Display Screen.
Input Design

Input design consist of developing procedure for data preparation , developing

steps that are necessary to put data into a usable form for processing and data
entry. The objective of Input Design is to make data entry simple and easy.

1. Form Design: Form can be printed or online which are filled by users to enter
information in the system.

2. Coding: Coding is the process of assigning codes to lengthy descriptions. A

code is a brief number, title or symbol. For e.g. B2B for Business to Business.

3. Design Data Entry: Data entry can be made automated for speed and
accuracy. Techniques like MICR (Magnetic Ink character recognition) and OCR
(Optical character recognition).
Storage Design

Data can be stored in individual files with one file for each application or
database can be developed which can be shared by different users as the need
arises. Database can be either centralized or distributed.

Processing Design

It focuses on s/w resources that is, the programs needed by the proposed
information system. It involves developing detailed specifications for the
program modules.

Procedure Design

It specifies how the computer will function from data entry stage to output
stage. The procedure indicates the logic of data processing and flow of the
system control step by step. The steps in the procedure are shown in the
computer system flow chart.
Documentation

After system analysis and design, documentation is required. Documentation

describes how an information system works from both a technical and end user
standpoint. It is a written record of different phases of a system development.

Persons that use Documentation

1. End User of System : Documentation to create different types of reports and

queries

2. Secondary Users : Documentation for persons who enter data in the system

3. Computer Operating Personnel: Contain system maintenance and control

Information

4. Trainers: documentation for persons who provide training to different

category of users.
Methods of Documentation

1. Conventional : It is the traditional method of creating documentation

like a cookbook which prescribes the recipe. For e.g. “Turn on the
Computer using button on the panel”

2. Matrix: A matrix is use to present pairs of conditions and a resulting

action.

3. Flowchart: It is a graphic presentation of the logical steps and sequence

involved in a procedure or a program.

4. System Manual: It is a small book that contains various information

about a system, such as its performance standards, methods of using it
and precautions.
Tools for System Analysis and Design

To speed up the process of system development various tools and

methodology are used.

1. Data flow diagram

2. Flowchart
3. Structured design
4. Object oriented development
5. Computer aided software engineering
Data Flow Diagram

DFD’s are widely used graphic tools for describing the movement of data within
or outside the system. DFD uses diagram , which quickly convey to both the
software developers and users, how the current system is working and how the
proposed system will work.
Symbols Used in DFD

Data Flow Arrow

Process Data Store External
Entity
Data Flow: It shows the movement of data between process, data store and
external entity
Process: It shows the transformation of input data flow to output data flow
Data Store: consists of computer files, database or any other form of data
storage
External Entity : It is either originator or receiver of information.

Product Information file

Customer Process Customer file

Order

Example of DFD
 Flowchart
It is a graphic design tool that depicts sequence of processing steps used in an entire
information system. Two types of flowchart

1. System Flowchart: Describes processes taking place throughout an information

system.

2. Program Flowchart: describes the processes taking place within an individual

program in the system.

Difference between Flowchart and DFD

DFD shows how data flow from one entity to another and what transformation in
data takes place, whereas a flowchart describes the steps that must be completed
in a particular sequence to complete an action.
Flowchart
Structured Design

Structured Design is a data flow based designing method. This method begins
with system specifications that identify inputs and outputs and functional
aspects of the system.

Structured design divides a program into small, independent modules which

are arranged in hierarchy that approximates a model of the business area.
Structure Chart shows each level of design and it’s relationship to other levels.
The elements of structure chart are

1. Module: It is a logical unit of program that performs one small function

2. Connection: It links two module

3. Couple: represents data items that move from one module to another and is
shown by a circular tail in the structured chart.
Object oriented Development

Object oriented system development is based on object – oriented

programming (OOP). OOP combines data and specific procedure (functions)
that operate on those data into one object. The system is viewed as a collection
of classes and objects and relationship among them.

Object is viewed as an entity . An entity is any real world object or conceptual

thing (like company). It reduces development time and cost because objects
are reusable. Object oriented design is a method of designing the real life
system. A real life system consists of entities, having well defined operations,
through which they interact with other entities.

Entities having data together with operations that can be performed on the
data is called an object. This approach tends to reduce cost and time of writing
programs because objects are reusable.
Difference between Object oriented and traditional development
approach

Traditional methodologies put procedure first. They view a system in terms of

what it intends to do and then develop models of procedure and data. In
contrast object oriented development de – emphasizes procedures and focus
shifts from modeling business processes and data to combining data and
procedures into objects. The system is viewed as a collection of classes and
objects and relationship among them.
 Grade
Department Data
Object
Oriented
Salary
Leave Function Approach
Testing

Testing is the major quality control measure, which is employed after

development phase and before installation.

“Testing is the process of executing a program with the intent of finding errors.”

If a system is installed without testing two types of problem can occur.

1. If the system has any error, this may appear much later. Thus it will require
much more time to correct the error

2. System error may corrupt the data files and output.

Computer - Aided software Engineering (CASE)

CASE is an automated step by step methodology for system and software

development to reduce the amount of repetitive work the developer needs to
do. By automating many routine development tasks and adhering to design
rules, CASE can free the developer for more creative problem solving tasks.

The concept of CASE is emerged in 1980’s and after the development of OOD
during 1990’s. CASE vendors began developing tools for object oriented
development.
Types of Testing

1. Unit Testing: Testing of individual module or procedure is done.

2. Integration Testing: After development all modules are tested to check

whether they are properly integrated or not

3. System Testing: The complete software is tested to find the errors and
faults. Special test cases are prepared to test the complete system.

4. Acceptance Testing: It is done by user to give final certification of

acceptance. The user evaluate the system and if satisfied with the system
performance and functionality, the system is formally accepted for
installation.