Report,Analysis

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HS2011 Systems Analysis & Design Assignments 1 & 2 Case Study

Willowbrook School

Willowbrook School is a small private school that has retained your services as a systems analyst to assist in the

development of a new information system for the school’s administrative needs.

Background

Willowbrook School is a small, private school in the Midwest United States. For the past 20 years, it has offered

a curriculum for preschool through 6th grade. Five years ago it expanded to offer after-school care, usually

referred to as after care, on premises. After care is not only offered to Willowbrook’s students, but also for

students of other schools in the area.

The current system of Willowbrook School and their expected new system requirements

As an independent systems analyst, you work as an IT consultant, specializing in developing IT solutions for

small businesses. You have been contacted by the director, Victoria Owens, to discuss the possibility of setting

up a computer system to handle some of the school’s administrative and financial tasks. She explains to you

that Willowbrook is experiencing significant increases in enrollment applications for all programs. Increases in

applications, coupled with increased demand for after-school care, have led to a very high workload for the

administrative personnel and staff. The principal and teachers have stepped in where possible, but the demand

is becoming too great. Willowbrook School is a non-profit, and is not in a position to hire another full-time

administrative position, which is what the principal and director think would be needed to handle the

increased workload. You agree to meet with Victoria and the principal, Kathy Gilliard next week to discuss the

school and its need for an information system.

You sit down with Victoria and Kathy to ask them some questions to help you determine what type of

information system they need. You explain to them that information systems bring computer hardware and

software together with people, processes, and data to produce specific results. They are excited to tell you

about their situation and what they have in mind for a computer system to help with some of the work load.

To help you with planning for the information system, you ask them about what personnel they have, as well

as some questions to determine what types of information each person needs to do their job.

Victoria explains her role as the executive director of the school. She administers the activities of the school in

accordance with the mission, vision, and policies established by the Board of Directors. She supports the

educational staff and oversees the financial, payroll, and human resources functions for the school. She also

prepares all necessary reports and evaluations for the state and local school boards. Kathy says that as the

principal of Willowbrook she handles the academic and curricular issues that arise, and ensures that the school

meets all federal and state educational standards. Kathy and the teachers who report to her make decisions

jointly about admissions and assignments to classrooms. The two kitchen staff personnel, a head cook and an

assistant, also report to the principal. She also coordinates students’ bus transportation schedule. The school

contracts with a local bussing company to provide transportation for some students in the area. Some after

care students are dropped off by the local public school district’s busses, and she coordinates with the district’s

transportation department. Kathy also substitutes in any of the school classrooms when a teacher is out.

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Susan Brown is the vice principal. She is responsible for the after-care program. While students must be pre-

registered for after-care required on a daily basis, the school does offer “drop-in” care on an “as space allows”

basis. Susan handles all requests for drop-in care in consultation with the after-care teachers. She also

maintains the school calendar, prepares handouts and reminders for parents, keeps track of special dietary

needs of the students, and administers the “camps” that run during the two weeks that the school is not in

session during the spring, and the summer programs that run through July and August.

Michelle Madrid is the administrative assistant. She sends out monthly bills for tuition and after-care, records

payments, and handles bank deposits. She has traditionally handled or been responsible for all administrative

tasks related to tuition and after-care fees. She maintains all student records, and ensures that contact and

pick-up lists for all classrooms and after-care programs are up-to-date. Currently, Michelle handles all her

responsibilities using Microsoft Word and Excel. She is comfortable with the applications, but finds that

maintaining records and producing reports, payroll, etc. results in a lot of duplication of effort, as she has to

copy a lot of information from one worksheet or document to another.

There are eleven full-time teachers at Willowbrook, three for the pre-school program, two for the kindergarten

program, and one for each grades 1-6. There are five teacher’s aides, for the pre-school-kindergarten and the

grades 1–3 programs. Teacher’s aides report to their respective teachers. Each teacher is responsible for

keeping attendance records and recording them in the student files.

There are six part-time after-care teachers, three for the pre-school/kindergarten group, and three for the

primary grades. After-care teachers report to Susan Brown. Each after-care teacher has part-time assistants

assigned to the program. Assistants report to the after-care teacher. The number of students pre-registered in

the after-care program determines the number of assistants. The after-care teachers are responsible for

keeping time sheets for their part-time assistants and submitting them every two weeks to Susan Brown. In

addition, the after-care teachers are responsible for submitting weekly summary sheets to Susan Brown

detailing any hours above those pre-registered for that students spent in the after-care program, so that

parents are billed for the additional time. Like many other non-profit schools, Willowbrook relies on volunteer

time from parents to accomplish many of the tasks essential to the running of the school. A financial

committee examines monthly financial reports, a fund-raising committee evaluates possible fund-raising

projects and handles approved fund-raising. In addition, individual parents step in as needed to do routine

office tasks, such as copying and distributing handouts, to free up Michelle Madrid for other tasks. Parents also

fill in as assistants in the after-care programs when needed, and qualified parents step into the classroom as

teachers’ aides whenever possible to reduce the reliance on substitute teachers.

After an initial conversation with Victoria and Kathy, the school’s administrators, they have decided that

pursuing the possibility of an information system is a good idea. Michelle, the administrative assistant, in

particular is feeling the strain of the increased workload associated with the rapid growth in the student

population. The system that she has been using, of spreadsheets and word processing documents, worked well

when enrollments were smaller, but now the amount of time spent copying information from one place to

another is daunting, and the possibility of errors is increasing. An information system is necessary to cope with

the growing administrative workload. After your meeting you developed a business profile, organization

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model, business process model, and began to identify information and processes for Willowbrook School’s new

information system.

Based on your initial conversation and the work that you prepared, you begin planning to conduct a

preliminary investigation. You explain to Victoria that planning IT systems and projects requires a similar

approach to strategic planning as the school likely took when it initially created its mission, vision, and strategic

plan. She begins to ask you questions about the next steps for developing the information system. You tell

Victoria that you will put together a memo for detailing the need for strategic planning and describing the

stages of preliminary systems investigations.

Project Management

You tell Victoria that project management involves managing the cost of the project, staying on its time schedule,

and keeping it within the scope that is defined for the project. The first step begins with listing all of the tasks

that are required to complete a project. You explain to her that in the case of Willowbrook School:

 The first thing to do is develop a plan.

 In the next step, we will spend time on the analysis phase of development.

o In the first part of this phase we will determine the requirements for the new system, which

involves conducting interviews, documentation reviews, surveys, and other research.

o The next step is to model the data and processes of the new system based on our research.

o After the data and processes are modeled, we will decide if we are going to purchase or build

the new system in-house.

 After the analysis phase is completed, we will begin the system design phase.

o This phase of the project includes the user interface; screens that users will work with and

reports that are generated from the system.

o The next step in this phase is data design where we will work with components of the data

that is flowing through the system.

o The final step of this phase is designing the system architecture. This will largely be based on

whether we decide to purchase a system from a third party, outsource the system to a cloud

service, or build the new system ourselves.

 The next phase of the new system will be implementation where we will install the hardware,

software, and train the users.

o The implementation phase will include the “go live”, which will be a date where the new

system will start and the old system will stop.

 The final phase will be ongoing support and maintenance of the new system.

You go on to explain to Victoria that for project management, all of these major tasks and more specific, detailed

tasks go into a chart that is used to create a work breakdown structure (WBS). You describe to her the main

types of WBS – Gantt charts and PERT charts and how they are used. You offer to show her the WBS charts you

will create for Willowbrook’s project.

At the end of your discussion, Victoria tells you that it is clear that project management techniques will be

needed for Willowbrook’s new system and she tells you she is excited to see the Gantt and PERT charts for the

project.

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For the new system, the following requirements should be considered:

After your meeting you sit down to set up the project management for Willowbrook’s new information system

by organizing the tasks to be done, creating a WBS, and identifying the critical path for the project.

Fact-Finding Summary

Registration for Willowbrook School has two components, regular daily students and children in after-care.

Regular daily students are divided into groups, dependent on whether the child is in pre-school, kindergarten,

or primary school. Children in after-care are divided into two groups, those students who are pre-registered

and those who use the service on a “drop-in” basis. Most of the students who are pre-registered for after-care

attend the school during the day but some are bussed in from other schools. For a student to be registered,

tuition payments must be in good standing.

There are two payment options for tuition and the pre-registered component of after-care, monthly or weekly.

Regular daily tuition is based on the academic program in which the student is enrolled. A discount of 5

percent is applied to fees for parents choosing the monthly payment option. Parents who have more than one

child enrolled at Willowbrook are eligible for an additional 5 percent multi-child discount on tuition for all

enrolled children. Discounts are lost for any payment that is overdue by more than seven days.

Charges for after-care used on a “drop-in” basis are based on an hourly rate, billed in fifteen minute

increments. Parents are billed monthly for regular students, and charges are added to the monthly and weekly

bills. New bills are generated weekly for “drop-in” care for children who are not pre-registered for after-care

or regular daily students. For parents who pay monthly, tuition bills and after-care fees are due on the first of

the month, and are distributed to parents one week prior to their being due. For parents who pay weekly,

payments are due on Mondays with bills generated on Fridays. Parents who have more than one child enrolled

in Willowbrook receive a separate bill for each child. The student’s account must be in good standing for a

student to be registered. For the account to be considered to be in good standing, the tuition payment must

not be over seven days late. Tuition payments that are over seven days late may be overridden by the director;

these cases are handled on a case-by-case basis.

The current registration system is done using Microsoft Excel. Michelle Madrid, the administrative assistant,

sets up a new workbook for each academic year. Each month Michelle creates a new worksheet in the

workbook. The worksheet contains one line per student, and each line contains the following registration and

billing information for the student:

Student Name

Parent Name

Address

Academic program (pre-school, kindergarten, primary school grade 1-6)

After-Care (Yes/No)

Weekly tuition fee

Billing cycle (Monthly or Weekly)

Tuition discount

Multi-child discount

Amount of discount (calculated field)

Additional care, after-care “drop-in” fees

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Total monthly fee (calculated field)

Payment received

Amount paid to date (calculated field)

Amount outstanding (calculated field)

The entry for each student is updated monthly when bills are prepared, each time a payment is made, and

when Michelle enters the data from the after-care reports detailing all “drop-in” hours for each student.

Michelle manually calculates the time and the spreadsheet calculates the charges. Monthly statements are

generated from the spreadsheets using the mail merge tool in Microsoft Word.

A summary monthly report is generated for the Board of Directors from this spreadsheet summarizing fee

collections for tuition and after care. The financial committee, who provides regular oversight for the Board,

also receives separate monthly reports detailing payroll expenses for all employees. Reports need to be ready

for distribution at the financial committee meeting that is scheduled for the second Tuesday of every month.

Michelle has indicated that the most useful new feature that could be added to the system would be the

ability to generate one bill per family, listing each student’s charges separately, and an overall total. Also useful

would be the ability to generate a receipt at the time payments are recorded. This receipt should contain

information required for reimbursement requests from different types of dependent care and tuition

accounts, including name, location, and federal tax ID number of the school. In addition, parents have asked

for a separate statement accompanying their bill itemizing all drop-in after-care hours for that statement.

The next step is to develop a logical model of the proposed billing system. You explain to her how you will

develop data flow diagrams (DFDs) that will be used to graphically show how data input will move through a

system and be turned into useful information. Now, at the end of the systems analysis phase, you are ready to

prepare a system requirements document and give a presentation to the Willowbrook School’s management

and board of directors. 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 staff and

parents.

About the Assignments

Information system development projects incorporate several key milestones. This assignment will require you

to complete Milestone 1 - problem analysis, which includes understanding business in general, their challenges,

current system issues/problems, essential functional/non-functional requirements and limitations. Milestone 2

– Data Modelling which uses some of the models of a Structured Approach, such as Event table, Data fragments,

a context diagram, DFDs, ERD and DFD documentation to illustrate the current system.

The purpose of the problem analysis phase is threefold. First and foremost, the project team must gain a proper

understanding of the business and system problem domain. Second, we need to answer the question, "Are these

problems (opportunities and directives) worth solving?" Finally, we need to determine if the system is worth

developing.

The problem analysis phase provides the systems analyst and project team with a more thorough understanding

of the problems, opportunities, and directives that triggered the project. In the process, they frequently uncover

new obstacles and opportunities. The information employed and acquired during these analyses has to be from

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all levels of the Willowbrook School, such as owners, staff, teachers, and students. You will need to understand

the current processes, the problems, issues, and opportunities.

As this is an academic exercise, you will not be able to do practical tasks such as surveys and interviews. However,

you should provide a brief explanation of how to investigate the current system and understand the problems.

You are allowed to make assumptions with those areas which not clearly explained in the case description. To

make assumptions, you should conduct research, such as checking similar business websites or reading

published academic papers related to Coaching/Training businesses in order to justify your assumptions.

Having studied the current system and analysed some of its problems and opportunities, and of course, gained

approval to proceed, you can then start to provide suggestions on how to address the current system issues,

and design a new system which enhances their business management and processes. You will focus on system

design and development practices in assignment 2.