database environment

Database Environment

Sharon Edlund

Joe Lodewyck

University Of Phoenix

03/30/15

a.

Case

Smith Consulting is a virtual Organization in need of a database. The database should track the staff, each staff member’s skills sets and what projects they are working on. The assumptions on the organization is that it is committed to offering technological services to its clients. The services include networking, software engineering, and database design and computer maintenance services.

Analysis of database environment

Analyzing database environment provides information on the company’s position in managing the employee information (Database Analysis, n.d.). Therefore, studies are carried out on the initial design and operation of the company. Analysis of the database environment is to be able to represent the real world operation of the Smith consulting into specific computer representation. This process is complicated and missing out on given data may not be able to capture the objectives as required. To be able to gain complete information, the process is divided into various stages where each stages serves to provide information for the next stage. These stages include the conceptual design, logical design and implementation.

Problems and Constraints

To identify the problems, information collection from the end users and management is essential which is carried out through interviews for a small number of employees or questionnaires for a large group. Observation is also essential in gaining primary data on the company’s operations. The major problem is to have the database running within a short period of time. Hence, the time constraint in its implementation. Operation of the project brings up the budget which is a major concern for the company and may arise in financial problems or incomplete project if not catered for well, hence there is the budget constraint in carrying out the project (Mullis, 2012).

Objectives of Database environment

The major objective of the database environment is to ensure management of employee information and their day to day operation. It may be divided to have several objectives such as:

1. To ensures keeping and maintenance of staff details and skills.

2. To record the projects carried out by given staff from initial to end.

3. To ensure ease of update and efficiency in retrieval.

4. To be able to give report on staff information and projects within a set of desired period

Scope and Boundaries

The scope defines the limit to which the project is desired to cover and ensure the objectives are met. The scope of the project includes the attributes of the staff information and projects being done. The project is only limited to the staff who are allocated projects that have finite time to be delivered. The employees of the company such as the Human resource, security and management are out of scope of the project, since they are not directly involved in the projects of the company in offering its services (Woody, 2003).

Data specifications

These are input to the tables and they describe the entity and the attributes of each entity. In the database we have mainly staff entity, skills entity, and projects entity. These entities are linked through relationship. One staff member may have many skills and one skill may be among may staff members hence we have the staff_skills entity to be able to create a many to many relationships between staff and skills. A project may also require many staff members and many members may be working on a given project simultaneously hence we have the staff_projects entity, to complete the many to many relationships required.

The database design is to be presented in an entity relationship structure to ensure integrity of the data and ease of update and query (Woody, 2003).

For each of the entities we have description of their attributes below:

Entity: Staff

a. Name (I.e. John doe, Jane Doe, Smith White)

b. Staff ID (unique Identification of staff)

c. Date of Employment

d. Gender

e. Position

f. Level (Offers the level of operation, Intermediate, Project manager, programmer, etc.)

g. Availability (If staff is available for another project)

Shows the employee information. Creates a one-to-many relationship with entity staff skills and staff projects.

Entity: Skills

a. Skill ID (unique identifier of each skill)

b. Name (includes skills such as programming, networking, technical, analytical, SQL)

Shows the skills information.

Entity: Projects

a. Project ID (Unique identifier of project)

b. Project name

c. Budget (The amount required to execute it)

d. Expected start

e. Expected End

f. Phase (Shows the level of completion of the project, i.e. 50%, 60%, 100% for completed)

Entity: Staff skills

a. ID

b. Staff ID (Staff who has the given skill)

c. Skill ID ( The skill of the staff)

d. Level (The capacity of knowledge of skill (beginner, intermediate, wizard)

Entity: Staff Projects

a. ID

b. Staff ID

c. Project ID

d. Date Started

Entity: Projects Skills

a. ID

b. Project ID

c. Skill ID

d. Skill Level

References Database Analysis. (n.d.). Retrieved from Grussell: http://db.grussell.org/section004.html Mullis, C. S. (2012, November 7). Database Administration: Creating the Database Environment. Retrieved from Informit: http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1963781 Woody, B. (2003, March 28). Database Design: Requirements, Entities, and Attributes. Retrieved from Informit: http://www.informit.com/guides/content.aspx?g=sqlserver&seqNum=60