CSC 333 Database Applications
Project Proposal
Project Name:
HELP
Team Members:
Robert Lusk
David Hess
Ria Ghose
Project Liaison:
David Hess
Project Organization Name:
HELP Ministries
Address:
e-mail:
Phone:
717- 238 – 2851
Name of Point of Contact:
John Scarpato,III
Milestone#1 Completion Summary
Milestone Number: # 1 Due Date:
Team Name: HELP
Team Members and Roles:
Team Leader: Dave Hess
contacted the John Scarpato of HELP ministries and completed a preliminary
project plan consistent with milestone contents, deliverables and dates, etc
and uploaded milestone #1 deliverables on the web.
Ria Ghose took notes on the
project meeting with HELP and wrote the documentation, project proposal and the
completion summary.
Robert Lusk drove the team to
Summarize Results of Milestone:
The
project concerns making changes to an already existing database. This will
include creating an ER data model of the existing DB, identifying cause of some
of the key problems associated with it and making changes accordingly. Some of
the key focus on the changes will be creating varied reports and parallel,
multi-user access.
Strengths of Milestone:
We have a copy of the software
Alpha Five used by HELP and some of its user manuals. This will help us figure
out some of the inherent problems underlying the DB, which will help us modify
the system better.
Weaknesses of Milestone:
We do not have a clear idea
of what the DB looks like and it may be difficult to identify the problems
inlaid from the given DB and hence might be difficult to implement the changed
according to the needs of our client. HELP ministries seemed very unsure about
the kind of changes they needed to be made. This makes it difficult be assess
the full potential of the requirements of the project.
Project Status:
Yellow:
there is a probability we might change to a different project, considering we
don’t know anything about Alpha 5.
Effort:
|
Team Members |
Notes |
Documentation |
Course Outline |
Power Point |
|
Ria |
30 min |
|
-- |
-- |
|
Bobby |
-- |
-- |
-- |
1hr |
|
Dave |
-- |
-- |
|
|
|
As a team |
1hr |
20min |
10 min |
30 min |
|
Total |
|
|
|
|
|
Estimated |
|
2hr |
|
|
Overview of Project and Sponsor Organization:
Christian Churches United
HELP Ministries is an emergency human service agency. They work with people who
are in need of “life sustaining services.” This includes: food pantry
referrals, emergency shelter placement, prescription medication assistance,
rental assistance and travel assistance. There are three basic components to
this ministry: one is the needy who come to HELP ministries, who is the second
member. And the third member includes the organizations that actually provide
the help, like the food, or money, etc. HELP has a database that maintains name
and case history, etc of their clients, who come to them for help and for the
organizations that provide some of the amenities.
Problem Statement: HELP would like to design and print reports based on different search
criteria for different purposes. They would also be able to modify the DB
according to their needs: like adding
new fields, to perform queries and do searches.
Project Goals: Upon
completion the DB of HELP will be free of any of the major problems that are
present, currently. HELP will be able to perform queries and do searches which
will also enable them tailor their reports accordingly.
Approach:
Initially, we will obtain a copy of the DB from HELP and sketch the outline of
their present DB and identify the inherent problems in it. This DB will be
modified, solving the problems as much as possible, with the addition of any
new functionality as desired. These changes will be implemented in the
relational model and in the physical database design.
Resources: Dave
will be in charge of Milestone#1, 2.
He is primarily in charge of finding out the requirements and its allocation,
and identify a project plan. Ria will be in charge of the ER schema design and
implementing the business rules along with any required normalization and the
physical database design. Bobby is chiefly in charge of the DB modification
implementation and testing. He is also responsible for the system manual and
training.
Constraints:
Alpha Five is not a very powerful software and HELP ministries are not ready to
change to different software, even open source. As yet HELP is unclear about
the kind of changes they want made to their existing DB.
Risk: It may
not be possible for us to identify all the problems they are facing and hence,
solving them. At they end they may still have some unidentified problems. One
way to abate this would be to be in dialogue with HELP constantly and find out
more about their requirements and current problems so that they can be solved.
Also, the existing software used by HELP is Alpha 5, which has not been used by
one on the team before.
Budget: As
yet HELP is not planning on buying any new software or hardware and they have
no budget for this project, whatsoever.
Justification:
Although we will be modifying the DB, we will have to go through all the
essential steps of DB design to actually improve the system, like: ER modeling,
applying business rules, normalization, physical DB design, implementation,
testing, bug tracking, etc. We may have to spend more time in one aspect of the
design than the other: for instance it is very crucial to spend more time on
finding the defects of the current DB in order to modify it, so that our
project meets the needs of HELP ministries.