Software Design Specification Document Essay

1. Introduction1.1 Purpose of this documentdescribes the purpose of the document, and the intended audience.1.2 Overviewprovides a abbreviated overview of the product defined as a result of the requirements elicitation wreak.I am working for M. Bufton which is a small engineering/prototyping telephoner, which is in the process of expanding. They currently call for a small workshop unit and office, only be determineing to expand into the adjoining building. They submit 20 PCs that are of mixed age and specification as well as 4 laptops. In addition to their office cars they comport 2 CAD/CAM machine tools, an extrusion polymer 3D printer and a full (manual) machine shop. They lock 30 staff in various roles.Mrs Megan Bufton is a Newtown native, and speaks Welsh as her first language. All of the reports and other documentation need to riposte this into account.Initially, I guide been tasked with improving the basic processes, procedures and documentation required for their business systems. merely due to their rapid growth in the phthisis of 3D make the confederation is planning to franchise their operation and with the help of their intended franchisees outdoors additional sites across the country as soon as possible. The company proprietors have decided that in order for their business to expand pull ahead and create a brand recognised as offering a wide choice of rapidly designed and sticked products with simplicity of operations theyneed strong support systems for franchisees. To keep costs low they testament need a computerised system to manage all the companys orders. The companys proprietors have heard about informationbases but have no idea what they are or how they will benefit the company.Buftons company currently collects all regular orders in an Excel spreadsheet. They remark the spread-sheet difficult to use and keep having to type in the same selective information for each customer order, which has led to data entry errors and s ubsequent inconsistencies in the data held. The spread-sheet doesnt allow for effective retrieval of information and does non offer any reporting facilities for printing off documents such as invoices and outstanding payments.As their resident IT specialist I been seconded into developing a system based on database software to deal with Buftons orders.2. public Description2.1 Product FunctionsDescribes the general functionality of the product, which will be discussed in more than detail below.2.2 User CharacteristicsDescribes the features of the exploiter community, including their expected expertise with software systems and the application program domain.DirectnessI have made the program as account as possible. You plunder search forms for specific data, add data, delete data with cascading updates and deletes and you apprise view reports for a quick overview of your data. The program does not have any unnecessary features.User in controlThe user can modify the system how they like, they can create new reports for specific criteria, they can view the data any way they like and have clear, slatternly to use buttons on the forms to navigate through them with ease.ConsistancyThe forms, reports and database is consistant, the layouts are the same and they look similar and proffesional. The navigational buttons are all in the same slur and are the same size. I have added a picture to the company form as I was going to have a several(predicate) connect background on each but I didnt have time to change the photo or seasrch for other related images for the other forms.ForgivenessMy error messages contain a clear definition of which characters must be entered into the field, you can then click ok and slue your entry. You cannot click onto another field untill the field you are on contains the recompense criteria.FeedbackI have used reports for clear viewing of data so you can see clearly and quickly what stock is selling etc and I have input masks and validation rules on many fields so if the wrong information is entered an error message will appear. This helps to keep the denotative integrity.AestheticsI have made the database as logical as possible with fields in the right order and I have made the reports and forms as eye pleasing as possible by using pictures, colours and a consistant layout.SimplicityUsing forms and reports I have made inputting data and pinpointing data as easy as possible. I have used a well known program to develop my software so most people will know how to use it anyway, I have also made a switchboard where the user can go from a menu to any form they ask to view and a button on each form to take you back to the menu, ready to select another form.