Broadway Entertainment Company, Inc.

BEC students' team developed a context diagram for a Web-based customer relationship management system, and the project was later named MyBroadway. To provide greater understanding on the requirements of the project, the BEC team analyses various structure of the context diagram, and based on the data flow discovered, the project composes of the movie rental agreement that states the number of movies that a customer is allowed to rent. The interactions of MyBroadway with the Entertainment Tracker database will allow a customer to rent a movie based on the number of movies in the customer's possession.

MyBroadway is the system that interacts with the Entertainment tracker to pass the information to the customer whether a particular movie is available for rent or whether a customer is allowed to rent a movie based on the number of movies in his or her possession. Entertainment tracker interacts with the system to send information on whether a particular movie is available for rent or a customer is allowed to rent a movie based on his or her history.

Movie Rental Request reveals the method the official system is recorded in the database. Through the interaction of MyBroadway with the database, there would be up-to-date information on whether a particular movie is available for rent. After the customer has finished watching the movie, he or she could return it to the nearest BEC store. MyBroadway will update its information after the barcode of the movie has been scanned.

Based on the rate by which a particular movie has been requested by the customers, there are movies that could be marked favorite picks, and they are assigned quality grades such as A, A-, B, and F. When a customer logs in the website, MyBroadway lists the items available for rent, and the information will assist the customer whether he can rent a movie. MyBroadway should also be able to provide the movie suggestions such as title of the movies that a customer might enjoy. (Broadway Entertainment Company Inc.). Based on the scenario, the answers to the case questions are listed below.

Answer to case question 1

The context diagram BEC Figure 7.1 does not represent the complete and an accurate overview of the system described in the case based on the following reason:

First, the information about the employee is included. However, the information about the manager is not included in the BEC Figure 7.1. The BEC store customer relations management system in the fig 7.1 also needs to be changed to MyBroadWay. There is also a need to change Entertainment tracker to Entertainment tracker database to show that an entertainment tracker perform dual functions such as tracking the DVD available in the store as well as keeping the inventory of the movies titles available for rent. The arrow that reveals the method the Entertainment tracker stimulates the transactions is also missing in the context diagram. Finally, the role of the store manager in the overall system is also missing.

The Fig 1 provides a new context diagram as explained in the case.

Fig 1: A New Context Diagram

Transaction Inventory

Stimulation

Inventory Review

Movie Rental

Movie Rental Agreement

Movie Rental Request Rental Status

Movie Suggestions

Movie return

Favorite Picks

Management Reports

Source: Broadway Entertainment Company Inc.

The context diagram needs to be redrawn during the analysis phase because the structure of the system is just part of the system. The whole system needs to be decomposed and there is a need to identify data store inside MyBroadway and fit all the data into the database. In addition, there is a need to specify each primitive process on the lower level DFDs to assist the programmer to build functional information systems. Finally, the data dictionary should provide greater understanding on the data functionality.

Answer to case question 2

Yes, I agree with the data flow because the inflow of the Movie Rental Request data flow to the system is to interact with MyBroadway to know whether the chosen movie is available and could be rented by the customer. Upon receiving the information, MyBroadway interacts with the entertainment tracker for the confirmation that the chosen movie is available for rent. The Movie Rental Status data flow is an outflow from the system because the flow is an interaction with the customer. With the outflow of the Movie Rental Status data flow, the customer will be able to know his status that he or she could rent a movie. When a customer logs in the system, the customer will be able to view the number of items available for rent. The information will assist the customer whether he is able to rent a movie.

Answer to case question 3

It does not make sense that store manager does not shown in the context diagram. The store manager needs to appear in the context diagram as a process of data store on a lower level diagram. Based on the description of the diagram, there are external entities missing from the diagram of BEC Figure 7.1.

Answer to case question 4

The context diagram only is not sufficient to reflect data flow for MyBroadway, the Level O-Data Flow Diagram (DFD) is essential to reflect the data flow for MyBroadway. The Fig 2 reveals the level O DFD for MyBroadway.

Fig 2: Level O-Data Flow Diagram (DFD) for MyBroadway

Transaction Inventory

Stimulation

Inventory Review

Movie Rental

Movie Rental Agreement

Movie Rental Request Rental Status

Movie Suggestions

Movie return

Inventory

Data

Favorite Picks

Update

Formatted Inventory Data

Formatted Data on Movie

Inventory History Report

Movie Available for Rent Management Report

Answer to case question 5

This section reveals the project dictionary for all the Data Stores. The project dictionary is used to structure the system in the orderly manner. To build a project dictionary, a unique name is given to the element for easy identification. For easy identification of the data element, the project dictionary for all the data stores is revealed in the table 1:

Table 1: Project Dictionary for all the Data Stores

Data Stores

Alias

Description

Entertainment Tracker

Database

Keep the inventory of the movies title available for rent

Web-based customer relations management system

MyBroadway

Interact with the entertainment tracker to determine the movie availability

Inventory file

InvFile

Store data about product, product sales and record.

Customer

Custmr

Customer is able to rent a movie based on their solid record and the availability of movie for rent.

Store Manager

StoreMgr

Produce and manage inventory report.

Movie Employee

MovieEmpy

Employee assists in the selection of favorite picks by identifying the movie rented for at least 10 years.

Update Movie Ordered

UpdateMovieRcd

All the movie rented and in the database are updated here

Movie Ordered file

Movie file

The file contains all the movies ordered by the customers.

Update Inventory file

Inventory file

All inventory are automatically updated here

Other items in the project dictionary are as follows:

Data Store: This is where all the data in the system are stored. The data store logically stores file in the database, and the symbol is represented symbol square. The data stores are connected to process and not by external entities.

External Entity: The external entity is represented by the square, and it reveals items outside the system. For example Store manager.

Other data may be hidden inside the process of level-O diagram. The data that I anticipate hidden in the data stores are the customer's information such as the customer's name, address, email, telephone, and other information to identify each customer. Moreover, the customers' method of payments when they request for the movie is also hidden. The invoice sent to the customer is also hidden. The ordering system is also not visible in the data store. Is the customer are to request for a movie by paying uniquely with a credit card? Alternatively, is there any other form of payment that acceptable? These data stores are hidden inside the process because only process being analyzed are displayed.

These data are advised to be hidden because showing all the data in the process will make level O diagrams becoming too complex.

Answer to case question 6

The project dictionary for the all the data flows is revealed in the table 2.

Table 1: Project Dictionary for all the Data Flows

Data Flows

Alias

Description

Transaction Stimulation

TranStimulation

At the point-of-sale terminal, MyBroadway would make a decision whether a movie was available for rent.

Movie Rental Agreement

MovieRAgeement

The flow defines the number of movies that could be rented simultaneously to customers.

Movie Rental Request

MovieRequest

The flow defines whether a movie could be rented to a customer based on the information available in the MyBroadway.

Movie Return

MovieRtr

The flow reveals the procedure MyBroadway interacts with the database. MyBroadway updates the information in the system when a customer returns the watched video to the nearest BEC store.

Inventory Review

InventoryRw

The flow produces method the customer could search for a movie through the title, artist category, release month and other combinations of these factors.

Movie Rental

MovieRtl

The flow is for MyBroadway to determine whether the chosen movie is available for rent.

Rental Status

RentalSt

The customer can log in MyBroadway to view the number of items he or she could rent

Movie Suggestion

MovieSug

MyBroadway makes suggestion to customer on what movies to watch based on their purchase information and past rental history.

Favorite Picks

FavoPicks

Favorite picks data flow is the product that has record of being selected by customers for the longest time. The favorite picks are categorized as quality grade A, A-, B, and F.

Management report

MgtRpt

The flow is to reveal the report produced for the store manager

Inventory History Report

InveHisRep

The flow is to produce all the past history of the transactions that pass through the inventory.

Arrow: Arrow shows the movement of the data. The arrow reveals the flow of the data. The arrow indicates whether data is written or read from the store. The symbol is represented by an arrow sign.

The entries are around 70% detailed for the primitive DFDs. The entries for the primitive DFDs should be 80% detailed.

Answer to case question 7

New Movie Request data flow defines whether a movie could be rented to a customer based on the information available in the MyBroadway. From my DFD diagram, the new Movie Request data flow doest not change. I modeled it as it was in the context diagram. Modeling it in this method will make the customer to interact with MyBrodway easily. The process also makes MyBroadway to interact with the database to determine whether a movie is available for rent.

However, there are difficulties identified in processing model in the DFD. Typically, it very difficult to do a thorough analysis and design as desired by the project sponsor. In addition, structuring process and data flow are just part of the system analysis; there is a need to identify each primitive process on the level O DFD to assist the programmer to build a functional information system. To assist in the thorough analysis and design, there are other alternatives to show the process. One of the alternatives is to make use of automated tools to draw the DFD. Using the automated tools will assist in drawing the DFD, its subsystems and other external entities in the details. There will also be easy changes of the diagram with the use of an automated tool.

The other alternative is to model the request data flow separately and reveal the process by which the customer interacts with MyBroadway. I decide to model the New Movie request data flow as it is in the DFD because I do not want the Level O DFD to become too complex to understand.