Systems Analysis & Design Methods Ch.2

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Front-office information systems

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support business functions that extend out to the organization’s customers (or constituents).

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3 departments that use Front-office information systems

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Marketing
Sales
Customer management

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Back-office information systems

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support internal business operations of an organization, as well as reach out to suppliers (of materials, equipment, supplies, and services).

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3 departments that use
Back-office information systems

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Human resources
Financial management
Manufacturing
Inventory control

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Information systems architecture

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a unifying framework into which various stakeholders with different perspectives can organize and view the fundamental building blocks of information systems.

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3 High-Level Goals of
System Owners and System Users

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Improve business knowledge
Improve business processes and services
Improve business communication and people collaboration

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Knowledge

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the raw material used to create useful information.

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Process

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the activities (including management) that carry out the mission of the business.

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Communication

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how the system interfaces with its users and other information systems.

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2 things System owners’ view of knowledge are concerned with

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Interested not in raw data but in information that adds new business knowledge and helps managers make decisions.
Business entities and business rules.

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3 Things System users’ view of knowledge are concerned with.

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View data as something recorded on forms, stored in file cabinets, recorded in books and spreadsheets, or stored on computer.
Focus on business issues as they pertain to data.
Data requirement

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Data requirement

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a representation of users’ data in terms of entities, attributes, relationships, and rules independent of data technology.

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Things System designers’ view of knowledge are concerned with

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Data structures, database schemas, fields, indexes, and constraints of particular database management system (DBMS).

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Things System owners’ view of processes are concerned with

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System owners’ view
Concerned with high-level processes called business functions.
Business function
A cross-functional information system

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Business functions

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a group of related processes that support the business. Functions can be decomposed into other subfunctions and eventually into processes that do specific tasks

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cross-functional information system

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a system that supports relevant business processes from several business functions without regard to traditional organizational boundaries such as divisions, departments, centers, and offices.

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6 things System users’ view of processes are concerned with

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Concerned with work that must be performed to provide the appropriate responses to business events.
Business processes
Process requirements
Policy
Procedure
Work flow

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2 things System designers’ view of processes are concerned with

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Concerned with which processes to automate and how to automate them
Constrained by limitations of application development technologies being used
Software specifications

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Software specifications

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the technical design of business processes to be automated or supported by computer programs to be written by system builders.

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Business processes

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activities that respond to business events.

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Process requirements

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a user’s expectation of the processing requirements for a business process and its information systems.

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Policy

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a set of rules that govern a business process.

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Procedure

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a step-by-step set of instructions and logic for accomplishing a business process.

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Work flow

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the flow of transactions through business processes to ensure appropriate checks and approvals are implemented.

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Software specifications

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the technical design of business processes to be automated or supported by computer programs to be written by system builders.

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2 things System designers’ view of processes are concerned with

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Concerned with which processes to automate and how to automate them
Constrained by limitations of application development technologies being used
Software specifications

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Application program

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a language-based, machine-readable representation of what a software process is supposed to do, or how a software process is supposed to accomplish its task.

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Prototyping

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a technique for quickly building a functioning, but incomplete model of the information system using rapid application development tools.

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4 things System builders’ view of processes are concerned with

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Concerned with programming logic that implements automated processes
Application program
Prototyping

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3 questions System owners’ view ask

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Who (which business units, employees, customers, and partners) must interact with the system?
Where are these business units, employees, customers, and partners located?
What other information systems will the system have to interface with?

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Question System users’ view of communication ask

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Concerned with the information system’s inputs and outputs.

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2 things System builders’ view of communication is concerned with

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Concerned with the construction, installation, testing and implementation of user and system-to-system interface solutions.
Middleware

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3 things System designers’ view of communication is concerned with

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Concerned with the technical design of both the user and the system-to-system communication interfaces.
Interface specifications
User dialogue

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Interface specifications

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technical designs that document how system users are to interact with a system and how a system interacts with other systems.

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User dialogue

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a specification of how the user moves from window to window or page to page, interacting with the application programs to perform useful work.

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2 things System builders’ view of communication is concerned with

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Concerned with the construction, installation, testing and implementation of user and system-to-system interface solutions.
Middleware

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Middleware

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utility software that allows application software and systems software that utilize differing technologies to interoperate.