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Company Profile
With a manufacturing background of blue chip companies including
Hawker Siddeley, BTR and FKI Industries we are experienced to undertake
a full Business Analysis of your IT requirements of your organisation
and suggest where cost effective improvements can be made. These
recommendation could be better deployment of your existing software
packages, different ways of doing things or creating bespoke software
solutions. We offer you a free consultation to investigate where
we can help your business.
Detailed below is our approach to 'Specifying Access Database Requirements'
but the approach could equally be applied to other MS Office applications.
Specifying your Database Requirements
Experience has shown that the success or otherwise of a database
project is determined by how accurately the requirements are defined
at the start. As the Customer you will achieve the the most effective
solution when you have a clear idea of what you want your database
to do. It is important when considering the objectives of the database
that you do not restrict your ideas to reproducing an existing,
possibly manual system but think more laterally about what else
is the proposed database system could do.
A major part of our Systems Analysis will be to understand your
business and how the proposed database system will be specified.
The final requirements specification for the database will be a
joint effort between ourselves translating your business knowledge
into a technical specification.
How the database fits into the overall business should be defined,
ie Database system boundaries.
Data Tables and Relationships
Data tables and relationships will be one of the most important
considerations in the requirements specification. Also how data
input should be validated.
To achieve the most cost effect solutions don't be tempted to include
everything in a database system, concentrate on areas involving
large quantities of regularly changing data. Particularly data used
by many users.
Make a list the types of data that you will want to store. The list
may include such items as orders, parts, stock and contacts. From
this information we will design how the database system will best
hold your data. It is important at this stage to decide as far as
possible the data types and relationships in the database as later
changes can incur considerable work.
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Users Groups and Access
Where different groups use the systems they may need different levels
of access. Each groups may have different requirements for inputting
data and enquiry and report facilities all of which will require
specifying. The number of concurrent users requires defining.
Data Transfer
Where there is a requirement to transfer data from an existing system
the format of the data and means of transfer requires defining.
Where fields can be designed to match with existing electronic systems
there should be little problem but if data has to be transferred
from paper systems then the method of input requires specifying.
With large systems the data input may require detailed planning.
Data transfer offers the opportunity to change numbering systems
in a company and this may be an important consideration.
Reports and Enquiries
When writing the requirements specification it is important to define
the data to be output from the database either in enquiry or report
format. Providing the database structure is not affected the main
consideration is to specify how many reports or enquiries will be
required.
Technical Factors
The hardware, both server and client should be defined together
with the size and future growth of the database
Database Administration
In most cases only routine database administration is required.
Somebody in the company should be designated as Database Administrator
who should be responsible for database backups, compact and repair
procedures, assigning new users passwords and installation of client
database software if required.
Testing
An agreed testing procedure should be part of the requirement
specification and also what will be considered as the 'deliverables',
ie source code, database, documentation etc.
Sign Off
The Requirement Specification should be signed off by both
yourselves as the Customer and ourselves and form the basis of the
database project. If there are specific completion deadlines to
be met these should be stated and agreed.
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