AutoXpress Car Rental System-Design Phase - Case Study Example

iAUTOXPRESS CAR RENTAL SYSTEM Name: Client Name: Auto-xpress car rental system Lecturer: Date: Table of Contents PROJECT PLAN 3 Objectives 3 Scope definition 3 Budget 3 Project assumptions 3 Limitations 4 Website plan 4 Purpose & Objectives of the site 4 Target Audience 5 Site promotion 5 Proposed Navigation Design 6 Site plan 6 System Specifications 6 Table mapping 7 SQL Script 8 User interface description 9 Sample of the Form Layout to register new vehicles 11 Sample of the Report layout to display registered vehicles 13 System Security design 14 Recommendations for the next Phase 14 References 16 PROJECT PLAN Objectives The main objectives of the project would be to develop a system that can assist the car renting and Reservation Company over better services to its clients such as making reservations together with renting services. The system should be able to record all transactions and record client bookings. Most of all the system should be usable and stick to a particular budget. Scope definition The project will mainly address the following components: Provide a platform for customers to interact with the company, enhance better and efficient reservation of vehicles to customers, efficient management of vehicle data through the database and finally eliminate manual tasks as witnessed previously[Yur11]. Budget NO ITEM COST 1 Purchase of material $5, 000 2 Travelling $4000 3 Domain registration and web space $10,000 4 Development costs $10,000 TOTAL $29,000 Project assumptions The assumptions that will be made in the project plan preparation are. Employees of the car renting company will be willing to change operations of the company so as to take advantage of the automated system and that all those involved in the project will be available when required for the success of the project. Limitations Lack of enough development tools, less development experience by development staff and lastly in ability to train all the possible users of the system Website plan Purpose & Objectives of the site The major purposes of the website are namely to establish full time internet presence, further expand our businesses professional outlook, provide greater and better customer care services, build a firm stand in the market, experience a shift in our profits, disseminate adequate and relevant brand information to our potential customers, address the demands of present and future customers, make firm our identification of brands, launch some point of sale directly via the internet using credit cards and checks commonly referred as e-commerce, as an expansion to our current advertising modes newspapers and phones, provide the business with a good outlook, lay down an outline of qualified prospects, encourage our customers to contact us via internet facilitated methods like electronic mails, offer great market competition and lastly bring to our premises new customers. The major objectives include creating some awareness of our company, improve our customers knowledge of what we do and who really are, obtain research on market information from our customers via feedback forms, online surveys an usage statistics analysis, E-commerce market our products online due to the fact that web based marketing infrastructure are in operation 24 hrs a day such that we can attract new and current customers, and finally creating some relationship by creating profiles of our site users such that when they come back we already know what they want. Target Audience Our business strategy is comprehensive enough to address both the current size and the projected market growth rate that we have targeted. We target people from all fields of life both genders male and female, persons of all ages especially for our rental services. Specifically we target weddings since many people without the power to purchase vehicles rent some for wedding purposes, we also target politicians who would wish to hire vehicles for their campaigns, not forgetting schools who rent vehicles for school trips. Site promotion The first method that would attract us on promoting our site would be exploring the social media which is often overlooked. Having many friends and groups access is a better way to contact many people so easily. We also intend to use the forums provided by social media whereby our customers can post on forums and classifieds. The next alternative would be search engines however, much it is complicated, it is among the most prominent way that what we offer via our site can be the source of all our traffic. The other way would be Link Exchanges it is critical to proper keyword rankings and website traffic. We would of course exchange links with related sites. Lastly we would venture in Blogs which is a good method to reach a wider population easily and quickly. We would integrate this to our main website as new information systems for the parent site or simply as a way to redirect traffic to our site. Storyboard for three different areas Home would contain a brief introduction of who we are and what we do, it would also contain links to other sections of our website. It should also be able to include a few general images of our company and few vehicles. Vehicles would give a preview of the available vehicles for reservation and rentals images together with a little description would be used to enhance understanding. Rentals on the other hand would contain a form for customers to fill when they want to rent or reserve a vehicle it would also show a list of rented vehicles. Lastly about us would contain the general information about out company the location addreeses and a brief history. Proposed Navigation Design Our major Button links would be situated at the top every page which would directly link to others pages of the website. The Buttons would be visible enough for all our customers would also place sub button links at the left section of each page for better navigation. Site plan Site Header Image Copyright statement System Specifications In the ERD diagram we use a company’s database which contains vehicle information details. The ERD diagram will mainly consist of three entities which are vehicle, rental and customer with one relationship customer rents a vehicle. The vehicle would have attributes such as Cartype, regNo and Capacity while Customer entity would have attributes Name, IdNo and Age lastly the rental entity would contain attributes such as RentId, Cartype, and regNo. ERD Diagram Table mapping SQL Script Customer Table CREATE TABLE (Customer (Name varchar(30), Age int(3), IdNo int(13) NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY); Vehicle Table CREATE TABLE (Vehicle (Car Type Char(20), Capacity int(3), RegNo VarCahr(13) NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY); Rentals Table CREATE TABLE (Rentals (CarType Char(20), RentId VarChar int(3) NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY, RegNo VarChar(13), FOREIGN KEY (RegNo) REFERENCES Vehicle(RegNo)); Inserting values INSERT INTO Rentals (CarType, RentId, RegNo) VALUES('Toyota','12/09','TV/09/02’); User interface description The interface will consist of four major links that can be directly accessed which are homepage, about us, vehicle and rental us the primary links are located at the top of every page while secondary links are located at the left of each page[Yur11]. The home page will also contain a login page point from which Customers and Company employees can get access to restricted pages according to the various user levels. Sample of the Form Layout to register new vehicles Simple form to reserve vehicles Sample form to register customers Validations in the form fields will be in two ways first is through the database data types which will have the CarType field being a character of size 15, RegNo being of data type varchar, Capacity will be a character Datatype of size 3 Manufacturer will be a character of size 30 while Country of origin will be a character of size 30. The other part will consist of JavaScript validation which will check if correct values are entered in the respective fields and also that no fields are left un-entered. Sample of the Report layout to display registered vehicles Sample report layout to display current rented vehicles Sample report layout to display current Customers System Security design The database will contain of two user levels which are the administrator and the Customers. The administrator will be given all privileges to manage the contents of the database and access all web pages. Customers will have restricted access to some pages of the website for security reasons also the administrator should be able to see the actions performed by system users so that they can trace which person did what activity[Pet092]. Recommendations for the next Phase The next phase should mainly focus on improving on the database and making it large to at least serve several functions such as including an automatic system to rent vehicles and including a reservation table. The interface should also do away with some few colors, the pages should also use more multimedia components such as graphics and pictures. The secondary links should also be placed at the bottom of each page together with incorporation of a search engine to help users track contents easily. The next phase should also develop some schedule to train system users about how to navigate through the system so as to obtain required information. References Yur11: , (Shestopaloff 2011), Pet092: , (Rob & Coronel 2009), Read More