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IS480 Team wiki: 2011T1 Indies' Chronicle

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About Indies' Chronicle

LodestoneValueMonitorLogo IndiesChronicle Latest1.jpg

Indies Chronicle Team Members Picture.jpg ProfBenGan IndiesChronicle.jpg

Project Overview

Project Description

ValueMonitor is a one stop assessment tool for consultants and clients. It is used to perform assessment, generate a report and make recommendations. ValueMonitor can also be used offline as a Silverlight out of browser application.

About Lodestone

Lodestone Management Consultants Pte. Ltd. is a Swiss based global management consultancy firm specializing in IT consulting, particularly SAP and other enterprise services. One of the key steps in delivering their premium services and solutions is to conduct performance assessment of the client’s as-is processes and systems in order to identify pain points as well as to understand the client’s current strategic position in comparison with the industry benchmark.

Deliverables

  • A fully-functional Silverlight application deployed on a hosting site (either school or client-specified site).
  • The out-of-browser functionality of the Silverlight application will also be installed and tested on at least 3 consultants' laptops.
  • An integration of 3 versions - light web version, full web version, and desktop application

Motivation

Requirements.PNG


To achieve this, we will be developing on the Silverlight Framework, which allows us to download web applications on to the laptop of the consultant (the out-of-browser feature). We wish to provide Synchronization functions which will allow the consultant to perform their assessment even when they are offline and sync their data to the centralized database once they have access to the internet. We will be providing the Administrator with the access to edit the questions and update the consultant’s desktop applications with the latest questions, hence providing version control capabilities. The light web version (the preview) for Lodestone’s client will be a part of the web version and we will restrict access using permission controls.

LodeSuite will also provide report generation capabiities for the consultants. The consultants will spend less time generating the report/powerpoint to the Lodestone clients and can spend more time providing quality service and recommendations. This tool also enables Lodestone to attract more potential clients from the internet, by providing them with a preview of the services that LodeStone offers.

Stakeholders

End Users Company
Philip Kwa (Director) Lodestone Management Consultants Pte. Ltd.
Ana Zhou Rui (Senior Consultant) Lodestone Management Consultants Pte. Ltd.
Consultants and Clients Lodestone Management Consultants Pte. Ltd.

Scope

ValueMonitor – a web application – is a one-stop solution for the consultants that can be used to perform assessment and generate the report that can be used by the consultants to present to the clients. It also enables the consultants to access past assessment results in order to deliver better recommendations.

The ValueMonitor will also be used by Lodestone’s potential clients to perform a light version of the assessment and get a preview report. Interested clients will be contacted by Lodestone upon registration. The details of the functionalities will be discussed further in the latter sections.

The ValueMonitor can also be accessed by administrators to manage the assessment questions and access other analytics functionalities.

There are 3 main users identified:

  • Administrators: Any Lodestone employee(s) trusted to manage the assessment.
  • Clients: Any Lodestone clients that are not yet registered in the system.
  • Consultants: Any Lodestone consultants.

Consultants

The Lodestone consultants are the main users of the application. After logging in to the system, they are able to perform the complete assessment covering all 3 areas: SCM, HRM, and CRM. The consultants are able to save the progress of the assessment process.

At the end of the assessment process, all consultants are able to generate/download the assessment report in Microsoft Powerpoint, PDF, and other graphical or image formats. This report will then be used by the consultants in developing possible solutions and recommendations for the clients.

In addition, all consultants are able to download the whole assessment application to conduct the assessment process offline. By doing so, the consultants can still perform the assessment process regardless of the internet connection availability at the client’s place. This makes our solution holistic, while seamlessly integrating the web and desktop versions.

ConsultantFlow Indies.jpg

Clients

Any potential clients are able to access the ValueMonitor system and perform a free self-service performance assessment. Similar to the consultants, the clients are able to perform assessment in 3 different areas: SCM, HRM, and CRM. Using this version, however, the clients will only get a ‘preview’ report with limited explanations.

Interested clients can then register (“sign up”) in order to notify the consultants to receive further premium services and solutions.

PotentialClientFlow Indies.jpg

Administrators

Upon logging in to the system as an administrator, user of the ValueMonitor is able to manage the assessment questions provided by the system. The administrator is the only authorized person to manage the assessment questions (add/edit/delete) in the assessment tool.

In addition, administrators are also able to view the system statistics (presented in various graphical formats) in order to better understand the past and ongoing assessments performed by the clients and consultants.

AdminFlow Indies.jpg

X Factor

Our application is Silverlight based and C# based. Silverlight allows us to build a Rich Internet Application with out-of browser capabilities, which can be downloaded and used on a laptop. Also, the web-application can function the same way without internet access and the results can be synchronized when internet access is available.

Consistent User Experience
Same user experience across online and offline versions.

Ease of Synchronization and version control
Changes to questions are updated automatically, when online Auto-saved offline changes will be synchronized automatically, when user goes online

Better data visualization
Dashboard function for administrator and consultants. Charts to view statistics of the companies.

Better usability
Provide users with simple and easy-to-use UI. For eg. single page for create/edit domain.

Deployed Website

Check out our the latest deployed application here: ValueMonitor [1]

Midterm Progress Update

View the progress page here

Final Wiki

View project final's details here


Project Documentation

UI Mockups

View a list of functions that unregistered and registered clients, consultants, and administrators can do | here

UI Changes - Before and After

View the changes we have made to the UI from the beginning until now by clicking on any of the functions:

Functionality List

View a list of functions that unregistered and registered clients, consultants, and administrators can do here

Use Case Diagram

View use case diagram here

Database Diagram

View database diagram here

Scenario Flowchart

Client

View scenario flowcharts for clients here

Consultant

View scenario flowcharts for consultants here

Administrator

View scenario flowcharts for administrators here

Project Management

Project Plan

Detailed Iteration Status

View detailed iteration status here

Project Status

Completed Functionality

The table lists all the functionality that has been completed. There are no remaining functionality to be completed.

IndiesProjectStatus.jpg

Gantt Chart

Current iteration 111111.JPG


























Timeline Schedule

Planned Schedule

Planned schedule timeline.png
















Actual Schedule

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Risk Management

S/N
Project Risk
Likelihood (High/Medium/Low)
Impact (High/Medium/Low)
Risk Rating (High/Medium/Low)
Mitigation Plan
1 Live deployment risk; the project might not be used by the client
Medium
Low
Low
  • Early testing, and deploy as much as possible


Schedule Metric

Usage
The schedule metric is used to track our project schedule. It ensures that the planned tasks meet the deadline, and that we allocated enough buffer time for it. It is also used to track whether we have met all of the the client's requirements or not.

PieChartScheduleMetric.png


Throughout the project, our team was on 75% on schedule and only 25% behind the schedule.

Calculation Formula
Metrics Ratio (MR) = Actual total days per task / Estimated total days per task

Guidelines and Action Taken

IndiesScheduleMetric.jpg

Schedule Metric
Schedule Chart.PNG

  • Iteration 4 and 6 were almost behind schedule, because in iteration 4, we had deployment problems, while in iteration 6, we found a lot of bugs, and it took more than expected to clear them, hence causing the delays.


Bug Metric

The bug metric is used to track bugs found in our system. It ensures that the project quality is at its highest, and also it decides the allocation of bugs-crushing to the team members. Aside of that, it is also used to avoid code conflicts.

Bug Tracking

Internally, we use Google docs to track our bugs. As the team member entered the bug, that person has to enter the severity of that bug (1, 3, or 10) in the 'Bug Level' column. Each of us will know who entered the bug by the 'Entered by' column, and we will also know who resolved the bug from the 'Resolver' column.

Calculation Formula

Total points = (1 * Low-N) + (3 * High-N) + (10 * Critical-N)

1*Low-N = total of UI related bugs that do not affect functionality 3*High-N = total of bugs that affect output 10*Critical-N = total of bugs that severely harm the system

Guidelines and Action Taken

Guidelines
Points
Action Taken
Green Zone Point <= 50 Bugs recorded in the bug excel sheet will be solved in the next "bug squashing" period", one of the buffer period set aside by the team
Bug Alert Point > 50 Team member who discovers this bug will notify the PM to arrange for an immediate "bug squashing period"

Bug Metric

Bug Metric Final.PNG

  • From iteration 5 onwards, as we develop more functions, we found more and more bugs as we continuously test our product. Hence, as each iteration goes by, the number of bugs also increased.


Meeting Minutes

View team and supervisor meeting minutes here

Technologies

Technologies Used

Tech Used.jpg

LOMS

View learning outcomes here

Reflection

Team Reflection

TBU

Individual Reflection

Satya | Antoni | Ronny | Athina | Jessie | Yessita

Resources and References