Meeting Reports Management

DESIGN AND REALIZATION OF A CELLULAR VOTING MACHINE

LUM JOYCELINE NDE

April 2019

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the award of a University
Diploma of Technology (UDT) in Software Engineering

Department of Computer Engineering (CEN).

University of Bamenda

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 CERTIFICATION

I hereby certify that this thesis entitled “Design and realization of a Cellular Voting Machine”
has been carried out by me LUM JOYCELINE NDE with registration number UBa16P270 in
the Department of Computer Engineering and of the option Software Engineering of the
College of Technology (ColTech) Bambili, University of Bamenda.

Date: Date:

__________________ ______________________

Dr. MAGA ALICE Dr. LIENOU JEAN-PIERRE

Supervisor Head of department

Signature: Signature:
_____________________ ________________________

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 ATTESTATION

I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this project. I authorize the College of Technology
(ColTech) Bambili to lend this project to other institutions or individuals for the purpose of
scholarly research.
I understand the nature of plagiarism, and I am aware of the University’s policy on this.

I certify that this project reports original work by me during my University project except for the
extracts otained from other sources as detailled in the appendix or bibliography:

Signature Date

__________________ __________________

LUM JOYCELINE NDE

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 DEDICATION

To my entire family and friends.

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Glory is returned to God for this work which was carried out with the assistance of several
people to which I address my sincere thanks here. In particular I express my acknowledgements
to:

 The Director of the the College of Technology (ColTech) Bambili, Pr. FONTEH Mathias,
who did not spare any effort for the good walk of our establishment;
 The Head of department of Computer Engineering Dr. LIENOU, for the particular
attention he paid to our training;
 All lecturers of the College of Technology (ColTech) Bambili, who contributed to our
training through the different courses taught to us by them;
 My supervisor Dr LIENOU JEAN PIERE, for all his advices and contributions for this
work;
 My parents Mrs AWAH GERALDINE, who supported me morally and financially
throughout my training in HTTTC Bambili;
 All those who directly or indirectly contributed to the success of this project.

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UDT PROJECT THEME

Meeting Reports Management

PROBLEM STATEMENT

In Cameroon, hundreds of meetings are conducted on a weekly basis. Whereas the total number
of meetings held annually in Cameroon, surpass well above a thousand. That means more than a
quarter of the total time of an average worker in an organization is spent in meetings. How much
of that total time spent in meetings is actually productive?

OBJECTIVES

To modernize workforce with an automated meeting management software. It will tremendously

help in enabling teams to achieve myriad of goals within a cost effective approach.

METHODOLOGY AND TOOLS

Microsoft excel is going to be used to generate the frequency tables and histograms.

BASIC SKILLS NEEDED

 Applicable knowledge of software modeling.

 Good programming skills
 Knowledge of meeting reports management

AWAITED RESULTS

Meeting management software to better reduce cost in terms of time and financially

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The software should have an easy to use interface that facilitates editing the schedule whenever
necessary.

CHRONOGRAM

Modeling of the system 2days

Studying open source meeting managing software 2days

Programming of the system 2days

Deployment 1day

Testing 1day

Report writing 1week

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 ABSTRACT
In Cameroon, hundreds of meetings are conducted on a weekly basis. Whereas the total number
of meetings held annually in Cameroon, surpass well above a thousand. That means more than a
quarter of the total time of an average worker in an organization is spent in meetings. In this
document I will be deliberating on a web based meeting management system built with HTML,
CSS, JS, PHP and MySQL.

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 RESUME

Au Cameroun des centaines de réunions sont menées sur une base hebdomadaire. Alors que le
nombre total de réunions tenues annuellement au Cameroun dépasse largement le millier. Cela
signifie que plus d’un quart du temps total d’un travailleur moyens dans une organisation est
passé en réunion. Dans ce document, je délibérerai sur un système Web de gestion de réunions
construit en HTML, CSS, PHP,JS and MySQL.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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Chapter I
Introduction
In order for any organization to keep running well, there is great need to gather from time to to
time to discuss issues concerning the welfare of the organization, and also brainstorm on ideas, to
access previous work and finally to act based on these new ideas discussed. Meeting
Management is the process of managing the stages and components of an entire meeting process.
The actions that make a meeting successful before, during, and after the meeting are most
important and neglecting any piece of the meeting management process can lead to poor results.
A good meeting management system will increase productivity of the of the various sectors in
the organization, thus increasing output. I will be deliberating on a web based application for
meeting management.

Problem Statement
From my past experiences, in the organizations that I have belong to, there is always poor
meeting management. And most often the employees don’t attend the meeting due to reasons
like;
 Information was passed very late
 Some employees did not receive information concerning a meet up
 Or most employees we’re not reach sure of the department which the meeting was
concerning. Example in a manufacturing company where there exist many departments
(Technical department, Marketing department, Management department, production
department etc.).
 No concrete information about the meeting ( I mean no agenda, no objective why the
meeting is taking place)
 Many employees come and realizing that they are totally unprepared.
 Foremost no good communication system
All these factors contribute rather to the growth of an organization in the negative direction. So I
came out with an electronic meeting management system that will help managers, CEO’s and

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directors to better come up with fruitful meetings in their organizations. But before we go into
the system let have a review of some very important concepts in meetings management.
Definition of Terms
Meeting
A meeting is simply an assembly of people for a particular purpose, especially for formal
discussion.
Meeting Agenda
It is an ordered sequence of items to be discussed in a formal meeting. The objectives of an
agenda include;
 To familiarize participants with the topics that will be discussed and issues to be raised.
 It indicates what prior knowledge would be expected from the participants
 And to indicate what outcome the participants may expect from the meeting.

Meeting Management
Meeting Management is the process of managing the stages and components of the entire
meeting process.
Scrum Methodology
Scrum is an iterative and incremental framework for managing product development. It defines a
flexible, holistic product development strategy where a development team works as a unit to
reach a common goal. The following are some concepts to understand when developing a system
using the scrum methodology.
 Objective
A clearly defined objective must be stated (i.e. what is it you are doing?). Example is “To build a
web based management system for meeting reports using the following technologies; HTML,
CSS, PHP and MySQL.”
 Problem Statement
Clearly definition of problem statement is very important as well.

 Product Description

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What exactly are you building, the features, actor, and entities contained in the systems. A
compelling product description provides customers with details around features, problems it
solves and other benefits to help generate a sale.
 Requirements
What you need in realizing the system.
 Product Backlog
It’s a list of everything that is known to be needed in the product. It is the single source of
requirements for any changes to be made to the product. The product owner is responsible for the
Product Backlog.
 Epics
An Epic is a high-level description of what the client wants, and accordingly, it has some value
attached to it.
 User Stories
Is a tool used in agile software development to capture a description of a software feature from
an end-user perspective? The user story describes the type of user, what they want and why.
 Sprints
Within a Sprint, planned amount of work has to be completed by the development team and
made ready for review

UML
Unified modeling language (UML) is a general-purpose, developmental, modeling language in
the field of software engineering that is intended to provide a standard way to visualize the
design of a system. They are used to design blueprints of projects. Here are some UML
diagrams I have used in modeling the system.
Class Diagram
It shows the static structure of a system by showing the system's classes, their attributes (or
property), operations (or methods) and the relationships among objects.

PHP

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PHP stands for hypertext preprocessor and it’s a widely used open source general-purpose
scripting language that is especially suited for web development.

MySQL
It is an open source database management system.
A database is a structure collection of data.

HTML
It stands hypertext markup language. HTML is the language for describing the structure of Web
pages. HTML gives authors the means to:
 Publish online documents with headings, text, tables, lists, photos, etc.
 Retrieve online information via hypertext links, at the click of a button.
 Design forms for conducting transactions with remote services, for use in searching for
information, making reservations, ordering products, etc.
 Include spread-sheets, video clips, sound clips, and other applications directly in their
documents.

CSS
Cascading Style Sheets, or CSS, allow you to specify things like the font you want on your page,
the size of your text, whether the page is to have 2 columns, whether your text is to be in bold or
italics, and so on. In other words, it is the part that lets you control the appearance of your web
page.

Five Steps to Meeting Management:

For the output of any organization (schools: ColTech, Churches, Enterprises, and Business firms)
to be high, it is very necessary to understand and follow the step to successful meeting
management.
 Define the Purpose and Create the Agenda
 Schedule the Meeting and Distribute the Agenda
 Run the Meeting and Assign Action Items
 Create, Distribute and Archive the Minutes

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  Analyze Activity and Implement Changes

1.) Define the Purpose and Create the Agenda

Start by asking yourself “what’s the purpose of this meeting”? If you can’t answer that, then you
shouldn’t have the meeting.

2.) Schedule the Meeting and Distribute the Agenda

When it comes to distributing the meeting agenda, it should be sent out prior to meeting,
allowing attendees to properly prepare. This is very important because failing to prepare is
preparing to fail.

3.) Run the Meeting and Assign Action Items

Be sure to start the meeting on time and don’t forget to, take attendance. It is important to know
if the decision makers are present. If not, you may want to postpone the meeting. If you assigned
preparation tasks for attendees, this is a good time to review if the tasks were completed.
Imagine the University of Bamenda is having a meeting on Campus and the Vice Chancellor or
her assistant is not attending, that’s a simple proof of lack of seriousness
4.) Create, Distribute and Archive the Minutes
Meeting minutes are the consolidation of the discussion, decisions and tasks that were captured
during the meeting. The processes of meeting management lead up to this one document, so be
sure that it is worthy of distribution.
5.) Analyze Activity and Implement Changes
Meeting Management is a continuous process and analyzing factors related to meetings activity
helps organizations improve meeting performance, contain meeting costs and instill proper
meeting procedures. Unfortunately organizations typically lack the capability to properly
overview meeting activity.
The main goal of meetings
Why should a group of people gather other people for?
 Collect views, information and proposals
 Briefing
 Exchange information

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  Generating ideas
 Enquire into the nature and causes of a problem
 And finally take decisions

Briefings

Collect views,
Information and Exchange information
proposals

Inquire into the nature

And cause of
Generate Ideas problems

Taking decision

Criteria for an Effective Meeting

1. Purpose is clear to all attendees.
2. All who are needed are attending and only those who are needed are attending.

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3. Participants are prepared.
4. Time is effectively used.
5. Participants are committed.
6. The main goals is achieving the goals, not meeting for sake of meeting.
7. The outcome should justify the investment.
8. Actions, responsibilities and mechanism for review are clear.

Meeting Management Software Concept

Let’s consider a meeting as three levels of information.

 The generic information. The meeting name, venue, date and time and invitees.
 The meeting items. What are the topics to be discussed in the meeting, who is
responsible and how long should each item be allocated. After the meeting has been
held, was the item resolved, and what was decided.
 Meeting Actions. For each meeting item, who is to do what, and when is it to be
completed by

Meeting coordinator or administrator captures information:

 Create meeting agendas
 Create meeting minutes using the information you entered for the meeting agenda
 Create meeting action items

Description

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The web based system will contain the following features and views;
 An authentication page for organization employees or participants (participants provide
login details for verification before they can access the system).
 A landing page
 Administrator module: who is in charge of Schedule/plan meetings, update meetings,
Cancel Meeting and also manage participants accounts;
 Logout when user is no longer intending to remain on the platform.
 Meetings management module ( create new meeting, cancel meetings and update
meetings )
 Manage account for creating new participants, delete participants and update account
details.

Chapter II
Introduction
In this chapter, I’ll be deliberating on the software development model, Advantages and
Disadvantages of the system and also features contain in our software.

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User: Employee
Here employees will see information about upcoming meetings and past meetings by accessing
the system only as a member. Employees can update their account details as for example: contact
number, email address, mail address etc.
User: Meeting Coordinators
The Meeting Coordinator is another user of this system. They will access the system to make
sure that meetings are created properly that is every details provided of the meeting is correct.
Every meeting coordinator must login to the system by entering their individual username and
password.
User: Board Managers
Board directors will be able to access the system to check the reports of meetings, minutes of. He
can amend changes on the meeting process.
User: Admin

Admin is the key users of this entire web system. He will register new employees, new board
managers and even new admin (if necessary) by entering their details into the system. Again,
changing the user’s credentials like username and password is another important function that
only an admin will be allowed to do that. In a nutshell admin will be able to access each and
every functionalities of the system. Besides admin can also delete users account.

Assumptions

Here I will illustrate some of the assumption regarding the systems functionalities. We will
discuss some of the advantages, disadvantages of the system itself. We will also show how we

18
will design or modeling the system using UML (Uniform Modeling Language) for examples:
Use Case, Activity and Class Diagram (Draft). For further description in details we will proceed
step by step so that it will help us to understand the overall development process.

Now we will list out some advantages and disadvantages regarding the system functionalities.

Advantages

 Automate Pre Meeting Activities

 Desktop and Online Access
 Meeting Agenda, Note and Meeting Minute Modules
 Attach supporting files and hyperlinks
 Professional meeting minutes styles
 Automatic distribution of Meeting Minutes and Tasks to attendees
 Online archiving

Disadvantages

 System will not support any offline data accessibility

 System security could be breached by hackers with malicious intends

 Backups are performed manually

SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT MODEL

A software development model or system development methodology in software engineering is a

framework that is used to structure, plan as well as control the process of developing an

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information system. There are few software development models which we usually follow. They
are:

• Agile Software Development

• Extreme Programming
• JAD (Joint Application Development) Waterfall
• WSDM (Web Semantic Design Method)
• Design Improvement
• Small Releases

Changes in software requirements are a common in every software development. As a developer

we need to make sure that whatever the changes take place our system should meet the overall
requirements of the stakeholders. Here I am going to choose XP (Extreme Programming)
methodology to develop this system.

EXTREME PROGRAMMING

Extreme Programming is one of the agile methodology for system development. Here changes in
requirements while iteration is possible compare to others like (Scrum, RAD etc.). It improves
the quality and responsiveness of system application. There are 5 phases in this agile
methodology. They are:

 Planning

 Designing

 Coding

 Testing

 Listening

We are going to discuss how we relate those phases in this development in details.

Planning

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The first step we are going to take is planning. Here we the development team will involve
customers or users to create the system requirements or user stories. Here the users of our system
are Admin, Meeting coordinators, Manager and the registered Employees. I will convert their
requirements into the iteration which is usually a small parts of the system functionalities. I will
focus on dead line of the iteration so that we will be able to complete the requirements on time.

Design

After the planning, I will start designing the overall system. Here we will include object oriented
design models (UML) to illustrate the overall functionalities of the system. This design models
will show the active users of the system and their involvement in every process. As for examples:
registered Employees login, account registration, and meetings creation process etc.

Coding

This is the most important phases I will be taking into account while developing the system.
Here i will do pair coding for developing the system using one machine so overall cost will be
reduced. It will also help us to reduce the conflict and optimize the functionalities of the system.

Extreme Programming

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Testing

Here I will do the testing while developing rather than waiting for ending the overall
development phases. I will be testing the codes which will lead us to eliminate the system bugs
and make sure that the code passes the entire unit test before being released.

Listening

One of the advantage of using this methodology is involvement of our stakeholders (in this case
my supervisor).

ANALYSIS MODEL

Web based Meetings Management System Modeling Using the Unified Modeling Language
(UML 2.0)

CLASS DIAGRAM

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 Meeting
Administrator
+meetingID
+prticipants +adminID
+theme +username
+agenda +email
+cordinators +password
+date +
+location
+startTime +manageMeetings()
+endTime +manageUser()
+updateAccount()
+createMeeting() +logout()
+cancelMeeting()
+updateMeeting()
+deleteMeeting()

Report
Participants
+reportId
+reportTitle Minute +participantID
+content +username
+minuteId +email
+date
+title +password
+no_of_attendees
+content +activity
+cordinators
+startTime
+noAbsent +updateActivity()
+endTIme
+decisionTaken +searchMeetings()
+printReport() +viewMeetings()
+publish() +logout()

Use Case Diagrams

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 Organize Project
Organize Meeting

Run Meeting

Meeting Chair Person Administrator

Meeting Coordinators

Review Meeting Results

Project Cordinator
Review Project Evolution

Manage Action Items

Employee

Use Case Specifications

Use Case Name Registration

Summary Customer enters their details into the system.

Details of the customers used to be validated
by the system before saving into the database.

Actor Admin

Precondition Admin need to access the system through web

browser

Main Sequences Admin provide their employees, meeting

coordinator and board manager’s details.

System validates details.

System then saves details into the database.

System registers new participants.

System shows the message after saving the

details successfully.

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Alternative Sequences N/A

Post Condition System creates account for the new customer.

Use Case Name Login

Summary Participants enter their username and
password to access their account

Actor Employees, Meeting Organizers

Precondition Participants need to register as a member
1. Participants enter user credentials.
Main Sequences
2. System verifies users.
3. System redirect to the user page.

4. System shows the message after successful

login.

Alternative Sequences 1(a) If customers are unable to login to the

system then the system will show customers

“Forget Password” link where they can change

their password.

Post Condition System redirects customers to their account.

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Use Case Name Manage Account
Summary Participants can manage their account through
the system.

Actor Participants
Precondition Participants need to login to the system.
1. Participants login to the system.
Main Sequences
2. Participants access the “Manage Account”
section.

3. Customer updates their account details

such as address, contact, email, credit card
details etc.
4. System validates Participants’ new details.
5. System saves customers new details into
the database.

6. System updates Participants account.

7. System shows the successful message after
updating database.

Alternative Sequences N/A

Post Condition System updates Participants’ details and save
it in database.

Use Case Name Create Meeting

Summary Meeting Organizers can create a meeting or
alert the Admin to do so.

Actor Meeting Organizers and Admin

Precondition Meeting Organizers and Admin need to login
into the system first.

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 1. Meeting Organizers (registered) login to
Main Sequences
the system.
2. Meeting Organizers select meeting title,
agenda, department, location, coordinators
start date and end time of the meetings

3. System check for the availability.

4. System confirms the availability.
5. Meeting Organizers click on create
meeting

6. System save reservation details into the

database.

7. System creates meeting

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 9. System shows message “Meeting
created successfully”

Alternative Sequences N/A

Post Condition System updates Meetings details and save it in
database.

Use Case Name Reports

Summary All participants can generate reports using the
system
Actor Meeting organizers, admin, participants
Precondition All participants need to login to the system
Main Sequences 1. All participants login to the system.
2. All participants access the report section into
the system.

3. System shows the records of reports.

4. System generates reports.

Alternative Sequences N/A

Post Condition System generates the reports.

Use Case Name Manage Meetings

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Summary Meeting organizers and Admin can edit, update,
and cancel meetings.

Actor Meeting organizers and Admin

Precondition Meeting organizers and Admin need to login to the
system
Main Sequences 1. Meeting organizers and Admin login to the
system.
2. Meeting organizers and Admin access the
Manage meeting section.

3. System shows the meetings created.

4. Meeting organizers and Admin select meeting
id.
5. Meeting organizers and Admin edit, delete or
update the details of the meeting records

6. System saves the new meeting into the

database.

7. System updates the meeting details.

8. System shows message “Updated
Successful”.
Alternative Sequences N/A
Post Condition System update, delete or edit the meeting records

Use Case Name Minutes

Summary All participants can generate minutes using the
system
Actor Meeting organizers, admin, participants
Precondition All participants need to login to the system

PAGE 1
Main Sequences 5. All participants login to the system.
6. All participants access the report section into
the system.

7. System shows the records of minutes.

8. System generate minutes.

Alternative Sequences N/A

Post Condition System generates the minutes.

PAGE 2
CHAPTER III
Introduction
In this chapter, I’ll be deliberating on the Implementation of the meeting Management
system; it will be mostly views of the system.
Login Page
Every actor on the system must be authenticated through a password system before they
can access the system.

Admin Control Page

Admin create meetings, manage meetings, manage account, register participants accounts
and updates user credentials.

PAGE 3
User Landing Page
After a user has been authenticated, this page serves as his home page. He/she can view
meetings information

PAGE 4
Meeting Creation Page
The administrator or meeting coordinator is responsible for creating this page.

Registration Page
Administrator is responsible to create new participants accounts by filling the details
listed below. And he/she will be able to delete inactive participants.

PAGE 5
Report View
A view of report that displays report title, content, publish date, number of attendees,
coordinators, number absent and summary of the meeting.

Minutes View

Database Tables and Their Relationship

PAGE 6
Manual Meeting management systems
With a manual meeting management process, most of actions are manually performed
like secretary noting minutes as meeting is ongoing and reports are created based on the
minutes. So basically in this method is a process example for a participant who wants to
have a copy of the minute or the report he/she has to go after the secretary and meeting
coordinators.
And also a manual system is costly and inconvenient as meeting organizers have to run
behind and call employees .
Where as in an automated meeting process, everything is easy from announcement
concerning the meeting to end of the meeting process it self. Because every participant
gets a copy of the report and minute with little or no effort I.e. just by a click of a button.

Recommendation

Here are some techniques you can implement to ensure you are scheduling, managing
and participating in productive meetings.

 Start meetings on time. This shows you respect everyone’s time. If you always
start meetings late, you are setting an expectation and people will arrive late. Be
in your chair a few minutes before the start time.

 Show up on time. When you show up late, you are telling everyone else that your
time is more valuable than theirs combined.

 Use an agenda. Meetings that last more than 20 minutes need an agenda to ensure
the group remains focused and the appropriate items are covered.

 Distribute the agenda prior to the meeting. This allows for prep time that may be
necessary, rather than catching attendees off guard or risking those who will
attend unprepared.

 Keep it short. A shorter meeting can accomplish just as much as one that is twice
as long.

PAGE 7
 Schedule a 45-minute meeting instead of an hour. Meetings have a way of filling
the time scheduled don’t allow this to happen. Use the extra 15 minutes to
accomplish another task, such as: filing meeting notes, inputting tasks as the
result of the meeting into your task management system, check voicemail and
return a call, grab a snack or take a break!

 Don’t allow scope creep. Discussing an unrelated topic is one of the easiest ways
to derail a meeting and will frustrate others. This is another reason an agenda is
necessary. If a topic comes up that isn’t on the agenda, put it on the parking lot
and return to it at a later date, or address it at the end if there is time.

 Acknowledge the elephant in the room. If there is something standing in the way
of making forward progress, acknowledge it up front and move on.

 Choose an effective moderator or facilitator. If this is not your strength, enlist

someone to help. Someone must be responsible for keeping the meeting on topic
and moving forward.

 Conduct meetings while standing. Can you accomplish just as much in a short
meeting where you stand than in a longer meeting where you get comfortable in a
chair?

 Listen. Show respect to the person speaking because you’ll want the same respect
when it’s your turn.

 Stop multitasking. Establish a policy of no e-mail, texting, or web surfing during

meetings. If the meeting is short enough this should not be problematic.

 Be prepared. Don’t be caught off guard if someone asks for your opinion or
advice. No one appreciates the person that doesn’t participate; what’s the point of
attending?

PAGE 8
  Don’t speak just to be heard. Speak only if you have something meaningful to
add. People stop listening to those who speak all the time but never really say
anything.

Conclusion
So far we can conclude that a meeting management system is very vital for every
organization and it contributes high accuracy of activities. And we’ve clearly seen how
advantageous an automated meeting Management system is to the organization over the
manual systems. I will therefore recommend all organizations to use automated meeting
management system in managing their meetings procedures. There are millions of
meeting management software’s available: some commercial and others open-source
software, depending on the organization size and needs, they are open to choose the
software which satisfies their needs. Some of the existing meeting management
software’s include; meeting.gs, Meeting King, Magic Minutes, MeetingSense,
meetup.com

PAGE 9
 BIBIOGRAPHY

 Ntask manager (2018). Meeting reports management. Retrieved from

https://www.ntaskmanager.com/
 Sourceforge (2017). Meeting management software’s. Retrieved from
https://sourceforge/opensource .com
 AMA American Management Association files (2018). Everything You Need to
Know About Running a Project Meeting. Retrieved from
https://www.meetingmanagement.edu

PAGE 10
APPENDIX
ACTIVITY DIAGRAM
LOGIN

LOGIN

Admin Meeting Manage System Organization

PAGE 11
REGISTRATION

REGISTRATION

Admin Meeting Manage System Organization

PAGE 12
SEQUENCE DIAGARAM

LOGIN

PAGE 13
 << User interactions>>
<<Service>> <<Services>>
Paticipants
Participant’s interaction Login Participants

REGISTRATION

PAGE 14
 << User interactions>> <<Service>>
<<Services>>
Paticipants Login
Participant’s interaction Participants

PAGE 15
PAGE 16