Business Systems Analysis ms110

Lecture 11 Creating a Data Flow Diagram (DFD) and an Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD)
Exercise 1: The Accommodation Office in the University helps students to find accommodation. Interested students register their interest with the Accommodation Office. Owners of rental properties provide the Accommodation Office with their contact information and information about the rental property they have available (e.g. location, number of bedrooms, monthly rent), which are entered into a database. Students can then search this database via the Internet to find a property that meets their needs (e.g. a 2-bed apartment for 800 per month in Newcastle). The student then contacts the owner of the rental property by sending an email through the system to arrange a viewing. The student meets the property owner to view the property. Once a property is rented the owner of the property calls the Accommodation Office and asks them to delete the listing. Your task is as follows. (a) Create a context diagram by identifying the relevant process, data flows, and external entities for the proposed system as detailed in the scenario above (b) Decompose this context diagram to a context level-0 diagram by: Identifying the processes that represent the major functions of the system Assigning a number to each process, ending in .0, which corresponds to the level number of the DFD Identifying the datastores and including them in the Context Level-0 diagram Identifying any additional dataflows between the processes and the datastores (c) Create an ERD based on the datastores detailed in the DFD. From reviewing the above scenario, and using the crows foot notation: Identify and draw appropriate entities Suggest some pertinent attributes for each entity

Orla McHugh | Business Systems Analysis | ms110

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Business Systems Analysis ms110

Select an identifier for each entity Define the relationships between the entities Suggest a minimum and maximum cardinality for each relationship

State clearly any assumptions that you make. Note: Please ensure that you validate each DFD when it is created. Also, ensure that the DFDs are balanced.

Exercise 2: Pizza Express wants to install a new software system to record orders for take-away pizza. When regular customers call Pizza Express on the phone, they are asked their phone number. When the phone number is typed into the software system, the name, address, and last order date is automatically displayed on the screen. Once the order is taken the total cost (including delivery and any applicable discount) is calculated. A receipt is printed. The order is then given to the chef to make the pizza. Occasionally, special offers (coupons) are printed so that the customer can get a discount. Drivers who make deliveries of the pizza give customers a copy of the receipt and a coupon (if any). Weekly totals are kept for comparison with last years performance. Your task is as follows. (a) Create a context diagram by identifying the relevant process, data flows, and external entities for the proposed system as detailed in the scenario above (b) Decompose this context diagram to a level-0 diagram by: Identifying the processes that represent the major functions of the system Assigning a number to each process, ending in .0, which corresponds to Identifying the datastores and including them in the Context Level-0 Identifying any additional dataflows between the processes and the

the level number of the DFD diagram datastores (c) Create an ERD based on the datastores detailed in the DFD. From reviewing the above scenario, and using the crows foot notation: Identify and draw appropriate entities Suggest some pertinent attributes for each entity

Orla McHugh | Business Systems Analysis | ms110

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Business Systems Analysis ms110

Select an identifier for each entity Define the relationships between the entities Suggest a minimum and maximum cardinality for each relationship

State clearly any assumptions that you make. Note: Please ensure that you validate each DFD when it is created. Also, ensure that the DFDs are balanced

EXERCISE 1: SAMPLE SOLUTION

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Business Systems Analysis ms110

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Business Systems Analysis ms110

PropertyOwner PK PropertyOwnerID PropertyOwnerFirstName PropertyOwnerSurname PropertyOwnerEmailAddress PropertyOwnerPhoneNumber FK1 PK

Property PropertyID PropertyAddressLine 1 PropertyAddressLine 2 PropertyAddressLine 3 PropertyAddressLine 4 NoOfBedrooms MonthlyRent PropertyOwnerID

Student PK StudentID StudentFirstName StudentSurname StudentEmailAddress StudentPhoneNumber PropertyID

FK1

Property Owner

Property

Student

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EXERCISE 2: SAMPLE SOLUTION OF THE CONTEXT DIAGRAM

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OrderDetails Customer PK CustomerID FirstName Surname AddressLine 1 AddressLine 2 AddressLine 3 AddressLine 4 PhoneNumber Order PK OrderID OrderDate CustomerID PK,FK1 PK,FK2 ItemID OrderID Quantity OrderPrice

FK1

ItemID PK ItemID Description

Customer

Order

Order Details

Item

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