Saturday, December 1, 2012

Friday, October 19, 2012

Deploying a Business application


ERP for Vijay Infra Limited

Vijay Infra Limited(VIL) is a leading supplier of Infrastructure materials and goods for Construction insdustry. To simplify the process and automate the systems they are planning to implement a ERP package for daily activities.

SugarCRM, Vtiger and Dollibar were considered for choosing the best suitable package.

SugarCRM is very basic ERP package mainly focused on CRM. Invoice related modules were not completely in line with VIL's requirement. Although, we have an option to create new modules as per our requirements, it is time consuming. Even we cannot maintain cash and bank transactions in this package.

Vtiger is full fledged ERP package which can meet the requirements of VIL. But we cannot simply choose the modules which we need. Even in this software we cannot maintain Cash and Bank related transactions. 

Dollibar is the ideal solution for our VIL requirements. It can cater to wide area of organizational activities  through its various modules. As per requirement and convenience, we can choose to activate only the modules which we want to implement. We have a finance module to maintain and reconcile Cash and Bank transactions.
Further a number of addons are available at Dollistore marketplace at a very reasonable price. We can create external user ids for Suppliers and customers with appropriate privileges for carrying out regular transactions. Taxing related queries can be handled as it can accommodate TIN, VAT in regular transactions.

Hence Dollibar has been chosen and configured as per VIL requirements as mentioned below.

  • Organization details were updated in the Company details module
  • Logo has been updated with VILs logo
  • Only the required modules were made active in the setup section
  • Numbering format of invoices, orders and shipments were also defined in the set up section
  • External user IDs were created for suppliers customers with appropriate privilages
  • Current, Saving accounts and Cash accounts were created for the organization
  • Stock receive & dispatch criteria was controlled in the stock module of the package

Various users are created with different access rights. Find the details of the users below. Password for all user id's is pass.
Superadmin - Main admin  - admin
Chairman - Complete admin access - vijay.gupta
Product Manager - Product related additions/modifications - rajeev.kumar
Warehouse Manager - Manages stock and shipments - nitin.kumar
Purchasing department - Supplier orders - sandeep.katakol
Sales department - Customer orders - rakesh01
Account department - Invoice, accounts and finance(Bank, cash)  - sudeep.naik
User maintenance - Managing all third party users - shubam.singh
Raghu traders - Supplier side sales executive - narendra.gupta
Shri Ram Enterprises - Customer side buyer - rajesh.shukla

The configured application can be accessed here.

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Zoho Application Requirements - MIS Assignment


Customer Complaint Registration –Airtel Prepaid Services
Customer : Arun Kumar Bachu
Developer : Prakash M
                             

Prepare an application for customer complaint registration for Airtel prepaid services which has the following features
Ø  Create a Home page such that it contains the hyperlinks for Customer Registration and Complaint Registration tabs.
Ø  Create a User Guide for the customers such that the complaint registration process goes smoothly
Ø  Provide a tab named Customer Registration where customer should enter his details and register. It should contain the following fields with respective validations:
o   Name – Customer should enter his name which is a mandatory field.
o   Mobile No – Customer should enter his mobile number and it should have a validation that it should be a number. This is a mandatory field.
o   Circle –Customer should select his state from the list of states available in the dropdown.  This is a mandatory field.
o   City – Customer should select his city from the list of cities available in the dropdown. The cities will be populated according to the selection of states. This is a mandatory field.
o   Email Id –Customer should enter his email Id and it should have a validation that it should be in a proper format.  This is a mandatory field.
o   Address –Customer should enter his complete address in this field. This is a mandatory field.
Ø  After the customer has entered his details and submitted the form, Unique Customer Id should be generated and he should receive a mail stating his details has been registered successfully along with the unique ID generated.
Ø  After the customer has registered his details he should be navigated to Complaint Registration tab with a success message where he will register his complaints. The complaint registration tab will contain the following fields:
o   Customer No- Customer should select his mobile number from the list of dropdowns available. This numbers should be imported from the Customer Registration form.  If customer doesn’t find his number we have to provide an accommodation for him to enter his details and register in that page.
o   Customer Id- This field should be populated automatically when the customer selects his mobile number from the Customer No field and it should get disabled.
o   Complaint Category – This field should be a dropdown and there should four complaint categories in it. The categories are
§  Network Coverage
§  Net Not Available
§  Recharge
§  Unwanted Services Activated
o   Description of the Problem – Customer should enter his problem description here.  This is a mandatory field.
Ø  There should be certain fields which will get displayed when certain Complaint Categories are selected. They are as follows:
o   When Net Not Available Category is selected field named Net Pack will be displayed with the following dropdown list
o   2g
o   3g
o   When Recharge Category is selected two new fields named Complaint Type and Amount Recharged will be displayed which are mandatory fields. The Complaint Type should have a dropdown list as follows:
o   Booster Not Activated
o   TalkTime Not Credited
o   When Unwanted Services Activated Category is selected a new field named Complaint Type will be displayed which is a mandatory field. The Complaint Type should have a dropdown list as follows:
o   HelloTunes
o   SpecialSMS
o   Others
                When Others is selected as Complaint Type a new field named Others Please Specify should be displayed where customer enters additional information for it.
Ø  When Customer clicks Submit after lodging his complaint, success message should be displayed to him and a mail should be sent to him by saying his complaint has been registered and also to the authorities for intimation that a customer has registered his complaint.
Ø  After the Successful complaint registration Home page should be displayed to the customer.

The application has been developed and you can feel the glimpse of Final signed off Application by clicking below link:

  Airtel Prepaid Services - Jo tera hain, woh mera hain !!!
   

Saturday, August 4, 2012

The Mystified System Architechture - Demystified

Daily I go to Sports Complex along with Rajesh, a guy from my neighbourhood, for playing badminton. He is working in a Multi National IT Company and I used to call him as Chota Chikna or C2(Pronounced as C Square) in short.

Last week I had a very good discussion with C2 about System Architechture........

Me: " Shall we have another game??"

C2 : "No yaar, lets get back to home. It's very late already. But remember that we will come daily to play Badminton from now on"

Me: "Haan Haan.... sure. Chalo lets go."

C2: "Arun! You have around 4 years of work experience. Can you help me on something which is troubling me?"

Me: " Ya sure. If I am of any help, I'll be very happy"

C2: "You know that I am working in Titanic Technologies since last one year. Suddenly I am in a big problem all of sudden. I have been assigned to a new project which deals with working on very new application. My manager asked me yesterday whether I know about Client-Server architechture."

Me: "So what!!! You might have read this in your Graduation and also during your last one year in Titanic Technologies"

C2: "Gradution......Are you joking!!! I don't even know what all subjects we had. And it will be very good if I don't talk much about my work experience. I just consolidate a bunch of excel sheets to create a new excel sheet as part of my daily work. That's pretty much what I do !!!"

Me: "Although I am not very good at teaching, let me try to explain you."

" Anything in this computer world will consist of 2 components, Data and an Application which processes it. Based on the organization of data and application we have 4 types of System architechture broadly.
1. Single Tier
2. Two Tier
3. Three Tier
4. Multi Tier

The Single Tier architechture consists of an Integrated system where data and application will be present on same system physically. But logically they are different and we can differentiate any one of them with another. Our Personal desktops and Laptops are a perfect example for this type.

May be I'll use an example from our daily life to explain you better. Lets assume we together have plans to setup a bank of our own. We start our bank operations from our location and we have some customers initially from neighbourhood. We have designed a database to store their Personal details and transaction details and also an application for day-to-day activities.
Initially as the number of customers are few, we will maintain this whole setup on our personal computer and carry on with our business. So we have data and our application which processes this data on same system. This is an example of Single Tier architechture."

C2: "Great !!!... Keep going. By the way settting up of a bank seems to be a very good idea."

Me:
" Lets say we are doing great business and the customers are also happy with our bank. Through spread of word, we got new customers in huge number from surrounding locations.
Since we have customers from all over the town now, we have decided to open 2 more branches in different locations. One thing to keep in mind is that the data has to accessible to all branches if we want to provide seamless operations. In that case, we need an advanced system to take care of this - Two Tier Architechture.

Data will reside on a common system, termed as server, and the applications are present on systems on various branches, which are termed as Client systems. We have a network laid between Client and server and this type is usually referred as Client-Server architechture"

C2: "This way we can spread our branches in the whole country and reap huge wealth. Anyhow thanks for explaining all this to me"

Me: " I am not yet finished."

C2: "Isn't that happy ending?"

Me: "We can acheive success only with continous improvement.

Let me ask you one question. Suppose we need to change interest rate at which we pay our customers. So, where this change needs to be done?"

C2: "Ofcourse, In the application..."

Me: "We have similar applications in all our branches."

C2: "Whats the deal then!! We will change in all our branches. Hardly it takes one hour as they all are around here."

Me: "It will work for now. But lets say we have opened our branches all accross India and now I want to make this interest change, how much time it may take?"

C2: "!!!!!!!......Travelling all accross country is certainly not a good idea."

Me: " Here came the Three-Tier Architechture, where we separate all our business logic from the Client applications and instead use another common system to handle this business application. The client application will only have a interface related items.
In this way any changes to the Business logic can be easily made without much hassle."

C2: "Thank god! You have saved me from that Bharat Yatra Darshan. Is this the happy ending?"

Me: "Most of the applications in current generation use this architechture but this is not the end."

C2: "Interesting. What's next?"

Me: "We will start our Online banking operations now. In that case going to each and every customer's home and installing our Interface application in their computers is a waste of time.
Then we can think about the Multi-Tier Architechture. In this we don't have any application in the Client system, but we use Web browser as a means of communications between client and server. we need a additional special web server which understands the Browser format as well as our application format. It acts as a interface between these systems.
In this way we are completly removing the dependency and any mantainance activity can be easily done in our servers whichout affecting anyone and more effectively"

Also keep in mind that we need a communication channel in all these architechture models except the single-tier model.
Later on we have various new advancements like the Firewalls which block the Harmful users and all the common servers are clubbed into a single powerful machine. We can have different modules in application server for different clients as a means of Customised services."

C2: "Come'n....What are you waiting for? Go on....."

Me: "I am pretty much done!!!"

C2: " I figured out that there is no Happy ending for this story. The whole journey is Happy, provided you continously pitch for improving the existing process.

Thank you very much Arun for this whole learning.

Finaly one more thing to add.

Jahaapana.. Tussi Great Ho.... Tofa Kubool karo
"

Me: "Abey come on. It was a CTRL+C and CTRL+V effort...I was just uttering the words from a good book on this subject."
You will get a better insight from this book.....
http://pothi.com/pothi/book/prithwis-mukerjee-business-information-systems-2nd-revised-edition