Dining Dollars System Report

1. Introduction

Dining Dollars are suitable, cashless approach to buy at AU Dining on-campus food from different locations. In simple terms, they are dollar amounts added to the student meal plan account when a student meal plan is purchased. Similar to debit cards, the student’s balance (in dollars) decreases whenever he/she purchase from the account. Despite this plan being associated with the Meal plan, it is separate from meal plan swipes and Eagle Bucks accounts. Dining Dollars are usually added to the account only if the student signs up for the meal plan.

2. Technical requirements

These refer to the technical issues that should be well analyzed during the system design phase, which will enable the desired system to function per the needs of the user. The problems that should be addressed, for instance, may include performance, reliability, and availability of the specified system. In software projects, technical requirements typically refer to how the software is built i.e., which languages are used to program the software, which operating system the software can swiftly run on, and which user standards should it serve. In relation, Dining Dollars has different types of modules that perform crucial technical processes to help the users.  Parents or guests can deposit funds to a meal holder’s account online using their My AU logins, while cardholders can check and verify their debit balances alongside meal plan balances.

The system being online, there is a group of individuals with advanced technical skills to maintain and protect the system from unauthorized access. Besides, they are always alert to correct functional problems that may occur during the regular operation of that system. Since the system involves money, advanced measures are put in place to adequately protect the system from hackers who can not only steal money from the holder’s account but also cause the system to be vulnerable to attacks. Availability and reliability are made possible by letting the system be accessed easily online through various devices such as desktops, mobile phones through the web browser softwares.

3. Functional and Non-Functional requirements

In software engineering, a functional specification may define a system wholly or a component that is included in that specific system. It usually describes how the software should perform its tasks. In other words, a function is nothing but the inputs, its behavior, and the outputs. Various tasks that may be performed by a function may include data manipulation, user interaction, calculations, or any other functionality which elaborates on what service a system is likely to achieve. Functional software requirements may help an individual understand the behavior of the system. This behavior may be portrayed as functions, tasks, or services which the system is required to perform. When it comes to the Dining Dollars system, this is seen via various modules that perform different activities. For instance, one can check the meal plan use. When one uses his/her meals on Dining Dollars, the integrated system will register the transaction right away and appear in the user’s latest transaction lists. You will be able to see how, when, and where you make your transactions.

A non-functional, on the other hand, defines the quality attributes of a software system. They are usually used to judge on the operations of a specified system. For example, how first does the website load? This requirement assists in ensuring that the entire software is very effective in its performances daily. If this phase is ignored, various challenges might occur since some of the user’s needs may not be satisfied. Also, this requirement allows experts to impose restrictions or attributes on the design of the system. For example, the site should load in 4secomnds when the number of simultaneous users is more than 10000. as seen in the Dining Dollar system, a user cannot interfere with the transactions report, and if that happens, it is recorded on an audit trail. Another case is that after a user logs in the system for the first time, they are supposed to set their private PIN, which they can use in the future to access the system at a faster speed.

4. Input – Process – Output approach

The input-process-output approach is mostly used in the software engineering field to concisely describe the building of an information processing program or other processes. Many texts and articles about system analysis and programming usually define this as the most basic structure of a process. Inputs refer to the key in data in which some actions are performed to give out the desired output. Whatever comes out as the output fully depends on what is used as the input. The system that is being discussed (Dining Dollars) brings out this approach precisely. It can be noted that for a student to use the system, he/she should register to access the services. Moreover, for these services to take place, one should have provided information about their Bank account. All those tasks are performed easily with the help of this approach.

5. Conclusion

There can be no doubt that the Dining Dollars System followed the correct procedures in the analysis and design phases. This has positively resulted in the system being user friendly and accessible at any time. These services are offered to the satisfaction of a user. This system has saved students time to perform other learning activities.

References

Struble, M. (2013). University Dining Decisions: Do College Students Make Rational Decisions in the             Market for Meal Plans (Doctoral dissertation).

Olson, H., & Lempke, K. (2017). Making a meal: On-campus dining is about to change. Ethos, 2017(2), 16-17.