RESPONSES TO CUSTOMER QUESTIONS:

Question: After having reviewed your proposal of the supermarket inventory system, CSO wishes to inform 10th Level Solutions that we are pleased with the results thus far. We have taken the liberty of adding general comments throughout your specifications, dealing with minor issues that we felt needed more clarity. Most of our concerns have been consolidated in the security section, which can be found on the functional Specification pages.

After taking your comments of our previous specifications, we will clarify the issues that might seem unclear to you.

Question: Case size is also a factor that is crucial in ordering from the warehouse. This is simply a minor detail in the ordering algorithm. It comes down to the fact that if we want 3 bags of chips, for example, we can't get just 3, we have to order the whole case, which would be of 12 units. Cases can be 12, 24 or 36 units. Please refer to "assumptions" in the original specification.

Answer: We assume the units for measuring product quantity in the order form will always be by the case (12,24,36) as requested. The number of items in a case will be different among different products, depending on the need at the time.

Question: It is essential that NO ONE have access to edit this file. This crucial, as not event the store manager can be trusted 100% of the time.

Answer: We recognize this and so there will be no function in the system permitting the ability to change any field in the audit file. Special arrangements can be made, of course, for our programming team to make adjustments if Grocery Store management deems it necessary.

Question: We just wanted to reiterate how important it is that EVERY action done by the computer be recorded in the audit file, no matter how small. We require complete records all transactions for security considerations.

Answer: We will store every transactions done on the system. All transactions will be recorded into the audit file automatically just as you requested.

Question: We assume that this record will also contain a short description of the transaction that was completed.

Answer: Taking your suggestion into consideration, we have added an extra field called "description" in the data structure of the audit file which contains the short description of the transaction.

Question: Again, the audit file should not be edited by anyone. All transactions should be appended to the end of the audit file. All transactions should be recorded with no exceptions.

Answer: The audit file will store all the transactions done by the computer during a month. Since there are numerous transactions occurring every month, the audit file can be erased after a month or two, or else it will use a lot of disk space. Since the audit file cannot be edited by anyone, we will assume all the transactions will be recorded and saved in the audit file. The details of implementing ideal access to the audit file are under investigation for future phases of the project.

Question: SECURITY

For the security issue, we have taken all your suggestions into consideration and made adjustments of the interface and data structures. Please refer to the security section in the overall design.

Question: There should be a means of receiving an order electronically, so that information already in electronic form does not have to be re-keyed. This could be accomplished using a computer-based document of some standard format that could be emailed.

Answer: In later phases of the project, the grocery store system and the warehouse system are in constant communication via a global network system. Therefore at both systems a lading form or stock invoice can be retrieved at the flick of a button.

Question: Whether the cashier has the authority to give a refund or not should not be a pre-defined state. The design should give the head manager the option to determine or change the cashier's authority as defined in SECURITY section. Because it would be nice that a customer does not have to ALWAYS wait for an overworked manager to correct a simple error if he decided not to take a loaf of bread or he does not have enough money! The refund window should be an option in the cashier's window. The refund window would be grayed out ONLY if the manager decides not to give the cashier authority.

Answer: "Refund" will be another function under the cashier window. The cashier will only have the authority to give refunds if the manager has given them the necessary security level access. The "refund" will be grayed out if the cashier doesn't have the authority to give a refund. Please refer to the cashier section in the overall design for more detail, or the section addressing security concerns.

Question: The way that the stocker window is set up is way too hard to understand. The stocker is doing way too much work, having to 'OK' every inventory item that he stocks. The stocker should just have to enter the invoice number. Then if there are changes (ie there is a partial order), the stocker should edit that item. If there are no changes, or after all the partial orders are fixed, the stocker will click on the update button to update the inventory, consequently all the items will be assumed to be there.

Answer: Taking your suggestion into consideration, we have altered the interface of the stocker`s window. Please refer to the stocker section in the overall design for more detail, we are sure that you will be impressed. (Please contact us as soon as possible if you have further concerns.)

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