Newspaper Delivery System - Informal Specification

This document is an informal specification of a newspaper delivery system which keeps track of our customers (hereafter referred to as households), our suppliers of newspapers and magazines (referred to as publications), and any subscriptions the households may have. As well, it should keep track of route information for our delivery staff (referred to as carriers) and their routes, billing information for our finance and sales department, and be able to produce summary information for the top executives.

We list the types of information that must be stored, followed by the functional requirements for that area of the system.

Households:

Primary information required for household is as follows:

Name (surname, first name)
Address (street, house number, apartment number and postal code)
Phone number

Secondary information that is required consists of the following:

Details of what newspapers or magazines the household is currently subscribed to.
Present credit on the household account. A positive balance will imply a prepayment on the account, while a negative balance implies an amount owed.
A notes section to help the delivery people be aware of any special instructions indicated by the household. For example, leaving the newspaper in front of the door instead of leaving it in the mail box.
A route name to identify which route the household is related to.

Functions:

Add - The system must be able to include a customer to our data base.
Delete - The system must be able to remove a customer from our data base.
Modify - The system must be able to change any of the above information on damand.
Suspend - The system must be able to hold a customer account for a specific time period or indefinitely. This option is used when household goes on vacation or other reasons.

Publications:

Nothing done here yet!

Carriers

Carriers make deliveries to households. They are identified by:

Name (Surname, first name)
Address (Street, House Number, Apartment number and Postal Code)
Phone number

It must be possible to create and delete carriers, and modify their identifying information (for example if they change phone numbers).

Routes

Each carrier delivers to a route, which is a set of households receiving subscriptions.

When a household is created, it must be automatically inserted into a route based on postal code information. It must be possible to move a household to a different route. A deleted household must be removed from the route it is on.

When a carrier is created, their route will be empty. A carrier can be deleted only when their route is empty.

The system must be able to provide the following information about routes:

On a video display, it must be possible to enter a household and determine the carrier responsible for deliveries to that household, as well as the subscriptions to be delivered on the current day.

If the route is entered, all households on the route must be displayed on the video screen, and it must be possible to page up and down through the list.

It must also be possible to enter a route and view the total number of deliveries for each product on the current day.

When a delivery is made to a carrier, a printout of the days deliveries will be attached. The system should provide this printout when a single route is selected, or for the entire set of routes. The printout must include:

On page one: The carrier name, address and phone number. A list of NEW households new to the route for the current day. A list of households with suspended deliveries on that day (vacations).

On successive pages: On one line, the household street address and the subscriber name. On following lines, indented, each product to be delivered on the current day, and the number of copies if greater than one. The deliveries to one household will be followed by a blank line, and cannot cross a page fold in the printout.

Sample:

2107  Slowpoke Street                           Fred Manure
            Calgary Herald
            Maclean's
            Penthouse
            Reader's Digest

2119  Slowpoke Street                           Alison Smith
            Calgary Sun
            Cosmopolitan

The end page(s) of the printout for a route will contain a listing of the number of each product to be delivered. At the start of the day's deliveries, the carrier must determine that the bundle received contains sufficient product for the route. Also to listed on this page is the depot phone number, to be contacted by the carrier if errors have occured.

Billing

Ability to generate bills for all households with outstanding balances upon request. All household information and our company letterhead should be produced at the top of the bill. All of the households subscriptions should be on the same bill, with a bottom-line total of the amount owed. Any late charges and expiry date for each subscription should be listed as well. All of the transactions since the last time a bill was printed for this household should be listed (eg. payments received, new subscriptions, etc.)
When payments are received from households, we need to be able to update their record of outstanding balance.

Summary Printouts

A summary sheet should be produced on request with the total owed for each publication by all households subscribed. This should just be a list of publications, and the number of subscriptions and total amount owed for each.
Ability to generate a daily summary information showing how many copies of each publication were sold that day. The number of copies sold and the total monetary value should be included. We would like this in two formats:

For each publication, a separate sheet listing sales by route, with a total at the bottom.
A grand-summary sheet with all publications totals, and one bottom-line total for the day.

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