Peachy Business Forms Ltd.
Sales Routing System Requirements
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Overview
Peachy Business Forms, Ltd. is a supplier of business forms to commercial
customers in the city of Calgary. A dynamic company, we have developed the
need for a sophisticated computer system to keep our sales staff working
efficiently. A database system is required that will anticipate our clients'
needs for PBF's high quality business forms.
The primary purpose of this system will be to produce a daily list of these
companies for each of our salespeople to visit. Each list will be an ordered
subset of an individual salesperson's route (or territory). While each
salesperson should maintain the order of her route, the system should
determine the daily selections. There are currently five routes in the city,
representing several hundred customers each, and we expect future increases
in the numbers of both.
The daily route selections will be based on past customer and product
information; the system should keep track of previous orders for all customers
and products. Ideally, the system will anticipate the reordering needs of our
customers. However, a salesperson should be able to manually enter an
expected date for a customer to reorder, particularly in the case of a new
customer with no ordering history.
Each of our salespeople should have direct access to information that relates
to her route along with a limited set of permitted actions (e.g. printing a
route list, adding a customer, or changing the order of the route). Management
personnel should have access to all routes plus additional administrative
functions.
We will discuss these requirements in more detail under their appropriate
headings.
Our Products
The system should keep track of the following product information: product
number, a general product description, product price per unit, and the quantity
currently sold. The product number is of the format, nnnn-mmm, where nnnn
is the four digit product number and mmm is the three digit motif number (e.g.
color, design, font). A product description consists of the type of the form, a
size designation of the form as well as any other pertinent information needed
to describe the product (up to 100 characters). Product price is gauged by its
price per unit (e.g. $5.00/1000 sheets) and must be a non-negative real
number with two decimals.
The product quantity is a cumulative amount determined by how much of a
given product has been sold. This final product attribute will give the
company the ability to gauge a business form's performance and from this
continue or discontinue its production. The reports that contain this
information need to be able to show the amount of a product sold in any
particular time period.
Salespeople need to know what products that we currently carry, so the
system has to provide them with access to list products out. This list should
include product ID, description and unit price.
Our Customers
The system must keep track of our list of customers, which includes
information about each customer's purchase history (amount of which form
sold and the date of sale), as well as their address, phone number, and the
sales territory that they are located in. It should also keep track of the
contact's name and what the company does (affects what forms they may
use).
Our staff should be able to add new customers, make changes and deactivate
them by entering a customer name or number. When "deleting" a customer
from a salesperson's route, the customer information should NEVER actually
be removed, but instead stored for possible use later.
Our Salespeople
The administration menu should allow the administrator to add a sales person
to the system. The administrator should be prompted for the sales person's
name, phone number, social insurance number, route number, system
password, and the maximum number of companies the salesperson can be
expected to visit each day. The administrator should be able to change any of
these attributes at a later time. In the event that a salesperson leaves the
company, the administrator should be able to delete him from the system (and
either have the salesperson's customers assigned to another employee
automatically or have the system print a list of the customers that need to be
reassigned).
The system should display a list of all the customers to serve on a particular
day for a particular salesperson. Each entry should include the customer
name, the address, the type business form ordered, the quantity, and the
reordering rate (how many times the customer reorders that product per
month, for example. This would be used as an aid for the salesperson to
determine when to take the next order for that customer. It could also be used
for stock management, etc.).
Since each salesperson is assigned to a specific region of the city (NE, NW,
SE, SW, or downtown in this case), the salesperson will deal with only those
customers in his region. So, if the salesperson works in the NE area, then all
the customer addresses should be in that region. This is the information the
salesperson will use to set up his daily route. As well, the system could save
this list to a file, with the name specified by the salesperson, to allow a copy
to be printed later.
A salesperson should be able to modify his route. This function should
display all the customers for the salesperson, in the route order the
salesperson has specified. He should then be able to modify the route as
needed. For example if the current order is :
1) Henderson's Hardware,
2) Greg's Groceries,
3) Larry's Law Office.
The salesperson decides that a new order would be better as:
1) Greg's Groceries,
2) Larry's Law Office,
3) Henderson's Hardware.
The system should allow this and display the newly ordered list.
Administration
The system should possess an administrative dimension able to alter both
relevant sales and routing information, as well as override such things as
route scheduling (i.e. # of customers, customers on a given route). This will
allow for basic additions, deletions and modifications of various system
information (e.g. newly hired salespeople, new or deleted product, change in
product type, etc.), in addition to a basic flexibility in route scheduling. With
this in mind, the administrative level in turn will have complete control and
access of the system.
For administrative purposes, we require the system to generate various
reports, including salesperson, customer and product information. These
reports will allow management to view each of the intrinsic components of
the routing process to determine many factors including a salesperson's route,
the route a customer is currently on, the cumulative quantity ordered (within a
specified date range) for a specific business form, and any other information
available from the system. These are but just a few of the reports needed by
our company, yet they provide a general idea of what is desired.
In order to follow up orders for a customer and project sales, we have to get
information about the customer such as all orders that have been placed in
this year, the customer's needs (i.e. all products that the customer has ordered
and number of times that each product is ordered), and name of the customer,
person to be contacted, telephone number and address.
Summary of Reports Required
Reports specified as "On demand" should:
be available from the appropriate menu;
query the user for a time period, by asking for a start date, and providing information relating to orders placed from that date until the current date or a user-specified end date.
1. Salesperson Report
- summarizes activities of the sales people
- on demand
- include the following information for each sales person:
- name
- calls in the time period
- total and average orders in the time period for each type of form we
sell
2. Inventory Report
- summarize order information by form type (for shipping staff)
- on demand
- show the total number of orders for all form types combined
- include the following information for each form type:
- type of form
- total number of orders of that form (for all customers put together)
3. Order Report
- add/change order information
- date of order (should be generated by the system)
- salesperson's ID and Name
- by entering customer number, the customer name and address should appear
on the form automatically
- product number(s), price and quantity
- date of delivery
4. Individual Customer Report
- summarize a customer's order history
- on demand
- include the following information for each customer:
- customer name
- purchase history for each type of form they've ordered in the time
period specified
5. List of All Customers
- display information on the customers
- on demand
- include all data maintained for each customer (i.e., each field in customer
entity)
- sorted in alphabetical order
6. Daily Combined Customer Report
The list of the customers for all the salespeople could be merged together for
that particular day and printed on the screen. The merged list could be saved
to a file and the file could be printed later. This list is generally used for
accounting purposes.
7. List of Sales People
- display information about the sales people
- on demand
- include all data maintained for each sales person (i.e., each field in sales
person entity)
8. List of Products
- display information on the form types
- on demand
- include all data maintained for each type of form (i.e., each field in product
entity)
9. Salesperson Customer Information
- information on salesperson's customers
- include the following information for each customer:
- customer name
- types of forms they order
- sorted in order they appear on his route
10. Salesperson Daily Route List
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