SquidSoft Inc. - GUIDOs
Overall Design Document - Response to Comments in Functional Specifications


           Table of Contents           

           Summmary Comments           

Comment:
Access for the sale of items should be limited to in store terminals only. Remote access should not be allowed.
Response:
Access for the sale of items will be restricted to terminals within the store. Sales will only be made from the cash register.

Comment:
The company manager seems to be a bit of a security problem. Since each franchise is individually owned, the manager of the company should not be able to modify information about individual stores. Any control the company manager has over each store will be handled separately from the system.
Response:
Access of the company manager will be reduced to read-only access to all of the store databases. He/she will continue, however, to have partial access to the stores data. This includes the ability to add new stores, and delete others.

           User Interaction Comments           

Comment:
The find function (of the Orders interface) is not powerful enough for our purposes. We need to be able to search by UPC, description, comments, category, and unit price (and range of unit price).
Response:
These criteria will be added to the find function of the Orders interface.

Comment:
The mechanism for adding and removing inventory items from the database is not obvious. Please clarify this point. NOTE: The addition and deletion of inventory items can only be done at the warehouse.
Response:
The mechanism for adding and removing inventory items is further described in this (overall design) document. As for the addition and deletion of inventory items, these operations must be done at the store level since each store has its own inventory database. Grocery items may only be added and deleted from the warehouse.

           Management Plan Comments           

Comment:
We are concerned about the reliability of our system if information is stored in each of the workstations that are used by employees. You mentioned redundancy for the server, but what about the workstations? Are they simply dumb terminals?
Response:
The database is stored on the server, and not on the individual workstations. The only information kept on the terminals is the GUIDOs software.

Comment:
Disk redundancy was mentioned, but what if another part of the server fails. How do we go about recovering the system in the shortest time possible. (This isn't really a software feature, but more a set of policies that we need you to provide as consultants)
Response:
SquidSoft has recently hired a highly trained and qualified support staff for on-site software and hardware concerns. A toll-free 24 hour help line has also been implemented for the exclusive use of Calgary Foods employees.

Comment:
We are concerned that if information is stored on each of the workstations, that the theft of the workstation might result in the loss of important information. (eg. invoices, etc.). This might require that the workstations store no information and simply act as dumb terminals.
Response:
Since the data are stored on the server, this is not a concern.

Comment:
We expected some more information regarding the kind of network that we will need in order to implement this system between our stores.
Response:
The network on which GUIDOs will be based on is a common Wide Area Network, using regular land phone lines. Networks of this kind are very robust and reliable, so there need be no concern for data loss.
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