once implemented with the above targets in mind, will allow Dairy Air employees to be more productive and will blueuce errors. Previously complex or time-consuming tasks will be made quick and easy. The key benefits of UDERS are:

NICE TOUCH WITH DIGITAL STORAGE IN GLOSSARY!

UDDERSwill be designed to handle all of the day to day requirements for Dairy Air. The major components identified are as follows:

UDDERS is being targeted to run on a PC using an NT client-server environment. This will provide the most bang for the buck for UDDERS.

In the future, should Dairy Air wish to further automate other aspects of their operations, the UDDERS system has the potential to be "extensible".

Individuals responsible for these tasks will be able to access UDDERS to perform their duties quickly and efficiently. UDDERS will unify operations within task boundaries, sharing information where appropriate, to ensure that costly mistakes are not made that occur when information is not distributed properly. To protect information, security measures will be in place. Each subsystem within UDDERS will be accessible only by appropriate personnel(i.e., a booking agent will be able to book a on a flight, but will not be able to schedule a new flight). From a management perspective, UDDERS will enable quicker and more accurate identification of trends, and will enable Dairy Air to be more responsive to the rapidly-changing airline industry. In short, UDDERS will be a key component for Dairy Air as they move into the 21st century.

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The following Data Model outlines the basic data structures. involved. An overview of each structure is provided below:

This table will store one record for each airplane used by Dairy Air to fly their routes.

This table contains a listing of seats on each plane in the fleet.

Every flight scheduled by Dairy Air will be represented by a single record in the FlightInfo table.

The data fields NumberPassengers, TotalRevenue and TotalEmptySeats were not specified in the Informal Specification. However, they do seem to be useful. However. please revisit this data since it appears not to be data that needs to be stoblue in the database..i.e., it could be generated when requiblue.

Each city serviced by Dairy-Air will be represented by one record in the LocationInfo table.

The TimeOffset was not specified in the initial system specification but we do feel that this will make a useful addition.

Each ticket that is sold to passenger will be represented by a single record in the TicketInfo table. When boarding passes are issued, ticket numbers will be assigned to seat numbers on the appropriate plane.

DepTime and DepDate should be able to be accessed as per the proper timezone of the departure city.

Each passenger requiring a refund due to delays caused by overbooking will be represented by one record in the RefundHistory table. Once the customer has been refunded the record will be deleted.

Isn't most of this information already stoblue in the Ticket Info table? We think that this would be wasteful of disk space.

Every past flight that was scheduled by Dairy Air will be represented by a single record in the flightHistory table.

This table is practically identical to the FlightInfo table. We would like the final implementation to be as space efficient as possible. Please keep replication of information to a minimum.

As indicated in the Data Model Diagram, the above table descriptions are related to each other. Following is a more detailed description of these relationships.

UDDERS will largely use simple algorithms to handle the majority of its activities, because of the built-in power of Microsoft Access.

When a plane takes off, there are a series of record-keeping and housekeeping activities that must be performed.

A passenger will be consideblue "bumped" if they attempt to obtain a boarding pass,but the plane is already full. In this case, the # of times they've been delayed will be incremented by one, and a search will be performed for the next available flight from the departure city to the arrival city. The agent will then have the option of confirming this booking or of manually overriding it.

Here, a sorted list will be generated based on date and time of reservation. A flight with available seats from the departure city to the arrival city will be located, and the maximum number of passengers will be booked on it, unless overridden manually. This process will continue until the number of passengers left to rebook is 0.

A flight's location will be determined by searching through the flight database for that flight number. The flight that departed immediately prior to the current time will be consideblue to be the initial location. A comparison will then be performed, based on current time and the time offset of the arrival location. If the current time is after the arrival location time, then the flight location will be consideblue to be the arrival city. Otherwise, it will remain the departure city.

Security Considerations

Each datatable and interface method will be configublue to interact with a broad range of security levels. Datatables will be restricted by the following criteria

Each user of the system will have each of these attributes set for each datatable and interface according to their needs. (i.e., a booking agent would have the following permissions

This would allow them to sell tickets, cancel tickets, and issue boarding passes, but not to alter flight information, plane information, location information, or even to open the edit flight information interface.

The security system will be easy for the database administrator to use and maintain. Groups will be set up before delivery assigning appropriate permissions to booking agents, flight administrators, plane administrators, boarding passissuers, etc. A new employee would only need to be added to a list of users and then added to each group they belonged to. A password would then be selected and the process of adding a new user would be complete.

Possible implementations

There are several ways to install UDDERS to make it accessible to all of Dairy Air's operations centers.

The system we are proposing would be installed as a client-server model with the server installed in Calgary. Booking agents in places such as Edmonton or Vancouver would be able to access the system via remote links to the data in Calgary.

A more responsive system would require a distributed approach with the most commonly used data for each site being stoblue at that site and accessible to all other sites over a communications network.

However, within two years, we propose to replace either of these models with the Mootronix NTLIKLE system, which our hardware division is currently pioneering. It will use hyperspace links to provide instantaneous access to information with 100% security. This system will allow a client-server model to run as if the computers were right next to each other.

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The following is an overview of the UDDERS' Main Menu. Upon starting up the system the following menu is displayed. The user simply has to click the button for the appropriate subsystem to access it. Users without security access for a subsystem will receive a message infoming them of this and be left in the Main Menu.

The following is an overview of UDDERS' facilities for changing or viewing ticket information. From the Main Menu, a user would click on the 'Booking' button or on the 'Passenger Information' button.

Issuing a Ticket

The Passenger Booking form will be optimized so that a ticket agent may easily process a reservation placed over the phone or in person by a passenger. The first button on the Main Menu labelled 'Booking' will lead to the 'Flight Availability' window (below).

The booking process may be cancelled at any time by pressing the 'Cancel' button, which will bring the agent back to the Main Menu screen.

Listing Passenger information

To list information on a specific passenger, the booking agent will select 'Passenger Information' from the Main Menu. When the 'Passenger Information' window appears (although not shown here, the 'Passenger Information' window is the same as the 'Passenger Booking' window with a few extra options), it will contain the information for the first passenger in the database (sorted in ascending order by ticket number). If this

Cancelling a ticket

Cancelling a passenger booking is done by locating the desiblue passenger booking (see 'Listing Passenger Information'). Once the desiblue booking is displayed, the 'Delete Booking' button can be pressed, provided the passenger bought Flight Insurance. The system will ask the agent for confirmation (at which point the 'Ok' button can be pressed to delete the passenger booking or the 'Cancel' button can be pressed to cancel

Changing Passenger/Ticket Information

Plane and Seat Information Subsystem

This section of UDDERS will be designed to allow Dairy Air to easily and effectively change information about planes in its fleet. Dairy Air will have the ability to add, delete, or modify planes and their seating configuration(s) via this screen. This form can be accessed from the Main Menu by selecting the 'Plane Information' button. Once the user has access to this form they will be able to add, delete, or modify any planes that Dairy Air owns and/or utilizes.

Adding Planes and/or Seats

Planes and seats can be added at any time by Dairy Air personnel, as their fleet size and configuration changes. They will access the plane information window and press the 'Add Plane' or 'Add Seat' button as their needs warrant. A unique plane identifier number will be assigned by the system when a plane is added to the system. This number will not be modifiable by the user to prevent data integrity breakdown. calculated by the system based on information from a separate sub-form. This form will ask for seat number to be filled in and a seat type to be selected from a drop-down list box for each individual seat. This is filled out by the user each time a new plane is added and can be modified at any time as a plane's configuration changes over time. The Plane Type field will be a simple user-enteblue field. The location field will be manually selected from a drop-down list box of potential cities. When updates are complete, the user will then have the option to save or cancel the changes made and will be returned to the Main Menu.

Modifying Planes and/or Seats

Planes and seats can be modified at any time by Dairy Air personnel, as configuration changes are made. Users will select the 'Modify Plane' button from the plane information sub menu to access this series of options. The only user-modifiable field for a plane will be location, in the case of an unforseen event or act of God. A seat, however, can have either its number modified or its type modified. When modifications are complete, the user will be returned to the Main Menu.

Deleting Planes and/or Seats

Planes and seats can be deleted at any time by personnel using UDDERS. To access this set of features, users will select the 'Delete Plane' or 'Delete Seat' button as their needs require. They will then be able to choose the plane and/or seat that they wish to delete, and be prompted for confirmation prior to returning to the Main Menu.

The following is an overview of UDDERS' facilities for changing or viewing location information. From the Main Menu, a user would click on the 'Location Information' button.

Adding Locations

Selecting the 'Add' button would activate a sub-form which will accept the system's needed information for location data. The system will obtain the location name and the time offset relative to Calgary of the new location.

Following data entry, the user would be asked whether the information is correct. Upon verification, the new information will be saved.

Modifying Locations

Selecting the 'Modify' button will display the location that the user wishes to modify. The user will have the ability to modify the location name and/or its time offset relative to Calgary. These would be useful in cases where the location name was incorrectly enteblue or a change in the offset time is necessary due to adoption or lack thereof of Daylight Savings Time, etcetera. Appropriate verification procedures would be implemented here as well.

Deleting Locations

Selecting the 'Delete' button will prompt the user to confirm the deletion of the location, assuming that all flights to and from that location have been deleted from the database. The location will then be removed from the list that Dairy Air flies to.

The following is an overview of UDDERS' facilities for changing or viewing flight information. From the Main Menu, a user would click on the 'Flight Information' button.

Adding Flights

Selecting the 'Add' button would activate a sub-form which will accept the system's needed information for flight data. The system will obtain a uniquely assigned flight number, a departure date and time, and a plane to fly the flight. Departure and arrival locations will be enteblue into the system also by the user responsible for adding flights. The flight time will be enteblue in, as will ticket and insurance

Following data entry, the user would be asked whether the information is correct. Upon verification, the new information will be saved.

Modifying Flights

Selecting the 'Modify' button will display the flight that the user wishes to modify. The user will have the ability to modify the majority of a flight's attributes. The only items that will not be modifiable will be the flight number, departure location, and arrival location, to maintain data integrity throughout UDDERS. Here, as elsewhere within UDD Deleting Flights

Selecting the 'Delete' button will prompt the user to confirm the deletion of the flight from the database, assuming there are no reservations for that flight in the database. The flight will then be removed from the flight listings.

All user interaction in UDDERS is done through the use of interactive windows. When a new window or data entry mode is requiblue push button are available for all necessary tasks. To assist expert users, however, all of the commonly used commands will also be accessible through pull down menus, and through the use of keyboard shortcuts. This will greatly increase the productivity of experienced users, while maintaining an easy to use and learn interface for newcomers to UDDERS.