League Table Management System - Essay Example

Contents Contents 3 The League Table Structure 4 Figure 3 4 3.2.Required Features 5 3.3.Functional Requirements 6 4 Advantages of using Graphical User Interfaces 8 4.2.Reasons for choosing Visual Studio.Net 2005 as the API 8 4.3.Benefits for using Visual Basic for application development 9 4.4.Reasons behind the choice of PHP for web application development 9 4.5.Advantages of using MySql as the back-end Database 9 8.2. OUTPUT SCREENS 12 9.1.The Data Flow Diagram 15 10.1. Why use Spiral Model? 17 10.2.Identifying Risks 18 1. PROBLEM STATEMENT Football is the most popular sport of the world. English Premier League the most electrifying competition after the Soccer World Cup. The history of the Premier League is not very old. The first competition was held in 15th August 1992. Relatively new, it has gained tremendous amount of fan following. As the system gets big, so does its requirements. There are a lot of details that go into the planning and execution of the whole competition. The execution of the league is not an easy task. Details like teams, team players, registration, scheduling of fixtures, results processing to produce tables and personnel management of players, referees are taken into account. There is a lot of information that needs to be managed. Handling all this manually (on paper) would further complex it. Since the league allows the smallest clubs to play, therefore, there are over 140 leagues with 480 divisions. This number varies every year. This indicates the amount of information that is to be managed. This is the age of technology. Every department whether it is related to computer or not is being automated. Automation helps in speeding up processes. It also ensures accuracy. That is why most organizations support automation to a very large extent. There are several departments that take care of the league information. The synchronization of information is not an easy task, especially when the information is on paper. That is why a system that could not only store the information but also maintain is required. The aim of this project is therefore to develop a League Table Management System that should be a stand-alone application that could be accessed through out the organization. The system should provide with the facility of editing team details, match points, allocation of matches, location and time of events, etc. 2. PROJECT OBJECTIVES The system should be a stand-alone application. It should be able to support a networked environment so that it is easily accessible. It should create and maintain league tables The system should allocate points to teams on the basis of ‘wins’ in the matches. It should also allocate matches to teams based on the points. The system should maintain essential team details such as players, no. of points gained and lost. The system would be responsible for the location of matches and their time and day schedule. 3. ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM 3.1. The League Table Structure The English football league system, otherwise known as the football pyramid, is a series of interconnected leagues for club football in England. The system consists of a hierarchy of leagues, bound together by the principle of promotion and relegation. Clubs that are successful in their league can rise higher in the pyramid, whilst those that finish at the bottom can find themselves sinking further down. In theory it is possible for a lowly local amateur club to rise to the pinnacle of the English game and become champions of the Premier League. The top five levels contain one division each. Below this, the levels have progressively more parallel leagues, which each cover progressively smaller geographic areas. Many leagues have more than one division. At the lower levels the existence of leagues becomes intermittent, although in some areas there are as many as twenty layers (English football league system from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).Within each division there are teams, point allocation system, people, fixtures and results. The information that is supposed to be in the table that comes in the team information is home (and away) matches played, wins, drawn, lost, goals scored, opponents played, and opponents’ goals. Moreover, a team has other attributes as well. Such as, home ground, match days and timings and their personnel. Personnel include team managers, directors, coaches, physiotherapists, etc. A fixture is consists of two teams, match venue, date and time. The results include the points obtained by both the teams, total no. of goals scored in the match, match summary, and match incidents. Within results; match incidents are further divided in to sub-categories. These incidents are goals, cards shown (yellow, red, etc.), charges filed (bans, fines in the form of money). As we can see this is quite a lot of information. But this must be a part of the system so that it can adequately perform the tasks desired from it. The hierarchy of a League is displayed in the form of a diagram below: Figure 3.1. (Courtesy http://liga.4all2u.com/imager/league.gif) 3.2. Required Features GUI Interface:- The interface must essentially be graphical as the intended audience are not usual computer users. Web Based Application:- The software must be web based so that it is possible to access it from anywhere. Log in Screen:- With regard to the GUI interface, the first screen that the user shall encounter should be a log in screen. Since we want the system to be a stand-alone application therefore, it must have different user accounts for different users. There should be user name and password that should be allocated to every user. This would prevent from any mishaps that may happen if this security initiative has not been taken. Account Settings:- A feature such as account setting should also be included. It is required so that the administrator could manage the different types of rights and responsibilities that shall be granted to different users. Data Entry Form:- Details of the fixtures and their results have to be added manually. The form should be very simple with the tabs having understandable names so that the data entry can be easy and fast. Moreover, there should be other forms for entering team details, names of the players, corresponding goals scored, etc. Incidents encountered during the match should be included in the fixtures’ form. Back End Database:- There should be a backend database that should store all the data entered into separate tables and then perform point allocations, promotions( in pools), allocations of grounds, time and days etc. on the basis of the data entered. For this purpose there shall be tables of all the entities displayed in the chart. There should be tables of divisions, teams, fixtures, results, and employees. Reports:-There should also be a number of reports that the system should generate. For example the system, after the analysis of the data entered should generate a report of the statistics of the match. 3.3. Functional Requirements Software Requirements Operating System—Windows 2003 Platform or higher. For GUI--Visual Studio .Net2005 Backend Programming--Visual Basic Web Application—Php Backend Database—MySQL Hardware Requirements The hardware requirements are very much in synchronization with the software requirements. A Server—A computer is required that can handle the responsibilities of a server. It must be capable of processing large amount of data. Processor—600 MHz processor (Recommended: 1 gigahertz (GHz) processor) RAM—192 MB (Recommended: 256 MB) Operating System—Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, Windows XP Service Pack 2, Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, or Windows Vista Mouse—Microsoft mouse or compatible pointing device Video—800 X 600, 256 colors (Recommended: 1024 X 768, High Color 16-bit) 4. REASONS FOR THE CURRENT CHOICE OF PROGRAMS There are a number of reasons that lead to the decision of choosing the softwares we plan to use. The project that we are trying to develop is a system for amateur computer users. Therefore it is necessary to develop a user friendly interface. Windows platform is right now the most popular platform that 90% of the users must have encountered atleast once in their lives. Therefore, they would be a bit familiar with it. Following are the advantages of choosing the programming languages for this kind of project. 4.1. Advantages of using Graphical User Interfaces It is a well known fact that command line interface (CLI) based applications are faster and require much less processing power. Moreover, they provide more flexibility to a programmer. But the problems is although being efficient, they are not very usable. There can be numerous commands for different operations and may be a programmer is able to handle them, they are definitely not for an amateur computer audience. The major benefit and the reason for choosing GUI is that it makes the program open for a wider audience. It enables the user to perform a number of tasks with the help of mouse or keyboard and to choose from a number of options through the various options provided. Moreover, it also provides programmers standard controlling mechanisms for frequently repeated tasks such as opening windows and dialog boxes. Another benefit is that applications written for a GUI are device-independent: As the interface changes to support new input and output devices, such as a large-screen monitor or an optical storage device, the applications can, without modification, use those devices. 4.2. Reasons for choosing Visual Studio.Net 2005 as the API Visual Studio 2005 sets a new bar for developer productivity by tailoring the software development experience to the needs of the individual developer. This "personalized productivity" delivers features across the development environment and .NET Framework class libraries to help developers overcome their most pressing challenges in minimal time. Visual Studio 2005 enables developers to apply existing skills across a broader range of application development scenarios through improved integration. The most important factor is Visual Studio 2005 delivers a new set of tools and functionality that will help satisfy the application development needs of todays large-scale enterprises. (http://www.programmersheaven.com/2/Features-of-Visual-Studio-2005) 4.3. Benefits for using Visual Basic for application development The major advantage of visual basic is that it does not require high processing power and can easily run on any computer with few requirements. Any computer running a MS Windows OS and a VB500.DLL can run VB applications. It is easy to learn and is the best choice for simple application like our current project. Moreover, another benefit that the language offers is its ability to do prototyping. The language is really marvelous for prototyping during the earlier stages of the project. It has an extremely powerful debugger which assists the programmer in a lot of ways. There are also some complexities involved. It is not a full fledge object oriented programming language which is a demerit for a programmer but it can be handled. 4.4. Reasons behind the choice of PHP for web application development PHP has built-in features to handle heavily trafficked sites and to simplify common Web programming tasks. Companies gain enhanced productivity of development teams and significantly reduced time-to-market of mission critical web applications. Collaborative development leads to rapid technology advancement, superior code quality, a massive library of prewritten code, and comprehensive developer support and documentation. (http://www.zend.com//news/zendpr.php?ozid=49)   4.5. Advantages of using MySql as the back-end Database MySQL is characterised as a free, fast, reliable open source relational database. It does lack some sophistication and facilities, but it has an active development team and, as it goes from release to release, more capabilities are added. At certain times there will be a trade-off between speed and capabilities, and the MySQL team intends to keep their database engine fast and reliable. 5. SCOPE OF THE PROJECT The scope of the project is such that it requires programmers from different branches of computers. A database administrator and web developer is required to develop the front-end interface with the layout of the web application and the data base with the user accounts, to manage the data integrity and authenticity. A visual basic programmer is required to perform the basic programming actions. A network support personnel is also required to setup the network environment for the application so that it could be used from anywhere. The project is to be built in such a way that it fulfills the requirements for at least ten years. Therefore security of data is an extremely important issue. 6. PROBLEM SPACE The problem space of this project is to automate the whole league table and to manage the data that is responsible for shaping up the table. A lot of information goes into the building of a league table and its management is extremely necessary. This project would enable the user in building the league table without having to go in to the complex details of assigning points and recording events. Moreover, there is no more reliable method then to save data in an electronic format. In this way accessibility and authenticity of data becomes much easier then it would be if recorded in paper format or without the existence of a proper database. Managing data with the help of a database with a system for its retrieval turns data into information which is the requirement of the user. 7. STRATEGIES FOR SOLUTION The strategy for a designing a system to manage a league table is very similar to that of a simple database management system. The only difference would be in the point allocation to different teams on behalf of their performances in the matches. This factor would be difficult to maintain as a computer can not understand basic techniques for point allocation. Moreover, insertion of data would also be an important step as wrong data entered cannot give right answers. The basic strategy however, is the same. Creation of a Database:- A database has to be created to record the previous data and the data that would be entered in the future. That database would have tables according to the entities recognized during the requirements gathering phase. Moreover, the columns would include all the desired fields that we want to appear in our table or in our reports. Creation of the Application:- Creation of the application is a long and complicated procedure with a number of sub steps involved. The application has to be web based so the windows forms and the programming would be done keeping this in mind. We want the system to allocate points to the teams and manage their positions in the pools and their locations etc. This requires programming. Based on the data entered the system would decide where to place the team and its point allocation. Moreover, the statistical report would also be taken out in the same way. Users of the Application:- The users of the application would be identified by the database administrator. There would be log file maintaining the log in information of different users so as to avoid any discrepancies. 8. THE BASIC INTERFACE 8.1. Input Forms The system would contain several input forms of different nature so that data could be entered easily and ordered in the right manner. There would be form named Teams, Players, Fixtures, Results, etc. Teams:- The teams form would take basic information of the participating teams such as their home grounds, players, coaches, team managers, physiotherapists, goals scored, number of wins, loses, etc. It would contain fields of all the personnel that are associated with the team in any way. Players:- The player information form would include the team they are playing for, position they are playing at, fitness of the players of the team, their positions in the county matches, total number of goals scored, etc. The forms must be designed in such a way that the user understand what information to enter in which field. Results:- The results form would include fields like the match playing teams, goals scored, result of the match and the incidents encountered. Fixtures:- The fixtures form would include fields like the date, time and location of matches. It would also include the teams that would be playing in the match. Their points earned. This form would not be inputted by the user. It is supposed to be automatically managed by the system based on the data in the teams, players and results table. The option to keep it manual is still a debatable topic. 8.2. OUTPUT SCREENS The output screens would be a simple web based application. The first screen would be an introduction to the system helping the user to get him familiarize with the software. After logging in the user would get an option to navigate to different portion of the website. For example, the options would include option to enter data to the different types of forms of the system or to view different reports generated by the system. There would be another option to view the league table based on the data previously entered or to update the league table with the data currently being entered. All these options would depend on the basis of the privileges being offered to different users. 9. USE Case Diagram 9.1. The Data Flow Diagram The purpose of the dataflow diagram is to display the flow of data. The first diagram displays the abstracted level of information. This is the front-end look of data flow of the system. The user logs in, enters information into the desired form and the league table is displayed with the newly entered information. Diagram 0:- This diagram displays the flow of data once entered into in the system and then how it is processed from one form to another. All of these diagrams provide a basic view of the system and the structure of the actual system would not be drastically different if there are any changes of some sort. 10. PROCESS MODEL The process model that seems suitable for the application is the Spiral Model. “The spiral model is a software development process combining elements of both design and prototyping-in-stages, in an effort to combine advantages of top-down and bottom-up concepts. Also known as the spiral lifecycle model, it is a systems development method (SDM) used in information technology (IT). This model of development combines the features of the prototyping model and the waterfall model. “ The basic steps are same as that of the waterfall model, i.e. requirements analysis, design, implementation, testing (validation), integration, and maintenance. And it combines the iterative nature of the prototyping model. Requirement Analysis:- This phase is extremely important in our case as our project is a total new application in its concerned field. For that matter we have to understand the requirements of our customer right so as to deliver the right product in the right time. Design:- This is the phase where we would be designing the basic layout of the project. The iterative nature would be especially helpful in this stage. Once the front-end has been approved by the customer the final design would be approved. Implementation:- The source code and all the backend details of the project would be handled here. The programming of the application and the database creation would fall in this category. Integration:- This would involve the deployment of the project at the desired place. It would also include setting up the network. Maintenance:- The maintenance job would include the basic responsibilities of error debugging and other jobs involved in maintaining the software(if required). 10.1. Why use Spiral Model? Realistic approach to the development because the software evolves as the process progresses. In addition, the developer and the client better understand and react to risks at each evolutionary level. The model uses prototyping as a risk reduction mechanism and allows for the development of prototypes at any stage of the evolutionary development. It maintains a systematic stepwise approach, like the classic waterfall model, and also incorporates into it an iterative framework that more reflect the real world. 10.2. Identifying Risks Authenticity and Security of Data The authenticity and security of data is an extremely important issue when more than one user is using the system. The project would be a stand-alone application available to be accessed through the internet and local network. The security of the application must be handled adequately so as to minimize the risk of data loss or modification of data without prior knowledge. Network bottlenecks It has been noticed that networked applications mostly have to suffer due to network issues. The traffic on the network should be properly managed so that network bottlenecks do not occur and the topology and the server should be such that it supports the network and prevents from network failures. Complexities of Programming The application is supposed to manage the location and time and day of the matches. There could be several natural risks involved here such as unfavorable weather conditions, or other problems. This has to be programmed in such a way that it handles these issues without causing errors in the system. 11. GANTT CHARTS Glossary Stand-alone-As its name suggests, a stand- alone application is one which does not require the web browser to access the digital files being provided. Microsoft Word (for example) is a stand- alone application. http://www.bytowninternet.com/glossary Fixtures-Sporting game or match on a specific date GUI-A GUI is a type of human-computer interface (i.e., a system for people to interact with a computer) that uses windows, icons, pull-down menus and a pointer and that can be manipulated by a mouse (and usually to some extent by a keyboard as well). (http://www.linfo.org/window.html) API-Application Programming Interface. An API is the initial interface between an application (e.g. 3DMark) and the hardware. It basically "talks" to the device drivers, telling them what the program wants it to do. (http://www.futuremark.com/community/hardwarevocabulary/1/) GUI -Graphical User Interface. The use of pictures rather than just words to represent the input and output of a program. A program with a GUI runs under some windowing system (e.g. The X Window System, Microsoft Windows, Acorn RISC OS, NEXTSTEP). The program displays certain icons, buttons, dialogue boxes etc. in its windows on the screen and the user controls it mainly by moving a pointer on the screen (typically controlled by a mouse) and selecting certain objects by pressing buttons on the mouse while the pointer is pointing at them. Though Apple Computer would like to claim they invented the GUI with their Macintosh operating system, the concept originated in the early 1970s at Xeroxs PARC laboratory. (http://www.eggheaddesign.co.uk/glossary.aspx) LAN-LAN (a local computer network for communication between computers; especially a network connecting computers and word processors and other electronic office equipment to create a communication system between offices) (http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=lan) Network Bottlenecks-A bottleneck (the slowest component in your computer network) causes work to get jammed up. The first step in improving network performance is to identify the bottleneck. (http://www.allbusiness.com/technology/computer-networking/9367-1.html) Software Process Models-Software process models are general approaches for organizing a project into activities. (http://searchcio-midmarket.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid183_gci755441,00.html) Prototyping Model-The Prototyping Model is a systems development method (SDM) in which a prototype (an early approximation of a final system or product) is built, tested, and then reworked as necessary until an acceptable prototype is finally achieved from which the complete system or product can now be developed. This model works best in scenarios where not all of the project requirements are known in detail ahead of time. It is an iterative, trial-and-error process that takes place between the developers and the users. (http://searchcio-midmarket.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid183_gci755441,00.html) Use Case Diagrams-shows the systems use cases as icons, and their relationships to other use cases and the actors of the system. This diagram IMHO is mostly a container for other behavioral diagrams. The real meat of a use case is of course in the specification which is a textual document. (http://www.jguru.com/faq/view.jsp?EID=264410) Data Flow Diagrams-The DFD is a diagram that shows how the data manipulated by a system flows through the various processes. Youll see one of several types of symbols in a DFD... a process, a data store, or an external entity. These symbols are connected by arrowed lines showing how the data moves from a data store or external entity, through a process, and back to a data store or external entity. (http://www.kuhnllc.com/project%20methodology/glossary.htm) The official site with news, fixtures, results, league table, statistics, club profiles and travel details. www.premierleague.com Premier League From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premier_League Software Development http://www.lomitech.com/softwaredevelopment/index.htm Read More