Online Booking System - Assignment Example

Developing a Limousine Service Web Application By List of Contents List of Figures 2 List of Tables 3 List of Acronyms 3 Abstract 4 List of Figures 5 Statement of Project 5 Objectives 5 Stages of Development Work 6 Design 6 Collect requirements- interview, etc 6 Understand business needs, processes 7 Understand pricing 7 Understand legal issues, cancellations, liability, etc 7 Customer approval of mock-ups 7 Collect graphics 7 Coding 8 Basic layout of Html without PHP inserts and database 8 Header and footer definitions 8 Forms 9 Testing 10 Testing of database with dummy data 10 Local system development 10 Local database design and development 11 Remote testing on production system 12 Create directory on production server 12 Apply database definitions 12 Move prototype site to production server with ftp program 13 Test remotely 13 Documentation 13 Implementation 13 Critical evaluation 17 Project management 18 Production support 19 Methodology 19 Summary 20 References 20 Purpose of figures: The purpose of the images presented in these web pages is to show the potential customer exactly what vehicles he or she would be renting. The vehicles are a Chrysler / Baby Bentley, a Triple Axel Hummer, and a Super Stretch Lincoln List of Tables The web application provides price tables for each limo with description. The table definition is below: Price Table First Hour Per Hour* £'.$row['firsthour'].' £'.$row['perhour'].' Description '.$row['value'].' The actual table is given here: List of Acronyms The only acronyms used in this application are those specified in the css header that defines the specific styles that is used to format the entire application. These acronyms are : 1. bordCOR 2. bordT 3. bordTR 4. bordB 5. bordL 6. bordR Abstract This is a report of a prototype Web application that uses the php programming language and the MySql database system to produce a website that allows a user to order, schedule, and pay for the rental of a limousine. The URL of the prototype website is http://www.blushhlingerie.co.uk/limo. The payment for the desired rental of the limousine is accomplished through PayPal. The design of the system is along the lines of a standard top-down, menu driven web application. Standard consumer issues and concerns are presented to the user on the top menu header of each page. Legal issues, such as terms and conditions, privacy policy, and cancellations presented to the user on the footer menu on each page. Issues of contractual obligation and scheduling are dealt with in separate modules. Since this is a prototype application issues of error checking and input validation are not present in the application code. Introduction and Background Statement of Project Online commerce is of course one of the most important applications that can be developed for the World Wide Web. Across the globe even the smallest business can benefit from having an effective Web presence. In developing an online commerce application a developer faces a number of choices in deciding not only which platform to use, but also which programming tool and backend database system to use to implement any desired commercial application. The aim of this project was to develop a functional prototype website which will incorporate a booking facility to allow online limousine hire booking. I chose to use for its implementation the open source programming language PHP and the free, but not open source, database management system my SQL. The use of these two tools for developing a commercial website for a small business offers many advantages over using a proprietary development platform such as the popular Microsoft environment .net and Microsoft's pervasive database management system SQL server. Unfortunately using those Microsoft tools incurs a significant cost penalty, as well as certain security and management issues which a small business like the limo company that is being presented here probably cannot afford. Objectives To develop a functional prototype website To develop a functional prototype database to work with website Stages of Development Work The various stages of the development work are as follows: Design Collect requirements- interview, etc The first and most important task in the development of any software system or product is for the developer or teen to gain a thorough understanding of the client's processes and needs. Ordinarily, in a serious development situation this task would be delegated to one or more systems analysts who would interview the subject matter experts at the client site and using a specific methodology capture for the use of the coders and data administrators those needs and processes. For the purposes of this project the jobs of systems analysts and database administrator were performed entirely by myself, for academic purposes. I began by distancing myself from the actual operation of my own limousine service, which I currently operate in the Midlands, and pretended that I was interviewing myself concerning the operation of that business. So therefore the material that I extracted in developing the systems analysis does represent the operation of a successful limousine service. My interviews with the owner of the limousine service (myself) covered all the essential elements of its operation, including pricing, scheduling, billing, operational issues, legal and liability issues and accounting and finance. In every way I dealt with that company as if I were actually interviewing someone who wanted to develop a website for which would require someone else's final approval of its design and system organization. Understand business needs, processes It was important for me as a systems analyst to get a real understanding of the operation of the limousine service, particularly in relation to the interactions that develop between the customer is in the limousine operator, the customers needs and expectations and the limousine service operators requirements. Understand pricing And of course most importantly I had to spend quite a bit of time dealing with the various pricing mechanisms and strategies that the limousine operator needed to be codified. Understand legal issues, cancellations, liability, etc Another area which was new to me as a systems analyst were those aspects of the limousine service operations that dealt with the legal issues, cancellations, liability issues and other contractual matters that come up and would need to be dealt with in a successful website. Customer approval of mock-ups The next stage in the development of the prototype limousine scheduling company is the production of limited mockups that would be presented to the prospective client indicating the approximate look feel and layout of the future website. The stage would also include the presentation of the systems analysts analysis of the terms and conditions and pricing mechanisms that would be presented to the user on the site. These elements would be presented to the client for their approval and then laid out on a storyboard or board for presentation to the HTML coder. Once the analysis team had received the customer's approval for the prospective website the development team within engage a design specialist to come up with the graphics images and photographs that would be appearing on the prospective site. In the case of the limousine service I obtained photographs of several typical limousines that my hypothetical limousine service would use in its operations. Collect graphics These graphics would then be incorporated into the storyboard layout and presented to the client for their approval. Once the development team (in this case myself wearing several hats) had received approval from the customer of the basic look and feel of their prospective website the systems analyst would then work with the coding team to implement the site mockup. Coding As previously noted, the limousine service website uses three Web technologies in its implementation, cascading style sheets otherwise known as CSS, PHP programming language, and my SQL database. Basic layout of Html without PHP inserts and database In a production environment these tasks would be parceled out to several different members of the coding production team. The CSS definitions reside in a separate file and are referenced at the header of the main PHP file. In addition a separate database administrator would handle the database management of the prototype application. Header and footer definitions Additionally, each page references a separate header and footer File that appears at the bottom and top of each of the presentation pages. The basic HTML layout of the prototype limousine service includes several tables and forms. Table definitions are used both in a functional and a visual manner. Tables are used to lay out the appearance of the inventory of limousines that are available through the service; functional tables are used to present to the user the cost and price structure for the rental of each limousine. Functional tables are also used to layout drop-down boxes and input boxes that are used on the site to specified by the user their choice of times for their limousine rental. Forms Finally a quite detailed table layout is used to present to the user the form in which they would supply all the necessary information for their limousine rental. This form includes many of the standard HTML presentation elements and objects. Testing Testing of database with dummy data Following the completion of the prototype Web application that I have designed it was necessary to move into the testing phase. The testing phase involves testing under simulated user conditions the two main components of the website, that is the database and the web interface. Testing the database was the first task to be accomplished. In a real production environment this task would be done by the database administrator, however in this situation I accomplished testing of the database myself. What is necessary is to test whether or not the datatypes required to receive data from the Web forms are correctly defined. In order to do this I used the open source graphical web interface for my SQL phpMyAdmin. This application provides you with the facility to make forms which you can use to input data records one at a time into the design database. Once it was clear that my data definitions were correctly specified I went on to input several forms of data into the database. I created a form which matched the user's purchase form and simulated the sequence of inputting data to scheduling one of the limousines that are available from the putative limousine website. Prior to that of course data was input into the database that represented both the vehicles that would be available to a user who wish to rent one and also data that would represent the charges to do so. Local system development Once the development team has received the customer signoff on the basic design for the website the team proceeded to develop the site on development systems. On each development system, of course there is a running copy of the mySQL database. Using a visual development system known as Dreamweaver the developer first coded into a CSS file for website design elements that were approved by the client. Then using Dreamweaver the HTML coder created the several pages that would constitute the basic website. The developer then applied the specific images and photographs that would appear on the various pages. In this case there had to be a local Web server in which the developing website could be seen through a local browser. Although the production platform would be a Linux server it is possible to install a PHP interpreter on Windows to do this. I chose to use the Microsoft Web server IIS 7 running on Windows Vista SP1 and also used a product called FastCGI to host PHP development. The Windows vista platform also supports a version of the mySQL database management system and so as a developer I was able to interactively develop the limousine website using all these elements: Dreamweaver, my SQL, PHP, and HTML in order to produce code which would run unmodified on the production server, which runs a version of Linux. Local database design and development The prototype for the online limousine service only has a single table at the current time. In a real production system there would be many more tables then the single one presented here. However this table, the "limo" table is sufficient to allow us to represent what the basic operation of the limousine reservation system would look like. That table holds the prices per hour for each limo, and IDE to use as a primary key to access each column in the limo table, the name of each model limousine that the service offers, and a picture for each limo. There are three main SQL queries that operate against the limo database and provide the relevant information to plug into the specific PHP/my SQL calls that provide the appearance of the user interface. The first SQL call it a Select statement that delivers to the main page a list of the limousines that are available for rental. The second SQL statement is a Select statement that delivers to the secondary page a table of pictures of the limousines that are available for rental. The third and last SQL statement is they Select statement that delivers to the user the hourly prices for each limo in tabular form. The actual PHP/SQL statements are: List of limos //this next function is to help stop people injecting the database; $id = mysql_real_escape_string($_GET['limo']); $result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM limos WHERE limo_id = '$id'"); Limo pricing //call the limo to work out the prices $result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM limos WHERE limo_id = '$id'"); Limo images //get query for all limos --> php.net/mysql_query $result = mysql_query("SELECT limo_id, title, image FROM limos"); Once the correctly format it SQL statements were incorporated into the pre-existing HTML page description it was necessary to thoroughly test the operation and progression of the user experience when they would examine and choose a particular limousine. In this prototype system I did not implement tables to hold data for the users personal information and the user is invoice for their reservations, or for holding the reservation times itself. However in a real world application these tables would be of course is a necessity. Remote testing on production system Once the local testing phase was completed to satisfaction the development team moved onto preparing the remote server for the production system. Create directory on production server The first step in this process was specifying and preparing the virtual directory and subdirectories that would hold all of the files for the limousine reservation company. Apply database definitions The next step was to apply the database table definitions to the running online copy of my SQL. Following that the database administrator then input the pricing and rental information into the limo table. Move prototype site to production server with ftp program Once these preparatory tasks had been accomplished the production support staff and moved all the files that constitutes the limousine operation to the remote server using an FTP application. Test remotely At this point the Web application was ready for remote testing using the exact same sequence of actions that were used to test the system on the development platform. Documentation There is no documentation for this prototype system. Implementation The implementation of this online reservation system was designed using basic flowcharting techniques. Since it is a relatively simple system there was no need to resort to sophisticated methodologies such as UML or Entity-Relationship Modeling (ER Modeling) for the database creation. However the basic design does adhere to essential top-down design, with the menus representing the user experience of a basic tree format and of course the SQL queries conforming to simple normal form. $result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM limos WHERE limo_id = '$id'"); Default page http://www.blushhlingerie.co.uk/limo/ The default page of this prototype Web application is meant to give a simple, clear, a defective introduction to the services that are offered. The design is spare but informative. It is laid out in simple table format with text on the left and professional photographs of the limousines that are available on the right. As with any thing in life first impressions are everything. With that in mind I have attempted to present to the potential customer as succinct a description of the services that are offered without being overly sensational or cloying. Limos page http://www.blushhlingerie.co.uk/limo/limos.php If a customer is interested in renting one of the limos that are available disinterest will lead them to the second page where he or she can peruse the available models. Once again I have attempted to maintain a consistent layout using tables and a consistent border appearance for each image. The color photographs were professionally taken and show the available models in a favorable light. It was not deemed necessary to include on this page any descriptive text since it is the appearance of the limos that counts for everything and I did not want to detract from their impressive appearance. The actual limousine images are presented on this page through the action of the following SQL statement. $result = mysql_query("SELECT limo_id, title, image FROM limos"); Since the limos are presented to the user on this page through the actions of the above SQL statement and a variable size table structure it would be quite simple to modify any of the specific images that actually appear on this page or two increase the number of limousine images that appear. Limo query page http://www.blushhlingerie.co.uk/limo/limos.phplimo=1 Drilling down from the user's selection of any of the specific limousines on the limousine tables page will lead the user to the details page. On this page the user is presented with, for each limousine, three related images of that limousine. These images are chosen from the following SQL statement. $result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM limos WHERE limo_id = '$id'"); This SQL statement uses the limousine ID to bring out three related images which are named key to the limousine ID that is used in a SQL query. The images are then laid out in a table format whose relevant cells are as below . and Of course on this page the prospective client is also presented with the relevant costs and a brief description of the basic features of the specific limousine that was chosen. Booking page http://www.blushhlingerie.co.uk/limo/book.phplimo=1 Should be user choose to book one of the limousines their choice can be finalized on the follow on booking page. At the present time the booking page simply presents the prospective customer with the date and time for their possible booking time. However since this is a prototype application there is in the background no facility for checking into whether or not the customer is desired booking time is actually open and available. In a final implementation a much more sophisticated calendaring system and backend database table structure would be required to actually fulfill this portion of the websites functional purpose. However for this prototype site clicking on the submit order button will bring the user to the next page. Booking Details Page http://www.blushhlingerie.co.uk/limo/book.phpbook=1&d=1230771600 The first booking page that the prospective customer sees after inputting their desired rental date and time is a detailed form that uses most of the common HTML user interface elements, such as text box drop-down list box label, and at radio buttons. The page itself is laid out in a consistent table format that uses the same table look and feel and of course uses the same CSS styles. However once again this prototype Web application does not connect with any data cable into which the input data can be stored. It certainly is a task that would be high up on the list of tasks which would follow on in subsequent development of this website. Other functions which are missing from the behind the scenes processes of the states are of course customer credit checking and other matters of a security related type. These other functions certainly would be added at a later stage of development. Completion Page http://www.blushhlingerie.co.uk/limo/book.phpdone=yes&id=1&hours=1 The final webpage in the booking sequence is the confirmation page in which the customer is able to view the details of the booking that they have arranged. Since this is a proof of concept prototype application I have only implemented one option for the payment of the rental limousine that they have chosen. This option is to offer the client the ability to pay for their rental through PayPal. In a real production application there would be multiple choices for payment that would be offered, including all the major credit cards, PayPal, check, and for local customers, the ability to pay by cash at the local office. Contact Page http://www.blushhlingerie.co.uk/limo/contact.php If there is one element that must be present in any website of a commercial nature it is the contact us page. In this prototype website that page is simply presented as formatted text giving the vital details for the limousine rental company. In a real production application the contact us page would link to either an e-mail form that would automatically send the customer's inquiry to the management of the website through a standard e-mail account, or a form would appear that would take in the users vital information and their question and forward that information to the website owner through the action of sending it into the backend database. Neither of these two capabilities were implemented in this prototype application for reasons of time, but future implementation along the lines described above would be accomplished before this prototype website went into production. Legal and Administrative Pages I chose to place the legal notices relating to this website in a common footer section which appears on the bottom of every page that the user sees. These notices and considerations are vital to the operation of a business such as this and our present in order to protect both the potential customer and the business itself from legal liability and unforeseen problems. Terms and Conditions Page http://www.blushhlingerie.co.uk/limo/terms.php On the terms and conditions page are presented 16 conditions which have been developed over a period of time through the operation of the actual limousine business upon which this prototype website is based. All of these terms and conditions have been gone over by a solicitor to make sure that they conform to current legal standards and acceptability. Privacy Page http://www.blushhlingerie.co.uk/limo/privacy.php The limousine rental business is one in which the management of this website has discovered is particularly sensitive to the privacy needs of its clients. Although it might be thought unnecessary to include a privacy page on this prototype website it was decided to do so in light of the many instances in the operation of the limousine business in which privacy issues became of paramount importance. In order to forestall any questions that might arise before, during and after the rental of one of the company's limousines it was thought advisable to include a detailed assurance to any potential customer regarding our well thought out privacy policy. Cancellations Page http://www.blushhlingerie.co.uk/limo/cancel.php Another issue which it was thought advisable to include in the prototype Web application is that of our cancellations policy. Cancellations are a fact of life in any rentals business, and previous experience has shown the management of this company that advising any potential customer of its cancellation policy would forestall many possible issues and much confusion. This cancellation policy is thought to be well balanced and fair to both the management of the limousine company and any potential client. Once again the specifics of this cancellation policy was cleared by the company's solicitor who had a hand in its drafting. Critical evaluation Prototype This is a prototype system. It is in skeleton form and is meant to represent an outline of the essential processes that would be undertaken in the development of a much larger system to do the company that is represented. For example there is no error checking for user input and of course this would be a necessity in a production system. There is only one table in the my SQL database, and a production system to do the tasks that are represented would require at least another 15 tables to deal with all the information and interactions that would take place in the operation of this business. The database interface has no security checkpoints to prevent malicious users from hijacking the system and manipulating it. The graphical design is rudimentary and although serviceable a real production system would resort to a thoroughly professional contractor to develop a pleasing and attractive presentation. In this prototype system there is no true interface to a billing and accounting system. We have for the prototypes requirements resorted to simply showing how the billing could proceed with a call to the standard PayPal module. Of course this is not satisfactory and would not work in a real life situation. Potential clients must be given a multiplicity of choices in order to make their purchasing experience as convenient for them as possible. Another element that is missing from the website production sequence is a means of checking the credit worthiness of potential clients, or determining whether or not it would be necessary to require a deposit from them before the rental to go through. Checking credit worthiness would enable the management to quickly determine if a deposit would be required before the rental could proceed. Asking for it would not trouble clients who did not require such a deposit and their experience would be pleasantly enhanced; for those who did require it, the company's asset could be protected without undue procedure and expense. Another issue that must be addressed in a real world application is the means by which the potential customer is enabled to contact the business owner. The website owner and business operator has not determined at this time whether it would be more productive to implement this facility through the standard pop up e-mail form technique or whether it might not be better to create a data table that stored the users issues and concerns into the backend database so that that information would be perhaps available later through some search mechanism or be able to be printed out in some as yet undetermined formatted report. A last issue which is not addressed in the current prototype application is a sequence by which the user makes a positive step to affirm that they have definitely read and agreed to the 16 terms and conditions present on the terms and conditions page. Project management In order to more properly simulate a real development situation I used the Microsoft software product project to handle the various tasks and milestones in the development of this web application. Project is a product that allows you to define your software project in terms of traditional PERT diagram. In this project he milestones were first these systems analysis which consists of understanding the business needs and processes understanding pricing understanding legal issues such as cancellations liability etc.. Now the tasks that these milestones were joined to mainly consisted of discussions with the current owner of a limousine service. The major tasks were talking to the current owner about it is current business operations spending time at that business and watching it in operation talking to several employees of the business to see what their jobs were, talking to the account of the operation to see what she did and other on-site investigations. Other milestones were getting a customer approval of the mockups, collecting graphics, and deciding on the general look and feel of the website itself. Following that came the coding phase that consisted of HTML design CSS definitions and putting those in place in a general form. Further milestones consisted of designing the database whose task consisted of the data definitions and determining what data types would be in the database columns. Following that further milestones consisted of local system development in which I applied the systems analysis to actual into the database and defining the basic SQL statements that each page would use. Further tasks included moving to produce tight site to production server using the FTP program. Testing remotely, and actual implementation of the website on the remote server wasn't final milestone to complete this project Production support In an actual production environment at this point the project manager would decide upon the means in which long-term project support could be accomplished and how to hire or engage a team to do that. However in this exercise the long-term project support is myself. Methodology The methodology that I used to develop this website was simple flowcharting and storyboarding. Complex UML diagrams and analysis would be much too sophisticated for the web site at this stage of development. Perhaps when it went into full production, and there were all the other necessary data table necessary to call for a complex analysis of the data flows and interactions necessary to run the site using a methodology such as UML, this might be called for. Summary The element of this prototype Web application was quite an interesting project. In doing it I learned not only have to properly structured code and use the basic elements that a HTML page must have two look and operate properly but also I have also learned the various stages that a real development project must go through in order to produce an acceptable product for a client or employer. I also learned in the course of this project to many pitfalls that a software developer might run into from the first page to the last stage of a project that she was involved in. One particular area in which I discovered that there were issues which were not apparent in the initial planning stages of this prototype website is the large number of possible data tables that would be required to implement this scheme in a real-world basis, and the concomitant number of sophisticated SQL queries that would be needed to tie all those tables together along with the possible HTML pages in which the information generated from them would appear. This was a very enjoyable exercise and I look forward to applying the lessons that I learned in this project to my first real world development situation. References Web Database Application with PHP and MySQL, 2nd Edition David Lane, Hugh E. Williams , 2004, O'Reilly Professional PHP Programming 1999 Wrox Press, Jesus Castagnetto, et all MySQL: Essential Skills John W. Horn and Michael Grey McGraw-Hill/Osborne 2004 Read More