You have been asked to build a database for a pet foster and adoption shelter. The agency is a non-profit that takes in stray or abandoned pets and places them with foster care givers until the pet is adopted. Foster care givers are volunteers, though they must first be screened. The database needs to track all animals in its care, their species, breed, name and condition. It also needs to track all approved foster care givers and which animals are currently in their care. Foster care givers are also supposed to turn in monthly reports on the animals in their care. The database also needs to track the adoptions of the animals.

Currently, volunteers come into the shelter and fill out a paper form. After a background check they are added to a file. Some volunteers complain that they are never contacted again. The shelter staff admits, they tend to go with foster care givers they know and some people get forgotten in the file. The shelter has also occasionally lost track of an animal in foster care when the care giver failed to turn in the monthly reports. Another recurring problem is that when someone comes into the shelter looking to adopt, it is not always easy or even possible to let them know about all the animals available for adoption.

Ideally the shelter would like people to be able to register as a volunteer on-line. They would like to be able to call up a list of all available foster volunteers. They also would be like to be able to pull up all the animals of the kind a potential adopter is interested in and know exactly where those animals are and who is caring for them.

1. Make a list of some of the major issues with the current system used in the shelter
2. Identity who the major actors are and list them
3. Make a use case diagram for each of the actors showing how they would interact with the database
4. Make a list of business rules for the shelter.
5. Make a list of all the nouns and break them up into entities and attributes
6. Identify some candidate keys

Answer rating: 100% (QA)

The major issues that are identified with the current system used in the shelter are as follows By observing the current pet foster and adaption shelt... View the full answer