The SAD IT Consulting firm has been retained by Willowbrook School to give their assistance in the exploration of implementing a new information technology system for the school's administrative needs. This project has the potential to assist with tuition tracking, after-care billing, and payments.

 

System Request Summary

Willowbrook School wants an information system that may help them with billing and payments for after-care services as well as tracking tuition. The board, administration, and staff were all quite enthusiastic about the new system at the discussion because it would help their expanding enrollment and enable more effective financial tracking. Both advantages and issues of concern were mentioned. Some of the issues that came up during the conference were what would happen if the system crashed in the case of a power outage, the inability to use volunteers as much because of their sensitive nature, and duplicating mistakes. Right now, everything is done on paper, entered an Excel spreadsheet, and then saved on a shared disk.

Preliminary Investigation Findings

They are excited and looking forward to the new information system's installation after speaking with important Willowbrook School staff members. Purchase, setup, and training for the new system are all included in the proposal. It's important to take a close look at the existing infrastructure to make sure that the hardware and network requirements for the new information system match up. How many workstations will need to have this program installed? This decision must be taken. To ensure that information isn't lost when the system could not be available, a downtime process policy needs to be discussed.

SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis of their current resources. This analysis examines the school's strengths weaknesses, opportunities, and threats the results of this analysis are shown in the table below.

Strengths	Weaknesses	Opportunities	Threats
Administration and staff eager for new system	Volunteers not being able to assist as much	Growth of enrollment	System going down
	Staff is familiar with computers		No budget for an information system project		More organization due to data being in one place		No funding for system
	Active board of directors in favor of system		Brand new system means training for staff who are overloaded with work				Maintaining nonprofit status

Feasibility study

A feasibility study has been conducted to ascertain the risks associated with implementing this new system as well as if doing so will be profitable. There are several different feasibilities that must be considered.

Operational Feasibility

To ascertain how successfully the new information system will function and the staff that will be using it, an operational feasibility analysis must be carried out. In order to use the new system to its full potential, the administration must make sure that all users who will be utilizing it have received comprehensive training on it. The system will not be able to be used to its full capacity and goals won't be achieved if users aren't trained, rendering the system's implementation unsuccessful. The administration and personnel must accept the new system and their new roles and be aware of the roles they will each play in its implementation. Moving forward with the installation will be futile without the staff's commitment to ensuring that the new system is used to its maximum potential.

Technical Feasibility

To assess whether Willowbrook currently possesses the technological requirements to support the new system, an examination of technical feasibility will need to be done. What kind of networking is already in use, along with software and other technical specifications for the new system, are some of the issues that will need to be taken into consideration. The decision to move forward with this project will need to take into account any additional expenditures that administration discovers will arise from the requirement to modify their current structure.

Economic feasibility

To compare the price of this new information system, a study of economic viability will be done.

The administration will need to assess the price of putting this new system into place, making sure to account for the price of the hardware itself as well as any maintenance costs, necessary training, or license purchases. As demand increases with increased enrolment, the school will need to ensure that this system meets its primary objective of saving time for the staff. It might not be possible to implement and buy the new system if the implementation does not fully satisfy the objective put out.

Open issues

• Vendors for this product must be contacted and demos for the product must be scheduled to ensure the information system selected covers all of Willowbrook's needs.
• Various quotes must be obtained.
• A hardware and network walkthrough must be completed in the office
• Lists of individuals who will be needing training will need to be selected and their current process must documented, as well as what new process will be.

Additional Information Required

2. Cost of the implementation, installation, training and support must be viewed
4. What are the school's long-term goals with this system?
6. System requirements:
   2. What kind of storage is needed to support the application?
   4. Will they be putting program on multiple computers or a single computer?
   6. Will any customization be needed?

Summary and Recommendations

To keep up with the rising enrollment, a new system must be put in place after conducting interviews and doing the analysis. With the help of this technology, the administration and staff will not have as much work to do to keep up with enrollment. Workers will be able to devote more of their time to instructing students and less time on billing. By putting this new system in place, Willowbrook will be better able to achieve their long-term objectives and reduce operating expenses, which will lower tuition costs. The SAD IT consulting firm strongly suggests continuing with this project.

 ANSWERRR THESEE QUESTIONS

 Pre-Installation Tasks

1. Training-Identify the people who need training on the new system. For each group, describe the type of training you would recommend and list the topics you would cover.

NewInformation

The system at Willowbrook has been up and running for 5 months now, and things are moving reasonably smoothly. Willowbrook is pleased with the ability to generate one household bill rather than a series of individual bills and parents are pleased with their itemized after-care receipts. You have been asked to contract for ongoing support services on an as-needed basis. The school would like to arrange for support services in such a way that your time is used as efficiently as possible because their budget for support is small.

Post-Installation Tasks

2. Maintenance
   2. Based on the organization's needs, identify 3 maintenance tasks the organization needs to perform
   4. For each task, label the type of maintenance task (i.e., corrective, adaptive, perfective, and preventive maintenance)
   6. Explain why you labeled the task the way that you did.
5. Support
   2. Develop a support plan for the organization
   4. Does the support plan have multiple levels? If so, why?

Answer rating: 100% (QA)

PreInstallation Tasks Training Administration Staff Type of Training Comprehensive Training Topics System Navigation and Interface Tuition Tracking Af... View the full answer