Business Application - IT enabled HRM solution for an merchandising organization.

Hungry Gift was established on 2008 as a subsidiary to Blue Eagle Business Solutions. Our company is  regarded as one of the few start-ups which was very successful since its inception. Our company offers corporate gifting, promotional merchandising and brand consulting solutions to corporate organizations. With creative and intellectual prowess, we have had the experience of dealing with many clients across diverse  industries for various events. Apart from products like t-shirts, caps, photo mugs , bags, leather articles, stationery we have a knack of going the extra mile to please our customers. This has led our clients’ imaginations run free! From designing T-shirts for TCS employees, planning merchandising for IIM A international conference, helping VGN promote its flats, manufacturing merchandise for IIT Madras events to satisfying Amazon clients with our gifts, we have helped our many customers  promote their brand, build loyalty amongst their employees and create a buzz for their events. With our design and manufacturing capabilities for products like T-shirts, caps, bags, leather articles, we satisfy our clients’ needs and imagination. We also source eco-products and other innovative products.

Problem Statement:
Our major source of revenue is from Corporate Gifting. But, we have planned to expand our business by setting up brand stores to our corporate clients. We need an IT enabled HRM solution for managing our current expansion projects. Due to expansion, our company is planning to hire more employees and workers for which the IT enabled HRM should help us in monitoring the process.

We are just a start up and we do not have the budget to setup our independent web server for managing our IT integrated HR systems for the problems described above. And this in itself is a problem along with the problems briefed above.

Solution:

Our company Business Development Head recently came across 'X10hosting.com' for the creation of a free DNS. X10hosting also offers various software from which we have the ability to choose for free of cost.

We chose the Orange HRM software, which has the following advantages :

• It is fast and easy to install at free of cost.
• Since our is a small company which will be growing in numbers of employee due to our expansion projects, the Orange HRM provides the flexibility to add more no of employees.
• This give us the opportunity to redefine our organization structure.
• At present we are doing multiple projects and the HRM software gives the flexibility to add employees on the basis of project.
• Leaves and work shift management which till now was done on paper create unavoidable delay are now on click of a button and this also adds value to our Go Green concept.
• A manpower requirement and recruitment could be applied and directly link to the home page.
• The objective oriented performance management help our supervisor to grade employees without any personal biases and within a definite time line

The log in portal:

http://mis.x10.mx/orange/symfony/web/index.php/auth/login

Please log in using the following credentials:

User Id: misx10mx

Password: abc123

The log in page can also be accessed through the following credentials for individual employee log in:

User Id: 246916

Password: abc456

Zoho Application Requirements

Vendor: Shehzad

Requirements – Kolkata Municipal Corporation Complaint Registration System

This Complaint Registration system should serve the residents of Kolkata city. The residents may register their complaints, regarding some problems in their area of residence. The problems faced by residents may be pertaining to health, public buildings, drainage, water, and other such fields. 

The following functionalities should be available to the user:

·         Complaint Registration: The user can register his complaint. He has to enter his personal details and complaint details in a form. He should be able to select his ward from a dropdown menu. He should be able to select the type of his complaint from another dropdown menu and also be able to mention details of the complaint. Once the user submits these details, his complaint gets registered and an email is sent to him on his Email ID, as an acknowledgement. A complaint ID is allocated to every complaint.

·         Complaint Status: The user should be able to check his complaint status. He has to enter his complaint ID and the Complaint Status should be displayed. If the complaint status is Open, the complaint still has to be addressed. If it is Closed, the complaint has been addressed.

·         Contact Us: The toll free number of our 24x7 call center should be displayed to the user.

·         User Manual: The user can have a look at a detailed user manual.

The following functionalities should be available to the administrator:

·         The administrator should be able to view the registered complaints. He should be able to edit the complaint status from Open to Closed and vice versa.

·         Reports in the form of bar charts should be available to the administrator. These reports should showcase the distribution of complaints.

Understanding the System Architecture with my friend

This was an interaction between me and my friend in Cafe Coffee Day regarding system architecture. My friend works in a Corporate Gifting and Brand Consulting firm who wants to know about system architecture.

Moi: Hey buddy, today we had an interesting session on System Architecture.

Friend: What is System Architecture, what is it's need and can it be included in our company ?

Moi: Buddy, in modern day business be it an IT company or a non IT company, computers have a chief role to play. And the organization of the data and applications required for the business to function normal is a must. With more and more data and applications on the run it is mandatory to choose the methodology in which these data and applications need to structured and organized. Hence, system architecture is a conceptual model that deals with the structure and behavior of the system that contains both data and application.

Friend: How is it varied from past methodologies of data and application management?

Moi: It is similar to the past methodologies, for instance in previous years that is in the early 90's bill books and vouchers were more prominent for data management. But as time proceeded, computers became more prominent. To ensure proper security to data and applications and reduce process timings of data in applications, system architecture played a major role.

Friend: How can data and applications be managed when the quantity of data and applications increases, for example our company started with 4 employees but now their are nearly 60,000 employees so how can this be made feasible with computers ?

Moi: True, when the number of data and applications are less then the companies go for a model known as the "Single Tier Model". In Single Tier Model the data and applications are contained in a single computer though they were separated logically and the clients are needed to access their data from the single machine. This system was preferred when the data and applications were less. But when the data and applications increased it was practically impossible to store all the data in a single machine and update those data and applications. For this reason the companies went in for a higher level of models.

Take a look at the single tier model pic:

Friend: Please, explain me the higher models of System Architecture!!!

Moi: Sure buddy, that's how interesting this subject turns out to be. Two tier model also known as the Client-Server Model has the data to be loaded in a server away from the client machines were the applications are installed. In this case since the data is accessed from a different machine using software's like Oracle, SQL, etc... the processing time is less for the applications. The client machine and the server are connected through a LAN cable which is used to establish TCP/IP protocols for communication between the systems. Also if the data needs to be updated it can be done directly on the server and it can be accessed by the clients. But, the main disadvantage is if the applications needs to be updated then the model possess a serious problem since it needs to be done from the clients end and if the applications are outdated then the performance levels may dip as the operations done by the applications are done from the clients end. Also greater bandwidth is required which slows the performance of other systems in the LAN.

Take a look at the two tier model pic:

To overcome the the disadvantages of two tier architecture the three tier architecture was created. In this the Application and data are placed in servers and only the GUI is in the client end. So the minimum transfer of data takes place hence less bandwidth usage and also the application and data can be updated from the server directly. Here more users can be accessing without any performance issues hence we go for WAN for ensuring TCP/IP handshaking signals. 

Take a look at three tier model pic:

The three tier was soon replaced by the multi tier model were the software in the client location were replaced by web browsers. Hence we now have the application, data and the web server in different servers. So when the data is sent in from the web browser from the client end the web server processes the received data and sends it to the application which in turn sends and receives the processed data from the data server before displaying it to the client. Here the business logic is centrally located and only the presentation is local. WAN is replaced by internet for sending in the TCP/IP protocols. Hence the tendency for hacking is increased in this case since the WAN which was private is replaced by internet which is public. Also web browsers are necessary for accessing the internet.

Take a look at multi tier model pic:

Friend: How is the security increased in the Multi Tier Model and also name few industry applications of this models ?

Moi: Security is increased in the Multi Tier Model by ensuring that a Firewall is placed between the client machines and the processing machines. This blocks the hackers who try to access the information of the clients. This is a must for applications like Payment Gateways, internet banking, etc...Applications can be ERP application like SAP, people soft, etc...

Friends: Today definitely I have learnt system architecture and will sure talk to the concerned persons to upgrade the model followed in our company...Thanks a lot dude.

Moi: Sure, do it fast..and you are always welcome..Bye :)