Datasheet

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Chapter 1: A Framework for Enterprise Applications
spreadsheet that keeps track of everyone’s vacation balance to the managers last December, a lot of
discrepancies came up. We were missing days that some managers forgot to send to us or requests had
been cancelled and we were never notified. We need a database to replace the Word template.”
Me: “So you want to automate the process of requesting vacation. I’ve used that template, so I know a
little bit about the process, but I don’t know what happens after my manager signs it. Can you tell me
how the process is supposed to work?”
Mary: “When employees want to take a vacation or holiday, they are supposed to fill out the form, print
it, sign it, and then hand it to their manager for approval and signature. The manager is then supposed
to sign it and inter-office mail it to HR, where I check it against my Excel spreadsheet to ensure that the
employee has enough days to cover the request. I then subtract the days in my spreadsheet. Also, people
who want to take more than two weeks off at a time need to have their manager and a vice president sign
off on the request. This really causes problems because the VPs are so busy they rarely send us the form.”
Me: “Then you need a system that allows a user to request time off and then have a workflow built
into the system for the manager, vice president, and you to approve or deny the request. What the user
enters will determine how many levels of approval are needed.”
Mary: “Well, yes. I guess we would need to be able to deny the request too, but we usually just throw
them out. It probably would be a good idea to keep them around so we could refer to them.”
Me: “You mentioned that one problem is that people cancel vacations and don’t tell you, so would
you like the system to allow users to cancel a request too? If so, I can have the application send you an
e-mail notification that the request was cancelled. I could also send any approvers an e-mail when a
request is in their queue for approval.”
Mary: “Yes, that would be great. I could then adjust the balance in my Excel spreadsheet.”
Me: “Could you send me that spreadsheet? I can likely recreate the spreadsheet as a report in the sys-
tem that you could then export to Excel. This way, any requests or cancellations are tracked in the sys-
tem and you won’t have to maintain the Excel spreadsheet anymore.”
Mary: “Yes, I can send it to you, but if I get rid of the Excel spreadsheet, then I need to keep track of the
balances somewhere. I guess that would be in the database. Can you do that?”
Me: “I’m sure we can. You need to be able to enter a starting balance and then subtract any request from
that balance and add back in any cancellations, correct?”
Mary: “Yes, but we also allow employees to roll over up to five days to the next year. Everything starts
over on January first.”
Me: “We can do that. Now, what about security? Do you need some people to have access to the reports,
and others such as yourself to have access to everything?”
Mary: “I never thought about that but I definitely don’t want Bob to be able to enter the starting bal-
ances. He should only be able to print reports and nothing else.”
Me: “OK, so you need role-based security that allows groups to have either no access, read-only access,
or edit access to screens and execute access to reports.”
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