Staff Self-Service Systems

Assignment Brief
1. Write a brief paper providing an overview and discussion of Staff Self-Service Systems
2. Design a relational database structure for such a system, based on the Scenario provided
3. Submit a report comprising 1. & 2. in hard and soft-copy by Monday 2 June 2014, 10:00am
Contents
1. Detailed Task Description
2. Scenario
3. Interview transcript
4. Sample Documentation
Buckingham University: Business School: BIS 1, Assignment 1, Spring 2014
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Detailed Task Description
Please address the following tasks:
1. Describe the concept of Staff-Self-Service Systems, outlining and discussing their advantages and disadvantages (30 marks) (1-2 pages)
? Please focus on these systems in general and not just to the specific system outlined in the accompanying scenario
? Use in-text citation to the sources you have used
? Your description and discussion should be insightful and succinct, not exceeding one page (excluding Bibliography)
2. Develop an Entity Definition Matrix of the Staff Self-Service System outlined in the accompanying scenario (20 marks) (1 page)
? Analyse all the accompanying information about the scenario to identify entities that should form part of the database design
? While considerable background information is provided, concentrate on the Timesheet relevant elements, i.e. project administration data is only relevant if required for timesheet processing
? Make assumptions where necessary and state them explicitly
3. Identify the Business Rules of the system outlined in the scenario (20 marks) (1 page)
? Analyse all the accompanying information about the scenario to identify Timesheet processing related conventions or rules to reflect in the database design
? Make assumptions where necessary and state them explicitly
4. Design a Data Model of the system outlined in the scenario, including attributes, relationships, and indicating Primary Keys (PKs) and Foreign Keys (FKs) (30 marks) (1-2 pages)
? Analyse all the scenario information provided to identify the relationships between timesheet relevant entities making up the database design
? Make assumptions where necessary and state them explicitly
? Use MS PowerPoint software to create the data model and import the slides into your Word document
? Make sure that your Data Model is consistent with the Entity Definition Matrix and Business Rules you create for step 2 and 3 above
Further Information:
Referencing It is important that you reference your sources and CITE THE REFERENCES WITHIN THE TEXT where you use the related information. As an example: if you state a particular benefit of Self-Service systems or someone else’s argument, we want to know where you found this in order to be able to find the relevant source to obtain more detail. It is expected that you will use at least three different, quality sources as the basis for your report. Please make a sound judgement as to what is considered likely to be a quality source. Use the Harvard Referencing Style for your citations.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is a form of academic misconduct and will not be tolerated. While it is important that you identify relevant information from your sources, you should use it to shape or support your specific argument, with appropriate rewording. Any form of cutting and pasting’ will be considered plagiarism. As indicated in the University Handbook, cases of plagiarism will be reported to the Chairman of the Board of Examiners and sanctions will apply. Please familiarise yourself with the section on plagiarism in the University Handbook.
Team-work
The assignment is an individual project and copying from others will be considered plagiarism
Submission
You are asked to submit one hard-copy version and one soft-copy version of your work. Please submit the soft-copy version via Moodle. The firm deadline for submission is Monday, 2 June 2014, 10:00am. Extensions will NOT be given and late submission will incur penalties.
Criteria for Assessment
The assessment of the assignment will be based on the following criteria:
? The Concept of Self-Service Systems: Quality of content, knowledge and understanding of the concept, presentation, grammar & spelling
? The Entity Definition, Business Rules and Data Model: Accuracy, completeness, consistency and quality of the presentation. Please explicitly state all assumptions
Buckingham University: Business School: BIS 1, Assignment 1, Spring 2014
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Scenario
Posh UK Online
A few years ago now, while still at business school, a few friends thought they spotted a gap in the fast-growing consumer market in China for premium regional products, quintessentially English, that might appeal to customers who perceived Western products as more sophisticated and superior in quality to local equivalents.
The business is run through website they developed with a local Web developer (previously a fellow business school BIS/Computer Science student) and has proved remarkably successful, with sales having doubled in the last year alone, and they are set to exceed £5m in Sales in the current year.
Such rapid growth has been challenging, and while they started off running the business from one of the friends’ homes, using the garage as store and workspace, now it operates out of a small office in Milton Keynes. While the friends initially did all the work themselves, juggling this with their studies, they rapidly realised they needed help.
Their first priority was getting an accountant, Right-on-the-Money, who set up a company and keeps their books and records for them. They also needed staff to help, allowing them to get back to their studies. While they recruited a small staff of 3 people, much of the demand is seasonal and they also retained a number of students, mums and retirees (who wanted part time or short term work), to help with packing and shipping orders as and when required, online help support, ongoing website maintenance, etc. This also means that many staff can work from home or offsite. All of which helps keep their overheads tightly under control.
The additional staffing involves a fair bit of administration and while Posh UK Online has approached Right-on-the-Money to look after the legal HR, payroll and tax aspects, it still requires one of their permanent team to coordinate and collect the relevant employee data, keep a record of it and pass it on to their accountants, once one of the owners has approved and signed a contract.
Given the nature of their team, various things that need doing and limited resources, the owners have adopted a project approach to managing activities tightly and pragmatically. This means that tracking time spent by staff, particularly part time or temporary contract staff, is important both for tracking progress and costs, as well as to enable payroll payment to staff. To date this has been handled via a straightforward spreadsheet-based timesheet process, administered by the same permanent staff member who coordinates the rest of the HR/contract data with Right-on-the-Money. A summary is prepared and is reviewed and signed off by the CEO once a month before the data is passed to the accountants, who also cross-check this against their contract records.
This is proving a time-consuming administrative task, re-capturing the data into a consolidated timesheet and project tracking spreadsheet. The odd problem and delay has also occurred with some timesheets being submitted late or being lost, and some spreadsheet errors being picked up either during the CEO review or by the accountants.
The CEO would like to free up his staff member to concentrate on more strategic projects and can see increasing workload and risks likely as they continue to grow and need more staff. There must be a more efficient and effective solution, which will scale better as they grow. At a recent board meeting, one of the team recalled a BIS lecture from Business School days on self-service solutions and they wondered if this might offer a future-proof solution to their challenges and after all, they are an online company!
With this in mind, at the CEO’s recent monthly website review meeting with his Website developer, the CEO has asked that the website developer (acting as business analyst) speak to Sam, the permanent team member responsible for timesheet administration, and revert at the next meeting with a proposed design for an improved, online system that will streamline the related administration.
A transcript of the website developer’s subsequent meeting with Sam, discussing issues and requirements for such a system, is provided on the next page. Some supporting documentation has also been collected during the interview and is included after the transcript.
Buckingham University: Business School: BIS 1, Assignment 1, Spring 2014
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Interview Transcript
Good morning Sam. Trust you are keeping well and you’re happy with our latest web page update?
Hi Chris. Well thanks and yes, the feedback from staff and customers on the new streamlined layout has been great. Far fewer queries on the new online ordering form and much easier to get to it too. The CEO mentioned earlier this week you might pop in and see me, so how can I help you?
Yeah, the CEO has asked me to speak to you about timesheet administration, which I believe you look after. Keen we implement an online system, after all we are an internet company! Wants to streamline the process and free you up to help him with some other urgent and more strategic stuff.
Oh, that would be great! Timesheet admin swallows so much time, especially at month-end, chasing down timesheets from everyone, getting them approved, aggregated, the summary approved and sent across to the guys at Right-On-The-Money in time€¦ They are really strict about their month-end deadlines you know, as they have so much to do then, I guess. It would be good to be able to spend more time on some of the other projects, especially given the new growth targets for next quarter, which will also mean having to contract some additional resources. In fact, it would be great to get a new system up and running pronto! How can I help?
Well, we can certainly try! So, if we could start with you giving me a step by step overview of how timesheets work and what you do each month. I can then ask any clarification questions as we go. Also, can you flag any issues or problems you experience as you run through the process
Ok, that sounds sensible€¦. hmmm€¦ now, where to start?
Perhaps if we started with a new contractor coming on board and getting them up and running on timesheets?
Good idea! Well, it normally starts when we kick of a new project.
As you know, everything here runs as a project, otherwise we’d never keep track of anything or make sure things get done! It helps that I also keep track of all projects. So once a project request is approved, I will record the project name & number, together with the project manager responsible and any available contract-permanent staff allocated to it, total staff budget cost, start date and end date. Basically as per the project request form. Thought you might want a copy, so I’ve printed one for you.
[See Sample Documentation Section]
And where do you capture this information?
Oh, I keep it in a separate project sheet within my overall Time & People Cost Tracking Excel workbook, where I also summarise all the timesheet data at the end of the month. I find it works to keep it all together in one place. Hate to think where I’d be without Excel to help keep track of everything€¦
Ok, so once a project has been approved and you’ve captured the project and available staff details. What then?
Well, where we need to get a contractor involved, I’ll normally contact them to confirm availability (in case the project manager hasn’t spoken to them yet) and then send them a new contract, and I capture the relevant details onto a separate staff contract sheet in the same Excel workbook.
Buckingham University: Business School: BIS 1, Assignment 1, Spring 2014
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Interview Transcript (continued)
Can you just clarify for me what contract data you capture? And what you do with the contracts?
If they are an existing contractor, I just insert a new row under their existing spreadsheet entry for the new contract, and copy across their existing staff number (everyone has a unique staff number, which is allocated by Right-On-The-Money, without which you cannot get paid!). Then I capture the contract start and end date (normally the same as the project dates) as well as the contract rate. This is typically the same as their old rate unless the CEO gives them an increase (usually we review these annually in one go rather than contract by contract). If there is a change in rate though, I’ll alert Right-On-The-Money and send them a copy of the contract, otherwise I’ll just retain the signed contracts here in my physical contracts file (filed by employee, alphabetically). They rely on us to make sure valid contracts are in place and people are only charging time in accordance with those contracts. They just need to know the rate to use and time charged and they will do the rest, as they already have all their tax and payment details.
And is it the same for new contractors?
Well, more or less. For new contractors, I’ll first send through the new contract to Right-On-The-Money, who will get in touch with the contractor directly to get the necessary tax and NI details from them. I won’t be able to create a row in my staff contract sheet for them without an employee number, which they will only send me once they have all the tax details they need to pay them.
[Laughs] So I guess providing the necessary tax details is really important for new contractors, otherwise they cannot get paid.
[Laughs too] Exactly! So contractors tend to be on the ball about this aspect€¦
So, if that’s the project initiation and contract side covered, can you describe the monthly timesheet process then?
Yes, that’s the upfront stuff covered, except for the odd subsequent change to extend project or contract timeframes, etc. although these involve similar approvals and spreadsheet updates.
Now as for timesheets, from a contractor point of view this is fairly straightforward. They need to complete a timesheet form (an Excel sheet) and email it to me by the 25th of each month. I then copy their timesheet line items (normally one row for each project) from their spreadsheet to my monthly aggregate sheet in the Excel workbook. Once these are consolidated, I email the sheet around to the various project managers for them to approve their project line items, or to flag line items as queried and being followed up (normally with a very short explanation added). Payment is held up on queried line items until project managers revert but the pressure is on to resolve them and revert with any approved changes so I can finalise the overall list and get CEO approval and submit to Right-On-The-Money by the 28th so that they can do the payroll and related bank processing. It’s a really tight few days and can be a nightmare if any project managers are travelling€¦ but we normally manage somehow [laughs]€¦
Wow, it certainly sounds like it! You probably have to lock yourself away at month-end to get it all done. I can see why the CEO wants to improve this. So can you explain a bit more about the timesheets themselves and the detail you capture in them?
Certainly! I thought you might want to see a timesheet, so I’ve printed a blanck one for you to take. [see the Sample Documentation section]. I can step you through this briefly too if you’d like.
Buckingham University: Business School: BIS 1, Assignment 1, Spring 2014
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Interview Transcript (continued)
Yes, that would be really useful, thanks.
As you can see from the timesheet, it is really quite simple and straightforward.
First they need to fill in their Employee ID reference they’ll have received from, their name and the month the timesheet relates to. Then for each project they need to complete a line, capturing the hours worked each day. As you can see there are columns for 31 days and they just use the cells that apply, leaving the others blanck. Contractors may often have loads of blancks.
Even the permanent staff sometimes have blancks due to non-project work, admin. etc., although they do record annual and sick leave as a separate line items, which I track on a separate sheet against their leave entitlement and send to Right-On-The-Money separately. They get approval from their project managers or the CEO for actually taking annual leave in terms of work impact but I review the totals with the CEO every quarter too.
Ok that sounds reasonably straightforward. I just wanted to confirm€¦ it sounds like staff can work on multiple projects at the same time then?
Yes that’s right, in any one month they can work on several, although rarely on more than two at the same time. Even project managers rarely have more than three or four projects on the go at once. As you know our CEO is generally keen on finishing one thing first before committing to another. The project managers get together once a week to coordinate shared resources but that doesn’t really impact on me unless there is a change to project completion dates, budget or contract end dates that comes out of the meeting.
So, that’s all of them then?
Hmmm€¦ let me think€¦
Actually, I almost forgot, the project managers periodically ask me to pull together their staff costs for their projects, which are the main element of project costs. I really wish they would do this themselves! After all they get the monthly summary sheets, it’s just a question of collating their information from these. I suppose I’m just too helpful€¦ although I leave these for when I have more time during the month, certainly not at month end!
Great, that sounds like everything I need right now. If you don’t mind I may come back to you to confirm some details and run the proposed outline design past you, before I present it to next website review meeting. If you think of any other burning issues or something else that may streamline the process and make your life easier in the mean time just drop me an email.
Certainly will do. I look forward to catching up to review your proposal! If we can get something in place in time for getting new people on board later this year that will be great!
As you’ve described the process you’ve mentioned a few reports or outputs that you generate. Can you summarise them again for me, so that I’m sure I’ve got them all.
Certainly. The main one is obviously the payroll summary for contract staff each month, which comes in two versions: first, the provisional one I send around for project manager approval, and then the final one for CEO approval , which I then forward to Right-On-The-Money.
Then there are some ad hoc reports like the annual and sick leave summary by staff member (for permanent staff) and the overall staff contract listing for the annual rate review€¦
Buckingham University: Business School: BIS 1, Assignment 1, Spring 2014
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Sample Documentation
Here is a copy of the Project Request Form and the manual monthly Timesheet Form obtained during
Chris’ interview with Sam, which Posh UK Online use as described in the interview (see transcript).