A Web-based Datamart application for MS report writing

Rashmi Sahoo

Advisor: Prof. Meiliu Lu

Department of Computer ScienceCalifornia State University Spring 2008

Agenda

Background Requirements

User Requirements System Requirements

General Design Detailed Design Conclusion Future work Reference

Background Description of Problem:

MS program at CSUS requires successful completion of Master Project. Report writing is an integral part of Master project.

Many of the master students have very little or no experience in doing and reporting research.

Project advisors spend considerable amount of time in explaining to students about quality report writing and also correcting the project reports.

There is a need for collections of some good writing examples for references.

Background Cont.

Current Process: All the completed master project reports are archived in

CSUS Library as hard copies.

Limitations of Current Process: Hard copies of the project reports are not easily and

conveniently accessible from everywhere. Not all the sections of a particular project report is suitable. In the current system it’s difficult to find out which sections

of a particular project are useful, without going through the entire report, which could be time consuming.

Background Cont.

Goal of the Project To develop a software system to aid Computer

Science MS students in finding samples of various parts of the project report for their reference in order to write better quality project reports.

Background - Project Cont.

Scope of the system: The students should be able to conduct a search based on

mainly three different criterions: “Subject Area"," Project Advisor, “Components of project report”.

Students should be able to see the comments on each sample posted by the faculty members.

The system allows students to access report samples from anywhere.

This application does not provide the following features: This application stores only the project report components not

the entire project report that is against the Library’s copyright policy.

So, this is not a replacement of current library system.

User Requirements

Two main groups of users:Faculty/Admin UserStudent User

User Requirements Cont.

Faculty/Admin Report Writing Application in Athena server

Students

Student and Faculty/Admin Interface to MS project report writing Application

User Requirements Cont.

Student User Requirements Must be able to search components of the project

report based on three search criterion. area of research, component type, and advisor name.

Must have option to search based on the entire search criterion or some of them, even none.

Must be able to see the comments about each component samples posted by the faculty/admin.

Must be able to post feedbacks and comments about the application in the comment section.

User Requirements Cont.

Admin User Requirements Must be an authorized user to access and manage

the pool of component samples of the project report. Must be able to:

Add new project report components to the samples pool. Remove project report components, which are not relevant

anymore. Modify the existing sample components.

Must be able to add comments to each sample components.

System Requirements

Three-Tier ApplicationClient tier:

Web pages or web browser software which interact with the application.

Middle tier: Application logic Communicate with the db tier and client tier

Database tier: DBMS which supports the operations of the

application

System Requirements Cont.

Three-Tier Architecture

System Requirements Cont.

Implemented using three open source components PHP:

For interfacing to the database and generating dynamic web pages

MySQL database: As the backend for storing the data in the application.

An Apache Web server: To provide HTTP services

System Requirements Cont.

PHPPHP (Personal Hypertext Preprocessor)Widely used Open Source general-purpose

scripting language that is especially suited for Web development.

System Requirements Cont.

PHP Cont. History

Conceived in 1994, by Rasmus Lerdorf. V1 & V2: 1995; V3: 1997; V4: 2000 Latest: 5.2.5

Syntax Simple syntax based on C, Java and Perl Allows developer to dynamically generate pages quickly

without writing a program with lots of commands to output HTML.

System Requirements Cont.

PHP Cont.Some PHP’s Strength

Output Capability Can output images, PDF files and even Flash movies

generated on the fly. Can also easily output any text, such as XHTML and any other

XML file.

Cost It is free

System Requirements Cont. PHP Cont.

Some PHP’s Strength Portability:

Supports a wide range of databases including MySQL, oracle and many more.

Supported on all major operating systems, including Linux, many Unix variants (including HP-UX, Solaris and OpenBSD), Microsoft Windows, and Mac OS X.

It has support for most of the web servers today including Apache, Microsoft Internet Information Server, Personal Web Server, Netscape and many others

System Requirements Cont.

MySQL Open source relational database management

system (RDBMS) that uses Structured Query Language (SQL)

A relational database is a collection of relations or tables. A RDBMS is a system that manages data using the relational

model. Information stored in one table can be related to another table

and can be joined to produce answers to the questions that can’t be answered from individual tables alone.

SQL is the language to communicate with DBMS

MySQLSupports all the features supported by the

major database systems. create db and tables insert data delete data select data

System Requirements Cont.

System Requirements Cont.

MySQLKey Features

MySQL is highly scalable and portable database management system.

It is very fast, reliable and easy to use. MySQL offers exceptional security features that

ensure absolute data protection. MySQL server handles large databases much

faster than existing solutions hence ideal for data warehouse.

System Requirements Cont.

MySQLphpMyAdmin:

A tool intended to handle the administration of MySQL over the Web.

It visually displays the contents of the database on the server on which MySQL is installed through a GUI interface.

Eliminates the need for the use of MySQL command prompt.

System Requirements Cont.

phpMyAdmin Homepage:

System Requirements Cont.

MySQLPHPMyAdmin Features:

new databases can be created/dropped new tables can be created existing tables can be dropped/altered table fields can be added/deleted/edited any SQL statement can be executed constraints and key fields can be managed.

System Requirements Cont.

Table Structure Table Contents

phpMyAdmin:

General Design

MySQL Database

Search sample Admin login Comments

logoutadd sample delete/modify sample

Main Menu

Admin Menu

Student Interface

Admin Interface

General Design

Functionality and Access privileges Admin Interface

Authentication is required to use this interface.

Through the administrative interface the user is able to access the administrative privileges

Adding report component samples to the samples pool of the application along with the comments.

modifying and removing existing report samples from the pool.

General Design

Student interface Student user doesn’t have the privileges to

view pages of the admin user. Through the student interface

user is able to search different components of the project report based on different search criterion such as area of research, project advisor, component type etc.

user is also able to post comments and feedbacks about the application in the comment page.

Detailed Design – Work Flow Analysis

Home

Search Sample Admin login Comments

Search Result

Admin home

Comments Result

Add SampleModify/Delete Sample

Logout

Add Sample Result

Modify Sample Result

Delete Sample Result

Student Interface

Admin Interface

Detailed Design Cont. Student Interface:

The home is the index page of the application. Following search sample link user can search for

project report components based on different search criterion

Admin login is the web page for signing in the admin user.

If login fails, an error message is displayed and the user is asked to reenter the correct login and password information.

In the comments page students can leave comments and suggestions about the application.

Detailed Design Cont.

Admin Interface: When successfully logged in, the user will be directed

to the admin home page. In this area the user is able to access the

administrative privileges. The admin can add report component samples to the

samples’ pool of the application following the add sample tab.

The admin also can modify/remove existing report samples from the pool following remove/modify sample hyperlink.

When the admin logs out following the logout hyperlink, the admin user will be directed to the home page.

Detailed Design Cont.

Data Warehouse A data warehouse is the main repository of an

organization's historical data. It focuses on enterprise wide data across many or all

subject area. It contain a snapshot of operational data that helps

management and business people in making decision.

Data Mart A data mart is a specialized version of a data warehouse. Data mart is restricted to a single business group. Union of data marts equals data warehouse.

Detailed Design Cont.

ER Diagram: An Entity-relationship model is a relational schema

database modeling method. It is used to model a system and its requirements in a

top down approach. This approach is commonly used in relational

(RDBMS) database design. The diagrams created using this method are called

ER diagrams.

Detailed Design – ER Diagram

project_idproject_titledate_completed

projectDimension table

component_idcomponent_typecomponent_contentcommentadditional_comment

project_componentDimension table

UserNamePasswordLastNameFirstNameEmail

login

CommentIDNameCommentsDate

comments

advisor_idadvisor_name

advisorDimension table

authorDimension table

author_idauthor_name

research_area_idresearch_area_name

research_areaDimension table

searchFact table

project_id

component_id

research_area_id

advisor_id

author_id

Star Schema Datamart

Detailed Design Cont.

A Star Schema Data Mart: It is the simplest data warehouse schema. It is called a star schema because the entity-

relationship diagram of this schema resembles a star, with points radiating from a central table.

It consists of a set of fact table referencing any number of dimension tables.

Fact tables: Contain the primary information in the data warehouse. Fact tables have a compound primary key consisting of

the aggregate of relevant dimension keys.

Dimension tables: Each dimension table contains information about the

entries for a particular attribute in the fact table. Dimension tables have a simple primary key.

Detailed Design Cont.

Fact Table search

Dimension Tables project project_component research_area advisor Author

Detailed Design Cont.

MS project report writing Application:

A Star Query It is a join between a fact table and a number of

dimension tables. Each dimension table is joined to the fact table using a

primary key to foreign key join, but the dimension tables are not joined to each other.

Example of Star Query:User Input Research area: database Project Component: abstract Project Advisor: Meiliu Lu

Detailed Design Cont.

Detailed Design Cont.

Search Sample Page

Detailed Design Cont.

Query Generated:

“SELECT PJ.project_title, AU.author_name, AD.advisor_name, PC.component_type, PC.component_content, P.date_completed, R.research_area_name

FROM search S

INNER JOIN project PJ ON PJ.project_id = S.project_id INNER JOIN project_component PC ON PC.component_id = S.component_id INNER JOIN research_area R ON R. research_area_id = S. research_area_id INNER JOIN advisor AD ON R.advisor_id = S.advisor_id INNER JOIN author AU ON AU.author_id = S. author_id WHERE

R.research_area_name = “database” AND

PC.component_type = “abstract” AND

AD.advisor_name = Meiliu Lu;”

Detailed Design Cont.

Search Result Page

Conclusion

Valuable learning experience of all the phases of entire software development lifecycle.

Better understanding of Datamart concept. Improvement of report writing skill by going

through different project reports.

Future Work

This application can be extended to be useful for other departments other than computer science.

The search is based on three criterions at this moment, but it can easily be extended to more categories.

In the comment section facilitates adding comment to the entire sample, however it could be broken down easily, so that admin can add comments to different parts of the sample.

Reference Apache, http://www.apache.org MySQL, http://www.mysql.com PHP, http://www.php.net PHPMyAdmin, http://www.phpmyadmin.net

home page

search sample page

admin login page

admin home page

add sample page

add sample result page