AUTOMATION OF ENROLLMENT PROCESS

A PROPOSAL TO: XYZ TRAINING INSTITUTION

May 29, 2011

Deborah Obasogie

PM592ON – May 2011 Sec C: Project Cost and Schedule Control

Assignment: Course Project, Part 1 (CP-1)

Table of Contents

Automation of Enrollment Process.............................................................................................................. 1 Executive Summary ...................................................................................................................................... 1 Project Description ....................................................................................................................................... 3 Project High Level Requirements ................................................................................................................. 5

Functional Requirements ......................................................................................................................... 5 Nonfunctional Requirements................................................................................................................... 5 Technical Requirements ........................................................................................................................... 5 Project Deliverables ................................................................................................................................. 6

Work Breakdown Structure ......................................................................................................................... 6 Cost Estimates .............................................................................................................................................. 6 Advanced Cost Estimating ............................................................................................................................ 7 Cost Assumptions ......................................................................................................................................... 8 Financial Analysis ......................................................................................................................................... 9 Schedule ....................................................................................................................................................... 9 Appendix A ................................................................................................................................................. 10 Appendix B.................................................................................................................................................. 14 Appendix C .................................................................................................................................................. 15 Appendix D ................................................................................................................................................. 16 Appendix E .................................................................................................................................................. 17 Appendix F .................................................................................................................................................. 18 Appendix G ................................................................................................................................................. 20 Appendix H ................................................................................................................................................. 21 Appendix I ................................................................................................................................................... 22 Appendix J .................................................................................................................................................. 23

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Automation of Enrollment Process

Executive Summary

XYZ Training Institute is a new company that provides training in subject areas including

Project Management, Microsoft Products, Java and C++. XYZ is considered a career college

and offers programs through flexible and innovative learning methods that lead to a certificate.

Traditional classroom instruction and online instruction are available.

Computer training classes are taught in a 3-floor story building in Townville, AB. XYZ

has 200 enrolled students and a 20-person staff consisting of: President, Greg Defeo; Director,

JoAnne Kline; Registrar, Jim Logan; Coordinator, Barry Rigler; Scheduler, Ann Archibald; an

Administrator, Advisor, Account Executive, Instructors (10 staff members), Marketing (1 staff

member) and 2 support staff (facilities and maintenance). Staff members will assume the roles

of Project Sponsor, Customer, and Subject Matter Experts on the project team. XYZ is

accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE).

XYZ’s mission is to empower its students to succeed in today's dynamic world by

integrating IT training and professional skills into a sound career-focused education that provides

the life skills necessary for students to realize their full potential and career goals.

Through XYZ, nontraditional students prepare for direct entry into the workforce and

take advantage of shorter, more flexible evening schedules. XYZ also helps those currently in the

workforce obtain additional education for career advancement.

XYZ has a conglomeration of different systems and procedures (as well as hardware and

software) designed specifically for departmental needs. Employee records (including payroll,

medical and other benefits) are held by Human Resources. Financial data and processing

(including payroll computations, employee compensation, invoicing and billing for products and

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services) are held by the Finance Department. Student data, from the enrollment process

(identify, retain, anticipate the needs and wants of students) are held by the Registrar Office.

Currently the Registrar Office uses MS Excel to track student enrollments. To stay

competitive in this industry, the department has identified a need for an automated system that

will streamline tracking of their student data and also be accurate and secure.

XYZ is looking to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of student data by 80% within

one year and to expand customer base by 60% by year end. In addition to a positive NPV, the

project would result in intangible benefits such as increase customer satisfaction and reliability

of student data.

The project Budget is $460,000. All funding is provided by XYZ. Solutions Consultants

will assist XYZ with this six-month implementation.

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Project Description

The objective of the project is to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of student data

by 80 percent in one year and expand their customer base by 60 percent by year end. XYZ would

like to:

1. Process tracking data such as student enrollment, historic information, and student

performance.

2. Have the ability to manage courses, students, and class information.

3. Be able to perform analysis on student data.

XYZ is a new company that provides training various subject areas. They have 200

enrolled students and a staff of twenty. The Registrar Office current system is in an Excel

spreadsheet. There is no data backup leaving staff and students with no historical data tracking.

The system is unable to effectively share, manage, store, or report on student data. There are no

means to manage the data, thus data is prone to being lost and there is a high probability of data

entry errors. The current system lacks any kind of security which leaves the entire system and

users at risk.

XYZ would like to automate the enrollment process in order to stay competitive in their

industry. In order to do this they will need to upgrade the flat file system that is currently in use

to an automated system that will give them the ability to systematically perform specific and

daily functions and streamline tracking of student data.

The project will increase business for XYZ. It will do this by making it easy to provide

information to potential students about the classes being offered. This will also be accomplished

by allowing XYZ to track the demographics for students enrolled in offered courses. This will

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allow marketing to be targeted more effectively by increasing the chances that potential students

will choose to enroll in courses offered.

The project will increase customer satisfaction. The primary way the project will affect

current customers is that they will enjoy a streamlined enrollment process as they take their

courses. Another source of customer satisfaction is that XYZ will be able to track courses that

are popular and those that aren’t. This will allow them to make sure that popular courses are

offered regularly and the unpopular ones are offered rarely or even completely removed from the

course offerings. The increased customer satisfaction will come from knowing that XYZ offers

courses that customers want.

The project will increase the reliability of student data. Currently the Registrar Office is

using a spreadsheet to track customers. This presents a huge risk of data loss through inadvertent

overwriting of cells in the file, accidental deletion of the file, or even a computer crash

corrupting the file. Creating a relational database system (RDBMS) will increase the data

reliability exponentially. The database can easily be backed up. In the event of a small data

issue for example, a repair could be as simple as restoring the portion of corrupted data from the

backup instead of having to restore everything such as would be the case with a spreadsheet.

The goals of the project are:

1. To make it easy to enroll students, track enrollments, and run reports to strategize the

offerings in the future.

2. To make it easy to provide information to the potential students.

3. To run reports to assist in marketing to the right audience.

Critical success factors:

1. Develop an automated system that will provide:

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a. A process to enroll students and track their enrollments.

b. A process to run reports that identify “what kind of students take what classes”.

c. A process to “provide information to the potential students”.

d. A mechanism that stores and manages the student data (course, student and class

information). For specific field details of student data see Appendix A.

The new system will solve the current system problems by providing sharing and storing

of student data, reporting on student data, and management of student data (course, student, and

class information). Additionally it will provide data security, data backup and minimize data lost

and data entry errors. Making this a centralized web application will make updating and

retrieving student data easier and will increase the integrity of the data.

The project budget will be $460,000. All funding will be provided by the customer, XYZ

Training Institute.

Project High Level Requirements

Functional Requirements

For functional requirements see Appendix B.

Nonfunctional Requirements

For nonfunctional requirements see Appendix C.

Technical Requirements

For technical requirements see Appendix D. With respect to the identified technical

requirements, XYZ has proposed to use the Kuali Foundation’s open source software suite as a

basis for developing the web application. To support the use of this software, the following

software products are required as per documentation at the Kuali web site.

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Microsoft Server 2010 or Linux

Postgres SQL 8.4

Postgres Plus add-ons

EnterpriseDB

ApachePHP

PHP BB

PHP pg Admin

Project Deliverables

For project deliverables see Appendix E.

Work Breakdown Structure

The Work breakdown Structure (WBS) is the basic tool used in project planning. It

breaks the project down into the main components of work required to complete the project. Our

project is broken down into four major components. The Project Charter, Project Plan and the

analysis of the requirements and environment (infrastructure, hardware, software, user profiles)

are includes in the Analysis component. The largest component, Design and Build includes all

tasks meeting XYZ’s critical success factors (process to enroll students and track their

enrollments, process to run reports that identify “what kind of students take what classes”,

process to “provide information to potential students”, and mechanism that stores and manages

the student data). The third component, Test and Train includes testing and training tasks.

Deploy is responsible for installing the solution into production. For the WBS see Appendix F.

Cost Estimates

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The use of historical data and expert advice is the best approach for this project.

Historical data will provide the project team with updated knowledge of the prices of parts,

services, and the development of the project schedule. Expert advice (Kuali Foundation’s staff)

will be utilized in conjunction with the development of the project schedule and with informing

XYZ during scope change requests. These techniques have been chosen because it allows the

project team to remain focus on the project itself. Also, the experts will serve as an additional

support system during meetings and throughout the project process.

The total estimated cost for the project is $458,792.00 and it can be completed anywhere

from 5 to 6 months. The code is provided by the Kuali Foundation because they have a similar

module in their software suite that accommodates most of XYZ’s functionality and screen

navigation. They will help us customize it to meet XYZ’s requirements.

Labor, materials and overhead costs are included in our $460k budget. Upfront costs

(licenses, customization, training, and implementation) will cost approximately $17,200.

Materials costs (servers, software, storage devices, etc.) required will cost approximately

$102,400. Labor will cost about $340,000. The system engineer will cost $55/hour, the database

administrator will cost $50/hour, developers (2) costs will cost $70/hour and $60/hour, the

software tester will cost $40/hour, the help desk/tech support will cost $30/hour, the trainer will

cost $35/hour, and the project manager costs will cost $100/hour; all are variable cost. The

performance will be done Monday through Friday. For costs for each task and total estimated

costs see Appendix G.

Advanced Cost Estimating

To get the cost estimates for the project, the Project Evaluation Review Technique

(PERT) is used to derive task duration estimations. Using optimistic, most likely, and

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pessimistic estimates for each task, the expected duration is calculated which is then used to

calculate the estimated cost per task. For PERT analysis see Appendix H.

Cost Assumptions

Three prominent project assumptions include:

1. There is a business need to develop a student management system.

2. All courses are owned by XYZ Training Institute.

3. Research supports automation would be beneficial to XYZ Training Institute.

Although the project is utilizing both historical data and expert advice, there is no prior

historical data specific to the exact requirements identified with this effort, however, our Project

Managers are very knowledgeable and experience in software development and has generalized

costs across the board.

Time, hardware, and cost are variable, as changes are inevitable. Resource management is

more difficult in a short duration project because of the time constraint. As deliverables must be

delivered within the short period of time, it may cause the allocation of extra resources or more

over time. In addition, risks and constraints are not represented in the estimated costs, but will

identify and provide mitigation plans in the Project Charter. All of which could have an effect on

the triple constraint – score, time and cost (and quality). Arising issues impacting the project will

be presented to XYZ to review along with a revised plan for their decision to cancel or move

ahead.

Although XYZ found substantial costs reduction by adopting open source, risk includes

the absence of a formal open source policy in place and additional costs in man hours to support

system. It is assumed that XYZ has their own IT staff that will keep software updated, ensure

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security patches and virus updates are done and can do maintenance updates and checks on

hardware. The project ends after deployment and cost estimates are only to that point. It is

recommended that XYZ move forward with having a formal Open Source Solution (OSS) policy

in place.

Financial Analysis

Net Present Value (NPV) is used to determine how profitable a proposed project will be

to XYZ. The results is a present value higher than the investment, a positive NPV investment

that would add value to XYZ. Cash flows represent forecasted revenues minus operating

expenses for the next five years. In addition to a positive NPV, the project would result in

intangible benefits such as increase customer satisfaction and reliability of student data.

Calculations include the initial $460,000 cost as one of the values because the payment occurs at

the end of the first period. For NPV calculations see Appendix I.

Schedule

This section depicts the WBS and the software development phases consisting of

analysis, design and build, test and train, and deploy. The schedule shows tasks, task

relationships (dependencies), task durations and resources assigned to each task. Also included is

a Gantt chart schedule showing the time line for the project. The project has 50 tasks, 147 days

durations, 6,014.4 work hours (many concurrent hours), 38 dependencies and resources (8

external (Resource Group: Solutions Consultants and Kuali) and 12 internal (resource Group:

SME)). For the schedule with Gantt chart, tasks, task relationships, task duration, and task

resources see Appendix J.

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Appendix A

Data to be Held and Managed

Student Information:

Name First

Last

Address(es) Street

City

State

Zip

Social security number

Marital Status

Birthday

Phone(s)

Emails(s)

Emergency contact(s) Name

Phone

Race

Religion

Gender

Citizenship

Education(s) Degree

Major

Completion year

Institution

Name

Address

Street

City

State

Zip

Occupation(s)

Employer(s) Name

Address Street

City

State

Zip

Vehicle(s) Year

Make

Model

Plate state

Plate number

Certificate program

Financial aid lender

Work study employer

Student Enrollment Information:

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Enrollment date(s)

Course Offerings (classes) Session Month

Year

Session Period Start date

End date

Day

Time Start time

End time

Instructor

Room

Grade(s)

Course Information:

Number

Title

Description

Prerequisite(s)

Credit hours

Instructor Information:

Name First

Last

Address(es) Street

City

State

Zip

Social security number

Marital Status

Birthday

Phone(s)

Emails(s)

Emergency contact(s) Name

Phone

Race

Religion

Gender

Citizenship

Education(s) Degree

Major

Completion year

Institution

Name

Address

Street

City

State

Zip

Occupation(s)

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Employer(s) Name

Address Street

City

State

Zip

Facility Information:

Location Address

Street

City

State

Zip

Room number

Room capacity

Marketing Information:

Student Information:

Name First

Last

Address(es) Street

City

State

Zip

Social security number

Marital Status

Birthday

Phone(s)

Emails(s)

Emergency contact(s) Name

Phone

Race

Religion

Gender

Citizenship

Education(s) Degree

Major

Completion year

Institution

Name

Address

Street

City

State

Zip

Occupation(s)

Employer(s) Name

Address Street

City

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State

Zip

Vehicle(s) Year

Make

Model

Plate state

Plate number

Certificate program

Financial aid lender

Work study employer

Student Enrollment Information:

Enrollment date(s)

Course Offerings (classes) Session Month

Year

Session Period Start date

End date

Day

Time Start time

End time

Instructor

Room

Grade(s)

Course Information:

Number

Title

Description

Prerequisite(s)

Credit hours

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Appendix B

Functional Requirements

In Scope Out of scope

1. Tracking, historic information and analysis of student data:

a. System should enroll students and track student

enrollments.

b. System should keep and access last two years and going

forward history. History information consists of the

student, enrollment and course information listed above.

c. System should supply Marketing with the student

information for their purposes.

2. System should provide the following formatted reports:

a. Course offerings (Course Offerings Report).

b. List of students for each class (Enrollment Report).

c. List of all the classes that a student has taken and is

registered currently (Grades and Student History Reports).

Student payments.

Company’s vendors.

3 other student

performance reports

(to be completed in a

separate project.)

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Appendix C

Nonfunctional Requirements

In Scope Out of scope

1. Performance: System must accommodate 2500 concurrent

users.

2. Security: Every user of system must have personal login to see

and use system.

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Appendix D

Technical Requirements

Technical Requirement ID Name Description

TR001 Uptime The system must maintain a 99.999% uptime rate.

TR002 Concurrent Logon The system must have the capability of allowing

multiple simultaneous logons

TR003 Auditing The system must log usage for security auditing

purposes

TR004 Open Source software Whenever possible, open source software should be

utilized to reduce licensing purchase and renewal

costs

TR005 Database software Database software should be chosen that is open

source if possible. The software must support load

balancing between multiple database servers

TR006 Web Application Server

software

Open source application server software for the web

server should be chosen where possible. This may

be impacted by the choice of programming language

for the web interface and the middleware layer of

the application

TR007 Storage A data storage solution must be chosen that is fault

tolerant

TR008 Backup A backup solution must be chosen that will allow

nightly backups of the database. The solution must

provide a portable format for offsite storage. The

source code and compiled packages for the

developed solution must be backed up and stored

offsite at initial code freeze and whenever an

enhancement is coded to the system

TR009 Server Hardware Server hardware must meet minimum requirements

for the chosen software. Ideally the hardware will

meet “recommended” requirements as per the

software documentation and allow for future

expansion.

TR010 User Hardware User machines should be capable of running current

versions of major web browsers that support the

Google Web Toolkit version 1.5

TR011 Network Hardware XYZ’s networking infrastructure must be able to

handle the increased traffic from faculty and

students accessing the web application

TR012 Network Security Applicable portions of the application will be

exposed to the Internet to allow potential students to

access content. Firewalls and other network

security features must be implemented to support

this and prevent security failures

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Appendix E

Project Deliverables

Event or Deliverable Target Date Responsibility

Project charter completed June 15, 2011 Project Manager

Project charter approved June 17, 2011 Project Sponsor, Customer

Project plan completed June 22, 2011 Project Manager

Project plan approved June 24, 2011 Project Sponsor, Customer, Subject Matter

Experts

Project team assembled June 20, 2011 Project Manager

Project execution initiated June 22, 2011 Project Manager

RDBMS Data Model design July 30, 2011 Project Manager, Development team

Web GUI Interface July 30, 2011 Project Manager, Development team

Process to enroll students and

track their enrollments

Oct 12, 2011 Project Manager, Development team

Report Process that identifies

“what kind of students take

what classes”

Dec 15, 2011 Project Manager, Development tea.

Process to “provide information

to the potential students”

Dec 15, 2011 Project Manager, Development team

Mechanism to store and

manage data

Oct 15, 2011 Project Manager, Development team

Training on new system Dec 13, 2011 Project Sponsor, Customer, Subject Matter

Experts, Trainer

Project execution completed Dec 27, 2011 Project Manager

Project closed out Dec 30, 2011 Project Manager

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Appendix F

WBS

WBS Task Name

1 Automate Enrollment Process

1.1 Analysis

1.1.1 Complete charter and plan

1.1.1.1 Complete and approve Project Charter

1.1.1.2 Complete and approve Project Plan

1.1.2 Analysis of requirements and environment

1.1.2.1 Analyze and set up infrastructure

1.1.2.2 Analyze and set up hardware

1.1.2.3 Analyze and set up Kuali Foundation software

1.1.2.4 Analyze and set up profile

1.2 Design and Build

1.2.1 Process to enroll students and track their enrollments

1.2.1.1 RDBMS Data Model design

1.2.1.2 Design and Build web GUI interface

1.2.1.3 Student enrollment process

1.2.2 Process to run reports that identify “what kind of students take what classes”

1.2.2.1 Design and build defined reports

1.2.2.2 Design and build analysis data

1.2.2.3 Output data for viewing

1.2.3 Process to “provide information to potential students”

1.2.3.1 Build course catalog view

1.2.3.2 Build course offerings view

1.2.3.3 Build enrollment list view

1.2.3.4 Build defined reports view

1.2.3.5 Build student history view

1.2.3.6 Build analysis data view

1.2.3.7 Build grades view

1.2.4 Mechanism that stores and manages the student data

1.2.4.1 Store and manage student information

1.2.4.2 Store and manage course information

1.2.4.3 Create course catalog

1.2.4.4 Create course offerings

1.2.4.5 Create enrollment list

1.2.4.6 Store and manage instructor information

1.2.4.7 Select class to teach

1.2.4.8 Submit student grades

1.2.4.9 Store student history

1.2.4.9.1 Store student data

1.2.4.9.2 Restore student data

1.2.4.10 Secure data with user profiles

1.3 Test and train

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1.3.1 Test process to enroll students and track their enrollments

1.3.2 Test process to run reports that identify “what kind of students take what classes”

1.3.3 Test process to “provide information to potential students”

1.3.4 Test mechanism that stores and manages the student data

1.3.5 Test nonfunctional requirements

1.3.6 Test technical requirements

1.3.7 Train on new system

1.4 Deploy

1.4.1 Implement solution to production

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Appendix G

Cost Estimates

Task Name Cost

Complete and approve Project Charter $4,133.33

Complete and approve Project Plan $4,000.00

Analyze and set up Infrastructure $43,620.00

Analyze and set up hardware $42,280.00

Analyze and set up Kuali Foundation software $116,300.00

Analyze and set up profile $2,200.00

RDBMS Data Model design $19,253.33

Design and Build web GUI interface $17,733.33

Student enrollment process $65,232.00

Design and build defined reports $10,800.00

Design and build analysis data $20,000.00

Output data for viewing $1,320.00

Build course catalog view $3,600.00

Build course offerings view $3,200.00

Build enrollment list view $3,600.00

Build defined reports view $3,200.00

Build student history view $3,600.00

Build analysis data view $3,200.00

Build grades view $3,600.00

Store and manage student information $4,066.67

Store and manage course information $4,000.00

Create course catalog $6,400.00

Create course offerings $7,200.00

Create enrollment list $6,400.00

Store and manage instructor information $4,000.00

Select class to teach $3,720.00

Submit student grades $3,306.67

Store student data $4,000.00

Restore student data $4,000.00

Secure data with user profiles $4,200.00

Test process to enroll students and track their enrollments $3,800.00

Test process to run reports that identify “what kind of students take what classes” $3,800.00

Test process to “provide information to potential students” $3,800.00

Test mechanism that stores and manages the student data $3,800.00

Test nonfunctional requirements $5,026.67

Test technical requirements $5,026.67

Training on new system $2,600.00

Implement solution to production $8,773.33

Total Estimated Cost:

$458,792.00

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Appendix H

PERT Analysis

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Appendix I

NPV

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Appendix J

Schedule

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