The case study

A car leasing company requires an intranet-based management information system to allow for future expansion.

It leases cars to customers for indefinite periods, mainly long term. It purchases the cars initially from a single company that specialises in supplying small leasing firms with cars of their choice (not always brand new).

Once a car has arrived it is entered into stock. It stays in the stock table until it is sold or scrapped.

When a customer leases it, the customer id is entered on the record, the rate for the contract is entered and the date that the contract started is also entered.

When a customer cancels the contract the customer id, rate and start date are deleted from the car record.

The management want to keep track of the cars.

They also require a bulletin board for the staff, to allow individual postings and for a monthly news sheet.

A sideline that the company has is the short-term hire of exotic cars to their existing customers. Occasionally non-lease customers who have been recommended can use this facility. They do not own the cars but have access to a list of cars, with photos, for the customers to choose from. When a decision is made, an email is sent automatically to the specialist owner, who then arranges for the car to be delivered.

Discussions with the owner of the leasing company have resulted in the following specification.

The site should maintain a single URL, i.e. individual pages should not be identified by the browser.

There should be a login in page that allows a name and password to be entered. If the name and password do not match an existing employee, the browser window should be closed.

If the employee has not been to the site before then they should be taken via an entrance tunnel of three pages to the main menu.

If the employee has been to the site before then they should be taken directly to the main menu.

The main menu has seven options the third of which is a car records maintenance menu with two options.

All pages described hereafter should have context sensitive help triggered by double clicking on the page.

 The first option of the main menu is a stock list identifying all the vehicles in the stock list and their current status (Available or Leased).
 The second option of the main menu is an order form for the exotic cars, which checks that a car has been selected and a customer identified before automatically sending an email to the specialist owner.
 The first option of the sub-menu mentioned above is a form to add a car to the stock list.
 The second option of the sub-menu mentioned above is a form to delete a car from the stock list.
 The fourth option of the main menu is an order form to order a car from the company’s supplier.
 The fifth and sixth options of the main menu are management reports.
 The seventh and final option is the bulletin board.

All pages that are descendants of the main menu must contain links back to the parent page.

The company wants all the pages to conform to a corporate "look and feel". It also wants each page containing one or more tables to have a unique style for its table(s).

The context sensitive help pages should be individualistic and friendly, and perhaps whimsical, to reduce anxiety. Each should open in a small window, of specified size and position with, if the browser allows, no toolbars, menus, etc., with the exception of the scrollbars, which should be maintained.