THE CUSTOMER SUPPORT SYSTEM

The Rocky Mountain Outfitters system development project is the customer support
system.RMO system has always prided itself on its customer orientation. One of the core
competencies of RMO has been its ability to develop & maintain customer loyalty. John
Blankers has kept himself current on important business concepts & he is fully aware of the
need to develop effective business process with a customer focus. Even though the customer
support system was to include all of the required sales & marketing components he wants
everyone to understand that its primary objective is to support RMO's customer. John's long
held view regarding customers has become popular recently with consultants & software
vendors who call the approach the customer relation management.
The application architecture plan detailed some specific objectives for the customer
support system. The system should include all the functions associated with providing
products for the customer from order entry to arrival of shipment such as:
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
v.
vi.
vii.

Customer enquires/Catalogue requests

Order entry
Order tracking
Shipment
Back Ordering
Returns
Sales Analysis

Customers should be able to order by telephone, through the mail or over the internet.
All catalogue items will also be available through a sophisticated RMO web catalogue which
must be consisted with printed catalogue, so that the customers can browser the printed
catalogue & order at the RMO website. If they choose or search the website for additional
information about items in the printed catalogue.
Order entry processing needs to support the graphical self help size of the web
interface as well as a stream lined, rapid response window interface required for phone sales
representatives and mail order clerks, returns, back orders ,order status also need to be
accessible both on the web and to RMO employees at their desks.
Although some objectives are defined for the system a complete requirement analysis
will define the system in detail. In this objectives only from some guidelines to keep in mind
as the project gets underway.

a)Identify & Analyse Events:

There are 3 types of events :
1. External Events
2. Temporal Events
3. State Events
1.External Events : It is an event that occurs outside the system initiated by an external
person.
Ex: Customer places an order

External events to look for include :

External agent wants something resulting in transaction.

External agent wants some information.
Data changed need to be updated.
Management wants some information.

2.Temporal Events : An event that occurs as a result of reaching a point in time.

Temporal events to look for include :

Internal outputs needed.

Management reports.
Operational reports.
Internal statements and documents.
External outputs needed.
Statements, status reports bills, remainders.

3.State Events : An event that occurs when something happens inside the system that
triggers the need for processing.

Identifying Events :
1.Events versus prior conditions and response.
2.Sequence of events : Tracing a transaction life cycle, Identifying events to trace the
sequence of events that might occur for a specific external agent.
3.Technology dependent event and system control.

RMO's Customer Support System Events :

External Events :
1. Customer places an order.
2. Customer wants to check item availability.
3. Customer changes or cancels order.
4. Merchentising updates catalogue.
5. Customer or management wants to check order status.
6. Shipping fulfils order.
7. Shipping identifies back order.
8. Customer returns item.
9. Prospective customer request catalogue.
10. Customer updates account information.
11. Marketing wants to send promotional materials to customers.
12. Management adjusts customer charges.
13. Merchentising creates special product promotion.
14. Merchentising creates new catalogue.
Temporal Events :
1. Time to produce order summary reports.
2. Time to produce transaction summary reports.

3.
4.
5.
6.

Time to produce fulfilment summary report.

Customer activity reports.
Customer adjustment or concession reports.
Catalogue activity report.

b)Identifying Use Cases :

Use Case : It is an activity performed by a system in response to an event.
Use cases are identified using 3 techniques :
1. CRUD(Create, Read, Update, Delete) technique
2. Event decomposition technique
3. User goal technique

Steps for identifying Use cases :

1.Think of the system as a black box - What events would it be required to respond to. It
involves examining the scope of the system without considering into internal workings.
2.Consider events triggered inside the system.

RMO's Use cases :

1. Creates new order
2. Look up item availability
3. Update order
4. Update catalogue
5. Look up order status
6. Record order fulfilment
7. Record back order
8. Create return order
9. Provide catalogue information
10. Update customer account
11. Distribute promotional package
12. Create customer charge adjustment
13. Create special promotion
14. Create new catalogue

c)Develop Event Table:

1.Event table contains rows and columns representing events and their details.
2.Each row in the event table records information about 1 event and its usecase.
3.Each column in the table represents a piece of information about the event and usecase.

EVT
1

Customer wants to
check item
availability

SOURCE

USECASE

RESPONC
E

DESTINATI
ON

customer

Look up
item
availabili
ty

item
availability
details

customer

TRIGGER
Item
inquiry

Customer places an
order

New order

customer

Create
new
order

Customer changes
or cancels order

Order
change
request

customer

Update
order

Time to produce
order summary
reports

Time to produce
transaction
summary reports

End of
week,
month,
quarter
and year
End of
day

Customer or
management wants
to check order
status.
Shipping fulfills
order

Order
status
inquiry

Shipping identifies
back order

back order

shipping

Customer returns
items

Customer

10

Time to produce
fulfillment summary
reports

Order
return
notice
End of
week,
month,
quarter
and year

11

Prospective
customer request
catalog
Time to produce
Prospective
customer activity
reports

Catalog
request

Prospective
customer

12

Order
fulfillment
notice

End of
month

Produce
order
summar
y reports

Customer
or
manageme
nt
shipping

produce
transacti
on
summar
y reports
Look up
order
status
Record
order
fulfillmen
t
Record
back
order
Create
order
return
produce
fulfillmen
t
summar
y
reports
Provide
catalog
info
produce
Prospecti
ve
custome
r activity
reports

Real time
link order
conformatio
n order
details
transaction
Change
conformatio
n order
change
details
transaction
Order
summary
reports

Credit bureau
customer
shipping bank

transaction
summary
reports

Accounting

Order status
details

Customer or
management

back order
notification

Customer

Return
confirmation
transaction
fulfillment
summary
reports

Customer
bank

catalog

Prospective
customer

Prospective
customer
activity
reports

Marketing

Customer
shipping bank

Management.

Management

13

Customer updates
account information

Customer
account
update
notice
Promotion
package
details

Customer

14

Marketing wants to
send promotional
materials to
customers

15

Management
adjusts customer
charges

customer
charge
adjustment

manageme
nt

16

Time to produce
customer
adjustment/concessi
on reports

end of
month

17

Merchandising
updates catalog

Merchandisi
ng

18

Merchandising
creates special
product promotion

Catalog
update
details
Special
promotion
details

19

Merchandising
creates new catalog

Merchandisi
ng

20

Tim to produce
catalog activity
reports

New
catalog
details
End of
month

marketing

Merchandisi
ng

Update
Custome
r
account
Distribut
e
Promotio
nal
package
Create
custome
r charge
adjustme
nt
Produce
custome
r
adjustme
nt
reports
Up load
catalog
Create
special
promotio
n
Create
new
dialog
produce
catalog
activity
reports

Promotional
package

Customer and
prospective
customer

charge
adjustment
notification
transaction

Customer
bank

Customer
adjustment
reports

Management

Catalog

Customer and
prospective
customer
Merchandising

catalog
activity
reports

d)Identify and Analyse Domain Classes:

Procedure for developing an Initial list of things:
Step-1:Using the event table and information about each event, identify all the nouns.
Ex: Customer, order, item, catalogue, management, shipping, marketing,
merchandising, reports, prospective customer, promotional materials, customer
account, back order, return, return conformation, concession report, bank.
Step-2:Using order information from existing systems, current procedures and current reports
or forms add items or categories of information needed.
Step-3:Refine the list and record assumptions or issues to explore. The questions to decide
whether to include the noun or not.

 Is it the unique thing the system needs to know?

Is it inside the scope of the system?
Does the system need to remember more than one of the items?
The questions to decide whether to exclude the noun or not
Is it a synonym for other thing which is identified?
Is it an output of the system produced from other information?
Is it an input that results in recording some other information?

Develop Elaborate Usecase Description and Scenarios:

There are 3 types of descriptions
1. Brief Description
2. Intermediate description
3. Fully Developed description
Brief Description for Create New Order:
When the customer calls to order, the order clerk and system verify customer information,
create a new order, add items to the order; verify payment, create the order transaction and
finalize the order.
Intermediate Description:
Intermediate description of the telephone order for create new order.
Main Flow:
1. Customer calls RMO gets order clerk.
2. Order clerk verifies customer information. If a new customer invoke maintain
customer account information usecase to add new customer.
3. Clerk initiates the creation of new order.
4. Customer initiates the creation of new order.
5. Customer requests an item be adds to the order.
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 until all the items are added to the order.
7. Customer indicates end of order, clerk enters end of order, system computes total.
8. Customer submits payment, clerk enters amount, system verifies payment.
9. System finalizes order.
Exception Conditions:
1. If an item is not in stock, then customer can
a) Choose not to purchase item or
b) Request item be added or back order item.
2. If customer payment is rejected due to bad credit verification then
a) Order is cancelled
b) Order is put on hold until check is received.

Fully Developed Description:

Usecase Name: Create new order

Scope:- Scenario: Create new telephone order
Triggering Event: Customer telephones RMO to purchase items from the catalogue.

Brief Description:
When the customer calls to order, the order clerk and system verify customer information,
create a new order, add item to the order, verify payment, create the order transaction and
finalize the order.
Actor: Clerk telephone sales clerk
Related use case: Check(look up) item availability - INCLUDES
Stakeholders: (Customer, Clerk), Sales department, shipping department, marketing
department.
Pre Conditions: Customer exist catalogue, products and inventory items must exist for
requested items.
Post Conditions: Order and order line items must be created.
Order transaction must be created for the order payment.
Inventory items must have the quality on hand updated.
The order must be related to a customer.