The welcome centre Essay Example for Free

The welcome centre Essay CLM (Christian Life Ministries) is a church based in Coventry City Centre. Being a registered charity, they wanted to look at ways in which they could raise money to help finance its various activities, many of which benefit the local and international community. In 2000, The Welcome Centre was launched, in which a team of people started using the building venue to provide a catering and hospitality service to paying customers, who were looking for somewhere where they could hold conferences and events, hire equipment and to have food served. The customers who pay to use the services of the Welcome Centre are either commercial customers, such as Coventry City Council, local schools or colleges, or other charity-based organisations. Charities would be able to use the facilities at a discounted rate compared to commercial customers. Customers hire the services of The Welcome Centre for many different types of events, from large conferences to training days and small meetings. The Welcome Centre has up to 4 rooms that can be hired (Grace Room, Grace Room 1, The Elegance Suite, The Serenity Suite), and each room has a capacity between 20 and 250 people. As well as hiring a room, customers have the option of hiring additional equipment, such as a data projector, video projector, OHP, PA equipment and Flip Charts. The price for hiring equipment is on a 1/2 day basis. An event may want a variety of catering options too. The Welcome Centre can provide beverages (e. g. tea, coffee, cold drinks), as well as various food options (Finger Buffet, Finger Buffet with Dessert, Hot Buffet with Dessert). Since opening, the success of the organisation has grown rapidly. This is due to the friendliness of the staff, as well as the level of service offered. As a result, the team has grown from 2 to 7 people. They are looking to expand, and with a future building project underway too, they hope to be able to offer even larger facilities for up to 650 people, as well as to grow their existing customer base. PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION As the business is growing, the staff are getting increasingly busier. One of the key problems is that a manual booking system is used. A customer will call or email with a request for a conference. The staff will write down some basic details about the event such as the contacts name, event name and date and time of the conference. They will also ask the customer for the number of delegates, and therefore determine the number and size of rooms required. Catering requirements for food and beverages, as well as the hire of equipment will also be recorded. This information will all be recorded in a central paper-based diary, which can often become messy as customers sometimes phone to cancel or amend their booking, meaning that the handwriting can become unreadable. This could then lead to mistakes being made such as double-bookings, or not getting everyones requirements correct for a conference. Chris Ruck, one of the team, will sometimes word process the quotation onto a basic blank template produced in Word Processing software (MS Word). After creating the quotation, he will then save it onto his computer. He will sometimes do the same for invoices. The problem with this is that the same information is being entered up to three times; once in the diary, secondly on the quotation, and thirdly onto an invoice. Duplicating the information sometimes leads to small typing mistakes appearing on the documents. Also, it wastes Chris valuable time that could be used for other tasks, such as preparing rooms for conferences. Invoicing is a very important task for The Welcome Centre, as it is the way it requests payment from a customer once a conference has taken place. Tony will often to have to create 20 to 30 invoices at a time. Unfortunately, Tony Williams has very limited experience with computers. If Chris is not available and invoices have to be sent out, Tony will have to write out an invoice by hand into a blank template. This is very time consuming for him, and as the General Manager, he has many more important jobs that he could be doing. Also, handwritten invoices do not look very professional, and so these really should be created and printed from a computer to give a better corporate image. Tony sometimes has to handwrite quotations too for the same reasons. Scope The scope for this task is to find a way of entering booking details for conferences, and to create a quotation for that conference. Creating invoices will not be included in this task. Also, to simplify the task, we will focus on commercial customers only and not charity customers, as the prices are all different. DETAILS OF CLIENT, USER(S) AND AUDIENCE (IF APPLICABLE). IDENTIFICATION OF THE CLIENT The client for this project is Tony Williams, who is the General Manager of the Welcome Centre. Tonys role includes creating the rota of when his team are working, taking booking details from customers for future conferences and negotiating prices if applicable. Tony is also involved in creating quotations for a conference booking to inform the customer how much it will cost. He may also create invoices for a conference that has taken place to request payment. He will also need to keep track of payments for conferences by customers, and chase any outstanding payments. He is also very hands-on in his role, and he will support his staff with serving and room set-up when required. The solution for this task will need to meet Tonys requirements. IDENTIFICATION OF THE USER(S) The users of this solution will be the Tony Williams (the client), as well as Anita Fox and Chris Ruck. Anita and Chris are also responsible for entering details of customer bookings into the diary, and producing quotations and invoices for them. Therefore, they will actively use the solution by changing the customer and booking inputs and sending the quotation that is produced (output) to the customer. Anita also takes care of the accounts and organises the monthly payroll for the employees. IDENTIFICATION OF ANY AUDIENCE The Audience is anyone who may look at the outputs, but not change the content of the solution. The majority of this solution will be used by The Welcome Centre staff, and therefore these people will be users and not an audience. However, Quotations will be viewed by Customers as these are the target audience of this document. ASSESSMENT OF SKILLS OF USER(S) Tony will use the solution, but has very limited ICT skills. He is a complete novice at using computers. He will need introductory training that includes: Logging in to the network   File Management (files and folders creating, renaming, moving, copying)   Word Processing (Use of word documents, file management opening/ saving, formatting)   Spreadsheets (Use of spreadsheets, file management opening/ saving, formatting, working with multiple worksheets)   Using the solution that is created Anita will also use the solution and is an intermediate user. She can login, organise files and folders, word process, use basic features of spreadsheet software, use a web browser to surf the internet, and can also use her accounts package. She will need training that includes:   Spreadsheets (Advanced course including the recording, use and management of macros, using formulae and functions)   Using the solution that is created Chris is more of an advanced user, and can do all of the above to a more complex level, as well as use graphics and multi-media packages for design work. He will need training that includes: * Spreadsheets (Advanced course including the recording, use and management of macros, using formulae and functions) * Using the solution that is created CLIENT INTERVIEW. An initial interview was held with Tony Williams, and the following is a summary of what he said: 1. What is The Welcome Centre and can you give me some background information to the organisation? The Welcome Centre was launched in 2000, as a conference centre for commercial and charitable customers, offering them a hospitality service. The service includes room hire, equipment hire as well a catering options. Customers use the services provided by the Welcome Centre for various reasons from large conferences, to small meetings and training days. 2. Who are the staff at the Welcome Centre and what do they do? Tony Williams is the General Manager, whose role includes creating the rota of when his team are working, taking booking details from customers for future conferences and negotiating prices if applicable. Tony is also involved in creating quotations and invoices by hand. He also keeps track of payments for conferences by customers, and chases any outstanding payments. He is also very hands-on in his role, and he will support his staff with serving and room set-up when required. There are several other employees. Chris Ruck is the Assistant Manager of the complex, who takes bookings, sets up for conferences, and also types up quotations and invoices. He looks after the technical requirements of a conference such as IT needs and P. A. equipment. Anita Fax is the Administrator, who has responsibility for accounts and organising the monthly payroll for the employees. There are also 4 other part time staff, including a cleaner as well as conference assistants. 3. What are the problems that ICT could help to solve? One of the key problems is that a manual booking system is used, whereby booking information is recorded in a paper-based diary. The information is therefore not easily sharable and handwriting will become messy as bookings are amended or cancelled. Also, quotations and invoices are either typed into a blank template document or hand-written. This leads to a duplication of the booking information resulting in mistakes, as well as being time consuming. Hand written documents are not very professional. 4. What do you want the ICT solution to do? Tony would like the new solution to provide easy to use data entry forms for entering details about each conference. He would like a quotation to be produced immediately based upon the booking information that is entered. He would also like the quotation and booking information to be stored for future use, so that someone can view the information easily. 5. Who will use the solution and what ICT skills do they have? Tony will use the solution, but has very limited ICT skills. He is a complete novice at using computers. Anita will also use the solution and is an intermediate user. She can login, organise files and folders, word process, use basic features of spreadsheet software, use a web browser to surf the internet, and can also use her accounts package. Chris is more of an advanced user, and can do all of the above to a more complex level, as well as use graphics and multi-media packages for design work. 6. What hardware and software do you have at The Welcome Centre? In terms of hardware, The Welcome Centre has only just installed a network. Chris and Anita have their own PCs with access to the Network for file sharing. Laptops used for conferences are wireless enabled so that they can access the internet from any room if required. Each computer has Windows XP installed as the operating system, as have the Microsoft Office software suite package, that includes word-processing, spreadsheet, database, web browser, presentation and other software. 7. What data needs to be input into the solution? How? Customer Information: (Company name and address, contact details for event organiser) Event Details: (Event name, date, start finishing time, no. of delegates, room requirements, equipment to be hired, and catering requirements for beverages and food. ) General Info. : (Catering items and prices, Equipment items for hire and 1/2 day charges, Room info. -The Unit Room Cost will be based on the Event Type for that room. Calculate and display Total Room Costs for all rooms booked   For each item of equipment required for the booking, search for and display the Unit Equipment Cost. If the event type is a full day, then double the price. Calculate and display the Total Equipment Costs by multiplying the Unit Equipment Cost by the Quantity required.   Calculate and display the Total Cost of all Equipment   If beverages are required for the booking, search for and display the Price per Delegate for Beverages. Calculate Beverage Costs per Delegate by multiplying this price by the No. of Servings. Calculate the Total Beverage Costs as Beverage Costs per Delegate multiplied by No. of Delegates.   If food is required, search for and display the Price per Delegate for the food option. Calculate and display the Total Food Costs by multiplying the Food Costs per Delegate by the No. of Delegates.   Calculate the Net Quotation amount (the total amount of all the items booked, excluding VAT)   Look up the current VAT rate and calculate the VAT Amount for the quotation.   Calculate the Gross Quotation Amount.