Business Requirements Specification (BRS) - ReqEng-Analysis/Ashlynn_Glitz-Glitter_Boutique GitHub Wiki

1. Introduction

This document specifies the business requirements for Ashlynn Glitz and Glitter Custom Boutique. \

Revisions

Version: 1

  • Product Name: Ashlynn Glitz and Glitter Custom Boutique Website
  • Date of Release: 3/4/23
  • Desc: Completed documentation of BRS

1.1 Business purpose

The organization's primary purpose is to provide the opportunity for others to express their personality and style through custom products. They also aim to offer unique gifts. This product is being created to assist in the pursuit of creating an effortless experience between the customer and the business when ordering products.

1.2 Business scope

Ashlynn is an overall brand that consists of activities under creation, freelance content design, marketing, and photography services. Ashlynn Glitz & Glitter Custom Boutique is a subset of this brand that offers custom products and unique gifts. This document outlines and specifically is focused on the subset Ashlynn Glitz & Glitter Custom Boutique and their current systems. The Ashlynn brand also offers graphic design, marketing, and photography services, but this is outside of the scope of the current project. The current system that we will focus on throughout the document is the website of the Ashlynn Glitz & Glitter Custom Boutique. The website focuses on ordering custom products and being able to view a product gallery of previously created products.

The Ashlynn brand also offers graphic design, marketing, and photography services, but this is outside of the scope of the current project.

1.3 Overview

The major internal division that this document is concerned about is Ashlynn Glitz & Glitter Custom Boutique. The main external entity that we are concerned with is providing services and products for customers. Another external entity is the vendors that provide some of the products that are needed to complete the custom-ordered products. The business is responsible for creating products that are designed by the customer.

1.4 Definitions

Customer: An individual who buys and, or requests, a custom product to be made.
Products: Currently include tumblers, pens, earrings, and seasonal items. Defines what is created by the business.
Supplies: Anything to use to create the products.
Custom: A product that has been designed by the customer or business.
Creation: Products are handmade by the business by a custom design using supplies, including but not limited to, glitter, alcohol ink, vinyl, epoxy resin, and rhinestones.
Gallery: A collection of images that showcase the work of a specific individual, topic, or business. In this context, we are showcasing designs of products that the business has created. This serves as inspiration for customers and showcases what the business is capable of creating.
Vendors: External businesses that provide the base product to Ashlynn Glitz & Glitter Custom Boutique to complete the design and order.
Vendor Events: A gathering of small businesses, hosted by vendors, to allow an environment to sell the products of said small businesses.
Medium Fidelity Wireframes: Medium Fidelity Wireframes are more detailed than low-fidelity wireframes. They tend to include more of the final design as they are typically created in a stage of the process where requirements and details are beginning to get more specific. They tend to have more color and or detail. They allow the client to see the progress in their design and visualize the direction that the product is going in. Medium Fidelity Wireframes are typically recreated throughout the design process as the client is giving feedback, ensuring the design is what they want.

1.5 Major stakeholders

  • Product Owner: The sole product/business owner is Ashley Denton, also known as Ashylynn. There are no employees of this company as Ashley is the sole individual who manages and works for the business.
  • Customers: This group of individuals is the people who interact with the system and order products from the company.
  • Users: Users are defined as individuals who interact with the site but have not or do not order anything from the business.
  • Vendors: This group of individuals is comprised of other businesses that provide the base products for some custom items. For example, tumblers are bought from a vendor before customization.

2. References

References include Ashley Denton, who is the owner of the business. This also includes the current business website and Facebook storefront. I, the developer and creator of this document, also pose as a resource as I have ordered and experienced working and ordering from the business several times. Because of this, I can provide a customer's perspective of the business and its systems. Other resources used for this document are listed below.

  • "ISO/IEC/IEEE International Standard - Systems and software engineering -- Life cycle processes -- Requirements engineering," in ISO/IEC/IEEE 29148:2018(E) , vol., no., pp.1-104, 30 Nov. 2018, doi: 10.1109/IEEESTD.2018.8559686.
  • Weigers, K. and Beatty, J. (2013) Software Requirements. 3rd ed. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Press, U.S.
  • Bourque, P. and Fairley, R.E. (2014) Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge: SWEBOK. Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE Computer Society.

3. Business management requirements

3.1 Business environment

The business environment is primarily online, more specifically e-commerce. However, they often provide occasional in-person sales and participate in vendor events. Because of the specified environmental factors, there are competing businesses that offer the same services. A potential influence on the business and system is the idea that other businesses may have better services and systems that would entice customers to buy from a competitor. Another aspect of the business to consider is the overall cost of creating the products and the offered price. Since most of the company's revenue is from tumblers and their variations, we must consider the cost of the product before being customized.

3.2 Mission, goals, and objectives

Amplifying life through creativity, the Ashlynn brand’s mission is to always find joy in the creative scheme of life bringing a focus on branding, photography, design, and content creation while educating the future of marketing and media to discover their passion. Objectives include helping small businesses reach their marketing goals and allowing people to show off their personalities.

3.3 Business model

The business mission is achieved by providing custom products that incorporate design and content creation. This achievement can be further enhanced by providing a sufficient system to scale the current range of the business and its influence on marketing and media.

3.4 Information environment

The overall strategy of the organization should be defined under the goal of providing creative products through design and content creation. The business is in pursuit of providing the utmost quality when it pertains to branding, marketing, and the products that are being sold. The actions of the business should serve as a learning opportunity and analysis of both the future and current trends in marketing and media.

4. Business operational requirements

4.1 Business processes

  • Customers can browse through previous designs and choose whether they would like a previous design or can generate their own. This generated design is simply a description of what they would like as their design. The majority of designs are documented on the Facebook storefront, but some can also be found on the website.
  • The customers can submit their order on the website or message the business directly to submit their order.
  • Invoices and payment is processed and submitted using Paypal. This invoice is sent to the customer's e-mail address after the products being ordered are specified.
  • After both the payment and designs for the products are submitted, the product is handmade, then shipped/delivered to the customer.
  • The alternative process is the business creates various products and sells them in person or at vendor events.

4.2 Business operational policies and rules

  • Both the payment and design for a custom product, that is described by the customer, must be submitted before the product is created.
  • Custom products, that are related to consumption (tumblers and their variations), must be created in a clean environment or cleaned before shipping/delivering to the customer.
  • Shipping fees vary and are applied to orders during payment processing.
  • The business has the right to ask for permission to change or alter the design given the supplies available or the capability of the employee creating the design on the product.
  • Due to the customized nature of the products, all sales are final, meaning no returns or exchanges.

4.3 Business operational constraints

Solo operator, the business manages a small number of orders at a time. There is a small amount of inventory on hand but has a local supplier for the main items. The amount of time the products take to ship varies based on the number of orders, the number of products in an order, and the capacity of the business at a specific time. Customers may also experience longer shipping times for more specialty products. The ordering process for products is not completely automated, it often requires human intervention to ensure that the product can be created by the business based on the design or to simply order the custom products. Due to this, there are no defined time constraints since the business consistently works at varying times.

4.4 Business operational modes

In an unsteady state, all products can be ordered by directly contacting the business. Limits are often enacted during seasons where the number of orders received is at a higher rate than normal. For example, products must be ordered before a specified date to ensure that it is delivered by a specified date/time of year.

4.5 Business operational quality

The products and output of the business must always attempt to achieve the utmost quality promptly. Based on the mission statement of the organization, the quality of the business's products must be a priority over the speed at which the products are created.

4.6 Business structure

The business consists of a single person. The business is under solo operation where only one individual is managing, creating, and dealing with the business and its products.

5. Preliminary operational concept of proposed system

5.1 Preliminary operational concept

a) operational policies and constraints;

  • Both the payment and design for a custom product, that is described by the customer, must be submitted before the product is created.
  • Custom products, that are related to consumption (tumblers and their variations), must be created in a clean environment or cleaned before shipping/delivering to the customer.
  • Shipping fees vary and are applied to orders during payment processing.
  • The business has the right to ask for permission to change or alter the design given the supplies available or the capability of the employee creating the design on the product.
  • Due to the customized nature of the products, all sales are final, meaning no returns or exchanges.
  • There are no defined time constraints since the business consistently works at varying times.

b) description of the proposed system;

Currently, customers are finding it difficult to browse and order company products. The website is difficult to navigate and hard to order from. Previously, the business was reliant on speaking with clients by directly messaging through platforms, such as Facebook. This was deemed to be time-consuming and often difficult to track orders.

To browse through products, customers are expected to scroll through hundreds of photos of past designs making it an erroneous task to find or create a design for their custom product. It is also difficult to know what products are available. As this is a small business, there are often new products that may come and go. The website is not continuously maintained to know all the products that may be available at the time of browsing or purchasing. The current website is not as e-commerce friendly as it should be which results in a potential loss of revenue and company outreach.

The system to be created is an e-commerce website that would aid in the automation of ordering and displaying the products of the business in an organized manner. A sufficient system would allow for better marketing and smoother business operations.

Our current assumptions include but are not limited to:

  • Customers are finding it difficult to order and browse through the company's products
  • A well-executed solution to the above problem statement will result in better marketing for the business.
  • A well-executed solution to the above problem statement could result in greater revenue for the business.
  • The business offers a good range of products but it has not been organized in a fashion to be easily presented to a customer.

c) modes of system operation;

The system should allow for the ordering and browsing of products. The site should also allow for the business to easily update the products, prices, and other information that is displayed on the site. The customer should also be able to view past orders. The functionality for communicating with the customer should also be assessed and implemented within the system.

d) user classes and other involved personnel; and

The system will allow for admin, guest, and customer use. The level of permissions would vary by user.

e) support environment.

The website should be supported on most browsers and the site should be compatible with mobile devices. More specifically, compatibility defines being able to use the site easily on mobile devices.

5.2 Preliminary operational scenarios

  • Customers will be able to view information regarding the business. They will be able to browse as a guest, create an account and log in, order products, and view past orders.
  • Operators/Maintainers will be able to add products to the site. This includes images of recently designed products or ready-to-ship products that are available. They should be able to add products for sale, change the price of products, and remove products. The site should allow this subset of users to also display any specialty descriptions, such as sales, deals, or highlighting new products.

6. Other preliminary life-cycle concepts

6.1 Preliminary acquisition concept

Before developing the system, information and input should be collected from existing customers and stakeholders through elicitation to have a better idea of the specifics of how the site and its features should be implemented. After this, analysis of these results is essential in specifying detailed requirements for the site to be created in a timely and specified manner. Constant contact should be established with the major stakeholders to ensure that the product is clearly defined throughout its production. The design and usability of the system should be emphasized throughout the entire process.

Given these criteria, below we have illustrated medium fidelity wireframes to visualize the proposed website.

To create the design of the Ashlynn Glitz & Glitter Custom Boutique e-commerce site, we started by thinking of the main functions of an e-commerce site. We also reviewed the problem statement and the business statement to solidify my understanding of some of the requirements of the system. One of the biggest features was ensuring that the ordering of custom products is clear for both the user and easy to read for the business. We made sure to focus our attention on this page of the system. The page outlines many clear areas for data entry when ordering a custom product. Another important aspect of the website was allowing the customers to easily browse products that have been created. Because of this, we felt it was important to include a gallery where customers can order a custom product by clicking on the photo of the product. They could also easily browse through the gallery like a design catalog. First, we did a rough sketch of the system, then translated them to medium-fidelity wireframes that have more images, colors, and details of some of the functionalities of the system. While translating the sketch to a medium fidelity wireframe we found ourselves thinking about more of the requirements of the system. This allowed us to be more specific with the features that we add to ensure that they are sufficient for the site and the business.

6.2 Preliminary deployment concept

The site should be introduced into operations when it is functional enough to continue business operations. This includes ordering capabilities and admin editing the site to add and edit products. Specific features, such as communication with customers on the site, customer login, and other features should be implemented and updated in iterations after the initial release. Before deployment, we must ensure that all high-priority requirements are fulfilled.

6.3 Preliminary support concept

Since this is a site for a small business, there is no dire need for a structured support system. The business is responsible for checking that the system is running as defined. If any issues may arise, the developers can be outsourced to fix the issues that are present. Customer support can also be outsourced to another company if needed, but cost and need must but assessed before acquisition.

6.4 Preliminary retirement concept

The system should only be retired if the business were to also be closed. The other case would be if the system is no longer sufficient for the functions of the business and would need to be redeveloped from scratch to coincide with the business's operation and mission. The system should be created with scaling in mind.

7. Project Constraints

Because of the nature of the small business, there is a limited budget for creating the site. The site must also be ready for its initial release within 5 months to allow for a shift into the new e-commerce site. There is no need to build a website that deals with the same traffic as a big corporation, but it is important to consider the opportunity for scaling. The cost of the system should be relatively low as the system does not need many developers and would only need the capabilities of storing site data and a website domain (which is already owned by the business). Because of the above constraints, some features may be basic and minor bugs may exist on the initial release.

8. Appendix

8.1 Acronyms and abbreviations

N/A