1.1 Description of Dreamland Estate Agency
Clients who are interested in either offer or demand of properties for sales, for purchase, and for rent, contact DEA, either by paying a personal visit to the office, on by a phone call or they may even make request by emails. The personal details of each type of client are recorded (whether the client is a buyer, seller, owner/landlord, tenant), and if required, the description of the property is also taken.
It should be noted that DEA keeps the clients and properties’ record for a limited period of time, in which case, each client and property is allocated an opening and closing date after which, the records will be closed, unless the client pays a fee to renew the dates. As such the client for keeping his records must pay a fee of Rs 50 per day.
Below is an example of a sale/purchase transaction:
A client, who wants to sell his property, contacts DEA, giving all necessary details. A site visit is then arranged and the important aspects and criteria (like area, years of construction, no of rooms, etc) are noted down. A site plan of the land/property is also taken. If the property is worth selling, and can be sold easily, permission is also taken from the client.
Back to the office, the agent will advertise it via a local news paper and display it on the office window and place an advertising board in front of the property. The advertisement consists of a photograph followed by a brief description of the property, such as number of bedrooms, type of property, facilities and the value of the property.
Buyers start showing their concern and existing buyers (kept in the company’s files) are also traced and informed. A match is then performed. A site visit is arranged at the convenience of the interested potential buyer and the seller, with the presence of the agent. If the buyer approves the site visit, then both parties (buyer and seller) will negotiate an agreed price and liaise between both parties and the signature of the contact.
Finally, the agent assists in the signature and takes an agency fees with both parties.
1.1.1 Calculation of agency fees
Excluding the application fees that the client has to pay to keep his records in DEA’s database (i.e. Rs50 daily from the opening date to the closing date, irrespective of being a buyer, seller, landlord or tenant), the also takes a commission from both parties (buyer and seller) once a deal has been finalized. There is a certain percentage to be taken from each range that needs to be paid, for example,
Below 1.5M [1% + VAT]
1.5M-3.5M [2.5% + VAT]
3.5M-5M [3%+ VAT]
Over 5M [4.5%+ VAT]
Renting
The procedure for renting will be the same as for sales/purchases, except that the tenant will not buy the property. Instead he will rent the property from the landlord on a weekly, monthly or yearly basis.
A commission still needs to be paid to DEA, from both tenant & landlord. However, there is a fixed charged of 2% + VAT will be taken from the agreed rent, as agency fees.
Requirements Analysis
2.1.0 Functional Requirements
The following list defines the necessary actions that DIS shall perform, so that efficiency shall be met within DEA.
• Recording transactions
DIS should provide facilities and efficiency to keep track of every client (buyer, seller, tenant or landlord), about each property (available and already booked), about each type of transaction that takes place within DEA (a sale, a purchase, or a rent).
Appropriate files should be kept in computerized databases, and access to these files should be fast.
• Search/Match function
With the existing manual system, it takes time to search for records, especially for property information as well as each client. Therefore, DIS should be able to provide adequate search facilities, by using different criteria, e.g. search an existing customer by his number, search a property by price, location or by area.
• Validation Checks
Appropriate error messages will be displayed on screen, in case user omits some crucial information while completing a form on screen. Also, essential data validation checks should be provided, so that errors will be minimized and hence, efficiency shall be reached.
• Report Generation
DIS should generate reports of all kinds. Thus a “Report” menu will be provided, so that specific reports could be produced, for example:
- List of Property
- List of Agents
2.1.1 Non-Functional Requirements
• The System shall be secure and reliable, providing security via multiple, configurable passwords and other levels of security. Moreover, the software shall be compatible on other PCs.
• The System shall show operational efficiency, whereby data should be entered only once (no duplication).
• The System shall be user friendly:
- Provide access to all system functions subjects to individual authorized users.
- Easy system navigation shall be possible.
- On screen prompts and messages that is clear and helpful e.g. requesting input, identifying input validation errors or processing errors.
Business Rules
Like any other companies, Dreamland Estate Agency (DEA) has established some rules for the benefit of the company. We are going to take into consideration these specific rules, and we would also like to introduce some other rules for the improvement of the system as well as for the welfare of its users.
• When a client comes to DEA, with a view of either demanding property (for purchase or rent), or offering property for sales, he does not have the right to contact other estate agencies for the same service, in a period of 3 months, from the date he signs the acceptance form (please see form in Appendix).
• All payment transactions are effected at the notary’s office in the presence of the agent concerned and not at DEA.
• The password to be used to log in the system via the login form must be made up of characters and digits, that is 3 characters followed by 3 digits. The user name will be the name of the agent using the system itself and the administrator.
• Each client, as well as, each property and each transaction that must be stored in respective files, will be given a unique auto generate numeric id, e.g. 1, 2, 3
DreamLand real estate DFD
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All records about the buyer ,the seller , will be recorded .That is details about their name, address, telephone numbers etc.
For the seller details about the property he is selling will also be recorded.
Any transaction will pass through the agent .It is the latter who will make the necessary for the property to be sold or bought.
When the buyer wants to buy a particular property, it is checked in what category, it is found : land, house, flat, urban building, rural building etc.
Then the property is checked if it is available or not. If yes, it is reserved else the buyer is notified.
For payment, after paying the buyer is given a receipt and given necessary document concerning the details of his purchased property.
The agent also receive a percentage of money from the selling price. That is the agent receive a commission and a percentage goes to the dreamland agency.
Types of softwares
TABLE OF CONTENT
Engineering / Scientific Software
System Software
Systems Software refers to programs used to control the computer and develop and run application programs. It includes operating systems, network operating systems and database managers.Just as the processor is the nucleus of the computer system, the operating system is the nucleus of all software activity.
It is the first program loaded into memory when the computer is turned on and, in a sense, brings life to the computer hardware. Without it, you cannot use your word processing software, spreadsheet software, or any other applications.
Without an operating system, you cannot communicate with your computer. When you give the computer a command, the operating system relays the instructions to the 'brain' of the computer, called the microprocessor or CPU. You cannot speak directly to the CPU because it only understands machine language.
In Short, systems software is a set of programs that organise, utilise and control hardware in a computer system.
Examples of systems software:
Windows2000, Window95/98, Mac OS, Unix and DOS are all examples of operating system
Artificial Intelligence
A widely accepted definition of artificial Intelligence is based on a test derived by Alan Turing in 1950: 
Suppose there are two identical terminals in a room, one connected to a computer, and the other operated remotely by a person. If someone using the two terminals is unable to tell which is connected to the computer and which is operated by the person, the computer can be credited with intelligence [Alan Turing].
We could defined Artificial Intelligence as the science of making machines perform task that would require intelligence if done by people. Below are some examples such as Expert systems, problem solving, robot control, and intelligent database querying and pattern recognition.
One aspect of artificial intelligent computers is that they should be capable of learning, and therefore improving their performance at a given task. Computers have been successfully “trained”, for example, to recognize (with as much accuracy as a human being) a face as either male or female, and able to recognize an underground train station as being “crowded” or not.
Embedded Software
An embedded system is a (usually) microprocessors based system that is placed within dedicated consumer electronics devices such as video recorders, cameras ,in domestic equipment such as cookers, in military system can be found anywhere where set tasks have to be carried out automatically, or equipment has to be controlled.
They are widely used in household goods, automobiles and in industry.
What all these systems have in common is that one or more microprocessors have been wired to do a specific task. Hard wired simply means that the systems have been wired such that (unlike a normal computer system), they cannot be reprogrammed to be used with anything else. This program would probably be stored in ROM, and there would be range of associated input and output chips to control a wide variety of dedicated peripheral devices.
Engineering / Scientific Software
Engineering /Scientific software will be mainly the software that is used to perform tasks which are complex and require accuracy. The output generated is considerably of high quality and precision.
Instances of Engineering software might be AutoCad whebeby it is used for 2D and 3D design mainly by architects .
Scientific software might be used in laboratories by chemists and scientists, in testing new experiments.
http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~turner/DCC-Requirements/Trade%20Articles/Scientific%20Software.pdf
Another example will be the Automated scientific software scripting with SWIG. Please find the link: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science
Matlab(c) is a well-known scientific software covering a wide range of engineering and mathematicals fields. It contains also a set of complete and powerfull visualization tools.Business software is normally any program which helps increase the business growth and efficiency. This means that more tasks can be done in less time.
For example:
Previously in the accounting department,the accountants had to do lots of paper work but with business software such as quickbook, oracle, pastel among others, now tasks are being done much quicker and the risk of errors is minimum.
In some software such as excel, one can input a large number the data (which may be the price of the articles), then by writing the correct formula, the system itself will compute the sum automatically and the system is more reliable and error free.
Buying on the internet using the shopping cart software that is the credit card or the smart card.
And the payment is done securely due to SET protocol (Secure electronic transaction) and the secure mode uses SSL (secure socket layer) which makes sure that information is encrypted and passed through the internet.
There are other business software such as :
1)Architectural software which helps make deigns or plans of buildings quickly and the customer can have a better idea of what he wants.
2)Reservation package that is a software developed to be used in reservation companies.The sofware is very user friendly and
the user need not have great knowledge of computing.The user just have to make the necessary input and the data will be stored
in a database where any information could be retrieved as and when needed.
A real time system is a software where the correct functioning depends on the results produced and the time at which these results are produced.
It is usually applied to systems where the 'feedback' is immediate and direct.
Real time must generate some sort of response in relation to what’s happening to some external event. Most of the real time systems in operation today must act quickly, or extremely quickly but this is not necessarily so for a system to be classified as “real time”. Real time systems are of obvious importance in control, for it is in this type of environment in which a response is required from the controlling computer, often under the most stringent of time constraint.
One way of looking at the real time is that it acts as a response system.That is:
1)we give the system some particular input to produce some output.
2)the real time system can thus be used. The real time system will work with the input received by the system, the associated responses and the time at which the response must be produced.
Examples:
A typical example of the most stringent of real time control system constraints would be embedded microprocessor system required to guide an anti-missile to its target. The microprocessors embedded into the antimissile defence systems must act as quickly as possible on all information being received from its sensors (the input transducers), make the appropriate decisions (guided by the software) and activate the appropriate guidance systems (the output transducers)
Other examples of the Real time systems might be:
1)An airline seat reservation system where the availability of a seat is checked, reserved and booked while the operator is deadline with the customer.
2)Process control systems in factories.
