1. Principle roles for a system analyst a. Consultant i. Frequently acts as a systems consultant to humans and their businesses and may be hired specifically to address information systems issues within a business. This can be advantageous because an analyst can bring a a fresh perspective that people within the organization may not possess. One disadvantage is that an analyst may never know the organizations true culture. b. Supporting Expert ii. An analyst may play a supporting expert from within the business. These analysts are employed by the company and have at least some capacity in the systems of the organization. The analyst would draw on professional expertise concerning computer hardware and software and their principle uses within the business. c. Agent of Change iii. This is the most comprehensive and responsible role. This role can be filled internal or external to the business. An analyst is an agent of change whenever he performs any of the activities in the systems development life cycle. The agent of change is also present and interacting with users and the business for an extended period. An agent of change is a person who serves as a catalyst for change, develops a plan for change, and works with others in facilitating that change.

2. Involving individuals with various perspectives in system analysis and design activities d. Identifying Problems, Opportunities, and Objectives iv. The systems analyst would involve individuals during this phase to determine the problems within the business. Often these problems are brought up by individuals within the organization. The analyst will interview user management during this phase. e. Determining Human Information Requirements v. In this phase, the analyst would determine the human needs of the users involved using a variety of tools to understand how users interact in the work context with their current information systems. The analyst will use tools such as personal interviews, sampling, investigating hard data, and questionnaires . The analyst could also use less obtrusive methods such as observing the decision makers behavior and their office environments, and also prototyping. f. Implementing and Evaluating the System vi. In this phase, the analyst trains the users to use the system. g. Various others vii. Analysts – may offer additional information from an experts point of view. Users-will provide additional problems at the user level of system improvements or system requirements that executives might not be able to convey. Executives-ultimately will provide what system they want established. Vendors-can give information on how selling the product is happening, give trends on items and maybe even product timeline information. Customers-provide feedback on how the company is doing, what it’s doing well, what it can improve on.

3. Connection between business and information system functions h. System analysis and design is used to analyze, design, and implement improvements in the support of users and the functioning of businesses that can be accomplished through the use of a computerized information system. The analyst emphasizes a systematic, methodical approach to analyzing and potentially improving what is occurring in the specific context experienced by users and created by a business. i. Conceptualizing organizations as complex systems lends us to realize that principles allow insight into how organizations work. Organizations are composed of smaller, interrelated systems serving specialized functions. j. The connection between business and information systems functions is that the information systems are used to support everyday business functions or to automate those functions increasing productivity of a business and to help maximize profits where information systems are used. Information systems help executives make decisions, businesses to track transactions and even manage the entire information gathered on their system. 4. Similarities and differences between an information system and activities of system analysis and design k. First you have to understand what a "system" is. Basically, information systems are everywhere. Consider your local supermarket - they have a system which tracks inventory levels and reorders stock as required. They also have a system which looks after the financial side of the organization; how much money has been made from a day of trading, staffing budgets, etc. These systems don't just include computers and software. They also include the people that use the system and procedures. So in short, an information system is a collection of hardware, software, data, human and procedural components intended to give the right data and information to the right person at the right time. l. Systems Analysis refers to the process in which Analysts go through to determine how a system should operate - that is determining what functions the system should perform, whether it's feasible for the system to be developed (such as financial feasibility; do the benefits of the system outweigh the costs of developing the system?), what data is going to be collected and stored. In essence, Systems Analysis is concerned with problem solving - creating a system that will solve an organizational problem. m. Systems Design is actually the third step of the SDLC - it's where the analysis designs how the system will operate. The physical components of the system are defined here which specifies how the problem at hand will be solved.

5. Automation of system analysis and design activities n. Analysts can use CASE Tools (Computer Aided Software Engineering) to improve routine work accomplished during system analysis and design activities. CASE Tools can assist the analyst to complete graphical planning, analysis of systems, design in order to build complex client/server applications and databases. o. CASE tools were created specifically to improve routine work through the use of automated support.

6. Input and output data for phases of the systems development life cycle p. Incorporating Human-Computer Interaction Considerations viii. Analysts examine a variety of user needs in the context of humans interacting with the information technology to complete tasks and solve problems. These include taking into account physical or ergonomic factors; cognitive matters; the pleasing, aesthetic, and enjoyable aspects of the system; and behavioral aspects that center on the usefulness of the system. q. Identifying Problems, Opportunities, and Objectives ix. The analyst correctly identifies problems, opportunities, and objectives. The analyst looks at what is occurring within the business. The analyst then works with organizational members to pinpoint problems. The analyst must also identify what a business is trying to do. r. Determining Human Information Requirements x. The analyst will use interactive methods such as interviewing, sampling, and investigating hard data. The analyst can also use questionnaires to gain input. With this information, the analyst will pose questions and answers concerning human-computer interaction. s. Analyzing system needs xi. The analyst will use data flow diagrams to chart the input, processes, and output of the businesses functions, or activity diagramsor sequence diagrams to show the sequence of events, illustrate systems in a structured, graphical form. In this phase the data dictionary is developed. The analyst will also analyze the structured decisions made using structured English, decision tables, or decision trees. t. Designing the recommended system xii. In this phase, the logical design of the system is accomplished. This includes databases to store much of the information used by decision makers. u. Developing and Documenting software xiii. The analyst works with programmers to develop any original software that is needed. The analyst will also work with users to develop effective documentation for software, including procedure manuals, online help, and web sites featuring FAQs. v. Implementing and Evaluating the System xiv. Converting files from old formats to new ones, building a database, installing equipment, and bringing the new system into production. The analyst must also evaluate to see if the users are indeed using the system.

7. Showing dependencies with a data flow diagram w. Data flow diagrams contain processes, entities, and data flow. x. A data flow diagram is used to show how output from one process becomes the input for another process. The diagram provides a graphical representation of a business’ activities showing how each process affects or depends on another process to include where the data stores are located at during the business activities.

8. Issues in data security
There are three issues in data security, the physical security, the logical security, and the behavioral security. All three must work together if the quality of security is to remain high.

y. Physical security is securing the data in the computer through physical means such as controlling the access to the computer room by means of machine-readable badges, biometric systems, or a human sign-in/sign-out system, as well as using closed-circuit television cameras to monitor computer areas, backing up data frequently, and storing backups in a fireproof, waterproof area, often at a secure off-site location.

In addition, small computer equipment should be secured so that a typical user cannot move it, and it should be guaranteed uninterrupted power. Alarms that notify appropriate people of fire, flood, or unauthorized human intrusion must be in working order at all times. z. Logical security refers to logical controls in the software itself. The logical controls familiar to most users are passwords or authorization codes of some sort. Just make sure people don’t write their password on a sticky note by the computer or give out their password for other people to use or any other reason why their personal password is used by someone else. Another logical security is building firewall or firewall system that barricades the internal organization network from the external network, such as the internet. The firewall is not a perfect remedy between the organization and the internet but it should be used none the less for the additional security.

{. Behavioral security refers to the people who use the computers inside of the organization: the employees, supervisors, managers, VP, and whoever else that uses the computers in the organization. One aspect to help ensure behavior security is the screening process of employees before they have access to the computers, data, and information. Make sure employees aren’t using the computers to play games, gambling, or watch pornographic over the internet or on their personal work computer. Check to make sure people are stilling following procedures about using the computers properly, review unsuccessful logins to make sure someone isn’t trying to access the system, and check after-hours access to make sure it’s for legitimate reasons. Make sure people shred or pulverize any documents or media discs that they no longer are using so as not to accidentally or purposely misplace that information for it to be taken outside of the organization. 9. Reasons for systems analysis and design failures |. Use a fishbone diagram to illustrate what can go wrong }. Gain wisdom from the people involved in previous failures ~. Schedule Slips . Scope creep (the desire to add features after the analyst hears new stories) . Developing features with little value . Setting impossible or unrealistic dates for completion by management . Belief that adding more to the project will expedite it (myth) . Management behaving unreasonably by forbidding the team to seek professional expertise from outside of the group to help solve specific problems . Inadequate testing . Inadequate information gathering . Unrealistic goals . System too complex for users . 10. Features in system support maintenance . Lower CASE tools are used to generate computer source code, eliminating the need for programming the system. . Code generation has several advantages: xv. The system can be produced more quickly than by writing computer programs xvi. the amount of time spent on maintenance decreases with code generation; xvii. code can be generated in more than one computer language, so it is easier to migrate systems from one platform to another; xviii. code generation provides a cost-effective way of tailoring systems purchased from third-party vendors to the needs of the organization; and xix. (5) generated code is free of computer program errors. 11. Methods of testing systems . Program testing with test data – programmers test the programs they have written with by entering data. Test the main module or one module at a time. Both valid and invalid data is entered. The program is then run in order to determine if it works correctly and to catch errors.
If the output from the main module is satisfactory then other modules can be tested. All data should be tested with and validated in order to make sure the validation process is working properly. File output from test data should also be check to make sure that the data in the file is correct. . Link testing with test data – Link testing or string testing check to make sure that interdependent programs work together as planned. Test data is processed to make sure that the system can handle a normal transaction. If the system work with a normal transaction then variations can be added that include invalid data to check for error detection.

. Full system testing with test data – After completing a satisfactory link test the system can be tested as a complete entity. Operators and end users are actively involved in testing at this stage. Test data created for testing purposes will help to determine the following:

1. Examining whether operators have adequate documentation in procedures manuals to afford correct and efficient operation.

. Checking whether procedure manuals are clear enough in communicating how data should be prepared for input.

. Ascertaining if work flows necessitated by the new or modified system . actually “flow.”

. Determining if output is correct and whether users understand that this output is, in all . likelihood, as it will look in its final form.

This step often gets dropped if adequate time was not scheduled for system testing.

. Full systems testing with live data – After satisfactory testing with test data it is recommended to try the new system with several passes of live data, data that has been successfully processed through the existing system. This step will let you compare the data of the new system with the data that you know is the correctly processed output.
Also this type of testing gives everyone a good idea how the data will actually be
handled.