Title of Project s1

Annie Gregoire Hickley Health Club GCSE ICT Coursework

Annie Gregoire 10SC Hickley Health Club

ICT GCSE Coursework Problem 3

RG Room 21

1 Annie Gregoire Hickley Health Club GCSE ICT Coursework

CONTENTS

Page Content 2 Analysis 4 Hand drawn design Implementation Final version Test plan Test results Evaluation Appendix

ANALYSIS

Candidate: Annie Gregoire Centre No: 58815

Candidate No:

Problem Set up a system to send letters on to club members of a specific membership type

Form of Output Headed notepaper Printed letter

Information to be Output cc Club’s name Club’s logo Address Telephone number E-mail address

Letter Letter text Title First name Last name Address of member Membership type Date

The data needed to produce the Output Headed notepaper Club’s name3 typed in Club’s Logo from disk Club’s address type in Telephone Number typed in E-mail address typed in

Letter Letter text from disk

Title from disk First name from disk Last name from disk Address of member from disk Membership type from disk Date typed in

Desired Outcomes and Performance Criteria Headed notepaper Must produce headed notepaper Must include club’s name Must include club’s logo Must include address Must include telephone number Must include E-mail address

Letter Must include Letter text Must include member’s title Must include member’s first name Must include member’s last name Must include member’s address of member Must include member’s membership type Must include the date Must send letters to all Youth members (16-18) Must send letters to junior members (under 16) Must make sure that my system caters for other membership types and dates to be able to use the letter system in the future Must send letters to adult members who will become 60 by then end of February 2009 Must remember there are two types of adult membership

Testing Needed. Must test the letter system by sending letters to all youth members.

HAND DRAWN DESIGN

DESIGN TASK

Which software will I use and why?

For creating a database I have the options of Microsoft Access and Microsoft Excel. The program I am going to use is Microsoft Access. Access is the best program for creating a database with structured and easy to find records and has all the features I will need for making a database of the health club members. Although I could create a database on it, excel would not be the best program to use. It wouldn’t store records as structurally and I wouldn’t be easy to search for specific things in the information.

For the creating the letterheads I have the options of Microsoft publisher or Microsoft word. Both programs would allow me to successfully enter and format the logo and text to match my design. I am going to do it on word because it is simpler and easier to use.

For creating the letters I also have the options of word and publisher. I am going to do the letters on Word as well because it is easy to use. Word will allow me to create merge fields for mail merging the information from my database, which is the key function I need. Obviously also it enables to me to format and lay out the text to match my design.

How will the software features and functions help me?

Features and functions I will use Performance criteria and desired outcomes I need to meet Word has an output to the printer Must print headed notepaper Word has the ability to type in text and Headed notepaper must have the club’s format it name at the top Word has the ability to type in text and Headed notepaper must have the address at format it the top Word has the ability to type in text and Headed notepaper must have the telephone format it number at the top Word has the ability to type in text and Headed notepaper must have the e-mail format it address at the top Word has the ability to inset pictures Headed notepaper must have the logo at the from files and format them top Word has the ability to type in text and Letter must include the text about when a format it membership expires Word has a mail merge function Letter must include member’s title Word has a mail merge function Letter must include last name Word has a mail merge function Letter must include address Word has a mail merge function Letter must include membership type Word has a mail merge function Letter must include their first name

Access has a query function that allows Must send letters to all Junior members who you to filter all the data will be 16 by the end of February 2009 Access has a query function that allows Must send letters to all Adult members who you to filter all the data will be 60 by the end of February 2009 Access allows you to amend data Must cater for other membership types and “checking” dates

Why did I choose this design for my solution?

Firstly, I have designed the letterhead so that the logo is right at the top and the contact details are below it, I have also centred the whole letterhead. This makes it clear and stand out so that the club members immediately know whom the letter is from and can also easily find the clubs contact details. I have chosen the font ‘Tahoma’ for the letterhead because it is clear to read. I laid out the letter as like shown in the booklet and drew the merge fields where they needed to be. I have also chosen ‘Tahoma’ as the font for the letter and the font size as 12. This will mean for everyone it is sent to, the letter will be easy to read.

IMPLEMENTATION

Stage 1-Headed Notepaper

I clicked the text box icon in the drawing toolbar to create a text box for the contact details

I typed the contact information into the text box

I formatted the text by highlighting it and using the icons on the toolbar: centring it, making some words bold, changing the font and changing the size.

I then inserted the logo by going to Insert>Picture>From File and selecting the logo

After inserting the logo, I formatted it to match my design

I created a rectangle, stretching right across the page at the top. I formatted it with a background, changed the layout to behind text and got rid of the outline. This will create a background for my notepaper head.

Stage 2-Database

1.Importing the data into Access

Start>Programs>Office> Microsoft Access

Select ‘Blank Access Database’ and click OK

Save the database under an appropriate name

File>Get External Data>Import

Select ‘text files’ under ‘files of types’, choose the file I want to import and click ‘Import’

Make sure ‘delimited’ is selected and click Next

Select ‘First row contains field names’

Choose to import the text into a new table

Click ‘choose your own primary key’ and select ‘Membership No.’ We don’t need an ID number because each member has a different membership number that we can identify them with..

Click finish

2. Creating a Dropdown for Membership Type field

Select the icon in the top left hand corner to go to design view

Select membership type

Change Display control to ‘List box’

Change Row Source Type to ‘Value list’

Fill in Row Source with all the membership types, separating each one with a comma

This is what the result should look like, a drown down list of all the membership types

3. Creating the query Select: Queries> Create query in design view

Select all of the fields to be displayed in the query by double clicking them from the small box

Under membership type, change the criteria to ‘[enter member ship type]’

Change DOB criteria to ‘<=[enter DOB]’. The ‘<=’ means it will find all the members who’s DOB’s are equal to or less than the date entered

Save the query under an appropriate name

Stage 4- Letter

1.Inserting letter text

Insert>File…

Once the text had been inserted it, I highlighted it all to format the text and size

2. Mail Merge

Tools>Mail Merge…

Under main document I selected Create>Form Letters

Under Data source I selected Get Data>From File

After selecting my database to be the data source I selected Queries>Membership query>OK

I then inserted each merge field into the appropriate place on my letter from the drop down list in the top left hand corner of the toolbar

Finally I clicked the ‘Merge…’ icon in the top toolbar and clicked ‘merge’ again on the window that came up. This will insert the information from the members that came up in the query into the letter, creating a new letter for each member.

FINAL SOLUTION

TEST PLAN

 I need to carry out some tests to check my database and mail merge system works as Katie specified.  It is important to make sure my system works before giving it to Katie to use. She can then be sure that any information she enters or letters she creates will come out as she expects.

Actual Corrections Test Test details Expected results Number results to make? Test letter system by The 2 members that sending letters to all my system should youth members who 1 send letters to are: Mr will become 22 by the Bob Sanders & Miss end of February 2009, Pamela Corner using 01/03/09 to check Give test evidence that A drop down list shows the revised should appear when 2 MembershipType field entering into the by entering new MembershipType field members

TEST RESULTS

Correctio Test Number Test details Expected results Actual results ns to make? Test letter system by The 2 members sending letters to all that my system Letters were created youth members who should send to Mr Bob Sanders 1 will become 22 by the letters to are: Mr none & Miss Pamela end of February 2009, Bob Sanders & Corner using 01/03/09 to Miss Pamela check Corner A drop down list I successfully Give test evidence that should appear entered the new shows the revised when entering details using the 2 MembershipType field none into the drop down list in the by entering new MembershipType MembershipType members field field

Test 1

Test 2

EVALUATION

Overview of the task

I was asked to set up a system to send letters on to club members of a specific membership type. I had to produce headed notepaper for the letters, a database to store the information on each member, and a letter that can be mail merged with the information in the database. How well I met the performance criteria

Was my solution Performance Criteria and Desired Outcomes successful or not? Headed notepaper Must produce headed notepaper Yes, I produced a letterhead on Microsoft word Must include club’s name Yes, I typed in the club’s name Must include club’s logo Yes, I inserted the logo from a file Must include address Yes, I typed in the club’s address Must include telephone number Yes, I typed in the club’s telephone number Must include E-mail address Yes, I typed in the club’s e-mail address

Letter Must include Letter text Yes, I typed in the letter text Must include member’s title Yes, I created a merge field for member’s title Must include member’s first name Yes, I created a merge field for member’s first name Must include member’s last name Yes, I created a merge field for member’s last name Must include member’s address of member Yes, I created a merge field for member’s address Must include member’s membership type Yes, I created a merge field for member’s membership type Must include the date Yes, I typed in the data Must send letters to all Youth members (16-18) Yes, I create a query

and merged the information of the youth members into letters Must send letters to junior members (under 16) Yes, I used the membership query to merge all junior members who will turn 16 before 01/03/2009 Must make sure that my system caters for other membership types and dates to be able to use the letter Yes, I tested my system system in the future Must send letters to adult members who will become 60 Yes, I used the membership query to by then end of February 2009 merge all adult members who will turn 60 before 01/03/2009 Must remember there are two types of adult membership Yes, I used the query to filter out both adult and adult off peak members

The effectiveness of my solutions

I was asked to produce a letterhead. In this letterhead I include all of the contact details I was asked to – Club’s Name, address, telephone number, e-mail address and logo. I arranged the information and logo so they looked attractive to the reader as well as sophisticated. I also added a coloured background to make the letterhead stand out. I think my letterhead looked good and I believe I completed this task successfully. I was also asked to send letters to all Youth members. To do this I created the basic letter, typing in text and creating merge fields. I then mail merged information from the database, using a query I had previously created. I think I was successful with this as correct letters were produced when I used the system.

Evaluation of the software

I used Microsoft word and Microsoft access to do this problem. I found these programs were perfect for the tasks I wanted to do. On Access I used the query and design functions. On Word I was able to use text and picture formatting for my letterhead and mail merging for the letters. There were no disadvantages of these programs, they had all of the features I needed and allowed me to be successful in solving this problem.

What have I learnt from this task? From this task I have learnt new skills in task analysis and using word and access. On word particularly, I learnt to use the mail merge function, which I think is a really useful skill to have. I also learnt about the importance of testing because I know if there had have been an error in my solution, the person using it would have had a lot of problems creating the right letters for the members

How could I have improved my solution?

At the moment it is easy to alter the information in the database and it could be easily corrupted. I think it would be a good idea to secure it to prevent this. However, overall in this task I didn’t have any problems and I think in all it worked quite well.

APPENDIX