Introduction
Information management systems primarily serve the purpose of processing, organizing, storing and allow retrieval of data that businesses, organizations, institutions, and corporations use to their strategic advantage. Varied types of information systems exist ranging from transactional, decisional support, expert, knowledge management, and office management systems among others. The information systems are a paramount strategic niche in the context of the goals and objectives that have to be achieved. Therefore, organizations engage information systems and system analysts or designers to develop, manage and service the system (Chaffey & White, 2010). The organizational system that I chose to illuminate for the purpose of this paper is the information management system oriented on employee management in my organization. Therefore, I interviewed the system analyst and came up with the following outcome.
Employee management system
The system is utilized for monitoring, managing, deploying, and manipulation general employee information in the organization. The system is primarily used by the human resource manager (HRM/HR). Additionally, players like the general manager, finance/payroll officer, and recruitment officer also contribute immensely to the overall management and success of the system. The HR utilizes the software to ensure that all employee data is organized and processed efficiently and promptly. The system ensures that the capability and productive capacity of the workers are fully utilized for maximized production and profit margins. Information that is stored and consequently retrieved as appropriate include employees contact details, general to specific job descriptions, reports on the payroll system, statutory and government laws about employees, working history or experience of the workers, and tracking of the employee performance. Therefore, the management system proves to be functionally critical to the firm.
Contextual diagram representation of the system (use case diagram)
A use case diagram is used to represent the employee management system in the organization as a function of the integral processes, tasks, actors, components and the relationships associated with the system. The graphic outline consolidates in a concise and coherent manner the purpose of the system and how the system will further interact with the users and other stakeholders.
Employee management system
Business actors
Primary business actors which include the employees that will receive the disbursed salaries. Additionally, they receive their employee report on request.
Primary system actors. The actors in this category are the payroll officer and the human resource officers who must interface with management system directly for the purpose of triggering the payment system and generating employee records and reports. Moreover, time is also a primary system actor since it automatically initiates and triggers report generation on a weekly, monthly and annual basis.
External server actor. The actors in this realm for the organization are the general manager and board of directors who have the mandate, power and the responsibility of approving the release of the processed employee payments from the payroll officer or the human resource officer.
External receiver actor. In this area, the main players include the organizational management which is the board of directors who must be served with the weekly, monthly and annual financial reports. The reports include payroll system data, disbursed salaries, annual bonuses, commissions given, pending salaries, reports on general expenses among other organizational reports which result from use cases that they approve. In the case there is no structured board of managers, the general manager acts as the external receiver actor. Additionally, if the payments are disbursed via banking systems, the Bank is also a player in this category as it receives a request from the firm to process and wire the funds to the bank accounts of the respective employees (Whitten, Barlow, & Bentley, (1997).
Actor glossary
Business requirements essential to use cases
At this level, the designers have to identify, document and focus on the most important use cases that prove to be very critical, complex and necessary as a means to save on time and accrued costs. The use cases plotted here are termed as essential use cases. Every instant of the use case denotes the specific scenario of how an actor will directly or indirectly transact with the system. Therefore, the business requirements that are paramount to use case are;
Primary roles of the actors
The primary business actors (the employees) have the role of receiving a tangible or measurable result or being the direct beneficiaries of the use case outcome even though they may or may not interact directly with the system to initiate or trigger the business scenario. This actor does not provide any information to the system, rather, the actor needs information regarding their reports, bonuses and salaries and commissions. The system also does not require this actor to provide any information changes, but the system provides this actor with changes such as salary increment, deductions, and bonuses.
The primary system actors (the human resource and the payroll officers) have the mandate of initiating the use case process or event for the use or on behalf of the primary business actors. The actor needs the records and data stored in the system. The system requires the actor to provide, update and verify the data. The actor also needs to inform the system of any changes that have taken place in the use case as a change in the protocol, precondition, paths, alternate paths and post conditions. The system also needs to communicate back to the actor of the level and degree to which the changes have affected the use cases.
The external server actors (board of directors and the general manager) have the task of approving the payment of the salaries. The actor requires data from the system regarding the accrued payments. The system needs feedback from the actor about the authorization of the payment processes. The action needs to update the system on any changes regarding payment such as whether or not to pay, at what time to pay and how much to pay. The system needs to update the actor on the completion of the transactions as per the new use case narratives.
The external receiver actors (the bank) receives the request from the system after payment approval to disburse the money to the bank accounts of the workers. This actor requires the system to communicate on authorization status of the payments. Similarly, the actor needs to communicate to the system on whether the system should proceed with the disbursements or not. Moreover, there is a need for the system to communicate alterations to this actor regarding the use case narratives such as changes made by external server actors.
Conclusion
Employee management systems provide a critical platform that ensures every aspect of the workforce is harmonized for easier, faster, convenient, timely and result oriented operations. The system reduces redundancy of roles hence proves to be cheaper and convenient regarding workforce management.
References
Chaffey, D., & White, G. (2010). Business information management: improving performance using information systems. Pearson Education.
Whitten, J. L., Barlow, V. M., & Bentley, L. (1997). Systems analysis and design methods. McGraw-Hill Professional.
