Fluent Essays

Option #2: Phase 4: Accounts Payable Implementation with DevOps Please refer to the full description of the Mamma Mia Accounts Payable project in this Week 8. In Weeks 4, 5, and 6, you wrote one section of the final report (this week you will also incorporate all previous sections, with any adjustments that you may want to make to it based on instructor’s feedback or any other reason). As such, the paper should not be written as an essay (with introduction and conclusion) but, instead, as a business report containing only the specified subsections from each week. This week you will include in your report sections 1 through 6 (developed over Weeks 4, 5, and 6), and also add the new sections 7 through 10 for this week. These last four sections, added this week, should have at least 900 words and will summarize the Accounts Payable information system’s testing, user training, and implementation using DevOps. The Mamma Mia CIO wants to implement DevOps, and she decided to implement it using this project as a pilot. Note that parts #1-6 are completed in the Portfolio Milestones. For this module, you will complete parts #7-10. The specific subsection headers to include are as follows: 7. Test plan 8. Training plan 9. DevOps What is DevOps?Why does Mamma Mia need DevOps?CostsFinancial benefitsOther benefits 10. Implementation strategy and plan using DevOps mis350_port.docx Unformatted Attachment Preview Accounts Payable Project The present essay represents the first part of an on-going work devoted to the creation of a project to handle the accounts payable of a company more effectively. This project consists of the creation of a database that automates the control of the companys pending accounts payable and reminds the financial manager of those that are still open and their due dates. Though the project applies to any company, the selected company is a hypothetical pasta producer, Mamma Mia. Brief description of the company and the system The company headquarter locates in Denver, site to the oldest production centre. Over the years, the company expanded to reach a total of 20 different production and distribution centres spread throughout the country. In these production centres, the company prepares fresh pasta using a traditional Italian recipe. The company handles most of its operations through the IT system. The system is quite modern and is continuously updated, showing a high-quality performance. The system, however, does not include the management of the company’s accounts payable, as the company had not considered this option necessary when initially implementing it. Requirement list As the company grew, however, managing the multiple accounts payable from the 20 locations became a challenge, motivating the company’s willingness to update the system and include its management, integrating it with the management of the rest of the company’s accounts. Based on this requirement, the company has established a list of requirements to update the IT system, including the following: - The system should depend on the supplier’s invoice to initiate the process - The invoice is standardized to include a series of common items, such as the goods or services delivered, the price for such products or services, the term of payment, and the vendors contact information. - The system will automatically update the Treasury department with any changes done on the accounts payable of the company - The payment of the accounts depends on the available cash, such that the number of paid accounts decreases if the company does not have sufficient cash to pay for them. - If the company has sufficient funds, it will pay the most urgent accounts or those showing a higher discount first. - The system uses a three-way match between the invoice, the purchase order, and the receiving note, and should thus link to the databases Purchasing and Receiving. - The system verifies the match between these three items and discards the invoice in the case of any mismatch. Feasibility analysis The company already has a highly efficient IT system in place. Accounts receivable represent the primary source of incoming cash flow for Mamma Mia. These are the amounts owed to Mamma Mia and are comprised of a large number of invoice amounts. The preliminary analysis of the system and the requirements illustrates how the most significant changes to the system are (i) the creation of an additional database to handle the existing accounts payable, and (ii) the integration and verification of data integrity with the Purchasing and Receiving data (iii) feature enhancements for more comprehensive aging reporting. While appending a new database will expectedly be simple, its combination with the existing data, as in the case of Purchasing and Receiving, may be somewhat more complicated. In this sense, the programmer will need to establish new code that allows for the verification of the data integrity between the three systems and that initiates the payment process of the invoice once having verified such integrity. Successful completion of this project will optimize Mamma Mia’s accounts receivable freeing up cash and strengthening their working capital. Structure of the project using SCRUM Structure of the project As noted previously, the project revolves about two main actions involving the creation of a new dataset and its integration in the existing IT system. Based on these actions, it is necessary to divide the tasks to undertake into two well-distinguishable groups. Firstly, the SCRUM team will take the creation of the new Payables dataset. The team will define the key variables to include in such a dataset and relate them to a specific purchase. Accounting for the purchase order within the variables will significantly facilitate the integration of the new dataset into the current system. Secondly, the SCRUM team will update the dataset corresponding to the Purchasing and Receiving processes to incorporate a reference to the corresponding account payable. Such an update may easily be undertaken through the vendors identification. Once created the new relationships between the data, the SCRUM team will regularly verify the correct functioning of the system by controlling the frequency of mismatches, if any, until being sure of its operation and improve the code as necessary (Suteeca & Ramingwong, 2016). Initialization activities According to the proposed structure, the initialization activities for the two main phases of the project are: 1. Request to create the Payables dataset: It initiates the first phase of the project. The request will come from the IT manager after obtaining the board of directors’ approval for the project. 2. Integration of the Payables dataset in the system: It initiates the second phase of the project. It will be directly launched once the Payables dataset has been set up. Proposed intermediate SCRUM deliverables The project comprises three main SCRUM deliverables (Jirapanthong, 2019). The first reports about the termination of the first phase of the project, emitted once the new Payables dataset is operational. It will describe the dataset and its functioning. The second deliverable, released upon the successful implementation of the original dataset in the IT system, informs about the type of interactions and relationships created and how such relationships affect the currently existing system. The final deliverable provides a full overview of the project, describing how the implemented changes enhanced the IT system and outlining how the new system operates. Mamma Mia Accounts Payable – Data Flow Analysis Background of the case The business in this context involves the creation of two large systems that will be integrated into a more comprehensive information solution. The business has encountered a challenge in supplier management and payment to the vendors. In this context, the use of the current model has created a gap in the achievement of the desired level of performance in the long run. However, the business operates under a set of systems that help it to achieve its day to day goals. One of the main issues that the company has focused on is financial management. The current systems allow the company to deliver services under minimum levels of defects and downtime. The business does not see the need for using a cloud-based system because of the associated security issues. Also, the business does not want to use cloud systems because the current architecture offers a platform for improved service delivery. However, regardless of the idea that the business is achieving better performance, the element of supplier and invoice processing is a problem. The company does not have an automated system to perform supplier and invoice management activities. Therefore, this section discusses the elements of the creation and integration of an account payables system into interior architecture. This integration will help the business to achieve maximum growth in the long run based on the idea that it will focus on the delivery of quality services as well as efficient management of invoice and payment processes. However, the integration of the desired system calls for the company to first understand the primary needs and requirements of the selected module. The flow chart provided previously shows the interactions amongst the three leading players as far as the account payable system is concerned. Understanding these needs will help in the formulation of a reliable architecture for the creation of an efficient database that will foster better performance (Degroeve et al., 2014). The selected system Account payable system aids in the management of bills that an organization incurs logically and efficiently. The primary aim that the system focuses on achieving is efficiency as far as the management of finances of a company is concerned. Timely payments to vendors have been a significant problem for the company in the context. Further, the business claims that it had encountered a significant problem in the creation of a reliable payment prediction mechanism since it relies on a lengthy process of invoice and vendor management activities. Creation of the proposed system will help the company to form a foundation for improved efficiency and insight into future trends as far as invoice payments are considered. The inputs for the system are payment receipts, goods received, deposits, credit memos and but not limited to the vendor invoice. The outputs for the system are in the form of reports such as cheques, payment vouchers, vendor credit memos, analysis reports and but not limited to edit reports. These reports can be downloaded for future reference or viewed using the web-viewer interface. Context diagram The first element to address as far as the design and visualization of the proposed system is the context diagram. This representation is also referred to as a level 0 data flow diagram (Repa, 2013). A context diagram shows the ultimate boundaries that a system exhibits and its relationships with the external entities. The external entities in this context are the suppliers or vendors. The other entity that interacts with the system is the accounting department of the company. Therefore, the proposed accounts payable system will be interacting with both suppliers and accounts department for the firm in the management of invoices as well as payments for the vendors. The context diagram for the accounts payable system is as shown below. Level 1 data flow diagram As opposed to the level 0 contest diagrams, level 1 offers a platform for exploring the interactions of the system based on the main sub-processes. The context diagram above shows the interactions of the system with the external players. On the other hand, level 1 diagram in this context will show the interactions of the main processes and their roles to the creation of a conventional system. The level 1 diagram is as shown below. This section outlines two of the main processes that make up the system and their interactions through the two levels 1 diagram. Level 1 data flow diagram This diagram shows the interactions of the processes in a more detailed structure. The advantage of using this model is that it offers a platform for the exploration of the possible connections that the central system exhibits with the primary players and stakeholders. The leading players in this context are the purchases department, the receiving department, and the vendors. The vendors are the main point of focus for the company and system in this context. On the same note, the main reports that the system releases in this context are received goods, purchases orders, invoices and the status of the account payables. Level 2 data flow diagram Level 2 data flow diagram is an exploded view of level 1. This diagram shows more details that a given system exhibits (Tiwari, Tripathi, Sharma & Dubey, 2012). For instance, the diagram, in this case, shows the connection amongst the various subprocesses which make up the entire system. Interactions of these systems help the creation of a platform for improved connection and understanding of the working of the proposed system. The processes shown in this context offer a platform for understanding the overall makeup of the entire system and the associated records. Each of the records, in this case, form a foundation for capturing the overall components and records that the system will interact with. The diagrams above and below show the makeup of the system outlining the records, data stores and significant processes that the resulting solution will exhibit. Level 2 data flow diagram Accounts Payable – Entity-Relationships and Database Design Introduction The previous submission looked at the basic building blocks of the two main subsystems that will be included in the central architecture. The business operates under a system that needs improvement as far as the management of suppliers and accounts is concerned. In this context, the company needs to create a reliable system that will aid in the improvement of operations carried out on the day to day basis. The previous submission looked at the UML modelling of the proposed solutions. This submission, on the other hand, looks at the database modelling of the proposed system (Elmasri & Navathe, 2017). The selected option is the creation of a database model for the account payables subsystem. The creation of such models will help in improving the level of insight into the final database that the company should implement into the company. There are two main models and approaches which can be used including the logical and physical designs. Logical data model The consistent model offers a platform for viewing the general and structural makeup of the database of the proposed system (Thalheim, 2013). The figure below shows the entity relationships diagram for the proposed system for Mamma Mia. Figure 1: ER Diagrams Physical data model The physical model shows a complex and expanded view of the design of the database. This design contains the definition of data and the respective tables. The figure below shows the database tables and the data definitions. Figure 2: Physical database model References Jirapanthong, W. (2019). Experience in Applying of ISO 29110 to Agile Software Development. Journal of Information Science and Technology, 9(1), 63-70. Suteeca, K., & Ramingwong, S. (2016, December). A framework to apply ISO/IEC29110 on SCRUM. In 2016 International Computer Science and Engineering Conference (ICSEC) (pp. 1-5). IEEE. Degroeve, B., Petroons, J., Hanan, C. C., Bailey, A. G., Gupta, S. D., Mellyn, K. L., ... & Mondschein, C. (2014). U.S. Patent No. 8,712,887. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Repa, V. (2013). Object-Oriented Analysis with Data Flow Diagram. In Information Systems Development (pp. 419-430). Springer, New York, NY. Tiwari, K., Tripathi, A., Sharma, S., & Dubey, V. (2012). Merging of Data Flow Diagram with Unified Modeling. International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, 403. Elmasri, R., & Navathe, S. (2017). Fundamentals of database systems. Pearson. Thalheim, B. (2013). Entity-relationship modelling: foundations of database technology. Springer Science & Business Media. ... Purchase answer to see full attachment