An online booking

system for the Home

Away From Home
Table of Contents
Introduction...............................................................................................................................................2
Aim.........................................................................................................................................................2
Objectives...............................................................................................................................................3
System Requirements................................................................................................................................4
Work Breakdown Structure.....................................................................................................................6
Critical Path Method.................................................................................................................................8
Gantt Chart............................................................................................................................................9
Project Evaluation and Review Technique........................................................................................10
Critical Path.........................................................................................................................................11
Stakeholders.............................................................................................................................................12
Financial Analysis....................................................................................................................................13
Net Present Value................................................................................................................................13
Payback Period....................................................................................................................................13
Return of Investment (ROI)................................................................................................................14
Conclusion................................................................................................................................................15
Introduction
Every business is shifting to an online presence in the modern-day market. The target audiences
can be easily reached by the digital presence. Any system that is to be built has to follow some
standard procedures in the IT industry, this is called Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC).
A detailed breakdown of the tasks involved in designing the system is created and all the
requirements and cost analysis is performed. All this is necessary to have a clear perception and
view of the system to be built for the stakeholders. In our case, the business “Home Away from
Home”, located in the Northern Beaches region of Sydney, Australia, is planning to create an
accommodation booking system with various simple to sophisticated features for the users. The
software solution demands to allow the customers or potential customers to run through the
accommodation availability information in the system, and self-book and pay online. Such
systems need to be secure, reliable, and scalable. Businesses need to assure their clients or end-
users do not find it tough to navigate the system and its features. The project put forward by the
Home Away from home business wants the system to allow users to book, pay, get reminders,
and notifications, provide feedback, create accounts, and various changeable features. The
project will have an email verification system developed to verify the users who have created the
account. The system will be collecting the basic information of the customers like the full name
of the customer, residential address, city, contact info, mail address, and zip code. Each user
would be assigned a unique user id, which identifies them in the system. The security concern of
the system is managed by making the forms complaint to WCAG, PCI DSS, TLS certification,
and various other security features and protocols on the web. The system is aimed to be
developed on the web and app.
The project development process will follow the standard protocol, which involves requirement
analysis, data collection, feasibility analysis, coding, testing, and implementation. The system
will be compatible with all the major web browsers and screen sizes. The requirement analysis
will be done for the system based on FURPS requirements. The project overview will be sone by
the WBS, Critical path analysis, Gantt chart, and other project evaluation and review techniques.
Besides, the cost analysis for the starting year to the first five years will be performed in the
report.
Aim
The main aim of the report is to understand the system requirements, break down the
work structure for the project, identify the stakeholders, and analyze the financial
activities and state of the Online Accommodation booking system of House away from
House business. All this will be done by designing the charts and performing
calculations.
Objectives
The major objectives of this report for this case study report are:
 Obtain clarity on the vision of the project.
 Identify the requirements of the project and the system development.
 A complete design of the Work breakdown Structure (WBS) based on the project
schedule.
 PERT chart is developed for understanding the module tasks of the project and
their starting time.
 Identify the stakeholders of the project (both internal and external stakeholders).
 The financial calculations for the Net present value, payback period, and ROI for
the initial five years of the project/system.
 Understand the major features and working of the proposed system.
Project vision
The project aims to develop an online accommodation booking system for the Home
Away from Home business. The users should be able to perform every action from the
online platform and application of the system. Customers will be able to book the
accommodation, and also cancel or update the booking within 24 hours of the booking.
The system also provides reminders for the customers about their booking and status.
Notification will be sent to the regular customers or the subscribers about the discounts
and packages. Also, there will be a rewards feature for the customers with 12 or more
bookings per year.
The vision of the project is:
 Anyone, who has registered to the system, is able to book the accommodation and
update the status up to the first 24 hours of booking.
  The data and information of the users will be secured by the email confirmation
mechanism, and implementation of WCAG compliance, PCI DSS compliance,
TLS certification, and web security measures.
 Customers will be reminded of their bookings and other status updates through
the app and the web system via push notifications.
 Customers can pay online by using credit cards.
 The system will be able to send notifications about the offers and rewards to
regular users/customers.
 The customers are able to provide feedback on the services and other aspects of
the business through the mobile application.
 The customers can view the details of the owner of the accommodation, that they
are willing to ook. The overall property features and pricing are made available to
the customers.

System Requirements
Functionality
The end product has to offer the users with online booking and update features, along
with secure transactions. The system should be able to process the reminders,
notifications, and account creation activities. As sensitive information of the customers
and payment details are saved in the system database, the security features also need to be
high-end.

Usability
The customers of the system are from the high economy class. The users need to find it
easy to access all the features of the system. Proper documentation of the web, as well as
the application, will be prepared. The self-help wizards will be implemented in the
system.

Reliability
The system will be used by any type of public who are on the internet. It should be
available at any time and from anywhere. The system should be hosted in the cloud
platform, with auto-scale on. Also, the system must be served from multiple server sites,
which can reduce the downtime in a disaster situation.

Performance
Online booking and payment need to be fast and accurate. The system must be able to
calculate the rates and other data on the basis of the inputs provided by the user. The
response time is very important in such online systems.

Supportability
The system need to be adaptable to various testing techniques, and process. Maintenance
of the system should be simple and smooth over a long period of time.
Internationalization and configurability must be taken care of while developing the
system from scratch. Everyone in the world should be able to install and configure the
app.

System architecture

Fig.: System Architecture if the Project

Work Breakdown Structure

Fig.: WBS of the online accommodation booking system for Home away from home business

The work breakdown structure of a project divides the larger parts of the project into smaller and
simpler ones. This structure makes the larger projects manageable and efficient. As the online
accommodation booking system is a complex and multi-step project, WBS is done to define
different modular stages in the project, along with the sub-stages. In this project, the phase-based
WBS has been implemented. The hierarchy of the project is divided into 9 phases which are
broken down as:
1. Requirement Analysis
1.1 Problem Analysis
1.2 System Investigation
1.3 Stakeholder Analysis
1.4 Assess the suitability of the system
2 Data collection
2.1 Interviewing
2.2 Questionnaires
 2.3 Observation
2.4 Joint Aapplication Design (JAD)
3 Feasibility Analysis
3.1 Technical feasibility
3.2 Finanical feasibility
3.3 Market feasibility
3.4 Operational feasibility
3.5 Schedule feasibility
4 Documentation of the system
4.1 Requirements Documentation
4.2 Source Code documentation
5 Management Presentation
6 System Design
6.1 ERD
6.2 UML Diagrams
6.3 UI/UX Design
7 Purchase hardware
8 Coding and development
8.1 Module defination
8.2 Program Coding
9 Test System
9.1 Internal test
9.2 Integration test
9.3 System testing
9.4 Acceptance testing
The initial phase is to analyze the requirements of all the parties involved in the project or
affected by the project. The system is needed for the business to increase its reach and reach
more target audiences in any location at any time through online booking of accommodations.
Data collection is done by interviewing the customers (potential), conducting surveys with them,
observing the current situation of the market and the business, and carrying out a JAD. JAD is
the process of involving the end-users and the clients in the system development and design
phases. Collaborative workshops are conducted in the JAD sessions.
The feasibility study is done after the data and requirement collection phase. This phase clarifies
how much possible it is to build the system with the proposed technology, and budget. Also, it
defines how operational the features are and can be completed within the timeframe defined by
the team and launched in the market. All these works need to be documented and this phase
continues till the project ends. The overall business, market, and requirement analysis of the
project is presented to the management team to take final inputs and lock the features. The
system architecture is finalized and the ERD, UML, and UI/UX designs are finalized. The
required hardware is purchased by the client (Home Away from Home) business. The coding of
the application begins only after all these phases. The small modules are defined in the project
and program coding starts. The final system is tested under various phases.

Critical Path Method

The critical path method is used in the project plan to identify the longest sequence of tasks and
activities that has to be completed for the entire project to be successfully launched. This refers
to the minimum amount of time that is needed to complete the system or the project. To calculate
the critical path in the CPM method, every node or task is analyzed from the start of the project
by considering its predecessors. The project schedule for the project online accommodation
booking system is:
Tasks Task Name Duration (in Days) Predecessor Tasks
A Determine user 5 -
requirements
B Data collection 7 A
C Feasibility analysis 8 A
D System 5 B
documentation
E Management 1 B,C
presentation
 F System design 8 D,E
G Purchase hardware 10 F
H Write application 10 F
code
I Test system 6 G,H
The critical path method will use the tasks, their durations, and the predecessors of each task to
evaluate which path can be followed to complete the project. This method shows the longest path
or sequence of tasks in the project. The most important tasks in our project are identified ad the
dependencies too. In our project the initial or the starting task is task A, Determine user
requirements, which are completed in 5 days. The other two tasks B, and C are carried out only
after task A is accomplished. Task D, of system documentation, will begin only if task B has
been completed. Task E, Management presentation will be done if the data collection (task B),
and the Feasibility analysis (task C) are completed. Accordingly, if task D (System design), and
task E (Management presentation) are completed then task F (system design) proceeds. Tasks G
(purchase hardware), and task H (write application code) proceed only if task F (System Design)
has been accomplished. Finally, when tasks G and H are done the test system task I is performed.

Gantt Chart

Fig.: Gantt chart of the project

 A project management tool, the Gantt chart, is used to manage the timelines and
durations of the project. The chart shows the tasks as a bar diagram. And the
dependencies of the tasks are designated by the arrow linking the tasks with each other.
The start and end dates of the tasks and milestones of the project are shown in the Gantt
chart. The Gantt Chart shows the parallel tasks and dependent tasks. The dependent tasks
in our project Gantt chart are connected by the arrow lines coming from the end of the
predecessor tasks bar. The red bars show the critical path in the Gantt chart.

Project Evaluation and Review Technique

Fig.: PERT chart

Another project management tool used in system development is the PERT chart. This
diagram shows how the tasks are organized in the project. A graphical overview of the
schedule of the project and its timeline is shown in the PERT chart. Each individual task
can be analyzed by the project managers. There are 10 states to complete the 9 tasks in
our project. One start node and one finish node are present in the PERT chart diagram.
There are some tasks that have multiple predecessors, while some have a single
predecessor. They have to wait for their latest predecessor to be complete in order to
proceed forward.
Critical Path

According to the Gantt Chart, the critical path is shown by the bars which are in red
color. This suggests the path A->B->D->F->G->I is the critical path in our project. This
sequence of project tasks takes the longest time duration to complete. The overall project
duration is of 41 days.

Fig.: Critical path calculation

The slack for this path is 0. So, the critical path for our project is starting from A , and
ending at I, with nodes B, D, F, and G being the internal tasks.
Stakeholders
The individuals or groups that are influenced directly or indirectly by the Project of the online
accommodation booking system are called stakeholders. They can be the ones within the
business or external to the business. Based on this nature they can be classified as external or
internal stakeholders to the project. For our project, the shareholders, executives, managers, and
other staff of the Home Away From Home business are considered the internal stakeholders.
From the external stakeholders' perspective, they can be the customers of the business, users of
the system, suppliers, house owners, investors, etc. The developers, designers, project managers,
testers, documentation team, requirement analysis team, and so on are also the internal
stakeholders of the project. They have a key stake in the project. Various things in the project
depend upon the internal stakeholders. Both stakeholders expect the best quality the system as
they are influenced by this product one way or another.
Financial Analysis
Net Present Value
We can analyze the net present value of the cash in the future by calculating the NPV
(Net Present Value). The difference in the cash inflows at present and the cash outflows
at present over a period of time is known as Net Present Value (NPV). The NPV for the
online accommodation booking system project is important to understand how profitable
the project's investment could be. The NPV can be calculated by the formula:
NPV = Net cash flow / (1+discount rate)^time of the cash flow
We assume the discount rate value to be 6% for every year, and the time duration
is of five years. The initial cash flow is negative as the development cost is -$15,000. The
discount factor for the initial year is 1. So, the Net Present Value for the starting time is
$15,000.

Now, NPV for the first year = (9000-700-3000)/1.06 = $5000

NPV for the 2nd year = (9000 – 850-3000)/(1.06)^2 = $4583.48
NPV for the third year = (9000 – 770 -3000)/(1.06)^3 = $4391.20
NPV for the fourth year = (9000 -750 – 3000)/ (1.06)^4 = $4158.49
NPV for the fifth year = (9000 – 730 -3000)/(1.06)^5 = $3938.05

Cumulative NPV for the project over the five years = -$15,000 + $5000 +
$4583.48 + $4391.20 + $4158.49 + $3938.05 = $7,071.22.
The NPV of the project is greater than 0, so it is a good project to invest at a
reccurring discount factor of 0.06 every year.

Payback Period
It is important for the stakeholders to analyze the payback period of a project. The time
duration at which the investment can be returned by the net cash flows generated by the
project is called as payback period of the project. In our project analysis and calculations,
it is observed that the initial investment of the business is $15,000. And based on the
NPV calculated for every year, the initial investment is covered only after the 4th year's
 completion. So, the payback period for the project is of 4 years. The business can expect
the gain profits after covering their initial investment as well as cash outflows every year
after the first 4 years of the project.

Return of Investment (ROI)

Return of Investment for any project refers to the value of any investment against its cost
(in monetary). It is calculated by using the formula:
ROI = (Profit – Cost)/cost

In the first five years the net present value is assumed to be nearly $7,071.22 for the
online accommodation booking system. The return on investment for every year of the project is
calculated as:
For the first year: (9000 – (3700)) / 3700 = 1.43
For the second year: (9000 – (3850)) / 3850 = 1.33766
For the third year: (9000 – (3770)) / 3770 = 1.38
For the fourth year: (9000 – (3750)) / 3750 = 1.4
For the fifth year: (9000 – (3730)) / 3730 = 1.41
This shows that in general the investors are to get around $140 for every $100 of
investment in the project. This project shows a good return on investment and profit for the
investors and other stakeholders, in terms of monetary value.
Conclusion
The online accommodation booking system planned by the Home Away from Home business
has been assessed from different aspects in this report. The software development life cycle,
work breakdown structure, Gantt chart, pert chart, financial calculations and analysis, and all
other required aspects of a project has been described in this case study report. The system needs
to have basic features like creating the accounts, booking the accommodations, viewing the
accommodation owner information, getting notifications, and reminders, etc. The app also has
the feature of feedback and booking cancellations and updates. The security features need to be
implemented with care as customers will be providing important information and sensitive data
to the system and the database needs to be safe. The system or the app needs to be accessible
from any palace and any device. The project is scheduled to be completed in the time span of 41
days. The project starts with the user requirements analysis, data collection, and feasibility
analysis. Then the management team is presented with proper documentation. After the approval
of the team the system design proceeds, hardware purchase takes place, and finally, the coding of
the application begins. The testing of the complete system is done before launching it into the
market. The initial investment of the company on this project is only $15,000 for the
development purpose. This is calculated to be returned within the first 4years of the project. On
average the return on investment is found to be 1.4 per year. The cumulative net present value in
the project after 5 years is found to be $7,071.22. The project has a good scope and opportunity.
All the stakeholders need to perform their roles and duties with genuine passion. This online
accommodation booking system can take the Home away from home business to newer heights.