Oregon Food Bank - Process and System Analysis Audit

Challenge

The customer requested an audit of their existing infrastructure to provide recommendations for the development of consolidated reporting and management system to present one unified view of a donor's contributions to the organization.
 

Solution

The solution involved auditing over 23 separate data sources and systems used by the organizations at multiple locations throughout Oregon. We conducted interviews with department managers, personnel, and volunteers on each department's business processes, rules, and system usage. We audited existing custom-built and vendor systems used within and between each department. The solution required over two months of system and database analysis to define correlations between the 23 separate data schemas and the desired goal of one unified donor view.

After conducting interviews and auditing multiple systems and databases we proposed three development strategies each with varying levels of complexity and costs. We recommended consolidating all but two of the larger vendor driven products into a centralized MS SQL server system. A ASP.NET client would be designed for all department personnel to use for donation entry, event management, and statistical analysis and reporting. A Microsoft Biz talk service would be used to convert data between the three systems. Microsoft Reporting Services would be used to design and host all analytical needs for each department and the executive management.
 

Results

My task was to conduct an audit of the current systems and to propose a recommendation and design the ASP.NET system. I provided a functional design, information design, and database schema for the new consolidated system. My primary client was very pleased with the work I accomplished. They stated that my documentation was the most thorough and detailed system design they had ever seen.
 

Robert's Thoughts

This was a great project! There were some daunting tasks to accomplish and many areas of the some systems which were abstract. But in the end we modeled a system design that not only provided a foundation for the customer's business rules. But also provided a modular, configurable system that could be retooled for other organizations.