FACULTY OF NATURAL AND COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

PROJECT TITLE ON:

WEB BASED HELP DESK INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
By:

NO NAME ID

1. NATINAEL ABERA FNCS/UR4215/09

2. WOLDE YACOB FNCS/UR4212/09

3. GETANEH ABEBE FNCS/UR4151/09

4. TELILE MULATU FNCS/UR4262/09

5. SAIDA JEMAL FNCS/UR3686/09

ADVISER: DESTALEM HAGOS

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE ............................................................................................................................. 1
1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................. 1
1.1 Background of the university ................................................................................................ 1
1.1.1 Vision of organization.................................................................................................... 2
1.1.2 Mission of organization ................................................................................................. 2
1.2 background of the project ..................................................................................................... 2
1.3 Team composition ................................................................................................................. 3
1.4 Statement of Problem ............................................................................................................ 3
1.5 Objectives of the Project ....................................................................................................... 4
1.5.1. General Objectives ........................................................................................................ 4
1.5.2. Specific Objectives ....................................................................................................... 4
1.6 Feasibility Study of the System ............................................................................................ 4
1.6.1 Operational Feasibility ................................................................................................... 4
1.6.2 Technical Feasibility ...................................................................................................... 5
1.6.3 Economic Feasibility ..................................................................................................... 5
1.6.4 Behavioral/Political feasibility....................................................................................... 5
1.6.5 Schedule Feasibility ....................................................................................................... 5
1.7 Scope and significance of the Project ................................................................................... 7
1.7.1 Scope of the project ....................................................................................................... 7
1.7.2 Significance of the project ............................................................................................. 7
1.8 Target beneficiaries of the system ........................................................................................ 8
1.9 Methodology for the project ................................................................................................. 8
1.9.1. Data Collection Methodology ....................................................................................... 8
1.9.2. Fact finding techniques ................................................................................................. 8
1.9.3 Systems Analysis and Design ........................................................................................ 9
1.9.4. Development Tools ....................................................................................................... 9
1.9.5. Testing procedures ...................................................................................................... 10
1.9.6 Implementation ............................................................................................................ 10
1.9.7. Limitation of the project ............................................................................................. 10
1.9.8. Risk Assumption ......................................................................................................... 10
CHAPTER TWO .......................................................................................................................... 11
EXISTING SYSTEM DESCRIPTION ........................................................................................ 11
2.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 11
2.2 Players of the Existing System ........................................................................................... 11
2.3 Major Activities or functions in Existing System ............................................................... 12
2.4 Business rules...................................................................................................................... 12
2.5 Report Generating of the Existing System.......................................................................... 13
2.6 Forms and document used in existing system..................................................................... 13
2.7 Bottlenecks of the existing system ...................................................................................... 14
2.7.1 Performance (Response time) ...................................................................................... 14
2.7.2 Input and Output .......................................................................................................... 15
2.7.3 Security and control ................................................................................................ 15
2.7.4 Efficiency ..................................................................................................................... 15
2.7.5 Storage ......................................................................................................................... 15
2.8 Practices to be preserved ..................................................................................................... 15
2.9 Proposed solution for the new system that address problems of the existing System ........ 15
2.10 Requirements of the proposed system .............................................................................. 16
2.10.1 Functional requirements............................................................................................. 16
2.10.2 Nonfunctional Requirement ....................................................................................... 16

List of tables
Table1 Team composition…………………………….………………………………….....….3
Table2 Schedule ……...………………………………………………………………………..6
Table3 Budget allocation.……………..………………………………………………………..6
CHAPTER ONE

1. INTRODUCTION
Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has an important role in the world since we
are now in the information age era. The lack of appropriate information at the right time will
result in low productivity, low quality research works, and waste of time to pursue information
and even to do research which actually others had done or in other countries. Nowadays ICT
cannot be separated with our daily needs.

ICT has a great impact in our daily lives and it is the most useful and technical support to
provide quick services to users provide identification and fixing problems to help customers.
Record problems being reported to university, update user on status of problems, and report on
service level merits for services provided. Training and consultancy to arrange training for the
ICT team and university users and staff about newly implemented and developed applications.

And we initiated to do the advanced and useful web based project it is titled with “Web based
help desk information management system for KMU” is designed to anyone who wants to know
university information, users to get online help easily, examines online help desk information
management system which include university information that is stored in database and used to
know university information like service, Academic center, administrative, ICT center and
employers information (his consultation hour, his status and other information)easily. The
system is very interactive and useful for the employees, students, and Customers/users. The main
idea of the system lays in the need for a system which the data clerk, employees, students and
users for improving helping activities. And Employees, user and students communicate each
other to get online to minimize time spent by employees and customers to get full information
what they want.

1.1 Background of the university

Kotebe Metropolitan University (KMU), the former Kotebe collage of teacher education, was set
up within the Haile Selassie I University (HSIU) in 1959 under the name collage. In 1969, the
collage left HSIU and went to present Addis Ababa technical and vocational collage where it
came to be known as Teacher Training Collage. Later, the name was changed to Addis Ababa
Collage of Teacher Education. It was in 1976 that the collage transferred to the present site and

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got its name, Kotebe Collage of Teacher Education. The year 2014 ushered a major landmark in
the history of Kotebe Collage of Teacher Education when Addis Ababa city government granted
it the status of a University Collage by the decree Addis Ababa city government regulation
November 26, 2013. Another milestone in the history of the institution occurred on December
15, 2016 when Kotebe University Collage is upgraded to a full-fledged Metropolitan University
by the Addis Ababa city Government.
At present, the university is running certificate, diploma undergraduate and graduate studies
in its regular, evening extension and summer programs. The number of KMU staff accounts
about 660 of which 272 represents the academic staff.

1.1.1 Vision of organization

By 2025, KMU envisions to be a widely recognized Metropolitan University in Africa that
works for sustainable urban development.
1.1.2 Mission of organization
The mission of KMU is to contribute the sustainable development of AA city in particular and
the country in general by producing competent and responsible citizen at all levels through need
based curricula; conducting problem solving research; adapting and transferring technology; and
providing demanded driver community service.

1.2 background of the project

A help desk information management system is a resource which intended to provide the
customer and end user to interact with information and help of university or institution's products
and services. Help desk information management system supervises over all Information systems
in different perspective inside the university community.

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1.3 Team composition
Table1. Team composition
No Group Role Responsibility Contact information
members
1 Natinael Project Overall responsibility for Email:
Abera manager successful planning, [email protected]
execution, monitoring, control
Phone: 0945004353
and closure of the project.
2 Wolde System Analyzes and design business Email:
Yacob analyst system and analyses how the [email protected]

current system operates and Phone:0930659895

develop new system.

3 Getanhe Programm Develop specific computer Email:
Abebe er program, write actual code
[email protected]
that makes program work.
Phone: 0910107413
4 Talile Programm Develop specific computer Email:
Mulatu er program, write actual code
that makes program work.
Phone: 0986991674
5 Saida Jemal Technical Analyze how the entire system Email:
specialist works; check
and evaluate the system output; Phone: 0941693963
takecorrectiveaction for miss value
of outputs.

1.4 Statement of Problem

Help desk information management system activities is accomplished by face to face service or
generally it has no known HDIMS in the university. In the existing system is difficult to find
information easily and also the user does not communicate the information easily. To help and to
promote customers achievement and success, university must have access to complete, accurate,
and timely information about customers. Despite the use of automated HDIMS, the Kotebe
Metropolitan University currently using face to face interaction system for performing various
tasks for their customers which wastes of manpower and much time unnecessarily that does not

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utilize the current technology. At that time many problems are occur some of them are:- Lose of
help information, data duplication, data inconsistent and management inflexibility etc...

No helps for new user/customers when the first time they enter to university. Consultation hour
are prepared manually by the instructor and put in his office area. Feedback for the customer can
be performed at the end of semester by the customers/students in manually. The user cannot
communicate about the information in deeply. The new user to university cannot reach on time
to the service center in case of no help information exists before in university. There is no chance
to communicate with each other to university customers in the absence of this kind of system in
our university.

1.5 Objectives of the Project

1.5.1. General Objectives
The general objective of this project is to develop web based help desk information management
system for Kotebe Metropolitan University.

1.5.2. Specific Objectives

Specific objectives that help to achieve the general objectives of the system, the specific
objectives of this project are:-

 Studying the existing system and find out the drawbacks.

 Analysis the system.
 Find the solution for the problem in the existing system.
 Design the database for storing information by using MySQL.
 To develop online help Desk information system.
 To implement and Test the system for the validation.

1.6 Feasibility Study of the System

Our project that HDIMS system project is financially, technically and operationally feasible and
also a project is legally and technically feasible as well as economically justifiable.
1.6.1 Operational Feasibility
The system to be developed will provide accurate, active, secured service and decreases labor of
workers and also it is not limited to particular groups or body. The system will easily operational,
as it doesn’t affect the existing organizational structure. So the system will be operationally
feasible.

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1.6.2 Technical Feasibility
The system to be developed by using technological system development techniques such as PHP,
Java script, CSS and Mysql database without any problems and the group members have enough
capability to develop the project. Our focus is to develop well organized dynamic web site that is
technically efficient and effective for managing the help desk information management system.
Therefore, it can be conclude that the system is technically feasible.
1.6.3 Economic Feasibility
The system to be developed is economically feasible and the benefit is outweighing the cost.
Since this project already computerizes the existing system, by now the reduction of cost for
materials used in manual operation becomes beneficiary to the organization.
1.6.4 Behavioral/Political feasibility
The system is behaviorally feasible because of the following:-
 The new system will easy to operate.

 Retrieval of information will easy, accurate and fast.

Since developing this new system will be solve the reservation system problems, the users will
have positive attitude towards the system and the system is politically feasible and free from any
legal claims.
1.6.5 Schedule Feasibility
Schedule feasibility determines whether the proposed system will be completed on the given
schedule or not. Whatever the scarcity of time given for the project by the internal motivation
and potential of the team members of the project, we surely expect the project will be completed
on time.

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 Table 1:- Schedule
No Phase 1st quarter 2ndquarterNov24- 3rdquarter 4thquarter 5thquarter

Nov10-Nov23/2018
Dec 6 Dec 8/2019 Jan 20/2020- Apr 31/2020-

Jan 14/2020 Mar 30/2020 May 25/2020

Project proposal
1

Requirement
2 Analysis
3 Data Design
4 Implementation
5 Installation and project
closure

Table 2: Budget allocation

No. Requested Resources Specification Quantity Cost/Birr

1 Stationary A4 2 100

2 Photocopy Double A 1 150

3 Printing and Laminating Printer X 2 200

4 Transportation Taxi 1 100

6 Laptop Toshiba 1 10,000

7 External Hard Disk 1 TB 1 1000

8 Flash disk 32 GB 1 150

Total 11,700

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1.7 Scope and significance of the Project
1.7.1 Scope of the project
The aim of this project is to develop web based help desk information management system
which solves the existing system problems of help information handling in Kotebe Metropolitan
University. Every information of the university is get registered and stored in database for
permanent access and to keep information from data redundancy and the registered information
are further processed and categorized in interactive manner for user who seeks the information
about the university. The system makes posting of notice possible for intended user about any
news related to that user, provided that, the user may be new or existing user. The news that is
public to any user is posted on home page. The system provides the searching of information that
is related to service and products of the university, the Employers detail, news, and the likes. The
user of the system can view the information. The system makes the users able to send and
receive messages between each other and also makes sending of feedback about the service and
product of university. The data clerk is able to view and update the feedback from the users.
Every employer of the user sets their status available or not available in order to know whether
they are available or not available in their office. The system displays the consultation hour the
employers to user when there is any one.
Generally, this project is supposed to provides the information exchange between the users and
employees to facilitate the service of the University in efficiently manner and to achieve the
customer’s satisfaction.
1.7.2 Significance of the project
After successfully implementing, the proposed system is expected to be reliable, easy, fast and
consistent and plays a crucial role for the university and its customers.
 Better and fast processing the service
 Increase the response time
 It minimizes the workload
 Improve customer satisfaction
 Keeping information permanent and up-to-date.
 Better decision making
 Provides online counseling through giving and receiving feedbacks.
 Information can be accessed anywhere within anytime to the authorized users
 Members can say their complaint freely.

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1.8 Target beneficiaries of the system
The newly proposed system has a benefit for Developers and users
i. Developers:
 Obtain knowledge and experience from it.
 Use it for partial fulfillment of degree program. Gain income if it is complete.
ii. Customer: any persons that want to get the information about university. So, after
developing the new system
 Save their time
 To easily retrieve information or data
iii. Organizations: -
 Economically get benefit because will decrease human labor and the money which is paid
for workers will be saved.
 To manage the data easily administrators.
 To update the information easily.

1.9 Methodology for the project

In this section, we describe the tools, methods and languages we use for the development of
the project.

1.9.1. Data Collection Methodology

In primary data collection, we collect the data by using methods such as interview and practical
observation. How the current system works will be identified by data collection methods.

1.9.2. Fact finding techniques

We get so many information how the system looks like very deeply by: -
• Interview: - is used to gather required data for the project by contacting with the
different ICT center employers.

• Practical observation: - the second is the simplest way of gathering data in which we
could witness the actual events which will happen in the system. In this method all we
have to do is observation and note down the events what we observed.

- The general system of providing service in the current system.

- How the customer’s information stored in the current system.
- Types of document format are there printed or non-printed.
 Document Analysis

To understand the existing system, we collect more information by referring different manuals
about the general information about the health insurance agency.

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1.9.3 Systems Analysis and Design
In system analysis and design methodologies we are used object-oriented system. Object-oriented
approach combines data and processes (methods) into single entities (objects). The goal of object-oriented
approach is to make system elements more reusable, thus improving system quality and the productivity
of systems analysis and design.

1.9.4. Development Tools

Hardware requirements

 CPU (Intel/Pentium).
 System disk above 32GB.
 Ram up to 1.5 GB.
 Mouse (Dell).
 Keyboard (Dell).
 Monitor (Dell).
Software requirements

 Windows operating system.

 Browser
 Editor (Notepad++ or HTML builder).
 Ms-word for documenting purposes.
 Photo editor (any type) for editing image that will be incorporated into the page
 HTML (hypertext markup language)
 CSS (cascading style sheet).
 JS (Java scripts)
 PHP (is a server scripting language, and a powerful tool for making dynamic and
interactive Web pages.)
 Xampp (Windows, Apache, MySQL and PHP server).
 Edraw Max 7.9: is an open source software modeling tool that supports UML model
diagram.
 MySQL (is a standard language for accessing databases)

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1.9.5. Testing procedures
Unit testing: - First we will test each unit at each system. So, if a problem is encountered it will
immediately maintain at which the problem is occurred.

Integration Testing: - After we test each unit of the proposed system we will perform an
integration test to check whether the system meets all the functional requirements.

System Testing: - After all of the above testing are checked we will test our system by other
peoples and we will conduct some comments how they get our system.

1.9.6 Implementation

System implementation in HDIMS is the one of the stage in software development in which the
design concept is putting in to coding or real application to perform the users need.
Implementation refers to the Coding of the all documents gathered from requirement analysis to
design phase of the HDIMS. For the implementation of this system the user must have a server
on which the system will be hosted. The implementation of this project is in PHP language and
using MYSQL databases to store the information and then to communicate the user interface
with stored data.

1.9.7. Limitation of the project

Due to time and cost constrain there are limitations which are not able to solve by this project: -

 Our system doesn’t support searching for legal citizens using finger prints and face
recognition
 There is a language limitation to support access.
 The project is not available for blind person.

1.9.8. Risk Assumption

During the development of the project there may be different problems that we may faces. These
are:

 Time management problem: but we solve this problem by working cooperatively, divide
our time by schedule for each phase of the project and we try to use this schedule
effectively

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  Failure of electric power and internet connectivity- we try to solve this by taking back up
to external storage devices.

CHAPTER TWO

EXISTING SYSTEM DESCRIPTION

2.1 Introduction
As described in this project, the Kotebe Metropolitan University currently uses face to face
system to give help information for its customers. When there is new, the University posts it in
the news board and the customer has to go to news board to get information. When the customer
or the guest wants to give feedback about the university he/she has to made face to face contact
with help desk employers and the ones who does not knows the help desk center has no chance
to give feedback. There no system which makes the organization’s employers to contact with
each other through online chatting provided that to reduce information redundancy and to make
employers closer to information. When the student wants to contact his course instructor he has
to go the office of instructor and makes contact. The University uses the website to give
information about the product and services of the organization.

2.2 Players of the Existing System

The player exist in current system are the helper body of the university and the customer who
wants the particular information about the university.

 Customer: - currently we can say, it has no help desk information system or has no
system used to give help information service in KMU university so, the customer gets
any information by asking any university member randomly. Those users are two types

1. Internal customer: the existing users who require the information in

deeply
2. External customer: this is new users to university who require helps.

 Employee: - the helps for users of university, information exchange, announcement of

consultation hour and office location, feedbacks and others is given in manually.

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2.3 Major Activities or functions in Existing System
In this section, we review the activity of current system the activity is given by face to face or by
randomly helps of the native users or by seeing the written. Currently there is no web based help
desk information management system to KMU, so the absence of automated system for
registering the information and helping users or customers request.

The activity of help desk Information system is based on information type

 Academic information: the user wants to know the total number of college in KMU,
number of school, number of Department and the related information
 Administrative information: administrative service that they provide, total information
of the administrative
 Registrar information: the service that they provide and any required information
belongs to registrar.
 Health center information: service of the clinic, establishment history and other related
health center information
 Dormitory information: displaying dormitory related information to users
 Construction information: providing construction office related information to users
who wants to view it

2.4 Business rules

The existing systems of help desk information management center have the following business
rules.

o BR0: The users who want information interact with the employee’s or official body to
get reliable information rather than information from anyone.

But also the proposed system includes the following operating principles or business rules:

• BR1: The user must fill necessary form properly.

• BR2: The customer can view the university information.

• BR3: Customers can’t update or delete any records from the database.

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 • BR4: the user can access the help by clicking the links and some essential information by
authenticating through his user name and password.

2.5 Report Generating of the Existing System

Within current system of help desk information system in Kotebe Metropolitan University,
everybody can physical meet (or) come to the interested body to gets the helps. In this system the
report generation order can be performed, there is no a standard form, alert (or) notification to
generate report.

2.6 Forms and document used in existing system

There is no proper document in Kotebe Metropolitan University about help desk information; it
can be given by face to face service of information through employee and senior student of the
university randomly.

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2.7 Bottlenecks of the existing system
The existing system has many limitations. At the case of talking face to face with all customers.
2.7.1 Performance (Response time)
In terms of the performance or response time of the existing system take more waiting time into
customer to get the information. Thus, the existing system has more computational time.

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2.7.2 Input and Output
The existing system need more man power since a lot of paper work and forms were filled by
employees to provide the information. These consume much time to customer when moving
from home to office. When many customers available by waiting around the office for get the
information also consume time.
2.7.3 Security and control

Loss of essential documents as the filing system is manual. This can occur if there is any fire,
rain, theft etc.

2.7.4 Efficiency
 Material usage: require more wastage of resources like paper, printer, photocopy
and all stationary material used.
 In appropriate human resource usage: sometimes can make a mistake when
their recording user’s information.
 Lack of centralized source of information: because of the information store in
different places.

2.7.5 Storage: it needs more space to store the required file. Those file it can be help
information, the new information.
Additionally, the existing help desk is weak in all issues: In which information are stored in
offline

2.8 Practices to be preserved

As a Kotebe Metropolitan University help desk service office the practice that is good now are
they help everybody that want to get information about university politely and when there is
new, the University posts it in the news board on time.

2.9 Proposed solution for the new system that address problems of the existing
System
The proposed system will overcome the problems faced in the existing system and the newly
web based Help Desk Information Management system is online system that users can access the
information wherever and can get different services from this website of KMUHDIMS system in
order to solve their problems. The best solution to solve the information access of current system
is through
 Automate data processing using standalone system.
 Automate data processing and communication using networked system.

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2.10 Requirements of the proposed system
2.10.1 Functional requirements
The system supposed to do is: -

 Giving the hint for the new users here to go inside the university.
 Authorization and authentication of the system to user.
 Provide online or live chat communication.
 Search and view required information.
 Display the consultation hour of the employee.
 Display the status of the employee.
 Providing data manipulation service such as inserting, updating, searching and
deleting.
 Generating user based notice.
 A user can view permitted information when necessary.
 Locate office of employee for help information.
 Send and view feedback.

2.10.2 Nonfunctional Requirement

The nonfunctional requirements of the systems are: -

Minimize time: -the web page should process and provide information with in a limited amount
of time.

Security: - the system should be secured and protected from unauthorized user.

User interface: -the system should have user friendly interface. User Interface should be
accessible via Browser.

Response time: -The user sends the request and the system gives fast response with regards to
manual system.

Error handling mechanism: - the system must have error handling mechanism. It is not
stopping functioning rather it must report an error message and the proposed system will prompt
users while they make some mistakes entering incorrect input by responding error messages and
provide respective help.

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