Database for Product Information and Search
$2500-3500 USD
Bezahlt bei Lieferung
Database Design Project
Summary:
Create a new database to house numeric, text, pictures and then enable simple searching of the data and creating professional PDF outputs. Current output mock-up exists in Excel. (Enclosed)
Input Data formats:
Data: numeric data
Jpeg: Pictures and logos
Text: single words and complete paragraphs
Data control: Input date stamp, chosen revision date, data source
(Definition of template and product content type and data size is enclosed below)
Outputs:
PDF’s of highly stylized documents – mock up design template in Excel currently exists
Join together both:
1) Selected template/style -- including layout, pictures, logo, text
a. Single product template single column
b. Single product template dual column
c. Comparison template --- select 2 products
d. Guide template --- unlimited individual selections in tabular format
2) Selected product to display – data, text, logo, data control
User Interface:
INPUTS:
Design an Excel template for inputting bulk data (Upload)
Define a process to read in these Excel data sheets
Define process to input multiple pieces of data associated with a single template
Define process to input multiple pieces of data associated with a single product
OUTPUTS:
Design a UI and process to search for the desired products and select the desired templates
Design a UI and process to select the desired products to use in the templates: selection of 1, 2 or multiple products maybe with a check box BUT need to allow for a multiple product selection process like a Ctrl+Arrow for bulk selections like in MS programs.
Documentation:
Define the process for inputs and outputs of the database
Detailed Instructions for Users
Software tool:
Software tool used is negotiable based on developer. Lean toward MS ACCESS due to transparency of the end database product for future modifications. SQL would be OK too.
Would like to add more detail to the Users Interface. Please find below one Use-Case -- this one for the sales people. The description is here and as a MS WORD attachment with the referenced pictures:
SUMMARY USE CASE:
There will be a few specific use cases one of which is defined below so that it is clear the expectation for the how this will be used.
Sales Call:
While speaking with a customer, the sales person will want to be able to interview them about their requirements and use this tool in an interactive way to determine the best product fit for their application. There are two potential conversation paths that this application must be able to support for the sales people. Let’s call them Direct (D) and Search (S).
The Direct method (D) is the most linear. If the salesperson knows the exact product and product name they wish to show the customer, they must be able to search for the product by name – this should support standard search protocols like * and partial names. This action would then produce a list of select able possible product name results. There must be the ability to select one or more than one product from the resulting list.
At this stage there would be an option to move forward directly to produce data sheet(s) (call this D1) or other options (call this D2). If selected, the data sheet option (D1) would result in a complete data sheet for that product on the screen. This display should automatically default to the correct associated market segment template with no additional inputs/interaction. (Template would include pictures, paragraph, data types, etc appropriate for that product --- more about the templates later) (Bonus: If the program knew automatically to use a single, double comparison or triple comparison template based on the number of selected products that would be cool – otherwise there might need to be a way to select these options manually).
The salesperson could then discuss the product or products with the customer – so this screen needs to be customer friendly either directly or with a Customer View option. The next logical step would be to email that information (in PDF form) to the customer – so Outlook email integration functionality should be incorporated into the UI as a simple next step. If there are many PDF created/open there might need to be a selection menu to pick the desired PDF before going to Outlook. (BONUS: If this action(s) above could be automatically linked/Integrated into Salesforce.com to record the activity - that would be very cool.)
The (D2) option would be available after the initial product name search and also available via a a BACK button from the D1 option to go back to this (D2) option. The goal of the (D2) option is to use the data from a selected product to search for closely related products. The D2 option would use the data associated with the selected single product to bring up search criteria related to the search (S) option. A perfect scenario would be to start by looking up a competitor’s product in our database and then expanding the criteria to select other products we make that are close to the same performance level. Let me describe how this search flow might work.
There needs to be a search function based on performance criteria to find the desired product. Ideally this performance search provides at least five criteria and gives selectable minimum and maximum values in an interactive way. Note: the default criteria displayed should be the main ones we use.
I am very partial to the UI on Kayak.com so this would be great. Using that analogy the application would default to show the “take-off” and “landing bars” like those in orange to the right. (BONUS: it would be great if the criteria was not fixed with the defaults but could be edited to change the criteria to another one of the other 20+ items that define each product. In the analogy, this would allow changing the “take-off” criteria to “layover time” criteria as one of the five used for this customer discussion)
So in the D2 option the product selected would bring up the search criteria and allow the salesperson to modify/move the acceptable window to include other closely related products. Then this list of related products could be selectable to be displayed on the resulting screen display and the final data sheets.
To allow some input on which products should be selected for the final data sheet the screen output would likely be an interactive data table format with the few selected criteria displayed. Again the comparison to Kayak.com works in that we could see the interactive result in the table.
The Search Method (S) would jump directly to a search process based on the above default criteria. I would like the option of using the bar interactive menu PLUS the option for a direct input line below the min and max shown on the right to allow the sales person to type specific numbers like 100 to 200 for each criteria. Visually these could be the same numbers that are above as 5:30 and 10:00 in the example. Maybe the bar and numbers could be linked so the two mirror each other based on which every input system is used for input.
Again the output would be the same as the D1 or D2 options above:
1) Product options to be shown based on the search criteria
2) Ability to select one or more than one product
3) Ability to make many single product sheets or comparisons of two or more products on a page. Two or three products would fit into a stylized vertical format with pictures and text, while more than 3 would be put into a horizontal table format with fewer data items displayed for each product
a. Show the output on the screen for discussions
b. Ability to go back and edit the criteria and products displayed
c. Ability to send the final result via email
Projekt-ID: #7945160
