Question

Question 46 Not yet answered Marked out of 4.00 Discuss what an entity is in terms of systems documentation and what the distinction of internal and external entity is dependent on.

Answer 1

Ans: System Documentation: The collection of documents that describes the requirements, capabilities, limitations, design, operation, and maintenance of a system, such as a communications, computing, or information processing system. It's sole purpose is to provide the necessary information to develop training programme for operators and users and to create a vehicle of information to provide evidence of progress in the development process and to monitor the process.

Features of effective System Documentation:

• It must be clearly stated in the language that is easily understood.
• It should be possible to refer to other documents. It should be possible to refer to other documents.
• It should contain everything needed, so that those who are reading it carefully understand the system,.
• It should be accessible to those for whom it is intended.
• When the system gets modified it should be easy to update the documentation

Contents of System Documentation:

The report on the system design should contain the following elements:

• An overview of the entire project describing the general purpose of the system with the relevant information.
• Documentation for every input and output used in the system. Each document should accompany each design and explain the purpose and use of each form.
• Documentation of every file of the system, creating and update sequences of the file should be there.
• System flowchart describing the series of steps used in the processing of data.
• A financial analysis of the proposed and existing systems, providing present and future costs with potential cost savings.
• A description of the computer system and its peripheral equipment’s.

Levels of System Documentation:

Levels of documentation mean the persons or positions in the managerial hierarchy for whom or to whom document is useful for operation purposes.

These levels are:

1. Documentation for users
2. Documentation for management
3. Documentation for data processing department.

1. Documentation for User:

For the smooth operation of the system, it is essential that the users understand the system fully, and are aware of what is expected of him to make it work successfully.

• The documentation should include a sample of each input document and instructions for using it.
• It should also indicate operating schedules.
• User’s documentation should cover files layout and file relation details.
• The documentation for user should explain in non-technical terms all aspects of the system from users’ point of view.
• It should also explain how the system will operate once it is fully installed.
• It should include a sample of each output report with necessary explanation.
• It should state the input document coding procedure, and also the coding structure for various fields and related tables.
• Limitations of system should also be highlighted.

2. Documentation for Management:

It includes systems’ proposals covering the followings:

• Functional Design—Functional requirements.
• Resources required.
• Cost benefits analysis.
• Development schedule.
• Concepts, architectural design.

3. Documentation for Data Processing Department:

This has been divided into following three categories:

• Documentation for system’s designers.
• Documentation for operations personnel.
• Documentation for programmers.

Internal and External Documentation

It depends what you mean by internal and external.

• If you are referring to your audience, internal documentation is intended for the employees of your company and external documentation is intended for the customers of your company.
• In a training environment, internal documentation may describe to how to prepare for a training including making sure the environment you are going to use for training is set up correctly, and that you are familiar with the course content and the commonly asked questions.While the external documentation would be the supporting training documentation, study guide, resources, etc.
• For writers, internal documentation includes a style guide, schedules, information on how the review process works, release process checklist, etc. External documentation is the content the documentation team develops for the customers.
• For developers, internal documentation may include details on which tools to use for development, which coding practices to follow, how to use the build process, the process to release a build to QA for testing, and so on. It may also include details letting other internal teams know what to do to deploy or release a product.
• If you are referring to code, internal documentation explains how the code works and external documentation explains how to use it. You might even have two types of internal documentation —one for your team and one for the customers who use the code.

Internal Documentation details the process of development of a product such as for example Standards, Project documentation, Business correspondence notes, etc.

Whereas, External documentation refers to the documents that detail about the product itself, such as, System documentation and User documentation.