OIT Software Distribution Store

This document specifies the general features of usages found within the University of California, Irvine: OIT Software Distribution Store and should serve as a basis for further system development. The OIT Software Distribution Store is designed to assist current OIT Faculty and Staff members who are currently handling software purchases.

The following information can be found within this document:

This section is intended for OIT Staff Members. A general description/overview describing the flaws of the current process of purchasing software can be found here.

This section is intended for OIT Staff Members. A general description of what the OIT Software Distribution Store will feature can be found here. The section will explain how the system will solve the current problem.

This section contains some background information on which the OIT Software Distribution Store is based upon. Information as to how difficult it is to maintain the software can also be found here.

A guide/tutorial on how to use and access the OIT Software Distribution Store can be found in this section.

This section is intended for the Departmental Bookkeepers. Tools reviewing purchase history can be found here.

This section contains information about features that have not yet been implemented into the system.

Other documentations can be found in this section. These documentations mainly include source code information and user guides.

Currently, The OIT Help Desk is manually handling software purchases through a request and input process. Typically, a customer would call the OIT Help Desk and specify a product to purchase with the type of payment. This process is very inefficient since it requires the usage of a large amount of time and manual labor. On top of this process of software purchasing, Departmental Bookkeepers have to deal with keeping records and documentations of these purchases manually. Whenever a report needs to be generated or if data needs to updated, Departmental Bookkeepers would have to read stacks of papers and input the information to complete the task. Clearly, what OIT is currently lacking is an automated process that should handle these tasks.

The most common type of payment a customer uses to purchase are Recharge Numbers and Grant Numbers. All of these "numbers" are registered and linked with an Account and Fund Number in which is affilliated with the customer. As of right now, OIT Help Desk is manually handling software purchases through a request and input. Typically, a customer would call the OIT Help Desk and specify a product to purchase and the type of payment. Most type of payments are affilliated with an Account and Fund number. On top of the software purchasing process, documenting these purchases also requires time and labor. Currently, Bookkeepers are reading stacks of papers, page by page, and inputting information. Sometimes, this task can get of hand and uses a extensive amount of time(can last up to a week). Both these processes are inefficient and requires extensive time and labor.

As stated in the "Current Problem" section, the OIT Software Distribution Store aims to create an automated process that’ll handle software purchases. By doing so, it’ll eliminate most, if not all of the current flaws.

The OIT Software Distribution Store is an online store that advertises purchasable proprietary software with various types of payments. To save time and cost of developing an online store from scratch, the OIT Software Distribution Store is based off of an Open Source e-Commerece Software called Prestashop. By installing Prestashop and using it as our basis, most of the basic and general features of an online store will be implemented. These basic and general features are similar to what one would find in major online stores such as Amazon, Newegg, Ebay, etc. The features mainly include adding inventory, changing stock, changing prices, adding items to cart, check out, pay with check, downloadable products, etc. There is also a user-friendly GUI backoffice where an administrator can access to configure most of the store’s appearance and inventory. Here are the features in which Prestashop did not feature:

Features that needs to be implemented through source code:
1. UCI WebAuth Authentication Module
2. Account and Fund Number Project Registration
3. Account and Fund Number Payment Module
4. Bookkeeper Documentation/Record Tools
These features were created and based upon information obtained from our OIT Software Distribution Store Requirements Document

According to our Requirements Document, the OIT Software Distribution Store had to meet the following conditions:
A. Each and every customer must be affilliated with the University of California, Irvine. (Customers must have a UCINETID)
B. UCI WebAuth Login Authentication
C. A project registration in which the customer will choose to pay with an Account and Fund Number. The customer must provide the following for a project registration:
1. Project Identifier - Project name for a specific purchase. For instance, if I’m buying MatLab for three computers, I’d name the Project Identifier to be AnthonysMatLabGroup.
2. Account and Fund Number - This is the Account and Fund Number the customer wishes to use to purchase for this specific project.
3. Departmental Bookkeeper - The customer will need to select a bookkeeper to report this purchase to.
4. Account and Fund Number Holder - If the customer wants to use another person’s Account and Fund Number(with permission), then they need to identify the holder.
5. Hostgroups - This is needed for network licenses.
D. Provide a purchase/review history in the form of a tab delimited and importable spreadsheet
E. Account and Fund Number payment module
F. Bookkeeper Email Notification of purchase

The OIT Software Distribution Store * is highly maintainable. Most future store changes needed to be made can be found in the GUI back office. This includes changing appearance, inventory, products, store name, etc. Since we’ve modified the source code, it is STRONGLY not recommended to a newer version of *Prestashop. However, upgrade documentation is provided in our other documents. In terms of reliability, Prestashop is currently the No.1 Open-Source Software in France and Europe. There is also a large online/forum community in which one could access for help and development.

The current constraints of the system is the lack of an automated Account and Fund Validation. This is due to the lack of permission of accessing the Data Warehouse for information. Besides this, all of the required features have been tested and implemented. Some possible future features are the following:
1. SSHout Automatic Licensing - Automatically updates the license server log after a registered project is used to purchase.
- Other types of payments - Varies

Bookkeeper Tools Requirements Documentation Source Code Documentation