The Theatre for Young Audiences expressed the need for a system to maintain information about students, staff, donors, and sponsors. In an effort to meet both current and future needs, an application was designed using a Visual Basic.Net Graphical User Interface as the presentation tier and an Access XP database as the data tier.

Organized using Systems Analysis and Design methods the project includes the following phases:

Preliminary Investigation: Interviews with the client to determine how the current system works and the improvements desired began in August 2003. A summer internship as the costume designer and wardrobe master gave me the opportunity to see the daily operations of the ogranization and a clear picture of the overall operation.

Analysis: This phase included the collection and analysis of current forms, reports, and brochures as well as research on other types of informatiaon desired. Since the client will also be using the database behind a website, several similar sites were also critiqued for input into the design phase.

Systems Design: The database schema was designed and refined. The normalization of tables eliminated any many-to-many relationships and redundancy was minimized. A code maintenance feature will be added at a later time so code tables used to feed drop down lists were kept seperated.

Systems Development: The presentation tier or Graphical User Interface, designed with Visual Basic.Net presented several challenges. The client's top concern referenced ease of use resulting in utilitarian screens free from graphics. The data tier programmed using Access XP provides the capability of interfacing with the GUI.

Systems Implementation: Creating and refining the user manual including the data flow information consumed a great deal of time but resulted in documentation which allows the user to easily learn and implement the modules in the system. The production of the data dictionary provides future programmers with the documentation to modify and update the system.

Conclusion

Taking an Advanced Visual Basic.Net course and previous work with Microsoft's Access database helped with the technical aspect of the project. The reinforcement of the process necessary to complete a project provided me with input for professional and personal growth. Although I enjoy the challenge of programming, creating this project reaffirmed my decision to pursue a career involving system administration.