Design And Implementation Of Sales Management System With Multi-Tier Architecture

This project is about Design and Implementation of Sales Management System with Multi-Tier architecture. A Sales Management System (SMS) is a computerized application service that focuses on making it easy for business owners to manage sales information. Multi-Tier implies adding extra logical layer(s) in the middle of client/server (two-Tier) architecture. Multi-tier means a system with at least three tiers/logical layers. The three tiers refer to the three logical component parts of an application, not to the number of machines used by the applicationIn this project, a Sales Management System (SMS) is made up of three tiers i.e. The Presentation-Tier - which constitutes client a applications (Web based application, and Local Application) that deal with user interface and navigation, The Middle-Tier - which implements business logic, The Data Services-Tier - which deals with database operations, and further implements business logic through stored procedures. SQL Server 2000 was used as a back-end database server. The purpose of multi-tier architecture was to enhance application performance and data security as compared to client/server architecture. Authentication of users was done at each of the three tiers. Data encryption by use of Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) was further implemented on sensitive sales data to prevent leakages of data to unauthorized users.The idea of this project was perceived after a thorough observation of business transactions at LAN WAYS Computer hard wares company (Changsha, Hunan, China). The Company lacked a secure, efficient and convenient Sales Management System that would facilitate online orders, roaming business management, and customer interaction. Hence, designing a secure, efficient, easy to maintain, and user-friendly Sales Management System that would also allow online orders, roaming business management, and customer interaction was the broad objective of this project. The application functionality was further extended to manage multiple business service points that span entire nation with a central data store.Data duplication to the central data store was achieved by automating data Replication methods using Microsoft SQL server 2000 Replication tools.A web-based application was designed purposely for marketing and online orders. The Local Application was designed with Microsoft Visual Basic purposely for sales data inputs. Web based sales reports were generated.Finally, the SMS Application was tested through entering all the possible data to discover logical bugs, ascertain system's reliability, robustness and system's efficiency. The test was successful, and the application yielded the required output. Supported hardware and software platform were also identified.