CS6361 Requirements Engineering September 2000

Project I Requirements Elicitation

- Initial Understanding

Instructor : Dr. Chung

Project Group : Xin Ding
Jian Ma
Joon Ho
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B2B Anything Anywhere Anytime

University of Texas at Dallas
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The B2B-HUBTM System Requirements Specification

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“The hardest single part of building a software system is deciding

precisely what to build. No other part of the conceptual work is as
difficult as establishing the detail technical requirements,
including all the interface to people, to machines, and to other
software systems. No part of the work so cripples the resulting
system if done wrong. No other part is more difficult to rectify
later.”

[Brooks, 1987]

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Table of Contents
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INTRODUCTION 2

GENERAL OVERVIEW 2
B2B-HUBTM SYSTEM OVERVIEW 4
PURPOSE 4
SCOPE 4
DEFINITIONS, ACRONYMS, AND ABBREVIATIONS 4
REFERENCE 5
DOCUMENT OVERVIEW 5

TEAM ARCHITECTURE 7

TEAM MEMBERS AND RESPONSIBILITIES 7

INFORMAL REQUIREMENT DESCRIPTION 8

ENTERPRISE REQUIREMENTS 8
FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS 10
NONFUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS 17

ISSUES 19

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Introduction
General Overview
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The global eCommerce revolution is entering a new phase. While the first stage was fueled
by the vision and innovation of business-to-consumer Internet companies, the next phase will be
defined by the leadership and market success of companies engaged in business to business
eCommerce. The early consumer-focused eCommerce winners created the Internet business model,
but it will be their B2B successors that realize the full potential of the new electronic economy.
AMR Research projects that B2B e-commerce will reach $5.7T by the end of 2004, or 29%
of the dollar value of commercial transactions. This projection is based on the U.S. Department of
Commerce’s measurement that captures the value of all shipments of companies doing business in the
United States. Although the $5.7T projection seems enormous, it is based only on the volume of
shipments from suppliers to customers with no attempt to quantify the value of the other two
components of e-business: influence and information.
Ultimately, all businesses will buy on a marketplace, sell on a marketplace, host a
marketplace, or be marginalized by a marketplace. For organizations committed to participating in the
coming wave of online business, B2B marketplaces offer a compelling entry point into the new
economy. As eCommerce becomes more central to the operations of mainline companies, a diversity
of marketplaces will arise in every sector. So far, most of the early movers have been small,
aggressive third-party dot-coms seeking first-mover advantage which they hope to leverage into
market dominance. But they will not have the playing field to themselves for long. Already, the
established brick-and-mortar players are moving to leverage their existing trade relationships and
access to buyer liquidity into established B2B marketplaces.
Online markets, also known as B2B marketplaces, are commerce sites on the public Internet
that allow large communities of buyers and suppliers to “meet” and trade with each other. They
present ideal structures for commercial exchange, achieving new levels of market efficiency by
tightening and automating the relationship between supplier and buyer. They allow participants to
access various mechanisms to buy and sell almost anything, from services to direct materials.
B2B marketplaces are redefining how businesses interact with each other. Inevitably, all
businesses will be affected by this revolution. The important question that all companies must answer
is: “How?”
Many electronic commerce consulting firms are working in this arena to provide System
Requirements Specification. B2B-AAA (Business to Business Anything Anywhere Anytime) is a
consulting company focused on designing requirements specification for B2B Electronic Commerce
System.
One of the bases of successful B2B e-commerce is secure and reliable communication
between partners. Each partner must be totally confident that information and resources shared with
the extended enterprise are secure.
The Requirements Specification we proposed in this document, namely B2B-HUBTM
system, provides a means to automate shared business interactions and transaction between
organizations along an entire value chain.

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Introduction
B2B-HUBTM System Overview
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Purpose

This project is to present a brief introduction of the B2B-HUBTM system. This is a B2B
online marketplace software system. B2B or Business to Business simply refers to on-line commerce
between businesses as opposed to the more familiar Business to Consumer transactions. B2B sites are
a way of bringing trading partners together on-line. And these sites usually operate in one of three
ways: Catalog Sites, Exchange Sites or Auction Sites. Our system mainly includes all the three
features.

Scope

The B2B-HUBTM software system provides buyers and suppliers a place to make
transactions online. Convenience, quickness and low cost are the most impressing advantages of this
system compare to traditional physical stores. B2B-HUBTM system consists of hardware and software
parts. The hardware part is nothing more than a normal type of high-speed computer system. The
software, referred to as B2B-HUBTM system, will control the membership verification, transaction
handling, database update. The database of our B2B-HUBTM system includes membership information
database, catalog database and auction database.

Definitions, Acronyms, and Abbreviations

EDI (Electronic Data Interchange)

A system that enables tailors to integrate their purchasing activities with their stores and/or with
vendors.

Customer
Person that purchases merchandise or service. More...

Back order
An item or order that is not in stock at the present, but is being reordered and will be available at a
later time.

Maintenance
All the information including categories, inventory, end user’s information and shipping record need
maintained.

Membership database
The database that contains personal information of suppliers and buyers.

User
Guests and members

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Guest
People touring our software system without registration

Member
People who have registered, including buyers and suppliers

Membership
Normal Membership and Gold Membership

Normal Membership
Any company that has input its company data into our database. Three weeks are a normal length of
time for confirmation of posting its products on our catalogs.

Gold Membership
Member that has kept their membership valid and firm for at least two years without any cheating
issue and almost no bad product complains can apply to update their membership to gold membership.
This type of member does not have to wait three weeks for confirming their products.

Confirming product
Confirm the quality of the product, the credibility of the physical store or the manufacturer. This is a
time-consuming procedure. That is also why we recommend our normal member to update their
membership to Gold Membership.

Process
Unit of work performed by the online shipping system.

Reference

Ian Sommerville (2000) “Software Engineering”

IEEE standard 830: Software Requirements Specifications.
Lawrence Chung “Requirements Engineering”
Rym Mili “ Software Engineering ”
Charles Philips, Marry Meeker (April 2000) "Collaborative Commerce"
AMR Research, Inc. (April 2000) " Business-To-Business E-Commerce Report, 1999–2000"
Other information from Web browser: yahoo……….

Document Overview

1. Introduction provides an overview of the entire B2B-HUBTM system document.

2. Team architecture describes how our team is divided up and what role each of our team member
plays.
3. Informal requirements description is about three parts: Enterprise Requirements, Functional
Requirements, and Nonfunctional requirements.

Enterprise Requirements
Defining the Full Problem, Commerce Transparency, Enterprise Requirement for B2B
Functional Requirements
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Initiate Tour, Read News, Catalog, Auction, Purchase, Track Order and Cancellation Process,
Registration and Update Memberships

NonFunctional Requirement
Availability, Reliability, Robustness, Performance, User friendliness, Maintainability, Portability,
Security

4. Issues show the inconsistency, incompleteness, ambiguity, redundancy, etc. The solutions of these
problems are also included.

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Team Architecture
Team Members and Responsibilities
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Our team consists of three people: Xin Ding, Jian Ma, and Joon Ho. The team is divided
into three categories, representing people in the User World, System World and Subject World.
Primary concerns and roles played by each team member is listed as follows:

Team Role Played Primary Concern

Member
Joon Ho User World:  Functions Performed
Potential end-user  Response Time
 User Interface
 Reliability, Security
Jian Ma Subject World:  Functions Performed
Customer  Development Time
Consultants  Cost
Client Company Managers  Maintainability, Reliability
Xin Ding System World:  Customers, End-users Needs
Project Manager  Revenue, Profits, Market Share
Product Manager  Reusability, Traceability
 Understandability

The overall work is made up of two major activities: Problem Analysis and product
description.

Problem Analysis Step

 Learn about the problem domain
 Understand the needs of potential users
 Understand all constraints on the solution
 Perform trade-offs between constraints
 Consider alternatives.

The major source of our information is through observing the activities of how people do
business document and goods transfer, reading journal paper for current market needs, and surfing the
web for related B2B technologies. Functional-oriented problem analysis is used in this Step. Data
flow diagrams are sketched when as the problem become well understood.

Product Description Step

 Organize ideas
 Document SRS
 Resolve conflicting views
 Extract issues

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Informal requirement Description

Enterprise Requirements
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Defining the Full Problem

To elicit enterprise requirements for B2B Electronic Commerce System, it’s better to define
the problems being solved first. Moving business commerce online can make significant progress
toward solving three key problems most companies contend with:

1. Commerce is fragmented by geography, which creates inefficient markets and uninformed buyers
and sellers. Buyers want to know about suppliers that have better products or available inventory.
Sellers want to be discovered by buyers who don’t know they exist.
2. Most interactions between businesses are complex as well as labor- and information-intensive.
Businesses fund enormous inefficiencies because they tackle complex, collaborative processes
manually. Getting the right information to the right constituency at the right time is a challenge in a
single large organization, let alone among multiple complex enterprises.
3. Supply chains are bloated with excess inventory because of an inability to see and plan for the
right mixes and volume of products. Participants would like to substitute information for
inventory. Many suppliers have little information about when and how their customers use their
products. They build inventory to cover all scenarios. Buyers have little ability to quickly find
alternative sources of supply when markets change. Internet-based supply chains will have an
ability to share information quickly and adjust to market conditions more easily.

Commerce Transparency

The first problem, the market fragmentation challenge, is the catalyst for B2B
commerce. Efficient markets really mean transparency, and transparency can be a powerfully
transforming concept. Transparency is a knowledge-based concept that implies participants have
intelligence about the markets around them. Market alternatives become transparent, and
consequently, participants change their behavior. Aberrant behavior — artificially high prices or
unusually low quality — gets isolated quickly and competitive alternatives eliminate the anomaly. In
the marketplace for goods and services, the concept of transparency manifests itself in four
primary dimensions:

1. Price Transparency Does price vary significantly by geographic region or by size of

customer? Am I getting the market price or the price I’ve come to expect?
2. Availability Transparency I need product now; who has it?
3. Supplier Transparency Who else out there makes this product?
4. Product Transparency Is there a substitute, alternative product?

The Internet overcomes one of the vexing limitations to market transparency for centuries:
geography. If networks provide transparency, the Internet is the mother of all looking glasses.

For every order-matching event, there are 15-20 other transactions associated with that order.
Here, a B2B transaction represents the intersection of two trading chains. The buyer is procuring
product to incorporate into products resold to the buyer’s customers. Conversely, the seller’s goods are

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dependent on material and products from other suppliers. The growing branches of this complex tree
create challenges of coordination and optimization to get the right product to the right place at the
right time. The Web provides a convenient, ubiquitous platform to see and coordinate the entire chain
of commerce and will create a step function in efficiency and possibilities. Finally we can get a picture
of the chain of commerce.

Fig. 1 Chain of the Commerce & B2B as an Intersection of Demand & Supply Chain

End Customer & Suppliers

Distributor

Manufacturing Buyer Supplier Manufacturing

Assembly Assembly
Inventory Inventory

Intersection of
B2B-HUBTM Demand &
Supply Chain
Demand Chain Supply Chain

Source: Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Internet Research

Enterprise Requirements for B2B

Now we are ready to elicit enterprise requirements specifically for B2B Electronic
Commerce System.

B2B Buyer : I Need It Now

 Available to promise – In stock ?
 Capable to promise – Can be made by DD/MM ?
 Substitute products – Are there other products with same function ?
 Transportation alternatives – Can I select shipment method , e.g. UPS, USPS, FedEx, … ?
 Supplier profile validation – Is this company good, legal firm ?
 Partial ship/backorder – I need it right now. So, is it possible to get parts of it right away and to
backorder for the other part ?
 Fill or Kill option – Can I change my mind after selecting products ?

B2B Supplier : Limited Resources…

 Order information – Is this a profitable order?
 Cost information – What’s the incremental cost of rushing this order?
 Interactive online service – Are there substitute products? Will they wait if I lower the price?
 Fill or Kill option – should I kill this order if I have five larger ones behind it?
 Backorder option – Is a component backordered; if so, don’t rush ship?
 Buyer profile validation – Is this a premier customer?
 Order receiving option – Can I fill high margined orders first?
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Informal requirement Description

Functional Requirements
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Fig. 2 B2B-HUBTM System Top Level Diagram

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1. Initiate Tour

1.1 Tour as a Guest

1.1.1 Introduction
View our software system as a non-registered user.

1.1.2 Inputs
Default customer ID.

1.1.3 Processing
Assign the user a default customer ID implicitly.
Give him the basic rights to view news, to browse catalogs and to watch auction.

1.1.4 Outputs
Lead user to selection of viewing news, browsing catalogs and watching auction.

1.2 Tour as a Member

1.2.1 Introduction
Start using our software system as a registered member. Two memberships are provided: Normal
Membership and Gold Membership. The latter can post their products on our catalogs without
time-consuming product confirmations.

1.2.2 Inputs
Valid member ID and PIN.

1.2.3 Processing
Compare the user-input member ID and PIN with our database.
Determine if he is a normal member or a gold member.

1.2.4 Outputs
Show his membership status.
If he is a normal member, then ask if he wants to update his membership.

2. Read News

2.1.1 Introduction
News informs user the exciting things happened lately. It also tells user all the services and new
features that B2B-HUBTM system provides.

2.1.2 Inputs
Customer ID, either default (as for guests) or member ID.

2.1.3 Processing
Link to the list of news.

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2.1.4 Outputs
The list of latest news. A list of all the services will be displayed as well.

3. Catalog

3.1 Browse Catalog

3.1.1 Introduction
All users have the authority to look at all the products that we provide. The users include guests,
buyers and suppliers. Suppliers want to browse the catalog because they need to know the types
and prices of products we already have to determine if it is worth posting their goods on our
catalogs.

3.1.2 Inputs
Customer ID, either default (as for guests) or member ID.

3.1.3 Processing
Link to the list of products and product prices.

3.1.4 Outputs
The list of products types, price, their manufacturers and availabilities.

3.2 Post Products on Catalog

3.2.1 Introduction
Only suppliers have the authority to post products on our catalogs.

3.2.2 Inputs
Valid member ID and PIN.

3.2.3 Processing
If user is a guest, lead him to registration page.
If the input ID and PIN are not consist with out database, give an error message to let them contact
with webmaster.
If user is a normal member, ask if he wants to update to gold membership to avoid three weeks
product confirmation.
If he is a gold membership, go directly to “post on catalog” page.

Prompt supplier to input his product’s name, type, price, number of items available in stock,
handling and shipping time, contact phone, fax and email.
Update our catalog database in real time.

3.2.4 Outputs
Page of “registration” or “post on catalog”.

4. Auction
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4.1 Watch Auction

4.1.1 Introduction
This is a service for buyers. All users, guests and members, can watch the auction. This is a place
that people may find bargains.

4.1.2 Inputs
Customer ID, either default (as for guests) or member ID.

4.1.3 Processing
Link to the auction page.

4.1.4 Outputs
List of products offered in auction section, their manufacturers, number of available items, auction
closing time and price needed to bid to win.

4.2 Join Auction

4.2.1 Introduction
This is a service for buyers. Only members have the authority to bid.

4.2.2 Inputs
Valid member ID and PIN.

4.2.3 Processing
If user has not registered or logged in, lead him to login page.
Else if the input ID and PIN are not consist with out database, give an error message to let them
contact with webmaster.
Else if member does not provide his credit card information, lead him to page of inputting credit
card information.
Else, lead him to page of join auction.

Prompt user to input bid price and number of items wanted.

Update our auction database in real time.

4.2.4 Outputs
Page of “registration” or “provide credit card information” or “join auction”.
Order confirmation number.

5. Purchase

5.1.1 Introduction
This is a service for buyers. Only members have the authority to buy products.

5.1.2 Inputs
Valid member ID and PIN.

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5.1.3 Processing
If user has not registered or logged in, lead him to login page.
Else if the input ID and PIN are not consist with out database, give an error message to let them
contact with webmaster.
Else if member does not provide his credit card information, lead him to page of inputting credit
card information.
Else, lead him to page of purchase.

Prompt buyer to input number of items wanted.

Check the buyer’s personal information. Assign buyer a confirmation number and display the page
of receipt.
Update our catalog database in real time.

5.1.4 Outputs
Page of “registration”, “providing credit card information” or “purchase”.
Order confirmation number and receipt.

6. Track Order and Cancellation Process

6.1 View Order Status

6.1.1 Introduction
This is a service to let buyer track his order. It also shows if it is too late to cancel the order
process. Only member who has made the order can view order status.

6.1.2 Inputs
Valid member ID, PIN and order confirmation number.

6.1.3 Processing
If user has not registered or logged in, lead him to page of registration.
Else if the input ID and PIN are not consist with out database, give an error message to let them
contact with webmaster.
Else, lead him to page of view order status.

If user does not have an order in database, show him nothing to track.

A link to shipping companies is provided, such as UPS, FedEx, etc.

6.1.4 Outputs
Page of “log in” or “track orders”.

6.2 Cancel Order

6.2.1 Introduction
Only buyer who has made the order can cancel the order process with exceptions describe in
6.2.3.

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6.2.2 Inputs
Valid member ID, PIN and order confirmation number.

6.2.3 Processing
If user has not registered or logged in, lead him to page of registration.
Else if the input ID and PIN are not consist with out database, give an error message to let them
contact with webmaster.
Else, lead him to page of canceling orders.

If user does not have an order in database, show him nothing to cancel.
Cancellation can be done without penalty before stores handled the order.
No order can be cancelled after products have been shipped out to the buyer.

6.2.4 Outputs
Page of “log in” or “cancel orders”.
Confirmation number of cancellation.

7. Registration and Update Memberships

7.1 Registration

7.1.1 Introduction
This is a service for guests. User can input their credit card information now or later.

7.1.2 Inputs
Default customer ID.

7.1.3 Processing
If the member ID has been taken, prompt user to choose another one. Prompt user to select a
passwaord.

Prompt user to input information of his company, such as company name, location, phone, fax,
and email.

User can select to input their credit card information now or later. Without credit card
information, B2B-HUBTM system will not allow user to purchase products or to join auction.

Update our membership database.

7.1.4 Outputs
Page of registration.

7.2 Update Memberships

7.2.1 Introduction
This is a service only for Normal Members, especially for suppliers. Gold Members do not have to

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wait three weeks for confirming the products that they post on our catalogs.

7.2.2 Inputs
Valid member ID and PIN.

7.2.3 Processing
Else if the input ID and PIN are not consist with out database, give an error message to let them
contact with webmaster.

B2B-HUBTM system will check how long the member has been with our system, and how well
they provide services and products to buyers. Some personal effort will be quite possibly involved
to confirm the credibility of the supplier. This one-time confirmation will take up to four weeks to
accomplish.

7.2.4 Outputs
Page of updating memberships.
Confirm the applicant that we have received his request and the result of his application will be
mailed to him within four weeks.

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Informal requirement Description

NonFunctional Requirements
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A good B2B-HUBTM system should meet the powerful functional requirement. It should also
pay attention to its non-fictional requirements. This section describes the quality attributes that the
B2B-HUBTM software should have.

Availability
The system should be available 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.

Reliability
The B2B-HUBTM system should be released after thoroughly tested. The system should operate
properly 99% of the time over a 4-year period. Situations in which a request and response run
unexpectedly will be very minimal. It will be written in a modular structure to make modification as
easy as possible.

Robustness
The system should have the ability to continue to function accurately even the customer input wrong
common.

Performance
The system should provide high performance so that it can be better than tradition EDI and others.

1. The respond time for answering a buyer's request should be no more than 2 seconds.
2. The time respond for menu changes should be less than 2 seconds.
3. The time to issue a confirm information after the customer request should be no more than 2
seconds.
4. The system should provide suppliers enough space to introduce their product, so that the
buyers can get enough information to make a decision.
5. The system should provide error information to the user after 5 seconds.
6. The system should be able to serve 1000 customers concurrently.

User friendliness
The system should have a good user interface. The novice user can simply follow the instructions to
use the system without special computer technique.

Maintainability
The system should be easy to maintain by administrators. The system’s database should be backup
every week. After certain of time, the system should be added new function, new features so that it can
provide user good qualities.

Portability
The system should be able to run in different environments, such as Windows 98, Windows NT. It
should also be able to browse by Netscape, AOL, and Internet explorer.

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Security
The system should protect itself from external attacks that may be accidental or deliberate such as
viruses, unauthorized use of system services, unauthorized use of system services, unauthorized
modification of the system or its data. All customers’ account information must be stored in the
system’s database. Only the database administrators have direct access to the database for making any
change related to the database schema and for maintenance purposes.

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Issues
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Incompleteness

Problem: The B2B-HUBTM system need to have interfaces to legacy systems, e.g. EDI. So, it should
be included in the nonfuctional requirements part.

Option 1: Adding interoperability to the nonfunctional requirements.

Option 2: Only using its B2B-HUBTM system.
Solution: option 1.
Reason: Right now the B2B e-commerce still needs to use the old technique EDI to finish its task.

“The system’s database should be backup every week. ”

Problem: The statement is not clear on “database”. There are Buyers’ Database, Suppliers’ Database
and Order Database. The database not only need backup, it also need update.

Option 1:List out all kinds of database.

Option 2:List out all database and clarify the specific database will be updated under a certain
circumstance.
Option 3:Delete the statement.
Solution: option 2.
Reason: It is necessary to list all databases to be updated in different conditions.

Inconsistency

“The system should provide error information to the user after 5 seconds.”
Problem: In the performance requirement the statement said it require the system could provide error
information when the user input error information, but such function cannot find in the
functional requirement part.

Option 1:Delete the statement.

Option 2:Add the function of giving user error information in the functional requirement part.
Solution: option 2.
Reason: According to user friendly, the system should provide error information when the user input
wrong information.

Ambiguity

“News informs user the exciting things happened lately.”

Problem: After reading the statement, the customer still doesn’t know what kinds of exciting things
the user should get.

Option 1:List out new service for buyers and suppliers.

Option 2:List out news of recently marketing.
Opting 3:Delete the statement.
Option 4:List out new service for buyers, suppliers and the news of recently marketing.
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Solution: option 4.
Reason: By clarify the special news; the customer can know exactly what kind of news the user can
get.

“Only members have the authority to bid.”

Problem: In the system, members are consisted of buyers and suppliers. Here it use members is
unclear.

Option 1:Change “members” to “buyers”.

Option 2:Change “members” to “ members-buyers”.
Solution: option 1.
Reason: Keep It Simple Stupid.

Redundancy

“Is this company good, legal firm?”

Problem: “company” and “firm” have the same meaning.

Option 1:delete firm

Option 2:delete the statement.
Solution: option 1.
Reason: The Company already has the firm meaning.

“All users, guests and members can watch the auction.”

Problem: “users” includes “guests” and “members”.
Option 1:delete “users”.
Option 2:delete “guests” and “members”.
Solution: option 2.
Reason: It is simple and clear.

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