Process Assumptions

The following assumptions are being made about the procedures and processes within the Art Show proper, and reflect in the design of the software.

• Show displays artwork and other art pieces, of which most are for sale with a "silent auction" process, followed by a public "voice auction" process for a certain number of pieces.
• A "silent auction" is where bids are placed using some mechanism requiring only the bidder's action. In Further Confusion's case, this is a "bid sheet" displayed near the artwork upon which a bidder identification, followed by a bid amount, is placed.
• A "voice auction" is the classic definition, where a gathering of potential bidders meet with an auctioneer who calls for bids. Show has a fairly limited number of artists (in the hundreds) each of which could be displaying one or more pieces (up to about a hundred). Using the software with artists numbering into the thousands, or hundreds of pieces per artist, may be awkward as several screens are not paginated.
• Art pieces can be classified as "General" or "Adult", and the voice auction is designed to handle the two categories separately. (Of course either category can remain unused).
• The concept of "spaces", which are reservable resources, are often categorised as a "General" or "Adult" space, but this is totally independent of the category the piece is in.
• All artists and piece details are entered into the computer system either before or during the show, and must be entered before "final bids".
• All winning bids are entered into the system before any sales can begin.
• No easy support for purchase of pieces that are not bid on.
• Software currently has no support for pre-allocation of particular locations, but does not prevent that using some other system. Software will record how many of each space is reserved for that artist.

See Future Features for a list of features intended to be added over time. Your input can decide which ones get implemented first.