The purpose of this project is the creation of a web platform where parents will be able to buy tickets for various activities aimed at their children and providers will be able to promote their activities.
- Introduction
- Goal
- System Scope and Boundaries
- User Categories and Characteristics
- Digital wallet
- Ticket policy
- Functional requirements
- Non-functional requirements
- Software Tools - Architecture
- Database
- UML
- Wireframes
The purpose of this document is to describe the requirements and functionalities of the platform. It also illustrates the purpose of the platform and explains the constraints and scope of the system. Any suggested changes to the requirements listed in this document should be included in the last version of it.
This document is intended primarily for the following audiences:
- Software Engineers: This document provides the framework for the understanding, design, and implementation of the platform.
- Developers: The platform shall meet the requirements listed in this document.
- Testers: Under test, the system shall satisfy the requirements.
- Parents and Organizers: This document can be used as a Platform Usage Guide.
- Investors: Investors will be able to gain a better understanding of the platform and the business policy.
The “Playground” constitutes a user-friendly web platform, that is addressed to parents with children, as well as to organizers of children’s activities. In particular, parents can browse through a wide variety of activities and can specify the output of their search attempt, by applying any number of the determined criteria available. For instance, an age restriction, constricts the results within the given age range and a type restraint leads to viewing activities that are associated with the selected type. The organizers of activities can provide the information of their services using the web platform. This information will act as the basis for the search results displayed to the user.
The platform should be free to use, but parents who wish to book a seat online, should proceed to buy a ticket according to the payment methods.
The scope statement defines what the project will and will not include, in enough detail to clearly communicate to all participants.
The boundaries identify where the system to be sized starts and ends. The sizing should include everything for which the team is responsible:
- The system is accessible to all users/guests free of charge. The account registration is also free for every user who wants to enjoy the privilege of buying a ticket.
- System’s interface supports only the Greek language.
- There will be no real charge of credit cards or any bank account. The system will just virtually change some database’s values in order to display the exchange to the user.
- Internet access is required for usage of our system services.
- User’s email is required in order to verify the registration.
- No software installation is required in order to use this application, except for web browsers (new versions recommended).
- System services are directed only for Athens’ residents , and aimed at children from 3 to 16 years of age.
Platform users are not required to have specialized computer skills, but they need to have basic knowledge of computers and Internet browsing. Users need to feel comfortable with the Greek language.
There are four types of users that interact with the platform: anonymous users, parents, service providers (organizers), and platform administrators. Each of these four types uses the system in a different way and therefore has non-identical requirements and access permissions.
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Anonymous User
Anonymous is a user who visits the platform without logging in. Such users can only search for activities (with or without specifying predefined criteria) and check tickets availability. In brief, non-registered users will have read-only access to the platform. However, they will be able to use the contact form to inquire further information. -
Parent
By the term parent, we mean the user who has already logged in the platform and is interested in finding activities for their child. The permissions of a Parent include the access permissions of an Anonymous User. However, a parent has some extra features, such as booking and buying a ticket, logging in and out of their account, modifying or deleting their account and communicating with the platform manager. -
Organizer (Service Providers)
An organizer is considered to be the registered user who organizes an activity and wants to not only make it known to the public but also sell tickets through the platform. Service providers manage the information about their activities, such as the description, contact information, the amount they would like to receive from each ticket and the number of the available tickets. They are also authorized to communicate with the platform administrator. -
Administrator
By the term administrator, we mean the user who has a special permission to manage and control the system. They need to have a better knowledge of the system than the rest of the users. As platform administrators, they have the right to manage the users and assign or revoke permissions to roles. Furthermore, they can reset and block a user's password in case of necessity. Another one of their major responsibilities is the communication with the Parents and Organizers.
A registered user can fill his digital wallet with credits only by using a debit/credit account. Transcation with a bank account will be supported. The correspondence between digital wallet credits and real money is 1 by 1 and no fee is applied during the transaction.
Digital wallet includes a reward policy for frequent users.
- For every 10 tickets that a user has purchaced, 10 bonus point will be added to his wallet as a reward for consistently selecting our platform.
- If the user makes deposit that exceed 100 euros, 7 bonus point are added to his digital wallet. Also, if he makes a deposit of 50-100 euros 3 points will be offered as a bonus.
A digital ticket is just a 10-digit ID number. Your kids are eligible to participate to an activity by providing the reservation name (probably your name) and the ticket ID. The digital ticket ID or IDs are displayed right after a succesfull payment and also sent to a given email.
Cancellation of a reservation is not supported by the platform and refund/return cannot be provided in any form. Purchasing a ticket is strictly an one-way procedure.
Registered users are restricted to buy at most 10 tickets at once. Group reservations (more than 10 tickets), are not supported by the paying platform directly, and you should sent a special request via the platform.
No registration is required to use the platform as an anonymous user, i.e search for events. However, it is essential in order to purchase tickets.
Registering as a parent requires the following identification information:
- Full Name
- Date of Birth
- Email address
- Home address
- Telephone number
To complete the registration, an email confirmation will be required.
Registering as a provider requires the following information:
- Brand Name
- Email address
- Telephone number
- Address
- Tax registration number
- Bank account number
- Upload a document containing details on the provided services / activities
For a successful registration, the relevant document will have to be approved by a special committee. Afterwards, an email will be sent to the user confirming the successful registration.
Registering is not applicable for this user.
For registered users, the authentication process requires a username and a password, which are specified by the user during registration. In case the user forgets her password, she can request a reset via an email that will be sent to the address specified during registration.
The anonymous user is limited to browsing the platform. Thus, she is not able to purchase tickets. However, she is able to use the contact form to inquire further information about the platform.
The parent can search activities based on a range of criteria such as:
- category
- distance / location
- age group
- price
In addition to these, free text search will be available. The results of the search query will be displayed on a map.
The parent can buy available tickets for selected activities using an electronic payment method e.g. credit / debit card. After a successful purchase, the tickets will be emailed to her in PDF format.
She can modify / update information relevant to her account or cancel her membership to the platform by deleting her account.
Finally, she can request for help via a special contact form.
The provider can upload activities / services to the platform. Each one of them should include:
- Name
- Location / venue
- Detailed description
- Photo
- Date & time
- Maximum number of tickets
- Age group
- Category
- Ticket price
In addition he can view a history of his events, as well as monthly reports with the total revenue and total tickets sold per event.
He can modify the details of his account and he can cancel his membership by deleting his account. In this case, all activities that he provides become inactive.
Finally, he can request for help via an appropriate contact form.
For parents, it means that they can no longer log in to the platform. For providers, it means that all their activities become inactive and they can no longer log in to the platform.
The administrator is able to manage user accounts. Thus, she is able to:
- approve / lock user accounts
- approve password reset requests from users
A watermark will be automatically added to every photo that is uploaded to the platform in order to prevent its use in any other context. This functionality will be implemented by an external module to the system.
Responsive design will be used in every aspect of the website so that all web pages render well on a variety of devices and window or screen sizes.
In order to be considered reliable, the platform needs to meet the following requirements:
- The software must not fail to the detriment of the user.
- The platform should be available for use all the time.
- The platform should be connected to an online map service.
- Errors should hardly ever occur.
- In case of failure, the system shall not accidentally lose information related to the users, the transactions, and the activities. Moreover, the recovery time should be minimal.
The software shall meet the following performance requirements:
- The platform shall respond promptly to the actions of the user and manage the data quickly.
- The data retrieval time should be short.
- The platform should not decrease the computer performance.
It is essential that the software meets all of the following safety requirements:
- The software should not affect data in other databases.
- It should under no circumstances cause damage to the computer.
It is crucial that the software satisfies all of the following security requirements:
- In order to take specific actions, users need to log in to their account. The platform shall not allow authorized access if the user fails to provide correct log in information. The user will be notified of any login failure.
- If a user (initially Anonymous) wishes to register on the platform and the desired username is occupied, they should be asked to choose a different username.
- Username - password combinations shall never be intercepted. Thus, the messages between the system and the database should be encrypted during log-in communications.
- For security reasons and to be consistent with international standards, passwords must satisfy the following criteria:
- Passwords may consist of any combination of ASCII characters.
- Passwords shall consist of at least 6 and at most 15 characters.
- Passwords shall be case sensitive.
- Passwords shall never be viewable at the point of entry or at any other time.
- Passwords stored in the database must be encrypted. As a result, unauthorized users will be prevented from obtaining the passwords.
- The system should keep the database secure.
- In order to support the HTTPS protocol on all pages, the platform shall use self-signed certificates.
- Parents and Organizers will not be able to change information not related to them.
- The platform supports different user categories with different access permissions. These permissions may only be changed by the administrator.
- A watermark will be used in the photos that accompany the activities.
As far as usability is concerned, the platform shall meet the following requirements:
- The platform interface will be user-friendly, easy to use and consistent with similar platforms.
- Users with relevant experience should get familiar with the platform operations without difficulty.
- Users without prior experience should be able to understand the platform's functionality quite quickly.
The platform should be easily extended. Therefore, the code should be written in a way that favors the implementation of new features and functions.
The platform shall be versatile in switching between desktop, tablet and mobile interface. It should also be fully functional in all the aforementioned kind of devices.
The platform will be built in universal javascript, meaning that the same code will be able to run in both frontend and backend. Server will be running node JS runtime engine and frontend will utilize react library to build the user interface.
React: Following the react philosophy, the whole application will be build in javascript, making encapsulated reusable components which manage their own state. React uses a virtual DOM that renders only the changed UI elements. Regarding the styling of the UI we use the react-bootstrap framework through a CDN.
Redux: Instead of using an MVC, we adopt the Redux way of thinking. We estimate that our app will scale big enough, so it’s worth to introduce the concepts of the famous state container, Redux. So the structure of the frontend part will be split in actions, reducers, components and containers.
React-router: By using react-router library in the frontend, we will handle history, routing and even client side routing.
Web Framework: Implementing the routing responses in plain javascript will be pain in the ass without a web Framework. We selected to work with the express framework as it handles routing, middlewares and endpoint in quite straightforward way.
React-Router in server side: We gonna use this library also in backend in order to implement server side rendering of our app.
Database: For ease of use and speed we will use a no NoSQL database, mongodb. It is famous, with big community and well-document and supports geolocation queries. Using this type of db we are able to skip the E-R diagram design and save time at the initial development phase.
Authentication: Implementing login and signup functionality will be quite easy with the node js middleware library, passport.
In order to achieve seamless UI interaction we use javascript promises to make asynchronous https request to backend server. The format of the received and sent data is JSON. That type of communication is widespread and it’s known as AJAX. All communication events will be driven by the RESTful design principles.
For version control, git is used exclusively. In order to test new features without breaking the existing code and collaborate without interference, we use branches and we merge them one by one to the master branch when appropriate. At this stage we don’t use pull request as all the members of the team have the same level of privilege.
In order to simplify the library management we are going to use the famous javascript package management, npm. Regarding the build process, webpack is a great tool to automate it and to pack all the assets in a single bundle.js file, both for development and production builds.
The utility implementing the watermark on image will be built using a pre existing library. After that it will be compiled and then added as a binary dependency to our main project.
For the database implementation, MongoDB will be used, as it supports all the required features. The following objects will be used:
- Parent
- Username
- Encrypted Password
- Name
- Surname
- Date of birth
- telephone number
- home address
- Amount of money in wallet
- Purchased tickets
- user role
- Locked status
- Provider
- Username
- Encrypted Password
- Brand Name
- telephone number
- address
- tax registration number
- document with details on provided services
- activities
- bank account number
- user role
- locked status
- Administrator
- Username
- Encrypted Password
- user role
- Activity
- Name
- Location
- Date
- Description
- Photo
- Available tickets
- Total tickets
- Age group
- Category
- Ticket price
- Active status
- Ticket
- Ticket code
- Activity id
- Parent id
- Date of purchase
The use case diagrams for the main system actions, as well as for several individual subactions are following below.
There are four types of users, namely Anonymous User, Parent, Provider and Administrator.
The user can either choose to view all the available activities, or perform a specialised search according to her criteria.
The procedure to purchase a ticket is as follows: the user selects the desired ticket, then she proceeds to the payment options providing any additional contact options if it is deemed necessary. After the payment is successful, she can access the email address that was provided during her registration into the platform in order to download the ticket in pdf format.
| Ονοματεπώνυμο | Α.Μ. | |
|---|---|---|
| Αδάμης Δημήτριος | 3113077 | jimadamis95@yahoo.com |
| Αναστασίου Εμμανουήλ | 3113078 | el13078@mail.ntua.gr |
| Βλάχου Βασιλική | 3113015 | silvia713@msn.com |
| Δημητρίου Κωνσταντίνος | 3113167 | el13167@central.ntua.gr |
| Καραβασίλης Νικόλαος | 3113012 | nikarav@hotmail.com |
| Σωτηρίου Δημήτριος | 3112059 | el12059@mail.ntua.gr |