Budgeting Tool Brandon Ganch Chris George Paul Perello Mike Schmidt

OVERVIEW GOAL: To design personal budgeting software for a 21-year old male with Autism that will help improve his money management skills.

Understanding Autism Neurological disorder – affects brain function Impacts development of brain in areas of social interaction and communication 1.5 million Americans have Autism Growing at a rate of 10-17% People with autism can learn and function productively and they show gains with appropriate education

Project Characteristics Our project requires extensive interaction with the user and client The main focus is satisfying the needs of our one end-user. Due to the fact that we have only one end- user, there will be a lot of customization (sound, scenarios, reading/math level)

Project Characteristics Specifications at the beginning were limited, more free range in design Thus, client specifications have developed over time through samples of our progress on the interface and its functions. First idea – Create a tool that teaches Second idea – Create separate budgeting tool and educational game

End-User Characteristics Travel: Expedia.com Details – make realistic Elevators, Tunnels, Buses

Project Outline Tool – Simple budget tracker – Keeping track of transactions Game – Structured trip simulator – Planning expenses

Project Problems Problem: How our tool would function 2 options: solely track expenses create actual budget After consultation with the client, we decided some sort of budgeting was best Decided on the simplest interface End-user will only see the current balance which may go up or down depending on the user’s type of transaction.

Project Problems Problem: Having MySQL and PHP run locally We initially decided to use MySQL as our database and PHP as our programming language (good interaction with Flash and MySQL) Easiest to run on web server (CS), since no worries about having MySQL and PHP locally

Project Problems Also, can run on any machine with internet connection Constraints: Security and Dial-up Modem on end-user’s system Thus, after consultations with our clients, we decided to explore local option Learned that a Java program can read in Flash variables and then write to a text file

Project Problems Also, Flash has the capability to read locally stored text files Summary: Java replaced PHP text files replaced MySQL For our project, we decided text files should be sufficient back-end for the amount of data that will be saved

Use Cases We have 2 use cases: – End-user Use Case – Admin Use Case Our end-user use case will allow the user to document a transaction, save it to a back-end, clear the transaction, view a monthly report Our admin use case will allow the administrator to view an admin manual, delete an entry, and reset the balance

End-User Use Case Field input – date, type, amount, description and category User will always see his current balance Error checking – amount field, no negative or non-numeric characters will be allowed Clear Entry – all fields back to default Save Entry – balance is updated; if drops below zero, no more expenditures allowed

End-User Use Case Get Report – The user will be able to choose a report from any month – Categorize report by category, type of transaction or by week – Able to print report at any time – Able to fill screen with an individual week – Able to view a vertical bar graph with respective report

Admin Use Case View Admin Manual Reset Balance – The user may reset the balance to any number they wish (error checking on non-numeric characters) Delete Entry – The user may delete any entry from the last 10 transactions made by the end-user by clicking on that entry

Interfaces End-user main interface View reports pop-up interface Admin pop-up interface Delete entry interface Error pop-up interface

Architecture Repository Built on the fact that we will be reading and writing to back-end text files Both administrator and end-user will be using and manipulating the same text files Initial domain classes – Debit entry, Credit entry, Monthly Report

Project Layout Reset Balance (admin), Save Entry (end- user), Delete Entry (admin) and Get Report (end-user) all overlap in utilizing back-end structure Draw broad layout on white board

Back-end Text files – database.txt – balance.txt – last10Entries.txt – sortByID.txt

Back-end Java files – Reset.exe – SaveEntry.exe – SaveBalance.exe – DeleteEntry.exe – SaveBalanceReset.exe – GetReport.exe

Back-end Technical Problems Deleted text files Corrupted entries in text files