BUSINESS DIAGNOSTIC TOOL

Designing and Programming an Application for Use of SME Partners

David Plandor and Lenka Landryova

Department of Control Systems and Instrumentation, VSB Technical University Ostrava

17.listopadu 15, Ostrava, Czech Republic

Keywords: Business process, Diagnostic tool, System, SME.

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to describe a newly designed diagnostic software application for a small and

medium enterprise (SME). This application was driven by a need of small and medium sized companies and

by a focus on a simple, comfortable and user-friendly interface. The diagnostic process provided by the

application consists of 4 main parts – a questionnaire, a processing system, a report and an action plan. The

entirely new generic diagnostic system developed according to the functional specifications given by

partnering companies in our project includes a system of questionnaires with processing logic conditions,

and was tested with end users and upgraded based on end users’ feedback. A live version and

implementation into a web site on the server is ongoing.

1 INTRODUCTION

Our target is to design a diagnostic software

application for a small and medium enterprise

(SME). According to the given functional

specifications (FutureSME, 2008), the diagnostic

process provided by our application consists of 4

main parts – a questionnaire, processing system,

report and an action plan. A special module, which

is not a part of the end user-interface, is an

administration tool. An application is published and

can be found when an end user is registered to the

FutureSME web portal.

The main objective is a need to focus on a

simple, comfortable and user-friendly interface.

Other objectives include a support of language

versions, system dynamics as it needs to be

independent from any programmer’s interference

with the business diagnostic logic background. All

of the actions should be just provided by a system

administrator. A very suitable solution seems to be

the development of an entirely new generic

diagnostic system that includes system of

questionnaires with processing logic conditions. The

newly created system has to be tested with end users

and upgraded on the basis of end users’ feedback.

Then it should be finalized into a live version and

implemented into the web site on the server.

2 BUSINESS DIAGNOSTIC TOOL

SPECIFICATION

Most of the leaders on a market with business

diagnostic tools offer strategy development for a

company during a consultancy session with the help

of advisers (Morrison, 2007), recruiting and

retaining skilled workers (Building Small Business

HR, 2008), or may be oriented specifically at a given

industry in order to deal with the highly dynamic

circumstances in which industries around the world

now operate (Print 21 Action Agenda, 2005). Others

are evaluating business performance going through a

number of simple questions ranging from sales

turnover, productivity and employee performance

figures (McAnderson, 2010). The results are offered

in a form of an individual or team report supplied

during a follow up meeting with a full explanation

and advice for advancements, opportunities and

clarification (McWilliams & Associates, 1992,

Business Diagnostics 2004.

What makes our proposed solution different is

the technical aspect and a point of view from the

SME end users, who originated the functional

specifications and a design. The on-line

questionnaire consists of questions and its responses.

Responses are linked to a user who is currently

logged into the FutureSME portal. All users’

Plandor D. and Landryova L..

BUSINESS DIAGNOSTIC TOOL - Designing and Programming an Application for Use of SME Partners.

DOI: 10.5220/0003650600770082

In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Software and Database Technologies (ICSOFT-2011), pages 77-82

ISBN: 978-989-8425-76-8

 2011 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

responses have to be stored in a database for further

processing. A list of results is generated from users’

responses on the basis of logic rules specified by the

system administrator. All users’ results are displayed

in the report web page including graphic items

(static or dynamic schemes, graphs etc.). A user is

allowed to create his own action list by processing

the business diagnostic results. An action list is used

for the planning of actions leading to the solution of

crucial issues or improving the specific part of

company. This list is automatically filled from other

sources on the portal as well. The action list should

be additionally edited by a company representative

including the addition of a time schedule,

responsible persons and priorities.

Figure 1: Business diagnostic process.

In order to suit all variables of business diagnostics

for different targeted SMEs, we need to have several

versions of the diagnostic process. It will be very

effective to compare companies’ results or create

average results for a group of companies according

to specific factors (the business area, region, size of

a company). All complex data have to be stored for

future comparison. For a faster approach we should

be able to transfer the results into newly created

versions. Particularly in the case we need to edit

only a few questions and we do not want to force

users to fill out the answers from a previous version

again. In case we need just a minor change, we

delete particular users’ responses and force a user to

answer them once again. The system does not

require the creation of a new version in the simplest

case when we change just text of a question, the

response or result without changing the meaning.

System users are divided into groups according

to their roles - administrator, facilitator, translator

and company representative. We can divide users

into these groups with different permitted accesses

and available functions:

 Company Representative – is allowed to fill

out the questionnaire, view a report and fill the

action list from business diagnostic results.

This role is default for end users from SMEs.

Each company is allowed to have just one

representative for the whole diagnostic

process or more representatives from different

company divisions.

 Facilitator – has all functions of company

representative. A facilitator fills out the

questionnaire on behalf on or with a end user,

helps him to explain all in detail. A facilitator

uses a complex approach across all facilitated

companies and has access to other tools on the

portal.

 Translator – is allowed to add, edit or delete

language versions of texts across the whole

diagnostic process. Default language is

English.

 Administrator – is allowed to add, edit or

delete questions, responses, logic, report, and

language translations.

2.1 Development Environment

and Tools

Since our goal is to develop a web application, we

need to choose an appropriate environment and tools

for development. On the server side there is

ASP.NET and PHP. VB script and Javascript are

technologies on the client’s side. Due to our rich

experience and the simple implementation into

Linux or Windows servers, we have chosen PHP

version 5.2.17, which generates the XHTML code.

On the client’s side a Java script and Java script

based library called jQuery is used. JQuery offers a

wide scale of tools for the creation of a user-friendly

interface. As the portal utilizes the Microsoft SQL

Express Edition v9 database it appears to be the best

choice for business diagnostics as well. For good

quality graphs a free version of a pChart library

based on PHP is used.

2.2 Diagnostics

For the diagnostic template a database table has been

created. There are basic data – who and when has

the template been created, its brief description etc.

This table is the root for other template tables such

as questions and responses. At first we have to

design a questionnaire part of the diagnostic process

then we will continue to data processing and

reporting.

2.3 Questionnaire

At the beginning we have to design database

structures for questions, variants of questions,

responses etc. The following tables have been

ICSOFT 2011 - 6th International Conference on Software and Data Technologies

created:

 Questions

 Question‘s variants

 Question‘s responses

 Question‘s options

 Categories

Each question is filed into a category. Categories are

tree structures, so it is possible to create several

hierarchical levels. A question can be specified by

its display order and a group. Groups of questions

are put onto one page in order to improve the

questionnaire’s arrangement.

Questions are specified by types:

 Customized answer (text box)

 One possible answer (radio group)

 n possible answers (checkbox)

 Choosing from defined options (drop-down

list)

 Percentage (0 – 100% in steps of 5)

 Special – i.e. choosing from options with

additional customized answers

Figure 2: Basic scheme of business diagnostic tool.

The questionnaire always displays one question or

one group of questions according to defined groups.

The questionnaire keep the question order.

Questions from one group are put onto one page. A

grouping of questions is used for better viewing

similar or simple questions on one page. Question

groups are defined in a database table. Each question

can have its variants. Variants are necessary in

situations when we need to distinguish answers in

dependence of a additional factor e.g. we evaluate

the number of employees in a company and we are

interested not just in this year, but also in the

previous two years. So we add three variants to that

question. These variants are displayed as columns

and a user is provoked to answer all three variants. A

particular variant of a question (if exists) has to be

specified in the logic condition as well.

On the left side of the screen there is a category

completion table. Categories are always linked to a

diagnostic template. Each category includes the

name of category, the total number of questions in a

category and the number of answered question

within a category. It is always obvious how many

non-answered questions in a category remain. The

total completion status in percentage is placed on the

table header. The table serves also for fast

navigation across the questions. The first question of

a category is offered by clicking on a category’s ID

and a user is redirected to a first non-answered

question by clicking on the name of the category.

All links in the category table are improved by

tooltips that appear on the hover about the links.

Tooltips specify the behavior of a link. Once all

questions of the category are complete, a green

checkbox icon appears. Once the total completion

status reaches 100%, a user is redirected to a

guidepost – it is possible to review the answered

questions or continue to processing a report

generation from the resluts. If there are still some

non-answered questions, the user is forced to

complete them.

Figure 3: Questionnaire and a completion table.

A question’s response is stored into a database after

clicking “Next” or “Previous” button. A question

can include customized check scripts. Fixed checks

of the number of responses are defined for questions

according to their specification in a database. There

is also a script for percentage counting always

assuming a total of 100%. A check condition can be

specified by an administrator by using simple

language (java script based) or scripts can be

generated by the business diagnostic system.

Generation is based on choosing options and adding

operators for defining relationships between various

parts of conditions. If a condition is not satisfied, a

user cannot proceed. There is a skip button, so the

next question is displayed but no results are stored.

BUSINESS DIAGNOSTIC TOOL - Designing and Programming an Application for Use of SME Partners

Figure 4: Complex view of web questionnaire.

A user is supposed to return to that question

otherwise the result processing and report generation

are not available. Every question and response can

be extended by a tooltip with the detailed

specification or précising the valuation. If a

question or response has a tooltip, a small bulb

image appears at the end of the text. Additional text

is shown after clicking on the image, this way seems

to be much more comfortable than showing tooltips

on the hover which can be confusing when there are

many answers with tooltips very close to each other.

When the response is marked as customized a text

field is placed into the questionnaire. Sometimes we

need a combination of the checkbox and customized

text. So another check script is required. When we

tick a checkbox we have to require a customized text

and when we put a customized text, we need the

checkbox to be ticked. Otherwise, we cannot

proceed. Similar behavior is applied for other form

item combinations.

3 PROCESSING OF RESULTS

A user is allowed to start processing the results and

generating a report once the completion status is

100%. Now we are going to describe a system for

result processing and generating the report. All

possible results are stored in a database as a part of

the diagnostic template. The results are filed into a

category, which can (but does not have to)

correspond to the question categories.

Each result includes:

 Text part

 Gap – description of company’s gap

 Short recommendation - short

recommendation how to improve or

eliminate a gap

 Detailed recommendation– detailed

recommendation how to improve or

eliminate a gap

 Type of result – i.e. sustain, improve,

urgent etc.

 Logic part – simply defined logic condition.

A program processes the data in a cycle - it goes

through the list of results and the logic condition of

each result is examined. A result is assigned to a

user when the condition is satisfied.

The logic formula is internally stored in a

specific format. The system administrator does not

have to know the exact convention as the

administration allows automatic formula generation

by going through the questions choosing the

answers, variants and adding operators. Symbolic

schema is programmatically converted into a simple

logic formula.

For example a formula can look like this -

(B1.2=2 AND F1.5=0) OR (F2.3>20). It means that

this result will be assigned to the current user as long

as the condition is satisfied. We have two parts

joined by a OR operator, so one of the expressions in

brackets has to be true. The first expression –

response 2 to question 1 from B subcategory, option

2 and response 5 to question 1 from F subcategory

equals zero. Now there is the OR operator followed

by a second expression in brackets – response 3 to

question 2 from F subcategory is higher than 20.

If the condition is true, the result is written into

the database and another procedure, that completes

all dynamic data for the result, is invoked.

A recommendation text is generated for each

result. The dynamically generated texts are inserted

into the static template i.e. a list of ticked responses

or responses with a value higher than 10% etc. All

dynamic texts are stored in the database.

Figure 5: Example of generated results.

3.1 Report

Results are displayed in a report – a classic web

page with following types of objects:

 Static object – report header, images, schemes

 Dynamically generated objects – result texts,

graphs from results, user dependent data.

ICSOFT 2011 - 6th International Conference on Software and Data Technologies

The report template is always created by the

administrator. For designing the report structure the

best a TinyMCE web library is used. Perhaps we can

count on a programmer’s contribution when we need

to add some more complicated objects such as

graphs. The report utilizes the pChart library for

good quality graphs. At the end of the report a list of

questions with responses is printed. The final report

is exportable into PDF.

Figure 6: Example of a graph in a report –dynamically

generated from user’s results using pChart library.

3.2 Action List

The filling of the action list is launched from web

report. It is a procedure, which uses all already

stored user’s results and inserts them into an action

database table. The action list includes actions that

are necessary for company planning in the future.

The action list is filled from other sources on the

portal as well. Actions can be created manually by a

user in different parts of the portal. We will focus

on data coming from the business diagnostic. By

clicking the button a procedure for filling the action

list is invoked. A program goes through all results

and stores them into an action table in the database.

An overview of all actions is accessible in different

parts of the portal. a user can assign other data to an

action i.e. responsible person, start and due date etc.

A user can fill the action list periodically, always by

the insertion of currently valid results.

3.3 Instance, Comparing Diagnostic

Results

Each system of questions and responses (diagnostic

template) is linked to a user using instances. An

instance includes the primary key of diagnostic

template followed by user’s ID. An instance is also

specified by the creation date. An instance is linked

to the other two database tables – the user’s

responses from questionnaire and the user’s results

generated by processing part of the system. If a user

wants to complete the same business diagnostic

later, a new instance linked to the same template is

created, but with a different ID and creation date and

is linked to different user’s responses and results.

Instances connected to the same diagnostic template

are comparable in order to see changes and

improvements in a company.

3.4 Administration

Administration is a separate part of the business

diagnostic for editing currently existing data but also

for the creation of totally new diagnostic templates –

the defining of questions, responses, results

including logic conditions etc. New versions of a

diagnostic can be created by copying existing

responses or the results from previous versions.

Users do not have to answer same question in new

versions. All text fields can be defined using a

HTML code or WYSWYG editor for text

highlighting or adding a link redirecting a user to

interesting sites within the portal on somewhere else

on the web.

Figure 7: Administration – question texts editing.

4 CONCLUSIONS

The required goals for the business diagnostic have

been reached. The dynamic system for a general

diagnostic process (when a questionnaire followed

by the processing of results is required) has been

developed. Our diagnostic system is used in the

FutureSME project with many end users – small and

medium company representatives across European

countries. The application is discussed with end

users and accommodated according to their

feedback. The application has been developed with

emphasis on a simple, modern, comfortable and

friendly user interface. A web format allows wide

scale utilization – not just for small and medium

enterprises or the business sector but in general any

BUSINESS DIAGNOSTIC TOOL - Designing and Programming an Application for Use of SME Partners

self-assessment purpose. The business diagnostic

application will be improved and extended in the

future and its results will be processed by other

external applications such as KPI (key performance

indicators) software application. Other parts of the

FutureSME portal will display diagnostic results i.e.

complex company state overviews, progress in time

etc. We hope that this tool will become

commonplace not only in small and medium

enterprises but also for business facilitators,

consultants and in general in situations when self-

assessment and result processing is needed.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors would like to acknowledge the

FutureSME project team who contributed greatly to

the data collection and analysis of requirement

specifications for this work, as well as the European

Commission for funding and supporting CP-IP

214657-2 FutureSME, (Future Industrial Model for

SMEs), EU project of the 7FP in the NMP area.

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ICSOFT 2011 - 6th International Conference on Software and Data Technologies