Requirements Specification for idealnet/auction

Background

There is a cycle of four auctions on the go at all times - with a week
between the closing dates. (Therefore a quarter of the database is updated
every week).
The company generates lots of pages with details of the items under general
classification. There is no search engine on the auction site.

Visitors place blind bids via email which are put against postal bids Visitors register on the site and payment by credit card is accepted - but only when their bid is successful.

The transaction is done at head office. At present they have to visit pages, note the details and send an email bid. They do not get any confirmation of the success of their message - only notification when they win the bidding Currently the action details are conveyed into the central system in flat files.

There is no desire to have a fully automated interactive on-line auction Their client has a seperate ISP that hosts their site, and they want to keep.

There is a FoxPro database, existing, with product details and reference to which auction is for- this can be updated by the client. There should be a search engine which will generate the html pages in response to a request for specific types of item. This would be backed up by an auto - generating process which would be capable of browsing all items in the auction. Where images of the items are available, it would be worth including them on the pages.

After registering (or logging on via membership), the visitor should be able to browse the generated pages to select items to add to a shopping basket, noting a level of bid on each. The visitor should either see the basket while browsing, or have an on screen summary of the contents / value so far. They should be able to delete from the basket before posting it. When the visitor finishes bidding they should be able to post the result. The server should send them immediate confirmation of their bidding. It should retain the bid details and perhaps, also email every bidder to notify them of the result of the auction at its conclusion.

Assumptions:

  1. The Foxpro database is not connected to the web, but housed in the clients offices.
  2. The structure of the webdatabase may not be identical to the foxpro db.
  3. The OS will be Linux.
  4. The database will have to update approx. 2000 records per week.

Steps:

  1. Write dbupload script, which is run creates a new database definition in SQL.
  2. This is run against the FoxPro database everytime that the data is published. Photographs have references in the DB and are named in a consistent fashion.
  3. Decide DB for web. This may be a problem if we are not in control of the server.
  4. Write template pages in ASP/JSP/Webmacro/Paneris Perl Templates
  5. Write search script (similar to Iglu property search).
  6. Write 'shopping basket', similar to bloomsbury/iglu.
  7. Write bid script.

Business Need

The system is to assist

Users

The system will be used by ordinary web surfers wishing to register auction bids and by data administrators wishing to change item details.

Services

Data Administrator Services

  1. Upload Items for a particular Auction
  2. Delete all Items for a particular Auction
  3. Maybe: upload sale prices for items and notify item bidders of sale price
  4. Maybe:Notify successful bidders
  5. Download bid prices into auction database

Surfer Services

  1. Register
  2. Logon
  3. Search items
  4. Add an item to a shopping basket
  5. Edit items in shopping basket and enter bids against them
  6. Post all bids
  7. Recieve email notification of bid having been entered
  8. Recieve email notification on bid being accepted

Constraints

The system is to be housed with an existing ISP on a linux machine.

Document Dated: Mon Feb 22 19:11:58 1999
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