Training Management System

52 Pages·2015·1.29 MB·English

Bibash Shah

Training Management System

Android Application for Training Management

Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences
Bachelor of Engineering
Information Technology
Bachelor´s Thesis
29 April 2015
Abstract

Author(s) Bibash Shah
Title Training Management System

Number of Pages 43 pages + 0 appendices
Date 29 April 2015
Degree Bachelor of Engineering
Degree Programme Information Technology
Specialisation option Software Engineering
Instructor(s)
Markku Karhu, Dean

The goal of the project was to develop a tablet application to take attendance of trainees
(employees of AREVA) in the IT security training. The application allows digital registra-
tion of trainees in an easier and safer way. The project was carried out for IT Security
department of AREVA, the nuclear energy production company. They wanted an appli-
cation in a tablet where they can use it instead of pen and paper.

The application was developed in the Android platform as it is an open source and very
powerful operating system. The eclipse IDE was used for writing source codes in the
Java programming language. Extensible Markup Language (XML) was used to define
the basic components and the visual components in Android.

The project was carried out very rapidly keeping in the mind the deadlines and necessi-
ties. Incremental development method was used throughout the project because it is
cyclic rather than unidirectional, offering a greater ability to incorporate changes into
application during the development time. All the processes were completed such as
software specification document, development and testing before the product was re-
leased.

Furthermore, the application was developed, debugged and tested in a real Android
device named Nexus 7.0 first generation tablet. Finally, the application was demon-
strated to the department. Overall, positive feedback was received as a result of evalu-
ation. Future developers can use this project to learn more about building an Android
application.

Keywords Android, Mobile Application
Contents
1 Introduction 1
2 Android Ecosystem 2
2.1 Android Architecture 4
2.2 Development Tools 6
2.3 Rooted vs Unrooted Android Device 7
3 Application Development 10
4 Software Specification 12
4.1 Functional Requirements 12
4.2 Non-functional Requirements 13
4.3 Requirement Specifications 14
4.4 Application Architecture 14
4.5 System Design 15
4.6 User Interface Design 19
5 Software Development 20
6 Software Validation 23
6.1 Development Testing 23
6.2 System Testing 24
6.3 Acceptance Testing 24
7 Quality 26
7.1 Learnability 26
7.2 Efficiency of Use 27
7.3 Memorability 28
7.4 Errors 28
7.5 Subjective Satisfaction 29
8 User Guide 29
8.1 About The Application 30
8.2 Installation Procedure 30
8.3 Features Of The Application 31
8.4 Instructions 38
8.4.1 Registering To Training 39
8.4.2 Editing The Information 40
8.4.3 Unregistering From Training 41
9 Conclusion 42
References 44
1

1 Introduction

The emergence of smartphone and tablet technologies has made the companies and
their employees easy in their working life. Besides phone calls, smartphones are used
for taking photos, playing music, playing games, web browsing, Wi-Fi, GPS and many
more functions to ease a single person´s life and large businesses and companies.
Through the installation of applications, the use of smart phones and tablets has multi-
plied by thousands and growing each day across the globe.

The use of applications internally in the companies is growing day by day. The applica-
tions can do many things that the website of the company cannot do because of their
portability. The applications can be used for many purposes such as supply chain man-
agement, logistics, purchasing, data management and data storing. Applications in-
stalled in the smartphones and tablets are always accessible to customers even if there
is no Internet connection. Applications are available in customers’ phones like a business
cards in wallet.

AREVA, the nuclear energy production company, where the project was carried out,
needed a tablet application. They wanted an application where they can use the tablet
instead of using a pen and paper to take attendance of the trainees in their trainings. It
was specially made for the IT Security department of the company.

The department has to give many trainings with hundreds of trainees at a time. The
tradition way of taking attendance took much time and there was a risk of a loss of data
while storing it again into the main database of the company. The application allows
digital registration of trainees in an easier and safer way. After a successful registration
of trainees, the database of the application stores all the trainees’ data and later the data
can be passed to the main database of the company using USB cable.
2

The Training Management System is developed only for the company purpose. The tab-
let in which the application is installed is never connected to the Internet for data protec-
tion from cyber-attacks. The application cannot be found in the Google play store. It is
only installed on the company tablets and only for the internal use.

The goal of the project is to design the system architecture, mock ups and implemen-
tation of the application. The application is developed, debugged and tested in the An-
droid platform especially for Nexus 7.0 first generation tablet.
2 Android Ecosystem

Android is a Linux-based operating system developed by Google. It is a free and open-
source operating system that Google provides to hardware manufacturers and phone
manufacturer companies. The Android OS was introduced by Android Inc., which was
bought by Google in 2005. [2]

It is based on Oracle´s Java programming language. It was designed as a generic OS
for smartphones and tablets which Original Equipment Manufacturer could customize
and sell to customers. The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is used to define the
basic components and the visual components in Android. The runtime in Android trans-
lated the Java and XML code written by developers to a language understood by the
operating system and devices. [3, 41]

There have been hundreds of millions of mobile devices across the globe with increasing
numbers of users continuously since the market was introduced. Figure 1 illustrates the
global smartphone sales to end users from the 1st quarter of 2009 to the 3rd quarter of
2014, by the operating system in million units. [1]
3

Figure 1. Global smartphone sales to end users by operating system (in million units). Reprinted
from Statista [1]

Figure 1, clearly states that the Android OS has become the dominant operating system
on mobile and tablet devices. About four percent of new smartphones that had an An-
droid operating system were introduced to end users across the globe. The operating
system has been increasing rapidly since the time it was introduced. Almost eighty per-
cent of new smartphones were Android operated devices by 2013. [1]

For developers Android provides a world-class platform for creating applications be-
cause it has a powerful development framework that is free and can be developed from
any operating system running on laptops or computers. Android platforms allows end
users to develop, install and use their own applications on top of the Android framework.
The Android framework is licensed under the Apache license, where an Android appli-
cation developers have right to distribute their application under the customized license
[2]. Every application in Android runs in its own isolated environment since each appli-
cation has its own processes, and each process has its own virtual machine [4, 47].
4

Android has been released in many different versions. Table 1 below are all the versions
of Android released up to date.

Table 1. Android versions. Data gathered from [5].

Version No. Name API level For:
1.0 Android Beta 1 Phone
1.1 Android 2 Phone
1.5 Cupcake 3 Phone
1.6 Donut 4 Phone
2.0/2.0.1/2.1.x Eclair 5/6/7 Phone
2.2.x Froyo 8 Phone
2.3/2.3.1/2.3.2 Gingerbread 9 Phone
2.3.3/2.3.4 Gingerbread 10 Phone
3.0.x/3.1.x/3.2 Honeycomb 11/12/13 Phone
4.0/4.0.1/4.0.2 Ice Cream Sandwitch 14 Phone and Tablet
4.0.3/4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwitch 15 Phone and Tablet
4.1/4.1.1 Jelly Bean 16 Phone and Tablet
4.2/4.2.2 Jelly Bean 17 Phone and Tablet
4.3 Jelly Bean 18 Phone and Tablet
4.4 KitKat 19 Phone and Tablet

Figure 1 provides data about the relative number of devices running a given version of
the Android platform.

2.1 Android Architecture

Android Software stack or Android architecture has a number of layers, and each layer
groups together to form an architecture of Android operating system.
5

Figure 1. Android architecture. [6].

In Figure 2, there are four main layers that combine to build an Android architecture.
They are Linux Kernel layer, Native layer that is libraries and Android runtime, Application
Framework layer and Applications at the top of the layer.

At the bottom of the Android stack there is the Linux Kernel. It provides many different
functions in the Android system but never interacts with users and developers. This layer
is useful for hardware abstractions, memory management programs, security settings,
power management software, network stack, Bluetooth driver, camera driver, audio driv-
ers and keypad driver [8, 17]. The versions of Kernel have evolved with the evolution of
Android.

The next layer in the Android architecture is Android’s native libraries. The libraries carry
a set of instructions to guide the device in handling different types of data, for instance,
a set of libraries of the Web browser engine consists of a web kit, well known library libc,
SQLite is a database engine for Android, a library to play and record audio and video,
SSL libraries for internet security and surface manager. [7]

Android runtime lies in the third section of the architecture from top. This section provides
the key components called Dalvik Virtual Machine and core Java libraries. It is intrinsic
6

in the Java language, whose core features are memory management and multi-thread-
ing. Dalvik Virtual Machine enables every Android application to run its own processes
that are in .dex files. [8, 19-20]

The Application Framework serves many higher-level services to applications in the form
of Java classes. The framework comes pre-installed with Android, but can be extended
with its own components as needed. Application developers are allowed to use these
services in their applications. The most important part of the framework are activity man-
ager, content providers, resource manager, location manager and notification manager.
[8, 20-21]

The top most part of the layer is application. Third-party developers can install their ap-
plication on this layer and end users are able to use and see the layer in the form of
widgets and graphical user interface. Android applications can be installed from Google
playstore. All the developers can distribute their applications from the playstore and us-
ers can install and use them from their Android phones and tablets. [7]

2.2 Development Tools

As Android is open source, the source code is available for all developers, which is called
the Android SDK (Software Development Kit). It gives the API (Application Programming
Interface) libraries and developer´s tools that are necessary to build, test and debug apps
for Android. [10]

In this project, Eclipse IDE (Integrated Development Environment) was used. Eclipse is
the IDE for writing source codes. In Eclipse IDE there is an ADT plugin, through which a
special SDK can be installed to create projects, launch emulators and to debug. As an
IDE it provides the environment for developing Android applications. SDK holds built
platforms, tools, images and some platform-specific libraries. SDK Manager can install
or delete any version of SDK. [10]

SDK Manager provides the emulator to run, test and debug the developing application.
AVD is a virtual device that manages the emulator. However in the project, a real Android