ONLINE AUCTION BIT

                             ONLINE AUCTION BIT

Abstract:-

"U Auction" is an online auction web site aimed at taking the auction to the finger tips of aspiring bidders there by opening up the doors of the "OPEN Auction House' to a wider cross section of Art Lovers and Antique Collectors. This site also acts as an open forum where buyers and sellers can come together and exchange their products. The site makes sure that the sellers get a fair deal and buyers get a genuine product.

Home Page - The site opens up door to aspiring web users through the Home page. The Home page is designed in such way that the layout is as user friendly as possible. There is a navigational menu at the top of the page which links to various inner pages. There is a category drop down on the left side for easy manipulation. The center area is for displaying latest products in the chorological order.

Login/User Registration - Those who wish to take part in bidding or sell products at the site have to register at the site as seller or buyer. Only authenticated users can take part in selling or in bidding. The system automatically rejects un-authenticated users who try to bid or sell at the site.

Register Products - This module is for presenting items for bidding. Only those who have registered and authenticated as sellers can place their articles for bidding. The Module collects information like Product Name, Product Details, Starting Bid amount, Incremental value etc. The system automatically inputs the closing date.

Bidding Module - The module is for bidding on any selected item. The bidder has to authenticate before participating in bidding. The system checks whether the incremental amount entered by the bidder is equal or more than the incremental minimum set during the product registration time. The system places the record in the bid history against the bidder account.

My Auction - This page is an interface for both buyer and seller. Buyer can see the profile of the bidding history of items which are still open on which he/she has already bided. Similarly the seller can see the progress of bidding on articles he/she has placed for bidding.

Feedback - The purpose of the page is to send messages/comments to the web administrator.

FAQ - This page is meant for first time users of the site. The page provided answers to questions which are common and frequently asked.

WebAdmin - This link opens to the administration module which is open to web administrator only. Here site administrator can add product categories and can edit product information like closing date. Also there is an option for administering the closed bids. This module is for contacting the bidder and seller by email instructing them to settle the transaction within a time frame.

CHAPTER 2

PROBLEM DEFINITION

The problem with public auction is that the participation of the general public is very limited. The aim of the project is to socialize the auction so that people from far & wide and even across the continent can participate in it. The "U Auction" site is developed with a vision to wipe out the inherent problems of "Conventional Auction House". The salient features of the site are as follows:

1.            Paperless Auction System

2.            It's accessible to everyone, at any time no matter where they are

3.            Reliable user validation & checking.

4.            Easy online settlement.

"U Auction" is designed in such a way that it is as user friendly as possible. So any aspiring bidder or seller can visit the site and engage in bidding with least effort.

2.1          EXISTING SYSTEM

The existing "OPEN Auction House" is managed manually. Prior to each auction, the day of auction, the venue and the items on auction are announced through news media. Those who wish to take part in the auction have to arrive at the venue on that day on time. This conventional method most of the times prevent aspiring bidders from participating in the bidding process. Another headache of the old system is to track each bidding process and to make it culminate in financial settlement. So the system has to keep records of both buyers and sellers until the end of settlement. The process is very cumbersome and time consuming.

2.2          PROPOSED SYSTEM

The slogan of the new site is AAA, 'Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere'. That what it really is? The "U Auction" is online auction house so the seller or bidder doesn't need to go anywhere, instead they can take part in the auction just sitting in the comfort of their living room, be it during the day or night.

The proposed computerized "U Auction" site has made auction process simple. The only

5 pre-condition is that the user must register and authenticate before he/she can take part in the bidding process. The system uses HTTP forms authentication which creates a session cookie for any signed in user. Through out the span of the session the cookie remains valid until the user logs out.

An auction house needs to have products to auction, so in the proposed system this is done using product registration module. The module is open to user who is registered sellers and they need to authenticate before they register any product. The system controls the closing date by adding 14 days to the submitting date there by restricting the bidding process to go on indefinitely.

Another important module in the proposed project is the "Bidding module ". Here one can see the details of any particular product and also the bidding history. The user can bid on that item by entering any amount greater than or equal to the incremental bid amount. Here also system checks to see whether the user has his credential verified otherwise he/she will be directed to the login/registration page.

The last but the least module is the "Web Administration" module. The module is only open to the web administrator due to security reasons. In this module the administrator can add product categories; this is to avoid rampant creation of categories. The 2nd thing is the option to edit any given product. This will be necessary when some of the details of the product need to be edited for one reason or other. The 3rd and last the closed bid manager where the administrator notifies both the seller and buyer the need to complete the transaction.

There is another module which runs more or less like background process. The function of the module is to close bid of those products whose closing date is less than the current date. The process is automatic and hidden from the web users.

CHAPTER 3 SYSTEM STUDY

The system study phase involves the investigation of the structure of current system, with the objective of identifying the problem and difficulties with the existing system. The major steps involved in this phase included defining the user requirements and studying the present system to verify the problem. The performance expected by the new system was also defined in this phase in order to meet the user requirements. The information gathered from various documents were analyzed and evaluated and the findings reviewed in order to establish specific system objectives.

3.1 SYSTEM ANALYSIS

System Analysis is an investigation into a problem and how a new system will solve it. It is the most essential part of the development of a project of a system analysis. System analysis consists of system element, process and technology.

To analyze a system, has to study the systems in details. The analyst has to understand the functioning and concept of the system in detail, before design the appropriate computer based system that will meet all the requirements of the existing system. The system analyst has to carry out a customary approach to use the computer for problem solving.

System analysis includes the following basic concepts

•             Preliminary investigation

•             Requirements specification

•             Feasibility study

•             Detailed investigation

•             Drawing up of strategies

•             Design and coding

•             Testing and training

•             Implementation

The above steps constitute the logical framework for the system analysis. After the preliminary investigation and feasibility study, the scope of the defined and comparable items are set forth and hence detailed investigation is executed. This allows the system analyst to comprehend the full scope of the project. Soon after the implementation of the newly developed system, followed by the training of the users, the system analysis is included.

CHAPTER 4

PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION

A request to receive assistance from information system can be made for many reasons, but in case a manager, employee or system specialist initiates the request. When that request is made, the first system activity preliminary investigation begins. The activity has three parts

>             Request clarification: the request from employee may not be well stated. Sometimes the request may not be well defined. Therefore before any system investigation can be considered, the project request must be examined to determine precisely the actual requirements of the organization.

>             Feasibility study: the basic idea behind feasibility study is to determine whether the project is feasible or not.

>             Request approval: all projects that are requested are not desirable or feasible .some organization receive so many projects requests from employee that only a few of them can be pursued. However those projects that are feasible and desirable should put into a schedule. The management decides request that are most important. After a project request is approved the cost priority, the completion time and the personal required are estimated. Once the request is approved, the collection of data and determination of requirements can be started.

CHAPTER 5 REQUIREMENT SPECIFICATION

The primary goal of the system analyst is to understand the requirements of the new system that is to be developed. For that the study of specification of the requirements is very essential. For the development of the new system, a preliminary survey of the existing system will be conducted. Investigation is done whether the upgradation of the system into an application program could solve the problems and eradicate the inefficiency of the existing system.

5.1 FEASIBILITY STUDY

The basic idea behind feasibility study is to determine whether the project is feasible or not. A feasibility is conducted to identify a best system that meets all the requirements. This includes an identification ,description, an evaluation of the proposed systems and selection of the best system for the job .

The requirements of the system are specified with a set of constraints such as system objectives and the description of the out puts. It is then duty of the analyst to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed system to generate the above results. Three key factors are to be considered during the feasibility study.

5.1.1 Operation Feasibility

An estimate should be made to determine how much effort and care will go into the developing of the system including the training to be given to the user. Usually, people are reluctant to changes that come in their progression. The computer initialization will certainly affected the turn over, transfer and employee job status. Hence an additional effort is to be made to train and educate the users on the new way of the system.

5.1.2      Technical Feasibility

The main consideration is to be given to the study of available resources of the organization where the software is to be implemented. Here the system analyst evaluates the technical merits of the system giving emphasis on the performance, reliability, maintainability and productivity.

By taking the consideration before developing the proposed system, the resources availability of the organization was studied. The organization was immense computer facilities equipped with sophisticated machines and the software hence this technically feasible.

5.1.3      Economic Feasibility

Economic feasibility is the most important and frequently used method for evaluating the effectiveness of the proposed system. It is very essential because the main goal of the proposed system is to have economically better result along with increased efficiency. Cost benefit analysis is usually performed for this purpose. It is the comparative study of the cost verses the benefit and savings that are expected from the proposed system. Since the organization is well equipped with the required hard ware, the project was found to be economically.

5.2 HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS

• PROCESSOR        :        PENTIUM III or Above
• CLOCK SPEED     :        800 MHZ
• SYSTEM BUS       :      32 BIT
• RAM      :        256MB or more
• HDD       :      40GB
• MONITOR           :        SVGA COLOR
• KEY BOARD         :      101 KEYS
• MODEM               :      56 KBPS/ADSL Broadband
• MOUSE                :     PS2/ Serial
• FDD        :      1.44 MB

 S/W System Configuration

Operating System            :   Windows 95/98/2000/NT4.0.

Application  Server           :   Wamp2.2e

Front End                            :   HTML, PHP.

Scripts                                :   JavaScript.

Server side Script             :   PHP.

Database                            :   Mysql.

Database Connectivity    :   PhpMyAdmin.