Software Requirement Specifications Mobile Application for Micro Finance Institutions

Project Tag : MMFTM Version : 1.0 Prepared by : Venkat Akula Inroduction With the popularity of Mobile phones like iPhone, Android or any smartphones, there is demand of doing online updates of profiles or Banking transactions on the run. When comes to designing the user interface and recommending the functionality for mobile micro finance / banking, we have to remember that there are limitations to the amount of contents, features, not to mention the types of transactions allowed and the encryption logic to use. One important note for developing mobile apps for online transactions is not to allow caching or to store unnecessary user profile and date inside the smartphones memory on poor network connectivity due to the nature of business as it covers mostly in rural areas .
Purpose

This document will fully describe all the functional and nonfunctional requirements, design constraints, and other factors necessary to provide a complete and comprehensive description of the requirements for the MMF TM Project. It will also describe the external behavior of the Mobile Micro Finance Application.
Scope

The Mobile Micro Finance Application is a two-part project. The first part is a mobile application ( J2ME Application) that runs on mobile is used by the Loan Officer to input the collection details of the clients & group in a batch . The second part is a the mobile applciation send the data to standalone server where it contains web service API that is used as middle ware component i.e Server-to-database to perform the pull & push the Collection Schedule and Meeting information.

Definitions, Acronyms and Abbreviations

API: Application Programmer Interface CDMA: Code Division Multiple Access CLDC: Connected Limited Device Configuration EDGE: Enhanced Data Rate for GSM Evolution GPRS: Genral Packet Radio Service GSM: Global System for Mobile Communiation GUI: Graphical User Interface ICT: Information and Communication Technology IDE: Integrated Development Environment J2ME: Jave 2 Micro Edition JAD: Jave Application Descriptor JAR: Java Archive SMS: Short Messaging Service RMS: Record Management Storage PERL: Practical Extraction and Report Language PHP: Programming for Hypertext Preprocessor UI: User Interface USB: Universal Serial Bus WAP: Wireless Access Protocol MTBF: Mean Time Between Failures MTTR: Mean Time To Repair Sustainability: Expected lifetime of the system Bluetooth: It is a wireless protocol utilizing short-range communications technology facilitating both voice and data transmissions over short distances.

Below are the system high level requirements for MMF and needs in performing micro banking activities on-the-go: Matrix Features Basic 2011
Develope a Middle ware PHP/Java Webservice API to retrive the data & post the data to Mifos db (Mysql db). (However we will have to check out the existing API's in order to avoid duplicate work) Login: Authenticate the User (Loan Officer) Data Retrieval: Retrive the Collection & Meeting Information with respect to loged in Loan Officer & Group (Here the Loan Officer may handle many groups) Posting the data of Collections Loan & Savings, Meeting Attendance for the group in bulk using loop thru the customers due to screen width limitations Symbian Support Application Develop a light weight Mobile Application with the above features. Limited processing speed, memory for application (jar file) or heap memory Establis a secure communication between the source (it is public server with JAVA Web Service API's that comunicate to Mifos database for various business operations) Develop the application using the legacy GPRS technology. R&D Sample printing of data to a Bluetooch enabled Printer

Intermediate Mid 2012

Addressing the Usability of the Bulk Collections , Preview and Confirm the data. Loan Office shoud be be able to store all the data offline before he visit the Group for that day Able to do one step more apart from collection.. Take the previous statistics of the Client and disbures the loans and create it easily Other Data processing from Mobile like Loan reschedule , early payment closure Enhance the data transfer via the available network on the Mobile GPRS/EDGE/3G/4G Enabling for the Data to store locally that supports offline processing Enhance the application to support Android Phones Enhance to work with very low signals Small Screen & Large Scren Capabilities SMS based information retrivals

Advance End 2012

PDA -- Device Language compaitable and change option Error display and Handling & Idle Session timeout handling Fully Automated Offline Processing

Technology

Data Encryption using the best of breed technology in transfering the data to the server-to-database via 256 Bit Encryption technology and SSL.

Reporting

Receipt Printing of on to Bluetooth Enabled Thermal Printer . 1. Information of the collection, disbursement and Meetings 2. Basic idea behid is to manage a paper less Micro Finance

Taking it offline to the Desktop Standalone application in printer friendly formatting

Functional Requirements Mobile Application: 1. Login We need to have very simple login page where the loan office will login using his credentials to the application, which will be authenticated against the Mifos user-name and password in the data base via the API (ValidateUser & RetriveGroups by Loan Officer).

2. Groups List of Group handle by the loged in user Once the user has logged in sucessfully he should be able see the drop down list of his operating Groups it is the last level of Hierarchey in which few members are registered for banking transactions.

3. Retrive the collection deafult information And when he select a particular group and press on Go button then web services API on Mifos server will retrives the collection data of that group and stores it in RMS of Mobile. via the API (RetriveCollectionOfGroups). Typical reprasentation is in a tabular format in the system ( Matrix of Customer Vs his default product amount and Meeting Information) Group Names (Sangam SHG) Sunitha Saving 20 (Default) In case not paid or if partial / excess is paid user will modify the data Loan Product Principle Loan ID : A0098 / 100 (Default) In case not paid or if partial / excess is paid user will modify the data Loan ID : A0033 / 50 (Default) In case not paid or if partial / excess is paid user will modify the data 20 (Default) In case not paid or if partial / excess is paid user will modify the data 100 Not totat but as a goup they do volunteer Loan ID : A0098 / 500 (Default) In case not paid or if partial / excess is paid user will modify the data Loan Prodcut Interest 10 (Default) In case not paid or if partial / excess is paid user will modify the data 5 (Default) In case not paid or if partial / excess is paid user will modify the data 50 (Default) In case not paid or if partial / excess is paid user will modify the data Meeting Fees

P Present (by default) PF : 10 A Absent (Choice to be LP :15 Modified by user)

Sunitha

P Present (by default) A Absent (Choice to be Modified by user)

Laxman

P Present (by default) A Absent (Choice to be Modified by user)

Group Data

The user will then start entering all the collection toward the Group Member Loan, Saving Products and Meeting Details .. All these products vary from one group to another depending on the Group operation and configuration. How ever the format in which the data retrived will be based on the

operational configuration of each group. 4. Enter the Actual data that is Collection from Member of Group and Group As this is huge information of data for Mobile considering the screen width and process consumption this info should be stored locally and ideally each group will consits of Minimum 5 to 20 Members. So once the data is received to Mobile it should be stored and processed one by one in form format for e.x Group : Sangam SHG -- Fixed This remains fixed { Start Loop 1..End of Customers in that group including the group collection Member : Sunitha -- Fixed Saving : 20 -- Editable Text with default amount Laon Amount : 250 -- Editable Text with default amount Fees: 10 -- Editable Text with default amount Meeting : P/A -- We have to provide the combo with option available } End Loop Next press for entering next member until the group is over

The user will check and do the changes to each record data (only there are changes ) and then presses on next button until all the members and group data is entered then he finally confirms to send this information back to Web Server. 5. Logout. Once the use of application is done the user will logout and most of time the user has the human menatlity so he will leave and close / hang button on phone which ideally should close the application sucessfully.

Design Constraints: The requirements are the puerly based on past experience and asumptions. Here each actor needs some requirement to fulfill the user expectations The following supports are needed for Mobile phone. 1. Java (J2ME) Enabled 2. WAP 1.0 or Above 3. GPRS enabled 4. MDPI 2.0 5. CLDC 1.1 The following support are needed for Network. 1. 50% of Network coverage signal strenght in rural areas 2. Services like GPRS 3. Network Consistency and reliability for sending/receiving the data The following components are needed for server 1. Web server Apache and Mifos application 2. Web service programming support like PHP,PERL or Jav 3. Database support like Mysql 4. Map server or Google Map for situation mapping The following tools are used to build the Mobile applications 1. Java 1.5 or Above 2. WTK 3. J2ME MIDPF 2.0 and CDLC 1.1 or Above 4. Third-party emulators like Nokia, Motorola 5. Eclipse IDE The following constraints have to archive in Mobile Applications 1. Application Security by Authentication 2. User-friendly GUI 3. Online and Offline Data capture 4. Application should be platform independent for java enabled mobile

Flow Diagram for Mobile Application: