Employee Database User Guide
User Manual: Pdf
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Page Count: 8
Alan Ma, ICS4U0
employee database: user manual
The purpose of the employee database is for a human resources manager to
manage employee information in a company. The functions allowed in this
program are: adding, editing, and removing employees, searching for employees by
employee number, and displaying employee information. All information is also
saved to a save file named employeeDatabase.csv – more on this later.
There are two types of employees – part-time and full-time. There will be different
methods of calculating income for these different employees.
1. startup
Upon opening a new instance of the employee database, the following will be seen:
The first time opening the employee database.
The number of employees will be indicated at the top (currently 0), along with a
button to add employees. Clicking on this button will open up a new panel to the
side to enter information for the new employee.
Underneath this button is an input to search for employees by employee number;
further below is a table displaying the current employees in the system (currently
empty).
2. adding employees
Clicking on the “add employee” button will bring up a new panel: the employee
information editor. It looks something like this:
Alan Ma, ICS4U0
The initial view of the employee information editor.
A few input fields can be seen: first name (first), last name (last), employee type
(type), employee gender (gender), employee number (emp. #), deductions rate
(ded. rate), and work location (location). These fields will be required for both types
of employees; after choosing a type, additional fields will appear below. For full-
time employees, an input will appear for the yearly salary (salary). Part-time
employees will have three new fields: hourly wage (wage), hours worked in a week
(hours), and weeks worked in a year (weeks).
The confirm button will add the new employee to the system if all inputs are
correct. These changes will be automatically updated in the main dashboard. After
successfully adding the employee, the inputs will be reset. The new information will
automatically be saved in the save file.
The reset button will reset all the information in the editor.
2.1 navigation in the editor panel
Although clicking on different fields to select them will work, keyboard shortcuts are
often much faster for data entry. The cursor will be focused on the first name field
upon entry; this is where the focus is.
This focus can be moved by pressing the “tab” key on the keyboard to move forward
one field, and pressing “shift + tab” will move the focus to the previous field. In
addition to this, pressing the “enter” key will move the focus to the next field as
well. In this manner, the use can simply type in the desired information in the
current field and press “enter” to continue. The enter key will also select the
highlighted button on selection fields (before moving on to the next field), such as
the employee type and gender.
Alan Ma, ICS4U0
“part-time” is in focus (highlighted); pressing enter will select the part-time employee.
Pressing enter will move the focus to “M” of the gender field.
Using keyboard shortcuts and moving the focus will allow the user to progress until
the focus reaches the “confirm” button. Pressing enter at this point will add the new
employee to the system.
A completed full-time employee. The focus is on the confirm button.
Experienced users will notice that pressing “tab” will cycle the focus back to the first
name field; ignoring the reset button. However, pressing “shift + tab” on the first
name field will bring the focus to the last element, the reset button. This is
intentional to prevent accidentally erasing information.
3. errors
There may be error notifications when adding a new employee. Caution signs will
appear beside erroneous inputs and an error message will appear at the bottom
explaining one of the errors. As the inputs are fixed, the error messages will change
to reflect the updates.
The employee will not be added if there are errors in the inputs.
Alan Ma, ICS4U0
Errors in the inputs. The deductions error is currently being explained.
3.1 requirements for first name
The first name of the employee must be at least 2 characters long.
3.2 requirements for last name
The last name of the employee must be at least 2 characters long.
3.3 requirements for employee type
The employee type must be selected, either full-time or part-time.
3.4 requirements for employee gender
The employee’s gender must be selected, either male (M), female (F), or other (O).
3.5 requirements for employee number
An employee number must be provided as a 6-digit integer; it must also be unique.
A separate error message will appear if the employee number exists already.
3.6 requirements for deductions rate
The deductions rate must be a decimal between 0 and 1 (inclusive).
3.7 requirements for work location
The work location must be entered.
3.8 requirements for yearly salary (full-time employee)
The yearly salary must be a non-negative number.
Alan Ma, ICS4U0
3.9 requirements for hourly wage (part-time employee)
The hourly wage must be a non-negative number.
3.10 requirements for hours per week (part-time employee)
The hours per week worked by the employee must be between 0 and 168 inclusive.
3.11 requirements for weeks per year (part-time employee)
The weeks per year worked by the employee must be between 0 and 52 inclusive.
4. viewing employees in the table
With employees in the database, the main table will now display one employee per
row:
Test users are shown in the table.
The number at the top of the display shows the total number of employees; scroll
down on the table to view more.
To show more detailed information about each employee, as well as edit current
information and delete entries, click on the row of the desired employee.
Hovering over a row will highlight the entire row. Click to open up the employee
information panel.
Alan Ma, ICS4U0
5. employee information panel
After clicking on an employee in the table, an employee information panel will
appear. This will display all the attributes of that specific employee; the net income
will also be calculated.
For full-time employees, the calculation is:
𝑛𝑒𝑡$𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒 = 𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑙𝑦$𝑠𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑟𝑦$×$(1 − 𝑑𝑒𝑑𝑢𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠$𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒)
For part-time employees, the calculation is:
𝑛𝑒𝑡$𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒 = ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑙𝑦$𝑤𝑎𝑔𝑒$×$ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠$𝑝𝑒𝑟$𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑘$×$𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑘𝑠$𝑝𝑒𝑟$𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟$×$(1 − 𝑑𝑒𝑑𝑢𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠$𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒)
Pressing the delete button will delete the employee and remove it from the save
file.
Pressing the edit button will bring up an editing panel similar to the one seen when
adding a new employee. However, the two buttons at the bottom of the panel are
different – they are now cancel and save.
Cancelling the edits will return the user to the employee information panel without
saving any edits; pressing save will save the changes and return to the information
panel (if there are no errors present).
The employee information panel; all information for a
specific employee can be seen here.
Alan Ma, ICS4U0
The edit view for an existing employee. Existing information prepopulates the input
boxes; any edits are not saved until the save button is pressed.
Any changes to the employee database will automatically be saved in the save file,
whether it be a deletion or edit.
6. the save file
A key feature of the employee database is the ability to save information in a
separate file for loading existing employees. All employee data is stored in a save
file named employeeDatabase.csv, which is a comma-separated file (csv) that can
be edited in any text editor or spreadsheet program.
When loading up a save file, it must be named “employeeDatabase.csv” for the
program to recognize the file. Within the file, there is a special format for storing
the employee information – if there are any discrepancies in formatting, the
program will return a warning message and the database will be empty.
A warning message for a faulty save file. Note that the database is empty, regardless of
the contents of the faulty save file.
Alan Ma, ICS4U0
Attempting to add new employees will overwrite the faulty save file.
The warning message also shows which line in the save file is causing the error,
allowing a manual fix for incorrectly formatted save files.
6.1 save file formatting
Layout examples for the save file employeeDatabase.csv
Each employee is represented by a row in the save file; in a text editor, all fields will
be separated by a comma. In a spreadsheet program, the commas will be gone and
each field will be in its own cell. Editing information in the save file directly is
perfectly fine, as long as no errors are made when editing data.
7. filtering by employee number
When viewing employees in the main dashboard, it is a common requirement to
search for an employee by their employee number. By entering numbers in the
search field, employees are automatically filtered out as the user enters numbers.
The employees displayed can be clicked on and edited as usual.
To return to the list of all the employees, just clear the search field.
Filtering a database of 8 employees down to 2 with a filter key of “12”.
