My lecturer systems analysis and design told me to do a project on a charitable organisation who doesn't have an information system but a manual based system.
The problem is that i don't know what information(tables) a charitable organisation can store in a database(e.g staff table) i.e what are their different operations that they undertake, what kind of difficulties that they get with a manual based system in a charitable organisation etc.
Can someone advice me in order for me to know more of this subject.

The first mistake you made is asking us to tell you the requirements of a system that we know nothing about. What you have to do is meet with the people who are doing the manual process and document that process. The people who maintain the current manual system can tell you

  1. what data needs to be maintained
  2. how that data is inter-related
  3. how the data will be accessed
  4. what reports (if any) need to be generated

Until you understand the system as it is currently you will not be able to replace it with a computer based system.

I suggest that once you understand the current system you create a prototype (mock-up), which is basically a GUI with very little code behind it, and refine that by consulting with the customer(s) until you have something that meets their approval.

When you finally have the requirements from the customer, rewrite those requirements in your own words and verify that what you think they want and what they actually want are in agreement.

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