Question

A mail order company gives 5% discount on all customer orders with advanced payment sent with the order. If a regular customer places an order of $5,000 or more also receives 5% discount. Otherwise no discount given.

(A) Write process specification for the mail order using Structured English   

(B) To document the decision process for mail order using decision table,

1. List the conditions with condition alternatives   
2. List the Actions to be taken
3. Construct the decision table for this decision process.

(C) Document the decision process for mail order using decision tree   

Answer 1

A) Process specification for the mail order

• If advance payment is made then 5 % discount is given to the customer otherwise
  if order is greater than equal to $5000 then 5 % discount is given
  else No discount is given.

In other words, we can write it as:

• If advance payment is made or the order is greater than equal to $5000 then 5 % discount is given otherwise no discount is given.

B) Decision Table

Decision Tables are of the form:

• Condition stub:All the conditions are represented in the upper left section of the decision table. These conditions are used to determine a particular action or a set of actions.
• Action stubs: All possible actions are listed in the lower left portion of the decision table
• Condition Matrix: In the condition matrix portion of the decision table, we have a number of columns and each column represents a rule. Values entered in this upper right portion of the table are known as inputs
• Action Matrix: Each entry in the action matrix portion has some associated action or set of actions in the lower right portion of the table. It is generally denoted by 'X'.

1) Conditions with condition alternatives

• There are 2 conditions: advance payment, order >= 5000
• Advance payment's alternative values are: Yes and No
• Order >= 5000 alternative values are: Yes and No

2) Possible actions are: 5 % discount and No discount

3) Total Number of rules will be: 2 x 2 = 4

4) Decision Table:

Condition Stub / Condition Entries	1	2	3	4
Advance payment	Yes	Yes	No	No
Order >= 5000	Yes	No	Yes	No
Action Stub / Action Entries
5 % discount	X	X	X
No discount				X

C) Decision tree

The ellipse represent the conditions and the rectangle represent the actions. The arrow headings are the possible entries of the conditions.

For any further details, you may ask in the comment section.