Reflections:

Technical challenges:

On occasions, we had to consult our client to keep the application’s UI according to his requirements and to implement features that function according to how they were expected to by the client. One of the instances was the application requiring its user to manually type the date. Our team was asked to rather use a date picker instead of typing it and a similar issue came while trying to implement two date picker instances in a single class when implementing filtering transactions by date feature

Challenges:

Managing one another at the initial stage of the project was a bit challenging as we just know one another for the first time but this gets better along the line as we identify our respective skills, strengths and weaknesses.

During the application development, a team member had to leave for his home country for a short time. It proved to be a challenge for us, because there was no way we can enforce physical monitoring and communication on him and we had to reorganize how our work schedule was initially distributed. Prioritizing this way, help us to push implementations that requires lesser or interaction with the user to him and this help us to meet up with both the user requirements and the timeline.

Furthermore, since some of the members were relatively new at Java, there was an apparent learning curve when dealing with a number of tasks.

Benefits:

As a team, one of the benefits was our expertise in different areas involving the application development. We took its full advantage and divided the tasks based on our individual strong points. Some members were working on the visual aspect of the project, including UI layout and icons, while the others were busy implementing them. It helped us in speeding up the development cycle.

Another perk of working in a team was that we were to able get a glimpse of what it is like to work as a team especially collaboratively in a professional working environment.

How the course did meet our needs:

Initially, our team was sceptical about the correct way to approach the application’s testing. During the course, we learned about the Common V-Model that can be used for testing phase of the development cycle. After adapting said model, testing the app became much easier for us and we could do it quite efficiently.

Managing, understanding and adhering to user’s requirements proved to very interesting and offered a profound way on how to handle it in a professional way to have expected results (products) that satisfies all stakeholders’ expectation. Agile approach to software development was also a very help in managing especially at the implementation phase and its relevance even in professional setup makes it more interesting.

In addition, learning about the importance of indentation and appropriate naming conventions provided a visual consistency to our code, and made it easier for all of us to follow it without any confusion.

Summary:

As the name suggests, ‘Managing Your Money’ is an Android application about managing your financial activities. It is fairly easy to use because of its user-friendly interface, in addition to many features that users can use to keep an eye on their transactions, whether income or expenses. Users can filter and categorize their entries, along with customizable payment options as well as security PIN for safety. Our application also has an option to select the currency of choice, making it more accessible for the users from different regions. Therefore, we are confident that it will be immensely useful for Android users and that’s why they should download it.

Highlight features: (functional requirements)

• The application has a user-friendly Dashboard with appropriate icons that are easy to use for even a user who is not tech-savvy.

•   The user has an option to add their transaction as an income or as an expense by selecting the appropriate icons from the home page

• Adding Payment option allows user to add a new payment option, which will then be accessible in the drop-down menu that user can select from, when making a new transaction entry

• With filtering, the user can see their transactions according to the setting specified by the user themselves, whether categorically, payment method or by date.

• There is an option for the user to set a numeric PIN to ensure the app’s safety.

Non-functional features:

Links:

Here is the link for downloading our mobile application Click Here

Here is the link for the source code repository Click here