Question Allocation Application - Need Help

[hopkins90]

Hey,

I'm just starting on a new project and I'm completely lost. I've posted the question below.

Every year the Senior Tutors office in TCD have to assign incoming students to a tutor. They require an easy to use software application to perform this task.

Currently they organize the required data in two datafiles. The first file relates to tutor requirements, the second file relates to course requirements. For tutor requirements, each tutor sends in the amount of free space they have in their chamber, e.g. they can take on xx more students. They also send in their preferences for courses that they are happy to tutor, they can express up to 13 preferences. For each course, they have a file with the course code, e.g TR001 and the number of students in that course that require a tutor. Sample files are attached.

Your task is to assign tutees to the free capacity expressed by tutors, matching the course requirements specified by tutors. You should develop a system that allows the Senior Tutor offices to:

• Upload relevant files
• Run an tutor/tutee allocation
• Produce easy to read reports that:
  • Show the tutors and the new tutee allocations
  • Show tutors that have free space
  • Show the number of students that are not assigned to tutors for each course

The system should be easy and intuitive to use.

I would really appreciate if anybody could give me an outline of the approach I should take and the steps that are involved in completing this project. I really just don't know where to start and any help would be appreciated.