Proposal on Automated Payroll System for Square Toiletries Limited

Proposal on Automated Payroll System for Square Toiletries Limited

VISION IT LTD, is a newly incepted software and ICT enabled service provider of Bangladesh, possessing a broad wing of expertise technical hands and high-profile experienced professionals of the ICT arena, gathered to cater the software and ICT market needs of the country with updated technology and one-stop support services with stiff commitment, where quality or standard of its providing solutions will always be in its top-priority point.

With the updated state-of-art technology and constructive business operations, the company follows an International Standardized Methodology in developing the exact solutions for the business houses, helping them to improve their on-going operations in a user-friendly environment through an organized automation process.

The company aims to undertake innovative and challenging projects with complete customized solutions for the Organizations by: –

(a) Preliminary – Listening to them about their exact needs.

(b) Secondary – Suggesting them with a comprehensive solution that will discard all complexities.

(c) Tertiary – Supporting them with one-stop service for any sort of queries or problem-facing issues after deployment.

1.1 The Journey

The Journey started in the year 2006, when the Managing Director and the Chief Technical Officer of the Company decided to contribute its skills and expertise to the business houses, catering them with the cutting-edge technological solution with dedicated support services, with a team of extreme professional hands, arranging them from reputed ICT companies of this country, which was a massive combination of talented personnel to form VISION IT LTD and ensure its operations with absolute dedication.

And then, from Programmers to System Analyst, consultants to Business Development team the company performed ahead starting with small projects to larger scaled solutions, meeting delivery within the due deadline through consistent ‘Project Management’ and sincerity.

Mission Statement

The Company’s Mission Statement is “To cater the exact solutions to the business houses with the best support and required technology.”

1.2 Office and Logistics

The Corporate Office is situated at the end of the commercial city, i.e.- at Uttara Model Town, covering a very quite and peaceful environment for developing solutions and working in silent lucidity. Apart from other business genre, ICT enabled service providers requires absolute silent atmosphere for concentrating on their assigned projects, where knowledge is the major investment of this portion.

The Corporate office possesses a central Server linked to 20 workstations for all the employees to have a PC and 24 hours high-speed Internet connectivity, fleeting via the central server. Two network Laser-jet printers are available for continuous service.

Although bit backward from the city arena, but Communication process from Uttara is easier and it’s a highway drive-out, while traveling to the city.

The Management is having in mind to open a ‘City Office’ in the heart of the city in near future for better customer support and more business operations.

Company Strategy

The Company’s main strategy is to grow in dynamic and steady way through giving more attention and values to its human resources as the key component for success. So, the company has set a policy to build the knowledge of the human resources to retain them through different organizational culture. Secondly, the company gives priority to develop and implement practical solutions tailored to the client specific needs. To every single event for the clients, the company gives specific attention to solve them.

The main challenge in IT Industries is to keep the people updated with latest technology, which we always try to share with our resources as per their requirements, possessing a knowledge-base virtual library on the server open for all users.

· Simplicity and ease of use. You use our products immediately; there are no steep learning curves involved. You focus on creative aspects, not on tools.

· Productivity. You save plenty of time with visual design, Intelligence and auto-completion, a number of automation tools, and unique productivity tools such as property-based templates, running annotations, fast-preview filters, and more.

· Support. How often have you tried to get support from a software company, only to experience hours of frustration? With us, your questions are answered promptly.

· Consistency. You spend no extra time to learn a new program. You use our products in a consistent way.

· Continuous improvement. A big part of all our upgrade design plans are customer-requested features.

Domain Expertise

Our range of skills is diverse and it covers almost all significant technologies that add value to every projects. The skill matrix illustrates the most popular of these technologies:

Platform	Environment
Development Languages/Tools	.Net, C#, VB.Net, Visual Basic, Visual C++, Visual Studio.Net, Visual Studio, Developer 2000, Java, J2EE, Jboss, Jbuilder, Java Servlet, Crystal Report
Web Development Script/Tools	ASP.Net, ASP, PHP, JSP, VB Script, Java Script, XML, WML, WML Script, WAP, Dream Weaver, Visual Interdev.
RDBMS	Oracle, MS SQL Server, My SQL, Access, Postgre SQL
Web Servers	Microsoft IIS, Apache Web Server, Tomcat, Weblogic, Websphere.
Operating System	Windows, Linux, Unix
Multimedia / Graphics	Macromedia Director, Macromedia Flash MX, Macromedia Author Ware, Adobe Premiere, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, 3D Studio Max, CorelDraw.
Design Methodologies	UML, SSADM, RUP, XP

1.3 Professional Resources

Although being new in the ICT arena of the country, the Company upholds highly professional human resources of similar platform, possessing wide experiences in catering the Corporate segment with advanced and tailored solutions, starting from renowned MNC’s, Local Giants and SME organizations. Hence such massive assemble of skilled professionals are now being solely the asset of the company, especially for understanding the customers exact requirements, followed by the business logic and furnishing them with – “What they really need”. For which, the company is completely determined to ensure the best and updated solution to the Corporate Houses with its One-Stop Support Service, so that their customers will not be bothered for any sort of malfunctions or disorder of the supplied system and sit relaxed on their seats with sub-zero wheeze.

1.4 Working Environment

Designed with the state-of-art technology, the company posses a complete Corporate look with a standard meeting room and well-defined Managerial chambers, as well as separate departments – combining an organized though professional atmosphere among its working people. One of the vital substances of its working environment is the dedicated 24 hours uninterrupted Internet Connectivity and Land Lines, which is a mandatory aspect for an ICT Organization in terms of communication and supporting its customers online.

On the other hand, the Management is friendlier with its employees and ensures their moral issues, giving them the top most ‘Priority’, as it reckons them to be the ‘Key Component of Success’ for its entire business operations.

2.0 Products and Services

2.1 Business Solutions

The Company has just started developing solutions for a reputed Group of Companies, especially all sorts of tailored database solutions like – Inventory Control System, Accounts Management System, Human Resource Management System etc. Although it has got the technically skilled professionals to cater any sort of solutions for the business enterprises with the updated technology and adequate support service.

The Company’s service portfolio also covers: –

· ICT Consultancy.

· Software Development, Maintenance & Support.

· Developing and deploying web based solutions.

· Business Process Re-engineering.

· Industry specific solutions.

· Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

· E-commerce

· B2B

2.2 Specialized Solutions

The Management is concerned to be diversified and pioneer in terms of developing and deploying ‘Specialized Solutions’ within a very short span of time throughout the country. Especially solutions like: –

· Customer Relationship Management System (CRM)

· Interactive Voice Response Solutions (IVR)

· SMS/GRRS Based Solutions

· Call Center Solutions

· Converged Communication Solutions (CCS)

The Company will undoubtedly emphasize on improving ‘Customer Care Operations’ of the Organizations in Bangladesh, which seems to be a major lacking part of our Industries. Although it is the vital issue for any business house to cater their customers responses with good reputation and satisfaction, ultimately bringing loyalty. But managing bulk customers with queries or complaint issues simultaneously often gets in to hassle from both side, i.e. – sometimes officials are getting annoyed or being upset, and on the other hand the customer also posses a bit dissatisfaction for the company’s officials such attitude. So for this sort of scenario, an automated system can easily cut-off all hassles, smoothing the Organizations Customer Care Operations to ultimate improvement, where no one has to be annoyed or dissatisfied!

System Integration

The Company also looks further and has the expertise for System Integration with various renowned or local solutions, integrating its applications as a Third Party Solution, which will never hamper any portion of the main system.

2.3 Service Protocol

The Company is very assertive in its Service Protocols, especially it always get connected with its customers after implementing the solution, asking them whether they’re facing any problems or is it running fine. A dedicated Service Team is always ready for troubleshooting or debugging issues, as the company claims that it will always try to provide the highest priority to its customers, since they mean everything to them.

Key Features of Our Products

2.4 Availability, Scalability and Performance

A large aspect of application and system architecture is ensuring that a system will perform well, scale to the required number of users, and have minimum down time. These different goals—performance, scalability, and availability—are related, and are based on a set of core concepts that apply to almost any type of system.

2.4.1 Availability

Although “availability” is a critical metric for enterprise systems, it can be defined in multiple ways. In general, classify system availability by measuring the percent of time in which the system is usable. But by considering only this fact, system availability is not calculated perfectly. There are some more consideration is required for calculating system availability. One of them is counting planned down time, such as for maintenance time. Generally the down time is the time to fix the problem of a system or some maintenance time or any other time when system is not available or as any time the users are unable to access the system. For large integrated system this down time is a vital fact. Because, every parts of the system are dependent and connected with each other. So, if any parts goes down then other parts will suffer. For these reasons, the availability, down time and overall system design technique is very important. Our design ensures that, our system availability is over 99% and very low downtime. We achieved very low down time for our built-in powerful monitoring and repair engines and less dependency among the parts of the system. We apply various techniques so that the overall system is almost available in every time even a parts of the system goes down.

2.4.2 Scalability

Scalability is another key system feature when building applications or infrastructure for the enterprise. Scalability measures how a system’s capacity can grow to handle increased load; the upper limit of this growth and the efficiency with which that growth occurs are key defining factors of how “scalable” a system is.

2.4.3 Performance

Although performance and scalability are tightly related and often considered at the same time. How well a system performs is usually measured by the amount of time it takes to respond to specific user requests, or to accomplish a specific task. Our system performance is in very satisfactory level. We always emphasis on application’s performance during development time by testing it from various aspects. We always maintain a high performance level.

2.5 Centralized Control

Our whole system is controlled from a central server which has powerful engines and services. These powerful engines and services allow the system stable, available, secured and more manageable. It has powerful monitoring system, so that any chance of failure or any chance of unauthorized access, etc. are immediately prevented. This Centralized Control System has lot more unique features that our unique invention to make the overall system work properly. Moreover, our most attractive service in the system is using Artificial Intelligence. There are lots of artificial intelligent services / process to facilitate the system, the users and the company in every situation. This intelligent system makes the overall system very easy to handle.

2.6 Real Time Exception Handling

Our Exception Management is well encapsulated and abstracts the details of logging and reporting from the application’s business logic. It is capable of generating metrics that can be monitored by operator’s to provide an insight into the current health and status of the system. This helps to create an application that can quickly and accurately notify operators of any problems it is experiencing, and can provide valuable information of assist developers and support services with problem resolution.

2.7Highly Updatable

Our proposed system is highly updatable and capable of changing at a moment’s notice. Our architectural design provides very easy way to change or update any parts of the existing system without hampering the other parts or the functionality of other parts of the system.

Although this seems a frightening proposition, we have great many tools to ensure that systems are designed to change rapidly while reducing the negative impact these alterations can bring. One such tool is design patterns. Design patterns represent a wealth of collective knowledge and experience. The proper use of these patterns will help to ensure that systems are malleable, enabling rapid change.

One of the most widely used creational patterns is the Factory. This pattern is aptly named, as it calls for the use of a specialized object solely to create other objects, much like a real-world factory. We modified and furnished this designed technique with the latest technological knowledge and experience so that the design exhibits a unique solution to enable the whole system to change or modify or update at any time.

Figure 1: Factory pattern logical model

2.8 Plug and Play Modules

We design the systems in such a way that any modules can be attached with the present existing system by only deploying it. The Central Control System of the existing system automatically allows it to register and works with the present system even modules are developed by different vendors. Our powerful intelligent Engine which resides in the Central Control System is fully responsible for attaching the modules. So modules are fully plug and play with the system and it requires only the deployment of the modules in the System.

To be able to get this facility from the present system, the modules should be developed by following the specification of the Central Control System only.

2.9 Real Time Performance Monitoring System

A powerful Engine and some services are able to monitor the System or Application performance. Firstly, Application monitoring is used to ensure that applications are functioning correctly and are performing optimally; this is referred to as health monitoring. Secondly, monitor the performance characteristics of the servers, because this may allow us to spot usage trends and enhance or optimize the applications accordingly. Health monitoring enables the system to identify the conditions that contribute to system failure and take preventive action.

Our Monitoring System allows the System to capture and analyze the performance data that applications, services, and drivers provide. This information can be used to determine system bottlenecks and fine-tune system and application performance.

The System uses many diagnostic procedures and monitoring tools. Furthermore, we provide monitoring during System development so that the System will be reliable in the Enterprise Environment.

Highly Secured System

Design choices for securing a system affect performance, scalability and usability. There is usually a tradeoff between security vs. performance and usability. The more secure a system is, generally the more we have compromised in terms of performance and usability. When designing a secure system, we determine all the possible threats, vulnerabilities, and attacks and choose the techniques to implement security based on threat mitigation first and performance second.

Our proposed System combined security, Application performance and usability in such way that the system will be tightly secured without sacrificing the overall performance and usability. Our security system has been developed on client authentication, hashing algorithms, cryptography techniques, and digital signatures.

Using Cryptography techniques we provide data privacy, tamper detection, and authentication by encrypting the data being transmitted between the server and client, assuming there is a pre-shared secret between them that has not been exposed.

We implement Security at various stages of Development; the SD3 framework has three core concepts:

Secure by Design means that you have taken the appropriate steps to ensure that the overall design of the product is secure from the outset. Include threat modeling at the design phase and throughout the project to identify potential vulnerabilities. Use secure design, coding, and testing guidelines.
Secure by Default means that the product is released so that it is secure out of the box. Ensure that only the least amount of privilege is required by user accounts to run your application.
Secure in Deployment means that the system is maintainable after installation. If security vulnerability is discovered and a patch is necessary, ensure that the fix is fully tested internally and then issued in a timely manner.

We provide various security features and services to secure the database from any unauthorized access or any attempt of destruction or alternation. Our database security is performed in a number of layers. Whole database administration work can be controlled from the Application. Security features are applied here and a continuous monitoring system monitors the actions on the database, such as accessing, altering, updating, permission, role and many other facts. Moreover, a specially organized Data Access Layer performs the second level of checking to secure the database.

Power full audit trail make the solution more traceable, error free and efficient.

· Auditing actions include tracking:

o Resource access and usage

o Successful and unsuccessful logon attempts

o Application failures

· Auditing benefits include:

o Help for administrators to detect intrusions and suspicious activities

o Traceability for legal, non-repudiation disputes

o Diagnosis of security breached

Our Application Security implements at

User control
User Role basis accessibility/privilege control setup
Form basis accessibility/privilege controls setup
Application Menu basis accessibility/privilege controls setup
Unlimited user according to user license agreement

2.10 Zero Impact Installation

Our installation and deployment features are so flexible and completely automatic. It does not necessary to take help from windows registry or no need to enter any registry entry. Thus installing and uninstalling is not a very complicated task. During setup it will install everything necessary for the system, such database creation and customization, company’s personal information customization, setting up the security level, setting up the control system level and many more. Everything will be done automatically by the minimal user interaction. So it is very easy to deploy the whole system by some few mouse click and text information.

2.11 Easy Maintenance and Cost Effective

The overall system requires very less afford to maintain. Maximum critical maintenance is controlled by the built in Intelligent Services from the Central Control System. The whole system can be maintained from the one single point. And in maximum case it will be done automatically and a very few maintenance will be needed by the System Administrator. So the maintenance cost falls down noticeably for the architectural design of the System.

2.12 Effective Reporting

With every module, a powerful reporting facility has been integrated; Flexible reporting modules, categorized reporting facility, to facilitate the Top level management with their precise required information. And we are also offering any sort of customization report request for each of the individual modules.

Proposed Automated Attendance and Payroll System

The primary functions of the Payroll system are to compute, certify (audit) and create employee pay and disburse money. The proposed software will be a centralized and integrated database solution for the Square Ltd.

The integrated solution will contain the specific modules:

1. Employee attendance

2. Leave Management

3. Complete Payroll Processing

4. Employee Information Management

5. Web Reporting

6. Security Module

2.13 The Proposed System Features:

§ Employee Information:

Basic employee information can be stored using the proposed system; information includes: employee’s personal, official, educational, training and others. Employee category setup and other initialization

§ Attendance Information Management:

a. Attendance policy setup, user define attendance policy can be integrated

b. Late arrival

c. Manual/automated Late deduction setup

d. Employee multiple shift setup

e. User define shift policy

f. Overtime calculation

g. Fully one click processing

Leave Rule

Very comprehensive Leave Rules can be built in terms of:

Maximum days for each type
Calculations based on working days or calendar days
Whether the leave will be carried forward
Number of days allowed to be carried forward
Gender wise applicable
Automatic Credit based on these rules, on accumulation basis
Facility to credit leave based on number of days/months worked
Pro-rated leave credit each month, if applicable
Policy for leave encashment

§ Allowance and Deduction setup:

Basic one time setup form has been provided, so that the management can set up the allowances and deductions according to their needs. And further more they can be adjusted later, if requires. Each and every factor is open for customization.

§ Tax Calculation

Tax calculator is also an exclusive incorporation to the pay roll system, which can be customized according to your company policy. Tax slab, Bangladesh Government Tax policy has been integrated with highly adjustable factors, to provide you further assistance and minimizing your head ache. Just set up the tax slab and select the tax policy and let the system do the rest.

§ Monthly Salary processes

Monthly Salary Process, which is totally automated and required just a “Single Click”. According to your set up factors the salary process can be totally automated (do not even requires the “click”) or “Single Click”. All the calculation (addition/deduction) will be performed with high efficiency and accurateness.

§ Extensible reporting features

a. Two type of reporting features will be available, both the desktop and web reporting modules

b. Management can view reports from remote distance staying in the network

c. Fully parameterized reports will be provided with the application, operator can manipulate the reports according to their needs, employee-wise, date range-wise etc.

§ Security

a. Extensive authentication and authorization system

b. User define access role

c. Audit trail integrated

NB: further more “Policies” can be customized according to the client’s requirements

Policy Setup:

Leave Policy:

1. X number of Personnel can take leave simultaneously [where X is configurable]

2. X Number of leave can be assigned to personnel according to the designation/employment category [where X is configurable]

3. Have to notify the authority for leave

a. Un authorized leave will be count as absent

b. Consecutive leave will/ may cause deduction

c. Policy to fixed the total number of leave for each personnel category

4. Holiday may not count as leave

Shift Policy:

1. Shift timing for personnel start time and end time

2. Late come for employee after x min/hours of the shift start

3. Consecutive late comes may cause salary deduction

4. Shift overtime rules

1. Overtime can start from the consecutive next shift or next

2. Overtime policy can be configured

Overtime Policy:

1. Personnel can take overtime after finishing his dedicated working hour

2. Bonus may/can be adjusted to specific over time hours

2.14 Operation Structure

Figure: Proposed application and web reporting service

2.15 Security Module:

Powerful security module includes

· Strong Input / Data Validation

· Secured RSA Configuration, Connection Strings and User Credentials and communication

· Authentication and Authorization

· Exception Management

· Sensitive Data Protection

· Code Access Security

· Deployment Considerations

3.0 Proposed System Technology

.NET framework for the front-end is the preferable platform to develop the applications.

The proposed system should use the following key technologies:

Windows 2000 or higher Server (Server)
Server Controls (Custom Application Component)
Visual Basic .Net .Net (Development Platform)
SQL Server 2000 or higher (Database Server)

3.1 Hardware and Software Configuration:

Required Hardware Configuration:

Server

Pentium IV with

· 256 MB RAM

· Color Monitor

· Keyboard

· Mouse

Client

Pentium IV with

· Color Monitor

· Keyboard

· Mouse

Software Configuration

Server

WINDOWS 2000 Server

MS SQL Server 2005

Client

Windows 2000/XP

3.2 Technology Platform:

Technology Platform

Entity	Tools/Technology
Application Development Framework	Microsoft ASP .NET 2.0
Language and Scripts	Microsoft Visual Basic .NET 2.0
Application Development Tools	Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2005
Database	Microsoft SQL Server 2005
Project Management Tools	Visual Studio 2005 Team System
Modeling Language	Unified Modeling Language
Software Process	MSF for Agile Software Development
Operating System	Microsoft Windows 2000, Microsoft Windows XP

Proposed Solution Architecture:

The proposed solution will be of two types:

a. Windows based application

b. Web reporting services

a. Windows based application: The architecture is based around the use of Microsoft technologies including Microsoft SQL Server and the Microsoft .NET Framework. This solution provides a multi-tiered window based application utilizing a back-end Microsoft SQL Server Database.

Figure: Solution Architecture

a. Web Reporting Services: This part will be web solution, using ASP.NET technology. The main purpose of this solution is to provide reports to the top management form a remote location using network authentication. The web server will be configured on the main server (windows 2000 advance server/windows 2003).

Training

The main challenge in IT Industries is to keep the people updated with latest technology. In solving the problems we are providing a training session with our own resources for Summit Group Management staff, Executive officers and the end-user of the Payroll System.

Training will be provided in the following area:

· Basic of Operating System

· Presentation on overall concept of the software system and its scope and benefits

· Introduction to the proposed software/database/web application/security concepts

· Demonstration on operation of the proposed software system

· Hands on training on how to use the software to extract reports and use them as decision support or monitoring tools

· Security

Training will be provided to the selected personnel by the Summit Group. And all the training will be conducted in batch if necessary so that training is met in an effective manner.

3.3 Training Materials:

Operational Manual

The aim of this User Manual is to provide vital operational clarifications, under normal and exceptional situations, over and above the help facilities designed in the User Interface. The manual, to the extent feasible, will represent clearly, the operational interfaces to be used to perform user-designated functions.

The operational manual will contain the following

· Introduction

· Getting Started

· Login / Logout procedures

· Overview of the Application System

· General system description

· Description of each module

o For each Module

§ Input forms

§ Sample screen panel

§ Functions of each screen

§ Operating instructions for each screen

· Security Administration

· General Information

· Troubleshooting guide

Technical Manual

The objective of this manual is to provide adequate exposure to the System Administration of the application and database, so that the system administrator and relevant people will be able to participate actively during the Acceptance Testing phase.

The Technical Manual will contain the following

· Introduction

· Overview of the Application System

· Overview of the Technical Design of the Application

· Guidelines for the Hardware / Software / Networking environment

· Guidelines for Login / Logout, Installation of application

· Guidelines for the functional flow of the system

· Guidelines for Security, Backup and Recovery, Disaster Recovery, Archiving features

· Guidelines for the support and maintenance professionals, to be conversant with the maintenance of the codes of the Application software

Project Management Plan:

Task Plan and Schedule

The project for financial module will follow the parts in a systematic manner as mentioned below:

PART – 1: GAP ASSESSMENT

At this stage, the existing system at the Summit Group is studied and the needs and demands are analyzed. Based on the study, suggestions were formulated.

This part encompasses the initial analysis of a business need to determine the feasibility and scope of the Payroll system and the gap between the proposed systems. During this part, the focus is on defining the details of the customer need in order to determine the size of the project and the scope of MIS involvement. By the end of this part, Summit Group will need to clearly define and understand all the required needs by all parties involved.

To accomplish this state, developers put himself in the place of the client and try to know the exact client requirements. This is a very crucial stage as client needs that must be met by the implementation project will be defined. The requirements are mapped to standard application functionality and gaps identified. As gaps between requirements and functionality emerge, they will be resolved by documenting workarounds, alternative solutions, or by changing the underlying business process.

All the information gathered are then translated into project requirements. Different tasks at this stage are summarized below:

· Examine the business need or opportunity

· Write a clear statement of project objectives

· Know the difference between wants and needs

· Negotiate the requirements definition interactively with the customer

· Conduct a thorough and comprehensive analysis

· Document the results unambiguously in sufficient detail

PART – 2: DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROGRAMMING BASIS

During this Part, the information outlined in the Project Workbook and the Requirements Documentation will be used to create all the design documents. The customer and technical resources should be involved throughout the process to ensure all the requirements are incorporated into design. The design documents will undergo various stages of reviews and approvals, before moving to support the development work. The following diagram illustrates the design process.

PART – 3: SYSTEM INSTALLATION, TESTING AND DEBUGGING

The primary purpose of this part is to determine whether the software developed and unit tested in parts 3 and 4 is ready for implementation. Each testing stage will have a unique testing team, who will define the work plan, approach, scope and entry and exit criteria for each stage. Each testing stage should be completed and all fixes applied, before moving on to the next testing stage. The results of all the testing stages will determine whether to move forward to the Implementation part. Based on the size and scope of the project, the Practice and Program Manager will determine the types of testing that are applicable and the level of testing required. The major focus of this Phase will be introducing the new software product to end-users and developing a detailed conversion plan. The Implementation Part, managed by the Program Manager, Practice Manager and a representative from the impacted business area, will primarily involve developing the transition workshops for training, measuring job-task metrics and ensuring the conversion plan milestones are met. The results of each component of the Implementation Part will drive the go-live timeline set forth and will ensure production accuracy.

In brief this phase will involve the following tasks

– Database installation

– Testing of software and debugging

– User acceptance of the software

PART – 4: TRAINING