TYPES OF INFORMATION SYSTEM

Information systems differ in their business needs and the information varies depending upon different levels in organization. information system can be broadly categorized into following :

• Transaction processing system
• Management Information System
• Decision support system

The information needs are different at different organizational levels. Accordingly the information can be categorized into following:

• Strategic information
• Managerial information
• Operational information.

Transaction Processing Systems

1. It processes business transaction of the organization. Transaction can be any activity of the organization. For example, take a railway reservation system. Booking, canceling, etc are all transactions. Any query made to it is a transaction.
2. This provides high speed and accurate processing of record keeping of basic operational processes and include calculation, storage and retrieval.
3. Transaction processing systems provide speed and accuracy, and can be programmed to follow routines functions of the organization.

Management Information Systems

1. It assist lower management in problem solving and making decisions. They use the results of transaction processing and some other information also.
2. An important element of MIS is database.A database is a non-redundant collection of interrelated data items that can be processed through application programs and available to many users.

Decision Support Systems

1. These systems assist higher management to make long term decisions. These type of systems handle unstructured or semi structured decisions. A decision is considered unstructured if there are no clear procedures for making the decision and if not all the factors to be considered in the decision can be readily identified in advance.
2. A decision support system must very flexible.
3. The user should be able to produce customized reports by giving particular data and format specific to particular situations.