Cut-off Times and Recovery Process for Data Transmission to Remote System

Today I come across the item on the frequencies of the FTP scheduler being set to send flat files over to our remote FTP server.  As usual, I request the local country IT lead to define the schedules that they may have planned for the scheduling but I realize I have missed out an important component – the naming convention of the file for each EDI message which is a text file.

In this system that we implemented, the critical component is the file name format that each country will be sending over to one remote FTP server.  We have defined a country folder for each, breakdown into detailed sub-folders for manageability.  From the system, each time a status flag for a particular form is updated it generates one text file for that, being differentiate by country code and time stamp that is obtained from the system clock on the time this file is generated.  The logic of the various status flag for that form is to update by sequence of events, capturing by time stamp.  In the real world, no more than 2 different status flags is updated at the same time for the same form.  However if we are to perform batch run of multiple files of the same form to ftp over to the remote FTP server, the remote server’s extraction logic does not recognize which files of that form to be processed first.

To avoid this situation, we need to define operation processes to determine the gap in the timings of various cutoffs to send the files over to remote FTP server in which will process these files to send over to the Customer’s system.  As such, this means that at certain stages of the processes we need to ensure what activities must have taken place to enable the scheduling to occur.  At the same time, this will also impact the return of messages back to Customer’s system after the network recovery from loss of network connections.  This is something that need to work in details and to be agreed by both organisations.

Support Processes for EDI messaging Gateway and System

As we all know in the world that we need to integrate and exchange information between organizations, we need to ensure the systems’ readiness and running at all times.

1. Loss of Internet connection between Organization A and Gateway (within Organization B).  In any cases that there is network failure between 2 organizations, we need to establish the SLA, support procedures and business continuity plan to ensure minimum impacts to on-going operations.
2. Loss of Internet connection between Gateway and Local Site (within Organization B).  This is related to one organization’s internal networks and the level of service level agreement may not be as comprehensive as for scenario 1 however we need to ensure the roles and responsibilities between the local sites and regional site.
3. Both connections are down – This is the worst case scenario.  We have to work out an thorough SLA in preparation for such incident.  What I am going to do is to leverage on the existing SLA that was being used for another country which is having this similar system.

The action items I have to work on is with the regional director to understand what we need to fulfill on the SLA, who is to prepare the SLA (probably from Accounts Management) to work out the terms with the Customer.

Software Release Management for Shared Program

Assumptions are killers. Even though we are experienced in some skillsets but somehow we do overlook some minor activities that affects the overall process. Although I am not technically inclined or knowledgeable on PowerBuilder, at least we need to understand the basic components to push for any code changes.

In the project I am working on, the main program code is maintained at regional level and we are looking at generalizing the core functionalities that are applicable to the local countries’ system requirements. When going down to customizations we are trying to update the business rules at the country level and the component is the reports (as far as I aware of). So, when we come to any changes make to the program we will do it in the way that the program will highlight to the user when they are logging to the program there is a new patch and the information of the objects being updated. The country IT has to take note of what are the new objects being changed and if they have done any customizations on that affected objects they have to redo the customization done after the new patch is being updated. This is really strange as we should try to maintain customizations at business rules level, not at the system level. We need to work out a process to share with the regional/local organisations on what to be standardized and maintained by regional team and what customizations are allowed at country level to maintain generalization and easy mantainance of the program.

Customers are difficult but there are reasons behind..

Today I was running around, from one building to another to manage the issues at work and the 3-days workshop. Customers are asking for feedbacks and pressing pressures for tight deliveries, not to mention the internal issues to work on.

I worked out a general project plan on the build schedules, developments and go-live for Production and shared with the Customer. Not only that, the Customer reverted that a fix to be pushed into Production as well beside moving to the Test environment. My reasoning with her is that we like to get her to verify and ensure the required changes are what they are expecting, sign-off and push into Production but she insisted to get the change (a change in the name of a Column) since it was being late for delivery for a month. Being flexible, we can go along with her request to push this change but just that we really need to maintain the processes in-place or else everything will go out of control again.

The team in Ireland is really keeping me frustrated. Up till now, I have not yet received the template that they mentioned to send to me since last Friday. No email update on the progress and I have been chasing them, and being ‘pressured’ from Customer to get the feedbacks as much as possible to resolve the current issue. Working with virtual teams and on different timezones are difficult whereby the offshore team do not understand what we the customer-facing team is facing when they are not directly in contact with the Customer. I have escalated this problem to my management and see how we can improve the communications and work effectively in providing timely updates to Customer. All customers are difficult but they actually do not expect us to solve the problem on the very day but to provide any possible updates that can resolve the problem. Communications is the drive to maintain relationships with the Customers.

Nevertheless, I had checked with the team and it is not possible to split that component out from the build as there are other components that are dependent on this change and have to bundle as one release to the environment regardless whether it is a Test or Production environment.  Hence this is communicated to the Customer, with assurance that once the new release is available for testing we shall inform them for verifications.

3rd Party Logistics Network Integrations

Working on a project on 3rd-Party Logistics concepts, we are working on integrations with various global/local carriers and the systems that they are inter-linked with one another. This project I am working on requires our Operations in the local countries’ warehouses to access to the Customer or a global carrier’s program as to fulfill the needed process to carry out the warehouse management’s activities. This means that we will need to use a 3rd-party VPN client to establish a connection to the Customer or the global carrier’s network to access to their program. Normally for such case, both sites (in this case, my employer and the Customer’s network) has to configure the firewall setups like getting the information of the IP addresses of the terminals and port numbers to allow authorised access to the Customer’s network and vice versa.

For this case, our IT security and network organization do not allow the project team to implement the 3rd-party VPN client to be used in the Company’s network. The proposed solution is to setup a site-to-site VPN connection (a dedicated, VPN tunneling between our Organization and the Customer). For this option, this is economical and cost-savings, with into the consideration of low data transfer/access and secure connection but we need to understand from Customer that we agree on the secure protocols to be used in terms of routers, configuration etc. The network team has also suggested if high volume of data is to be transfer/access, a dedicated leased line may be considered, or if the program that the Customer has is a web application the alternative is to suggest to the Customer to move the application to extranet infrastructure (allows external parties via Internet to access to the application) but this is not a preferred option.

Three Possible Solutions:

1. VPN tunneling (more secure, for low volume of data transfer between both networks)
2. Dedicated leased line (for high volume of data transfer between both networks)
3. Move the program to Extranet architecture if the program is a web application.

While looking onto the above options, I have came to evaluating the risk of the project if we are not able to setup the required setups on time for the target go-lives for any of the above. I am trying to get the Management to see if we can still work on this last alternative to setup the network firewalls to allow 3rd-party VPN client or probably to get local warehouse to setup an external ISP broadband connection to use the 3rd-party VPN client to connect to the program, outside of the Organization’s network. Decision has to be moved before end of next week.

Unfinished Feasibility Study and Unrealistic Plans

It has been 5 weeks on the new job, getting myself familiar with the working cultures and the people I am going to work with. True enough, the project team members I am working with, do not really care about documentations and proper handover processes. Lots of the technical guides and user training materials are out-dated and no one is maintaining them on support basis. I am having hard time to go through each of the documents on the shared network folder to understand the solution that the project team is trying to deliver within the next 2 months from now.

For the past 3 weeks I had been traveling to the nominated countries for the workshops to understand the new business initiative, business requirements and “To-Be” processes that are to execute for them. During these periods, I was surprised to know none of the Customer’s regional team was presented with their fellow country’s counterparts! The next surprise I got is that we were doing reverse-planning of the project activities from the dates of go-live for those countries. In the process, I realized we are much very far-behind of the deliverables to achieve and lots of pressures from the business to get them done. But on the other hand, the SOP is not finalized and sign-off from the Customer as well and this is a critical milestone not to be ignored as it affects the system flows of the solution we are going to develop, and we haven’t yet complete a full draft of the System Requirement document of the Global solution, the proposed solution is still in implementation stage and customizations from the countries are to be done using this solution as the ‘foundation’. Realistically we are facing so many challenges and works in a short period.

Being understanding on the commercial factors that derives the other reasons for the short project’s schedules we need to get everything ready in 2 months’ time. The strategies I am working on right now are to understand what are the important deliverables to achieve to ensure each and every team member is able to get on with their works with minimum impacts, and constant communications with each of them before we are hit with any possible show stoppers. The other factors to look into is to get the sponsor’s agreement to understand what are the core functions to deliver and prioritize iterative development in phases.