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Newsletters
(August, 1998)
- On the Internet - your Customer is only 2 Clicks away from the Competitors
- Stock Exchange Security Number
- Test of a Mainframe System on the Workstation
- Things are never what they seem’
On the Internet - your Customer is only 2 Clicks away from the Competitors Tilbage
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The Internet of today is a perfect solution for smaller banks without regional offices/affiliates, that until now has communicated with the customers over the phone.
Advantages
The advantages are, among others:
- Administration cost will be kept down (Internet as an alternative to regional offices/affiliates)
- Electronic banking makes the potential customer-base bigger
Beside these advantages, there are other reasons for making a web-solution:
- The competitors are already there!
- It is possible to present your financial services in a very professional way on the Internet
The Internet is an interactive media, where it is possible to have a dialog with the customer. Many competitors do not use this possibility, but develops web-sides in the tradition of the printed media.
Success-criterias
What do you need to get success with a web-solution? Among others, the criterias
are:
- Cover the customers need 100%
- Dynamic and easy to overview structure
- High scalability
- One database with all information
- Update on a daily basis
- A responsible ‘editor’
- Co-ordination with other marketing tools and activities
It should be possible for the customers to design the entrance-menu of the web-side himself, according to his specific interests and needs. For the bank, it is possible to use the data about the customers usage of the web-side (which services are requested etc.) in future marketing-activities.
If the bank does not use the possibilities of the Internet in an optimum way, the customer is only 2 clicks away from the competitors!
It is of course also necessary, that the web-side is easy to overview and that access to all needed information for taking a decision are easy and uncomplicated.
Main-menu
The entrance-menu contains the following areas:
The bank in general
The bank presents itself:
- Employees with picture, responsibility-area, e-mail addresses etc.
- Vacant positions in the bank
- Core customer concept
Co-operation-partners, sponsorships etc.
Interview-form and question-mail box
News about products, interests etc.
Financial wordbook with definition of financial terms and expressions
Agenda for bank-activities
Share of the month, with the portrait of an outstanding company
Private customers
Conditions for savings, loans etc.
Special savings for children, education, housing etc.
Budget-calculations and -simulations
Comparison with services from competitors
Investment-proposals, based on various input regarding ‘investment-profile’
Pension-schemes
Marked-information, e.g. regarding stocks and bonds
Portfolio-management
Insurance (car, house, boat etc.)
Company customers
Condition for savings, credits, loans etc.
Finance of fixed assets
Investment-proposals, based on various input regarding ‘investment-profile’ of the company
Company pension schemes
Market information, e.g. regarding stocks and bonds
Portfolio management
Insurance for companies
Internal or external web-solution?
It is of course essential to make sure, that the security-level is on a maximum, when the banks internal network are connected with the outer world via the Internet.
One way to secure against ‘hackers’ in an internal solution is to install a so called firewall between the internal network and the Internet. The firewall logs all traffic and makes sure, that not-authorised traffic are rejected (and logged).
An external web-solution is often chosen to avoid increased internal (fixed) costs. The web-server is then placed at an external web-provider. The disadvantages of<
Stock Exchange Security Number Tilbage
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On April 1999, the stock exchange security number in Switzerland will be extended from six to nine digits. How do an investment bank cope with this situation?
Challenges
Although it was clear, which applications are concerned by the change, we know according to experience, that some workfiles are used in several applications. In one, the key-field is declared because it is used, in the other, nobody can find the same field-name. How do we manage to change all the programs without destroying some of the saved data on the files, when we extend the stock exchange security number from 6 to 9 digits?
Another challenge concerns the testing. On the testing environment it is not possible exactly to input the data-constellation necessary to produce the desired output. How do we check the results?
Approach
3 teams are necessary to accomplish the goal:
1. The developer team has to analyse the applications and evaluate the objects to be changed. It has to make the changes in the programs and test them. After that, it has to write the migration documents for the data centre team.
2. The database administration has to modify the views and the contents of the workfiles on the database. Also, the new data-structure must be described and unusable fields in the database must be suppressed.
3. The data centre team has to prepare and check all running programs and the job control. On the basis of the migration document, they have to move up the changed source software program to the designed environment. Finally, they run the programs.
Analysis
All information about objects to be changed was collected in one Excel-file per application.
Firstly, the effort has to concentrate on the programs, with the field “Stock Exchange Security Number”. Where should the modification be done? - Input, output-file etc. Whereever the field name is represented, the search must be continued in all present objects: views, workfiles, modules, subprograms, macros etc.
Secondly, any workfile, view, macro, module etc. can transfer or receive data to/from one or more programs of any application. They must all be changed in the same or similar ways.
Implementation
On the basis of the Excel-file content, the developer team knew exactly, in every concerned application, which object should be changed.
All extended workfiles were completed with the consequences for the job control by modifying them in the Excel-file.
From the integration environment, the corresponding JCL was collected, the record length was updated if necessary and the program was run.
If the result wasn’t the expected, TSO utility 3.13 (compare objects) was used to compare the new version with the old one, as a basis for further corrective actions.
Finally, the migration documentation for the application was made and the whole procedure started again with the next application.
Test of a Mainframe System on the Workstation Tilbage
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The Case Tool COOL:GEN
When you construct mainframe systems - Cobol, CICS, DB2 - it is a nice change to use a Case Tool, as the mainframe can be very time-consuming to work with.
I have for many years worked with the Case Tool IEF from Texas Instruments, Composer and now COOL:GEN which is the latest version, and now supported by Sterling Software.
One of the good things about COOL:GEN is, among other things, the test and trace facilities on the workstation, which this article is about.
The advantage lies in the testing
When I think of how much time there have been spent on finding and correcting errors in programmes on the Mainframe, the advantage of testing on the workstation is big. It is easy and fast to change and code-generate the applications, and if the applications are code-generated with trace it is uncomplicated to trace the code. The trace can be enabled or disabled when testing and it is the written code you see, and not the generated code.
The users/testers can be involved early in the test-phase as it is possible for the users/testers to test on the workstation too.
When a local database first is installed on the workstation and provided with the data needed, the users/testers can download Business Systems/Procedures in ‘Read only’ mode and very easy make an application or a whole Business System ready for test.
As the tester has a local database, his test scenarios can be run over and over again, by recovering the database when needed, and it is easy and fast for the developer to change screens, business logic or code when errors are detected.
Less errors
When the system has been tested - both online and batch - and the flows between Business Systems works on the workstation, the applications can be transferred to the mainframe, where it now should be possible to execute the test with less error correction.
What about the CICS environment?
Even in the CICS environment the programmes can be code-generated with trace. The trace works on the CICS exactly as on the workstation - easy and uncomplicated.
Satisfied testers
I have the experience that the testers find the test on the workstation valuable too, as they have their own data and test environment - and as a developer it is nice to work with satisfied testers!
Things are never what they seem’ Tilbage
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Thomas K. Bertelsen has from 1990 to 1996 studied economy and computer science at Copenhagen Business School. The last couple of years he has worked with IBM mainframe, PL/I, CSP, IMS and DB2 and participated in both large (over a year) and small projects in a large bank.
This article will under influence of Total Quality Management raise some questions of the variety of quality definitions in according to systems development, projects and management of these projects.
Posing the questions it is the aim and hope to bring more focus on the subject product quality or more specific software quality and customer satisfaction in the development process.
Quality in broad
What is quality broadly speaking? Many definitions of quality exist and no one is more correct than others. One could be defined as consistently producing what the customer wants. From a customers point of view the definition is hard to argue. But from a producers point of view quality is not only an external but also an internal matter. Customers exist externally as well as internally. Quality seen from inside an organisation is the successful co-ordination and result of different work processes. But how do we ensure this success?
We have seen the trend the past decades; Promising management systems, methods and tools to help managing, controlling, measuring and improving these work processes evolve. All with harmonious names such as organisational change/development systems, Business Process Re-engineering, Information System Re-engineering, Information Management/Engineering, Total Quality Management and ISO-standard systems. The list is long.
The core of all these methods and systems can broadly be summarised into: Quality assessment and improvement.
Quality in the software development process
So how do we consistently deliver quality software systems? To better understand the issue we have to dig deeper into the pitfalls of the development process.
Software development is a very complex world considering all stages from the initial idea over analysing the existing and the new work processes, construction/programming, test cycles to implementation and maintenance. No two projects are alike, there exist no serial production (except for Microsoft’s Windows 95/98) and no band conveyor like in the car industry. The environment constantly change, new development tools, updates, concepts and standards are invented to keep track of this new world, no other business experience that many job changes etc. making the development process difficult.
Anyhow, being aware of the so called external complexity software development projects often fail to meet deadline. How is that?
Knowing and understanding the causes of project failures gives a feeling where to seek the answer. The next section shortly describes some of the most common causes.
Among the most common causes are:
1. Lack of information
2. No support from the management staff
3. Bad management
4. Bad developers
5. Unforeseen events
6. Project members come and go
1. Lack of information
You often hear „The customers/users and the producers/developers don’t speak the same language. Therefore, it is hard to develop a system that satisfy the customer.“
If that is the case the producer/developer missed the whole point of doing business. If the customer cannot get through with his ideas or you deliver a system not living up to the expectations the customer will just find another supplier for further business purposes.
The producer has the whole responsibility and failing to satisfy the customer the producer should take a closer look at his information gathering work processes, analysing methods and standards.
2. No top management support
Project managers and team members have often complained that they do not receive „management support“ for their efforts. B
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