Fergal Carton / AFIS Last week PCB case study : presentations Access hours for labs –MBA students have access to Lab all day Fri. Sat. and Sun. Exams : format

Fergal Carton / AFIS Summer exam for MBA 642 Friday 9th May at 4.30 p.m. 1½ hour written exam Will cover material covered in lectures It is assumed handouts will have been read Answer 2 questions from 4 Essay type answers

Fergal Carton / AFIS Requirements discovery Meetings with users (who, when, what outcome, …) Checklist of questions that clarify user requirements Describe existing processes –Document how things are currently done –Review inputs and outputs of current process (screens, forms, reports) –Outline problems with current way of doing things (speed, risk of error, …) –What improvements are expected from system (single point of data entry, faster reports, less manual work, …) How to design and communicate the proposed solution –Review requirements documentation –Walk-through solution –Get sign-off from users

Fergal Carton / AFIS Fact finding techniques Sampling of existing forms and files Site visits Observation of work environment Research of similar systems Surveys of users and management Interviews of users and management Prototyping Joint Requirements Planning (JRP)

Fergal Carton / AFIS Requirements Definition Report Introduction –Purpose –Background –Scope General Project Description –System Objectives Requirements and constraints –Functional requirements –Non-functional requirements Conclusion –Outstanding issues Appendix (eg. Questionnnaires & responses)

Fergal Carton / AFIS Purchase request and payment Departments make spending requests Budget is checked in the allocated budget file If budget exceeded, request is rejected Approved requests are stored and used to create Purhcase orders (PO’s) for suppliers Goods received notes (GRN) are matched with PO’s to identify any discrepancies When supplier invoice is received, 3 way match is made between PO, GRN and invoice prior to payment

Fergal Carton / AFIS Example : Budget monitoring case What analysis method would you use and why? –Interviews Management / Department interviews –Describe the special approval process –What are the “tolerance levels” for overspending of budget –How many requests, how long to approve, backlog issues –Documentation Copies of current spending requests List of departments and corresponding budgets Print-out from allocated budget file Copy of spending summary report Process for order supply of parts (PO’s?) Copy of delivery advice details –Requirements report

Fergal Carton / AFIS Example : Budget monitoring case What sort of output would you provide? –Requirements report –Questionannaires –Functional Decomposition –Data Flow Diagrams –ERD –Etc. How would you validate requirements? –JRP –Prototype –Approving Requirements report –…

Fergal Carton / AFIS ERP projects: resources required Software vendor Hardware vendor Users User management Steering Committee Functional analysts Developers DBA’s Project team Process leads Project Managers Systems Integrator Technical Project Business

Fergal Carton / AFIS ERP project resources : CSF’s Adequate on-site project team to engage users –Specification –Testing –Conversion –Go-live Key functional expertise for workarounds Users with 4 weeks hands-on before go-live Managers defend design decisions made Project team keeps ownership of project Prototype early, prototype often

Fergal Carton / AFIS ERP project resources : CFF’s Adequate on-site project team to engage users –Specification –Testing –Conversion –Go-live Key functional expertise for workarounds Users with 4 weeks hands-on before go-live Managers defend design decisions made Project team keeps ownership of project Prototype early, prototype often Loss of know-how to SI Legacy experts unwilling to make jump System untested by users, processes not validated by users Management buy-in not secured Project team gets bogged down in bureaucracy No time for re-design in plan

Fergal Carton / AFIS International IS Process design Technical Specification Development Implementation Support Standard process Global functionality Minimal customisation Upgradability Low risk... Languages Currencies Legal entities Interfaces Local reports Enhancements Localisations... GLOBAL LOCAL ERP-Local support for global processes

Fergal Carton / AFIS Resource management issues High turnover of skills during project Rotating people through different roles on project for education / development Training for project team Relationship with line management (seconded, power user etc.) Reward for participation of end-users (eg. bonus, promotion, …) Re-integrating team into existing organisation post go-live

Fergal Carton / AFIS Resources : process Process lead Functional analyst Power users Application specialist Users …

Fergal Carton / AFIS Process issues … Ensuring key process issues are resolved Do we invoice customers on shipment or on delivery? Who should open the new accounting period for Purchasing? Receivables are coming through from a legacy system, but it’s impossible to identify the country of origin Sales orders being received in Euros are giving “Unrecognised currency” errors and halting the interface job Currency exchange rates updated during month and skewing month-end results, who should troubleshoot? Revenue from Professional Services is having to be manually shipped at month-end : no legacy system …

Fergal Carton / AFIS Resources : data Data clean-up team Data conversion team Data conversion programmer Legacy data team Data quality testing and maintenance …

Fergal Carton / AFIS Data issues … Getting and maintaining clean data –When creating a new customer, who has control? –42 occurrences of Siemens in your customer database, what do you do? –Customers exist in ERP core database, but also in several legacy systems. How do you make sure they are in synch? –…

Fergal Carton / AFIS IT resources : operations Database administrator Systems administrator Operators : core apps Server operators Storage technicians HelpDesk …

Fergal Carton / AFIS Database issues … Guaranteeing “high availability” How often should Test be refreshed? How many environments should I have –Test –Production –Development –Training –Business Simulation –… If I implement a change to Production, do I need to implement the same change across all environments? 20 programmers developing / testing new code every day: how do I track releases to production? …

Fergal Carton / AFIS Systems admin issues … Ensuring system access for users New users Changes to existing profiles System downtime for maintenance Forcing users out of system Tracking source of corrupt data to user profile …

Fergal Carton / AFIS HelpDesk issues … Calls arriving at HelpDesk are either : Forgotten password New user Changes to user profile Printing problems Connectivity problems Response time problems System crashes System error messages PC problems I need more training …

Fergal Carton / AFIS HelpDesk issues … …or : Functionality questions (how do I transact an invoice?) Process questions (when should I post to GL?) Reporting (I need a revenue report)

Fergal Carton / AFIS Project handover to HelpDesk Prior to go-live, implement procedures for : –Logging calls such that it will be routed to the right person and tracked, reported on and escalated –Training for HelpDesk to be able to ask the right questions concering an application issue –Troubleshooting application issues to be able to deal with simple “fixes” –Ongoing consultation with application team regarding new functionality being rolled out, common errors, planned outages, …

Fergal Carton / AFIS IT resources : applications Configuration specialists Interface specialist Application support Forms developer …

Fergal Carton / AFIS Configuration issues … Adapting to changes in business processes –Eg. Can AR->GL interface be made real-time? –For every order type in system, for every country, an additional currency (€) has to be added to the sales order configuration parameters –Italy wants to intercept invoices to change the date to delivery date, how do I do this? –France wants to turn on “localisation”, who will test it? –…

Fergal Carton / AFIS Interface issues … Improving quality of information received –Sales orders being received in Euros are giving “Unrecognised currency” errors and halting the interface job –2 sales orders exist in system with same order number : interface crashing –Users creating quotes in legacy system, approving and sending through to ERP, but quotes not showing up until 4 hours later? –..

Fergal Carton / AFIS Application issues (forms) … Business wishes to change / enhance process –New field required on Sales Order to indicate if it was converted from legacy. –Screen required allowing field staff to ship certain product lines (but not others) –New form required to give users option to convert an existing sales order in FRF to € –New form required to be able to view customers for a given country only –…

Fergal Carton / AFIS People issues (business readiness) … Hands-on time Training Training logistics Communication to business from project Understanding local processes