FUJITSU SERVICES POST OFFICE ACCOUNT
A DESCRIPTION OF WHAT CONSTITUTES FUJITSU SERVICES POST
OFFICE ACCOUNT 15" TO 47 LINE SUPPORT FOR POST OFFICE USERS
OF THE HORIZON SYSTEM
Glossary of Terms
Term/Acronym Explan:
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Cleveley i GRO ~ ~~ the Post Office in question
FELO1 Pojiist building Fetthaiy 077 -
Front Line Name associated with the HSH staff actively interfacing with Post Masters on calls.
HIT Horizon Incident Team (additional 1* Line). This function established in July 2000 to handle
specific types of calls. Now amalgamated with SMC.
HSH Horizon System Helpdesk (1* Line) (Fujitsu help desk for Post Masters with technical/system
queries to call)
ICL Pathway The name by which the current Fujitsu Services Post Office Account was known in 2000.
KELs Known Error Logs
MANOS Fujitsu building Manchester 05
NBSC National Business Support Centre (A Post Office run help desk for Post Masters with
business queries to call)
OLA Operational Level Agreement
PiniCL Call management system utilised by SSC and Pathway development for capturing and
progressing incidents escalated from SMC (2 Line). (Replaced by system called PEAK in
2004)
PM Post Master
PowerHelp Call management system utilised by HSH for capturing and progressing call information from
s
FP Quality Filter Process
RMF Release Management Forum
smc ‘System Management Centre (2 Line)
ssc System Support Centre (3 Line)
STEO9 Fujitsu building Stevenage 09
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Introduction
Fujitsu Services Post Office Account (known as ICL Pathway in 2000) provides
technical support to Post Office users of the Horizon system through a four-tier
model, with the handling of incidents escalating through the tiers depending on the
nature of the final resolution action.
Horizon Support Domains’
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Each of the domains, referred to as 1°, 27¢, 3“ and 4" Line Support, has it’s own
objectives and responsibilities, both to themselves and each other, and these are
defined in an internal Fujitsu document reference CS/FSP/006 : End to End Support
Process, Operational Level Agreement. The content of this document has been in
operation since 1999 and would have applied to all calls raised by the Cleveley office.
Note that while the following paragraphs are written in the present tense they describe
what would have happened in 2000. There have been changes to the processes and
tools since 2000 but the basic four-tier model has not.
Horizon System Helpdesk HSH/HIT Team (1° Line)
Calls are received by the Horizon System Helpdesk (HSH) direct from Post Masters
(PM). They can also arrive via the National Business Support Centre (NBSC), a Post
Office organisation established for Post Masters to contact if they have business
related problems. The NBSC sometimes receive calls that are more relevant to the
HSH and these calls are transferred by telephone.
All calls are registered on PowerHelp by the HSH and all calls remain open until such
time as a resolution has been reached to the problem and the originating Post Master
agrees to the call being closed.
An initial diagnosis is conducted by the HSH Front Line while the PM is on the line,
using the Horizon reference system co-located with the HSH terminals, and
information available on the automated support tool HSHONE, Advice and Guidance
information and the Weekly Counter News. If the problem requires further
investigation, or an engineer, the call is escalated to the Horizon Incident Team (HIT),
a subset of the HSH, and the current call to the PM terminated. [Note : The HIT was
established in July 2000 to deal with specific types of calls]
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Known Error Logs (KELs), developed by the SSC (3 Line), are used by the HSH
and HIT Team, and further attempts are made to resolve the problem with the PM. If
resolution is still not possible the call will be escalated to 3" Line support, be that
hardware engineers, network specialists or the SSC in BRAO1
Calls that are to be escalated to SSC are transferred from the HSH and registered on
the PinICL system.
System Management Centre (2™ Line)
The SMC deal with the more technically oriented elements of Horizon support
including :
Network monitoring.
Event monitoring and, where possible, identifying problems using SSC KELs.
Investigating non-polling Post Office’s and reporting back to CS
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Providing software and POL Type A Reference Data distribution services to
the live Horizon estate.
Primary inputs to the SMC include calls that have been escalated from the HIT Team
and a number that may also be escalated from the HSH Front Line.
System Support Centre (3 Line)
SSC receives the majority of its incidents as PinICL calls raised via Powerhelp. These
may be calls raised by the HIT Team for counter related problems, or the SMC for
central systems or Tivoli monitored errors.
Problems are analysed through a process of elimination and by mimicking PM actions
in an attempt to re-create the problem.
Primary outputs are agreed closures of PinICLs, data fixes to enable Post Masters to
continue working and workarounds, usually pending final resolution through a
subsequent software release by 4" line.
The SSC are also involved in the closure of PinICLs that are referred to 4" line for
resolution, where they act as moderators with the customer before agreeing final
closure. PinICL closures provide the filtration measure of errors transferred to 4" line.
Workarounds are often required due to the backlog of software releases and unless a
fix is absolutely required the PinICL is linked to a KEL entry and, with the agreement
of the customer, a workaround agreed pending final resolution.
The Release Management Forum (RMF) controls the release of software and data
through the normal release cycle although the SSC can, in an emergency, Implement a
change and seek retrospective approval from the RMF.
Closed PinICLs refer back to the originating PowerHelp call, which is automatically
closed.
ICL Pathway Development (4 Line)
Faults are passed to 4" line when all other attempts to resolve the problem have been
exhausted and it is believed that changes to the underlying code will be required to
bring the problem to closure. PinICLs are routed to the Quality Filter Process (QFP)
for initial scrutiny and routing to the most appropriate development team.
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PinICLs are discussed at the Release Management Forum and a target release for the
fix arrived at. Releases can be either Major or Interim and ‘live fix’ problems are
usually targeted at the next available Interim Release if urgent, or Major Release if
not. Counter based problems are usually targeted at Major Releases due to the
complexity of distributing fixes to the entire estate. Once the Release has been
identified the PinICL is returned to the QFP for transfer to the appropriate
development team.
Resourcing the Support Function
National Rollout of the Horizon system did not complete until early to mid 2001 and
would have been in full flow during 2000. As the number of Post Offices was
automated so the support capability provided by ICL Pathway was enhanced to reflect
the increased population of Horizon users.
It should also be noted that calls relating to National Rollout were handled by a
dedicated Rollout Helpdesk and not by the HSH. Rollout calls made to the HSH in
error were transferred to the correct helpdesk. Cleveley made 16 such calls.
Item Feb 2000 Nov 2000
Number of Post Offices running Horizon System 3136 14841
Number of ICL staff in Horizon System Helpdesk Front Line (1* Line) 65 186
Number of ICL staff in Horizon Incident Team (Additional 1*Line) [Note 1] I 0 "1
Number of ICL staff in System Management Centre (2 Line) 50 73
Number of ICL staff in System Support Centre (3 Line) [Note 2] 34 34
Number of ICL staff in ICL Pathway Development (4" Line) [Note 3] 257 287
[Note 1] : The Horizon Incident Team was introduced in July 2000 to deal with
specific types of problems.
[Note 2] : Despite the increase in Post Offices the number of employees in the SSC
remained static as working practices improved, better problem diagnosis tooling was
available and the general level of staff competence increased.
[Note 3] : The earliest reliable numbers that I have been able to obtain are dated April
2001. However, the 2000 would not show a material difference, up or down, since
ongoing development and support obligations of the Horizon system, and ICL
Pathway obligations, required a Development Unit of about this size. The Unit
continued at this size during 2001 and beyond.
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