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Briefing Note on Status of Testing - 20" November 1993
The MOR3 cycle finished on schedule on Friday 13" November and End-to-End 2 is
expected to complete on schedule today. Over the.last week a full review has been
undertaken of the quality and robustness of the Pathway system and the end-to-end
processes in the light of these test cycles. .
This has resulted in the conclusions that while counter activity is showing :
progressive improvements in quality we have not demonstrated the end-to-end data
and financial integrity of the system to the extent that is required for entry to the
final MOT and E2E run. °
‘The primary reason for this is that the POCL TIP system has identified and rejected
many files with validation and integrity failures and therefore the scope and volume
of data it has processed has been insufficient to give confidence in the POCL ‘back
office’ reconciliation and cash accounting processes.
‘These failures can be attributed to the following problems:
© functional errors in cash account production (where there are 9 outstanding
~ PinICLs) ; . :
* reference data inconsistencies in the testing environments (Which are being
addressed for live versions of reference data but which are having to be
individually resolved in testing) .
* validation checking in TIP which is now recognised as too rigorous given the
necd to provide some level of tolerance on the synchronisation of reference data
changes even in the live environment. (However these are not checks which affect
. the financial integrity of the data but the timing of product-related changes in
outlets), :
* operational problems which were experienced in MOR3 and E2E 2, duc to both
operator error and specific faults identified in the file transmission software
* a specific number of errors arising from the office migration process where it was
identified that the current software and process does not correctly handle certain
‘local’ product types.
A second area of difficulty is that errors, re still outstanding on a significant number
of the counter reports and client summbries which are preventing effective internal
reconciliation of data within the outlet.
Finally there are two areas where, although the number of: ‘reported faults is relatively
low, the significance of the errors in terms of key reconciliation activities between
POCL and clients (including BA) means that these have to be cleared prior to MOT.
These are:
* BES reporting and reconciliation including fallback processin; iz
© HAPS reporting and reconciliation
The Horizon Team therefore recommend that the problems in the above areas need to
be corrected and that some specific, targetted retesting activity should be undertaken
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prior to entry to MOT. This work is currently being assessed and planned anda
formal proposal should be ready by Wednesday 25th November. It is expected to
include for example a partial run of the end-to-end cycle of around 8 days to validate
end-to-end integrity based on a selection of scripts for some of the offices. It will also
include a retest of the office migration process to. cover the known problem areas.
Before these tests can be run it will be necessary to fex the outstanding PinICLs and
make some relatively sinall changes to TIP.
This work will mean that MOT cannot start on 14* December. it is not yet possible
to predict a start date with confidence. The scale of the problem suggests that a
January start date may be achievable but this will be clarified next week. .
Given the recent decision to move the planned date for data centre migration to after
Easter, which potentially creates some additional time for testing pre-Easter, it is also
not yet clear whether and by how much the above work will delay the start of live trial
and national rollout. The follow up work on the Treasury review had resulted in the
view that the start of national rollout could be brought forward 3 weeks from mid-
August to the end of July. The problems now identified in testing make the August
date more likely. These key dates will also be assessed next week.
Coos atEmoak of nak is omenhan pric 6 fled 4) MoT, tat fon 06.
Andrew Simpkins
Horizon Release Management
20" November 1998
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Semglinn ,
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