ICL Pathway Progress Summary
for Input to Horizon / Pathway Delivery Meeting
10‘ November 1999
1.1
ACCEPTANCE
OVERALL SUMMARY
Progress against plan for the 13 former Acceptance Incidents forming the bulk
of the Acceptance Resolution Timetable is reviewed below in Acceptance
Resolution Timetable order. A meeting on 9/11 is expected to have produced
a report of metrics for former Als 376, 298 and 408. Pathway has provided
POCL with copies of the working Acceptance Resolution Timetable planning
charts for progress updating.
211: The monitoring phase has now completed and Closure approval was
due on 1/11. An incident raised under 376 on 2/11, but going right back to
week 29, has superficial similarities and so the monitoring period is extended
pro tem.
342 : Horizon is to confirm that the TIP gateway machine is being cleared
down since 19/10 and to approve Closure.
390 : The AP counter enhancement is awaiting distribution. It is due in the
field by 30/11.
376 : Interface stability: A meeting to list and discuss all incidents will have
been held on 9 November.
Additional Reconciliation : The first Integration and Cycle 1 started as forecast
on 25/10 and is expected to finish 17/11. The Cycle 2 and 3 activity is
forecast to start 22/11. POCL has reviewed the Test Strategy and is
discussing the HLTP with Pathway on 8/11.
378 : The diagnostic fix has found no null pointer-type problems. A new
activity has been put into the plan to extend the monitoring period to the end
of November.
369 : POCL has proposed to DSS to extend the trial to a further 16 offices for
the four weeks to 8/12 with PIRA testing the rejected bar-codes. The report is
planned for 7/1/00, thus extending the activities beyond the plan dates.
Pathway will produce a paper describing potential improvement areas by
10/11, this being Pathway’s last action.
372: The long POCL review of software distribution process and reports has
begun, lasting until mid January.
298 : The achievement for week 31 was 119 units and for week 32 145.5
units, averaging 132+, compared with the par figure of merit figure of 137.
The week 32 figure excludes a spike of out of hours problems believed to
have been precipitated by an Energis switch failure.
218 : The report of Trainer Quality Monitoring is in preparation. CCN 543b
(RNM training) remains open. CCN 566 (Training Window) is published. The
post training consolidation review has completed satisfactorily.
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391: The vehicle access and alarm response procedures are complete. The
Wigan back gate work will now finish around 12/11, it is due at the end of
November.
314 : There is now just one of the eight chapters of the API document
specified by CR/SPE/007 to complete. The manual is due for first delivery by
23/11 and Appendices planned by 28/12.
408 : There were two further compliance audits of the HSH cash account
script usage. The remaining actions are maintaining the staffing profile and
SLA monitoring, a report for which is provided weekly, last on 2/11.
412: The only action left is for POCL to agree two process documents.
There remains one former Al, Al 232, where there is a disagreement as to
severity - None (Pathway) and Low (POCL). This is with the POCL and
Pathway Commercial departments to progress. One-line resolution plans for
the, now 53, agreed Low Als are available for agreement. Of these 22 are for
resolution within CSR+.
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10‘ November 1999
2
2.1
2.2
IMPLEMENTATION
NATIONAL ROLL OUT
The rollout programme is approaching the Christmas break period and
installations will cease from 12 November and rollout will resume from 24"
January 2000. During this period Pathway will be undertaking a number of
measures to review and fine-tune the activities and processes surrounding
rollout. Running concurrently with this will be the RNM clusters and Major offices
‘paid study’ looking at revisions to the implementation plan. Following receipt of
a further CR, the study will now be extended to include ALPS offices. Work on
the study is ready to commence following POCL approval of the CCN. The first
part of the study encompasses activities based around the RODB and secondly
the feasibility study will address the detail of the rollout profile.
Activity to implement CCN 561 (side agreement to the Second Supplemental
Agreement) has been completed with all the obligations having been
implemented through documentation and process changes. It is understood
that POCL are still awaiting written confirmation from the National Federation of
Sub-postmasters of acceptance of the single installation date, although it is
believed this is a formality.
Pathway and POCL Implementation management met on the 5" November
1999 to review installation dropout rates and lessons learned from National
Rollout to date. It was agreed that installation dropout levels are as expected
and still falling. Further reductions in the levels of installation suspensions and
aborts are anticipated from process improvements made recently and process
reviews currently being undertaken by Pathway’s Implementation team.
Progress continues to be made to recover the scheduling gap created by the 2-
week approval process during acceptance. It is anticipated that all new
installation units entering the installation process from early December will be
able to follow the full 16-week cycle. To minimise impact, joint agreement was
reached to delay one UAE event in November by one week to maximise the
notice period for postmasters.
INFRASTRUCTURE PROGRAMME
Surveys for trolleys are continuing, but there are a small percentage of offices
that need minor re-work to enable the trolleys to fit.
The infrastructure programme has now scheduled nearly all the outlets we
currently have available. There are some 2000 outlets not yet released from
POCL that needs to be reviewed in order to complete infrastructure programme.
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2.3
2.4
2.4.1
A meeting was held on 5"" November to review the process and current status of
releasing suspended outlets into the infrastructure programme. With the greater
understanding of the information shared at this meeting it is expected that
improvements in the process will be achieved.
INSTALLATION PROGRAMME
As of the 5"" November 1999, 1811 outlets had been installed and migrated to
the Horizon system, achieving the programme milestone target of 1800 live
outlets. This was a major achievement for the programme and has resulted from
the hard work and co-operation of all the parties involved. Staff in Pathway and
POCL managing the installation process centrally and in the regions should be
congratulated on this achievement.
An implementation plan for outlets requiring frame relay communications has
been produced and is being reviewed by all concerned.
Discussions continue with suppliers over productivity, improvements and the
revised rollout plan for next year. A review plan has been created for
implementation to take all lessons learnt to date, from Pathway and suppliers,
and make improvements in preparation for the new start date in January 2000.
USER IMPLEMENTATION AND MIGRATION
Training Scheduling
Pathway is currently planning a demonstration for POCL Implementation to
provide assurances of the capability, robustness and contingency available from
the training scheduling and administration systems. This will complete the
activity planned to address the recent concerns over training scheduling and
provide positive feedback against the rollout criteria for this item.
A further 120 training systems have been built in order to satisfy the
requirements of the first phase of NRO in January 2000. A further 148 systems
will be built during the Christmas closure.
The Pre-Entry event was signed off this week, but will require POCL make some
amendments to the contents of their section of the course. It is understood the
POCL input will be reviewed at a dry run on 9"" November 1999.
The amended PSA process was put in place this week and a trainer briefing
session was held, covering the changes and how they will be applied to the
courses. It is intended that POCL and Pathway Training teams will be
observing the second day of one of the training courses.
An End-to End workshop to run through training scheduling scenarios,
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10‘ November 1999
2.4.2
processes and issues will be run next week in order to review and plan
improvements for the training plans for NRO.
Acceptance Incident Al 218
ICL Pathway has completed the vast majority of its actions on the Rectification
Plan for Al218, although some POCL actions are outstanding. This was
reviewed with POCL on 5" November 1999.
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10‘ November 1999
2.5 IMPLEMENTATION STATISTICS (TO 29™ NOVEMBER 1999)
Implementation Weekly Statistics
Activity Previous Actual Cumulative Comments
Report Total This period
INFRASTRUCTURE PROG.
IRGM letters issued 17421 19 17440
Site surveys undertaken 16265 299 16564
Site re-surveys required 6385 87 6472
Site re-surveys undertaken 5862 282 6144
Site modifications done 4154 180 4334
Site preparations done 9021 551 9572
Sites RFI 8058 836 8894
INSTALLATION PROG.
IRGM Phase 2 Letters Issued 2570 0 2570 TBC
ISDN lines installed 1730 173 1903
Sites installed 1195 413 1608
Offices live 1181 415 1596
Counters Live 2640 928 3568
NOTE: The number of live offices as at 5 November is 1811
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3 CUSTOMER SERVICE
3.1 INFRASTRUCTURE SERVICES
3.1.1 Strategic Services Unit
3.1.1.1 Horizon Service Helpdesk
SLAs this month have improved, but it is evident that any spike in the workload
will have a negative impact on SLA performance. This was demonstrated
when stamp revaluation occurred in mid-October.
A list of the top five postmaster issues has been collated through discussion
with the PLMs, BSM and a review of Service Visit Reply Cards and call
records. Each of the issues will be thoroughly investigated and appropriate
corrective action identified and implemented. The weekly results to date for the
Al408 monitoring period are given below.
Service Level Target Week Commencing
4/10 I 11/10 18/10 25/10 Wii I 08/11
Level I <5 minutes 95%
<10 100%
minutes
Level 2 <30 95%
minutes
<45 ie 98
minutes
Calls answered within 20 80% FRY 66
seconds
Cash Ring backs 0%
Account calls
Repeat 0%
Calls
Call scripts 95% I N/A 0% N/A 6%
compliance
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3.1.1.2 Outlet Change
The following changes are ongoing.
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Location
Reason for Change
Date of Change
Northville, Bristol
Outlet Refurbishment
25/9/99 (complete)
Filton Avenue, Bristol
Outlet Refurbishment
25/10/99 (In progress)
Bristol
Oldland Common,
Outlet Refurbishment
Slipped by POCL to
3rd and 4th Nov.
Ravenscliffe
Outlet Refurbishment
19/11/99
Cottingley
Relocation
30/10/99 (complete)
Powbum
Reopening after
permanent (?)
closure.
Awaiting POCL action
to provide a “new” FAD
code
Sandy
Long Term Temporary
Closure
Effective 1/11/99.
Began as an
emergency closure. PM
illness. PM not
expected to return to
work before Jan 2000.
3.1.2 I Management Support Unit
3.1.2.1 Management Information
e As part of Al298, MSU are continuing to work jointly with POCL to analyse
HSH calls relating to systems instability. Call volumes and categorisations
have been agreed for the main monitoring period against 782 offices,
which commenced 21/10/99 for four weeks.
e MSU are currently on schedule to produce and dispatch the Service
Review Book (for October) by 05/11/99 within the agreed timescale. The
figures supplied for the Al408 rectification plan are being used to populate
the HSH section of the SRB.
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10‘ November 1999
e The SLA workshop held with POCL on 27/10/99 was successful in
achieving the goal documented within the Al408 rectification plan. MSU
presented the end to end SLA process from transaction capture within the
DWH to the reporting of SLA information via SLAM. We also presented an
analysis of September's HSH SLA calculations, which have been re-
worked following incorrect housekeeping processes at the HSH. POCL
have accepted that our procedures for this re-working are sound, however
they have requested some further examples of re-worked HSH calls from
the Al408 monitoring period to check for consistency of approach.
3.1.2.2 Business / Reconciliation Incident Management
e There are currently 166 PinlICLs assigned to MSU. The majority of the
incidents being handled still centre around the 'non-polling' of live outlets.
Most of the problems only occur for 24 hours before disappearing and are
usually caused by Outlets having their Counters switched off. We have
now agreed with POCL following a meeting on 29/10/99, that offices
reported as not having polled for 1 day will still be reported to POCL but no
incident or investigation process will be initiated by ICL Pathway. Offices
reported as not having polled for 2 days or more will still receive full
investigation.
e The RED incident management workshop has now been completed
(02/11/99). This was held to rationalise the reporting of incidents both into
the HSH and subsequently back to POCL via the RED process. We have
been experiencing many problems here with POCL suggesting that the
information we supply them is insufficient to allow them to progress a
business / reconciliation incident to resolution. The workshop has output an
new list of incident categories agreed between the two parties together
with a statement of requirements from POCL highlighting what they expect
to see on a RED report for a given incident type.
e The second version of the EPOSS reconciliation report specification has
been received for review within MSU. We are also obligated (as part of
acceptance) to attend a workshop with POCL to discuss and finalise the
report distribution and incident handling process. In advance of this
workshop, MSU are to provide a document highlighting our draft procedure
by close of play 12/11/99
3.2 OPERATIONS SERVICES
3.2.1. Service Availability
3.2.1.1 Systems Operations
Correspondence Servers
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10‘ November 1999
3.2.1.2
3.2.2
3.2.2.1
3.2.2.2
A technical review was held with POCL on the 27" October, regarding
“Index Corruption” issues on Correspondence Servers. At the review answers
were provided to the questions raised by POCL. These will be detailed in a
follow up memo. A fix to correct this problem is currently being tested, and
will be released shortly.
Audit Server
The Audit Server Hoarder failed on Sunday 31st October and gathering and
deleting of the backlog of old files stopped. The fault was identified and
cleared and the Hoarder re-started. All issues are now resolved and the
back ups have been completed.
Networks
Energis reported a power failure on the Kearsley network switch on Friday
29th October. Pathway’s network successfully failed over to the backup
switch at Birmingham. Energis held a Board Meeting and issued an interim
report on the failure on Monday 1st November. A full report on the failure is
expected from Energis by close of business on Friday 5th November.
SLA Management
APS
« A meeting was held with POCL to deal with the Polling Exception Report
and the Late Polling Report issues. Pathway explained to OSG how the
report is generated and showed it to be correct and OSG accepted the
explanations. Issue closed.
« POCL have agreed that Incidents need not be raised for offices not polled
for a single day. POCL BSM has agreed to phone those offices to check
that they have not turned off the equipment and to emphasise the reasons
why they should not turn off equipment.
e No file delivery issues.
cTO
¢ Token validation for CTO41 (December 99) has been completed.
e OSG have been requested to obtain the offending Eastern Energy tokens
so that Pathway can test the tokens to identify the root cause of the
problem. A fix, to introduce an error message to assist Post Masters, has
passed Development testing and will be in Operational Testing this week.
e« At POCL’s request, 4 additional CTO schedule cycles have been
introduced into the timetable, to enable POCL to add in extra tokens
outside the regular schedules. A plan for the introduction of a CTO
schedule to go live in January 2000 has been produced. POCL have
agreed to the plan but the charging structure for these new CTO schedules
has yet to be finalised.
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Resubmission of the CR for the new Token Verification Service is still
awaited. It has been agreed that work will proceed under the current OLA
and process documentation, as it is likely to take some time for POCL to
resubmit the CR.
3.2.2.3 AP Client Migration
Pathway has agreed to submit a version of the plan to POCL that indicates
the dependencies on POCL with deadlines for their provision to Pathway.
The Strategy document is to be revised to exclude the illustrative plans as
a formal plan now exists.
Although good progress is being made regarding migration activities,
visiting the Clients and establishing AIS/TIS requirements is behind
schedule. The first AP Client is to be visited w/e 5/11/99. This is the major
risk to the project, as Pathway cannot detail the work to be undertaken
within Development and Implementation without first establishing AIS/TIS
requirements.
3.2.2.4 TIP
A joint TIP/RDS/ICL Pathway Steering Meeting addressed issues such as
the OLA amendments and the TPS Operational review meetings. OLA
comments have been sent to TIP and are to be incorporated into a draft
OLA and circulated for review. A first draft of the TPS Operational Review
Meeting documentation has been sent to POCL. Once this is agreed, the
TPS Operational Reviews can begin.
POCL have made no progress yet on specifying their requirements for
interim Disaster Recovery (DR) contingency, or their proposals for the long
term DR solution.
No issues with File Delivery.
3.2.3 Change Management
3.2.3.1 Reference Data
A total of 205 reference data changes were released to the live estate
since the last report, this includes a further significant number of outlet
changes, the backlog of which is now down to 90. In the last two weeks
there were 41 correction files and 69 migration special files representing
approximately 17% and 35% respectively of the total number of files
received. The migration specials continue to be higher than anticipated.
The quality of POCL supplied Reference Data is being discussed within
Pathway and POCL. Pathway are considering what actions can be taken,
both by Pathway and POCL, to improve the quality of the supplied data
and reduce the risks of incorrect data being supplied to the live estate
counters.
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3.2.3.2
e The initial incremental update to Reference Data for SIP16 was delivered
to Pathway last week, however there have been a number of issues with
this data and a meeting has been arranged to discuss and agree the way
forward.
e The total number of PiniCLs outstanding on POCL with regard to
Reference Data remains at 25. In addition there have been a considerable
number of PinlCLs issued against the Reference Data for CSR+ testing.
e An unfortunate misuse of the Operational Business Change process by
POCL led to changes to buttons for Giro Bank operations moving to new
screen locations before counter staff were informed that the change was to
occur. The Counter News for this change was still in preparation at the
time that the buttons changed. Pathway is reviewing, with POCL, possible
modifications to the procedure to avoid such problems in the future.
e The meeting arranged with BSM to discuss changes to the Interface
Agreement for Operational Business Change (Product) has been
postponed at Pathway’s request whilst a joint review of the process is
carried out.
e The number of changes to outlet information awaiting authorisation for
release from POCL NCAs has improved considerably, even though there
are currently 90 outstanding.
e The interim corrections for the problems associated with loading new data
on the RDMC whilst earlier versions are still being verified/released are
progressing well. The long-term solution is targeted to be operational by
mid January 2000.
e A change, verified and authorised for release by POCL OSG in
Farnborough in the normal way, erroneously removed the request for an
account number when an item for a deposit greater than £60 was
transacted. A correction was released on the same day that the error was
discovered.
Software Distribution
Problems are being encountered in clearing the tail. Daily statistics are being
prepared on counters that consistently fail software distribution and
investigations are continuing to focus on these counters. The flow of
Acceptance Incident fixes is now much reduced.
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ICL Pathway Progress Summary
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10‘ November 1999
Actions from Delivery Meeting - Wednesday 27" October 1999
ACTION DESCRIPTION
5004 John Meagher and John Dicks to assess the workload and JM/JD
timescales for the production and review of the full CSR+ 10 Nov
document set.
STATUS I A meeting was held on 4/11 and agreed 32 target
documents that require originating or significant
revision.
Action Closed.
5007 Douglas Craik and Jim Flynn to review the process for DC/ JF
releasing suspended offices into the infrastructure 10 Nov
programme.
STATUS I Review of process for releasing suspended offices into
the infrastructure programme was held on 5th
November 1999. Marie Roberts represented Pathway's
scheduling team in this meeting.
Action closed.
5008 Steve Muchow to set up arrangements for the counter SM
training systems at the National Business Support Centre 10 Nov
and the Horizon Testing Centre to be maintained.
STATUS I An update will be provided at the meeting.
Carried forward
5011 Mike Coombs to update John Meagher on Pathway’s MC
concerns on the operation of the reference data process 1 Nov
and the evidence upon which these are based.
STATUS I The key immediate issues were discussed by
JM/JCCD/SM following the Delivery Meeting. Since the
discussion, further examples of defective reference
data being issued to the estate have been identified
and Pathway has requested an immediate urgent
review of the end to end reference data process.
Action ongoing.
5014 John Meagher to agree with John Dicks arrangements for JM/JD
reporting against the criteria outlined in the supplementary 10 Nov
agreement.
STATUS I This will be addressed at a meeting on 9/11. Report at
10/11 Delivery Meeting.
5015 John Dicks to provide feedback to Douglas Craik on JD
Pathway findings on the quality of training. 10 Nov
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STATUS
5017
STATUS
5018
STATUS
5019
STATUS
5021
STATUS
5022
STATUS
5023
STATUS
The Training Quality assessment corresponding to the
courses for the mini-rollout to 5 Nov is in preparation.
Carry forward.
John Dicks to provide output on the scales /OBCS
transaction problem from the ongoing testing and
monitoring of increment 22.
As previously advised Pathway have not been able to
reconstruct this condition. The Stroud office, which
says it can produce this condition at will, are to raise
an incident with evidence and will talk direct to
Pathway Development.
Carry forward.
John Meagher and John Dicks to arrange a meeting to
review and ratify the figures from the post acceptance TIP
incident report.
This meeting is due 9/11. Report at 10/11 Delivery
Meeting.
Mike Coombs and Keith Baines to review the potential
impact of any problems with reference data on the
contractual acceptance position.
This action has been passed to Tony Oppenheim. An
initial discussion has taken place with Keith Banes.
Action ongoing.
John Dicks to consider the production of a separate
document to address detailed issues raised at the second
HLD development workshop.
This action will be pursued when the giver of the
workshop, Steve Warwick, has returned from leave.
Carry forward.
John Meagher and John Dicks to identify a pro-active
approach to updating and sharing information on the Al
resolution plan.
Pathway has provided copies of the management
planning documents to POCL for progress updating.
Pathway has not yet received corresponding
information from POCL.
Carry forward.
Mike Coombs to write to Andrew Simpkins and Chris
French (copied to Phil Kennedy and John Bruce)
identifying Pathway’s requirement for the issue of
reference data for SIP16.
A letter was issued 8/1/99.
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3
JD
10 NO'
JM/JD
10 Nov
MC / KB
3 Nov
JD
10 Nov
JM/JD
10 Nov
Mc
3 Nov
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Action closed.
5024 Jim Flynn to provide assurance to Douglas Craik of the JF
contingencies to ensure that failures in the scheduling of 10 Nov
training have been rectified.
STATUS I JF has appraised Douglas Craik of the steps being
taken to provide assurances over the training
scheduling system and it is understood that this will be
acceptable by POCL to satisfy the concerns in the
rollout criteria.
Action closed.
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