ICL Pathway Progress Summary
for Input to Horizon / Pathway Delivery Meeting
15'* December 1999
ACCEPTANCE
Progress against the 13 Acceptance Incidents, forming the core of the
Acceptance Resolution Timetable, is reviewed below in Acceptance Resolution
order. There is one new Red Flag issue.
2:
342:
390:
376:
POCL commented to ICL Pathway on 1/12 that mismatches continued
to occur for a number of reasons, that it required Payments and
Receipts always to be in sync and that the incident was not ready for
closure. A more detailed description of POCL’s intent was provided on
30/u, in effect asking for Payments and Receipts to be forced equal
through some form of automated suspense account entry.
The only current instances of Payments and Receipts being unequal are
where the Horizon system has to inherit a manual or ECCO Cash
Account that was unbalanced before migration.
The issue was discussed on 2/12 in a full forum and POCL reconfirmed
its position that such unbalanced migrations were preferable to making
an automated suspense account transfer.
Closure continues to be sought.
POCL commented to ICL Pathway on 1/12 that TIP references 986 and
995 had occurred and were awaiting analysis and rectification plans.
In the case of reference 986 the office was on an extended CAP, which
should have been known to POCL. Reference 995 was caused by the
outlet having fewer counters installed than were previously scheduled
and the system controls will not initiate polling until all counters have
participated in a first end of day. In summary, there is no problem with
ICL Pathway software.
Closure continues to be sought.
The APS recovery software enhancement was distributed 29/1 and
monitoring is now in progress as scheduled.
The POCL action to approve clearance of all incremental fixes installed
by 14/9 from field evidence remains open.
The Pathway procedures for manual input were presented to TIP/TP on
1/12 and material for the test of manual input has been prepared.
However, POCL has not performed activity 376.371 “POCL Develop and
Test manual input facility” and so this is now a Red Flag issue.
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378:
369:
372:
298:
218:
Cycle 3 testing of the Additional EPOSS Reconciliation Testing started
on 3/12 and should complete 10/12. Software distribution is scheduled
for 17/12 about 10 days ahead of plan.
The measurements will continue for the period 2/12 to 12/1 and will
exclude items that would have been prevented by a range of additional
Reference Data controls being introduced before the rollout.
Improved diagnostic/defensive code has been produced and will be
distributed at the same time as the Additional Reconciliation. There
are no instances yet trapped.
Further tests following the ‘Pilot’ scheme completed 8/12. POCL is
producing a report, which it will review with DSS on 22/12, including an
analysis of impounded OBCS books and logistics of re-supply. ICL
Pathway understands that POCL will request DSS to close this incident.
There were 119 impounds in the first three weeks. ICL Pathway
understands this is a slightly lower rate than during the first pilot and
that analysis of books by PIRA shows the quality of the offending
printed bar-codes to be still poor.
POCL commented to ICL Pathway on 1/12 that it required an update on
Pathway’s investigations into the problem of bar-code reading after a
scales transaction. An update was provided at the Delivery Meeting of
24/1. A PinICL to resolve the issue of scanning after manual scales is in
progress. A simple workaround is also available.
POCL also stated on 1/12 that Pathway had failed to produce statistics
for the first two weeks of the four-week trial as agreed. In fact ICL
Pathway had delivered the statistics POCL had asked for covering the
first two weeks on 30/11. POCL has since asked for a daily level of
analysis.
Pathway notified POCL on 8/12 of the identities of 434 offices that had
not performed any Receives-in since late August and which of these had
performed Issues/Encashments. Of these 223 were in N. Ireland.
A final report on software distribution was provided 1/12.
The weekly incidents since the end of the monitoring period have
remained below the equivalent weekly level of 140 incidents per week
(89.5 for CAP 35, 114.5 for CAP36, 94 for CAP37).
Closure continues to be sought.
CCNs566a (Training Window) was approved 3/12.
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391:
314:
408:
4i2:
POCL Post installation processes have been defined in Operational
Performance Assessment, post installation questionnaires and training
mode documents and processes produced. These will be implemented
from the restart of rollout.
The Wigan exclusion zone fence structure is complete and the alarm
system installation is forecast 10/12, two weeks or so earlier than plan.
Installation of the card access controls for the Wigan back gate is now
complete. Fire regulation issues have hampered installation of the new
palisade fence at Bootle: this is forecast to complete 17/12.
The draft document (without Appendices) was completed ahead of
schedule 22/1 and formally first reviewed on schedule 1/12.
A new set of measures for calls answered within 20 seconds, cash
account first and second line responses, and cash account script
compliance has been agreed for the period 3/12 to 13/1.
Closure continues to be sought.
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2
2.2
IMPLEMENTATION
National Roll Out
As there are no more Horizon systems being installed at this time due to the
Christmas break, Pathway Implementation are currently preparing for NRO
in January 2000. As part of this, processes are being refined to make sure that
any problems identified during NRO in 1999, are minimised for re-
commencing on the 24" January.
The revised rollout documents have now been issued for sign off, with the
exception of the Scheduling Strategy, which is with POCL for review and
agreement.
The PA Consulting Audit forums are continuing discussions amongst the
Implementation teams, in order to consolidate and present their findings to
Pathway week beginning 6th December.
As part of the move to the RNM Cluster environment, a feasibility study is
underway and part A (RODB study) has now been submitted and agreed by
POCL. It is anticipated part B will be complete week commencing 6th
December 1999. If approved, work will be undertaken and concluded prior to
24th January 2000. This will enable the rollout to be sequenced by RNM
clusters for installations in the week ist May 2000.
Infrastructure Programme
The surveys for the Infrastructure programme have ceased for the Christmas
break, but preparations and modifications will continue up to Christmas.
The Millenium Dome plan for surveying and preparation is on track, ready
for Installation taking place week commencing 20th December. The UAE was
successfully completed on Friday 26th November, but Pathway still requires
a CR from POCL to confirm requirements.
Meetings have taken place with POCL to confirm and agree a way forward to
release the remaining outlets to the rollout programme. This is continuing
and should be resolved before January 2000.
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2.3
2.4
Installation Programme
Implementation are continuing refining their processes from their ‘lessons
learnt’ of the 1999 installations and are utilising this area of discussion with
both suppliers and PA Consulting to prove suitability for ongoing rollout.
Scheduling recovery continues with appointments now only two weeks
behind. The plan remains on track to be up to date prior to the Christmas
break
User Implementation and Migration
Training Systems
The Training Systems upgrade programme is well under way with less than
half way to go for completion of the systems being PAT tested and RAM
upgraded to 64Mb. This will continue until 15 December.
AL 218
All ICL Pathway actions on the AI 218 Rectification Plan are now complete
and agreed. There are still some actions that require POCL to complete which
will fully close Al218.
A report summarising the results of the rectification plans has now been
published.
An End 2 end workshop for training scheduling has taken place with
representatives from Knowledgepool and POCL whereby an action plan for
the various parties has been issued.
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15'* December 1999
2.5 Implementation Statistics (To 26th November 1999)
Activity
Site surveys undertaken
Site resurveys required
Site resurveys undertaken
Site modifications done
Site preparations done
Sites RFI
INSTALLATION PROG.
IRGM Phase 2 Letters Issued
ISDN lines installed*
Sites installed
{Offices live
{Counters Live
INFRASTRUCTURE PROG.
Previous report
total
4544
9987
9300
3438
1903
1864
1856
4096
Actual this
period
206
64
81
205
359
476
1049
27
Implementation Weekly Statistics
Cumulative
16923
6576
6435
4749
10346
9776
4487
1930
1864
1856
4096
Comments
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15°" December 1999
3 CUSTOMER SERVICE
34 Infrastructure Services
34.41 Strategic Services Unit
34.1.2 Horizon Service Helpdesk
3.4.1.3 Outlet Change
The following changes are ongoing.
Location Reason for Change
Date of Change
Powburn Reopen following
permanent closure.
This change is currently back
with POCL. We are unable to
re-use a FAD code for an outlet
that has been previously
closed.
North Walsham I Increase In counters.
Increase in Counters from 5 to
6 positions. Date has now been
brought forward to the 10th
December.
Moreton Hall Open outlet. New outlets should come in via
Rollout. Awaiting Advice from
Nick Embling.
Somers Town Open Outlet. As above.
Four Roads Possible Permanent The Postmistress has been
(Wales) Closure. taken ill. She has been given a
month to see if she still wants
to run the outlet.
Aycliffe Avenue I Relocation Of Outlet.
BT/Energis have now
responded. They are unable to
bring the date forward for the
new ISDN line. Therefore the
installation will take place over
the weekend of the 10th.
Westfield Long term Temporary
closure with equipment
removal.
Complete.
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3G
3.
Horizon Service Helpdesk
POCL have requested a further 6-week monitoring period for those Al408
measures that were deemed as not achieved. During this period a number
of SLAs must be met, as a minimum, 4 out of the 6 weeks. This is to
commence on Friday 3rd December and finish on Thursday 13th January.
The SLAs being monitored are as follows:
Calls answered within 20 seconds.
Measures for the Cash Account Period (Wednesday/Thursday) have been
revised as follows:
a) Availability of trained staff to answer a Postmasters query.
e 100% of calls answered by a person trained in using the cash
account scripts.
¢ No more than 5% of calls must cause a ring-back to the
Postmaster due to the first level resource exhausting their
knowledge and a higher level resource not being available.
e Where a ring-back is required as described above it must occur
within 20 minutes.
b) In order to ascertain that the HSH has diagnosed the query correctly
and therefore answered the query correctly, Cash Account calls are to
be recorded via tape recorders. The tapes are to be used to calculate
conformance to the use of cash account scripts. The target is 95%
conformance.
c) In order that a measure of understanding of the postmaster can be
recorded, the HSH will ask and record the answer to an additional
closing question of the postmaster. This should be, “Do you now have
enough information to carry on through the Cash Account Process?”
Since the completion of the recent roll out period call volumes have
changed significantly. The table below shows the change in call volumes
received from live outlets in the last 8 weeks.
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ZeL2
Bel Qd
312.2
CPO }307 I 280 I 2094 I 257 I230 I162 (139 I 125
CPO = calls per outlet
Management Support Unit
Management Information
Alz98 monitoring has officially ceased, however MSU will continue
monitoring the performance of all 1800 Outlets, albeit at a less formal level,
as part of on going MIS reporting.
MSU will also be monitoring the performance of all 1800 Outlets with
regard to Cash Account performance on a weekly basis.
The number of Ad-hoc queries received from POCL is steadily growing with
MSU supplying the information within the 5-day timescale at all times
during November.
Business / Reconciliation Incident Management
As part of AI376 rectification plan, MSU presented the incident
management process to POCL TIP for business critical incidents raised by
POCL or via the newly developed EPOSS exception report set. Initial
comments received from TIP were favourable and applauded the tighter
management controls that ICL Pathway is introducing.
Non-polled offices are still creating a large number of incidents. MSU are
identifying where there is a specific system problem preventing the Outlet
from polling. However there is still the problem where MSU suspect that
Outlets are turning the Counter equipment off - evident from Mondays
reports which contain 3 to 4 times the number of non-polled Outlets than
other days within the week.
3.2. Operations Services
3.21
3.2.11
Service Availability
Systems Operations
The Host/EMC System and Correspondence Servers have no operational
issues.
Audit Server
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Excellent progress has been made on the Audit server front; the replication
across the Data Centres is now up-to-date and the Seal problem is fixed.
Data Warehouse
The Data Warehouse is currently running to schedule.
3.2.1.2 Networks
There have been no incidents of concern on the Energis network during the
past week.
3.2.2, SLA Management
3.2.2.1 APS
An Operational Review Meeting was held with OSG. No issues were raised.
Non-polled office reports continue to be reviewed with POCL BSM to look
at how the process of Postmasters re-booting the systems can be speeded
up.
POCL concerns about the contents of CSR+ APS Reports Document are
being addressed and progress is now being made.
3.2.2.2 CTO
Rogue tokens from Eastern Energy give a problem at the counter whereby
the cards swiped are completing the transactions but these are not being
transferred to Eastern Energy (due to a Service Code field problem). After
investigation 2 actions are being pursued:
a) POCL are trying to retrieve the physical tokens but are having problems
getting the offending tokens from Eastern Energy. They continue to
pursue this.
b) A fix to provide a ‘Message’ at the counter when the problem occurs is
currently being tested.
POCL are addressing how they wish to include additional token testing
activity (amendments to service groups) into the standard CTO schedule. A
decision from POCL is awaited.
Pathway is awaiting the resubmission of the CR for the new Token
Verification Service. This is expected by Christmas. Business as usual will
continue until any changes are formally implemented through the CR/CP
process.
POCL disputed the charge calculations that Pathway submitted against the
V1.06 POCL AP Client List. They have a different calculation of the numbers
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of tokens in specific months. The differences are under investigation. A
letter has been sent to the POCL Product Manager. The outcome of his
investigation is awaited.
An Operational Review Meeting was held where the end to end process was
reviewed. This was a mutually successful meeting where all agreed the
requirements of the CTO process. This first review was partly to address a
point raised at the APS Steering Meeting that OSG were unhappy with the
CTO service Pathway were providing. This issue is now closed, as specifics of
OSG’s dissatisfaction were not disclosed to Pathway and none came out of
the Operational Review Meeting.
3.2.2.3. AP Client Migration
A plan is in place to complete the Migration project within the reduced
‘implementation window’. However Pathway exposure to the AP Clients and
signoff of AIS and TIS for each client within the planned timescales is pivotal
in moving the project forward and completing by the end of NRO. Contrary
to an agreement with the POCL AP Account Managers, a number of the first
presentation meetings have been held without the attendance of Pathway.
This adds to Pathway being ‘blind’ when moving forward with AIS and TIS
meetings. This is identified within the APS Steering Group as a risk for POCL
to address.
The CSR+ Release Review Proposal document submitted by POCL, proposing
to go live on 2 AP Client interfaces (Girobank and another) during the CSR+
pilot phase raises concerns with Pathway as follows:
a) The request does not conform to the Strategy, which is a contractual
document. We remove any ‘stabilisation’ period before migrating, again
contradicting the Strategy. Pathway are unable to commit to implementing
interfaces until the Technical Interface Spec (TIS) and Application Interface
Spec (AIS) for each AP Client has been established (as iterated in point 1,
above). Girobank have stated that Pathway will not get access to them until
March 2000. In order to test and sign off in time for the CSR+ pilot it is
estimated that installation will be required in June 2000. As there is no
estimate for when sign-off of the TIS (not expected before March 2000) will
be complete; Pathway will not be in a position to confirm the ability to go live
during the pilot earlier than this. Comments to this effect have been
submitted as a formal response to the document. The outcome is awaited.
3.2.2.4 TIP
Some POCL specific actions on TIP, monitored through the TIP/RDS Steering
Group, are not progressing satisfactorily. Specifically they are:
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a) Amendments required to the TIP Interface OLA.
b) The specification of POCL’s Disaster Recovery (DR) - interim contingency
requirements for the TIP Interface, and proposals for the long-term DR
solution.
The TIP Operational Review meeting scheduled for 30th November was
cancelled by POCL. New dates are to be arranged.
3.2.3 Change Management
3.2.3.1 Reference Data
SIP16 data has been delivered to all outlets and a selected number have been
supplied with the code and activated. The remaining outlets will be supplied
with the code next week provided that there are no problems observed with
this week’s Cash Account.
A total of 122 reference data changes were released to the live estate last
week, 203 since the last checkpoint report. Over the last two weeks 31
correction files and 7 migration special files were received (approx. 20% and
8% respectively of the two-week total). The number of migration special files
has now reduced to zero.
The next meeting to discuss progress on the POCL data quality issue is
scheduled for Thursday 2nd December. A great deal of work is being
undertaken as a result of this initiative. This includes the documenting of a
complete set of business rules by POCL and the production of a
corresponding document by Pathway detailing assumptions made in the
design and use of the system.
On 19th November the total number of POCL PinICLs was 20. There are 1
PinICLs outstanding on CSR+ Reference Data.
The corrective actions to remove the problem of RDMC releasing new data
when earlier versions are still being verified/released are progressing well.
The longer-term solution is progressing through Pathway development.
Further consideration is to be given to ways of handling the issue of RDMC
rejected rows as part of the end-to-end review of Reference Data.
Although Pathway will be reviewing the Interface Agreement some of the
detail will be dependent on the results of the end-to-end process review.
The issue of the number of helpdesk calls directed to HSH when they should
have gone to NBSC is under consideration in the end-to-end review of
Reference Data.
Further drops of CSR+ Reference Data are expected this week.
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15'* December 1999
3.2.3.2. Software Distribution
SIP16 was successfully distributed and committed to the initial 20 Outlets (54
Counters) over the weekend of 27''/28 November. Work is ongoing to
manage the delivery of SIP 16 to the remainder of the Counters and the
delivery of EPOSS Reconciliation, which is scheduled to follow closely
behind.
40 Release Notes have been raised and 7 Release Notes were applied to live.
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15'* December 1999
Actions from Delivery Meeting - Wednesday o8th December 1999
ACTION
DESCRIPTION
5202
John Dicks to provide Bob Booth with a revised offer on
Pathway’s mobile counter configuration solution.
yD
STATUS
A revised mobile configuration was provided on
26/11 together with a full set of responses to
comments.
5204
John Meagher and Steve Muchow to report to the next
meeting on the progress of the Joint Reference Data Review.
JM/SM
STATUS
An update will be provided at the meeting.
5206
Steve Muchow to provide Keith Baines with the statement of
impacts of an order book backlog on OBCS.
SM
STATUS
An update will be provided at the meeting.
5207
John Dicks to advise John Meagher in writing of Pathway’s
concerns on the swiping in of order books at post offices and
of the action required.
JD
STATUS
A total of 434 offices have not performed a Receive-
in since late August, 188 of which had also
performed Issues or Encashments and 223 of which
were in N. Ireland (which does not operate OBCS).
Full FAD-level reports were provided on 8/12.
5208
John Dicks to provide John Meagher with Pathway’s
explanation of their view on the validity of the three cases
raised on Al376/4.
JD
STATUS
The three cases where incidents would not have
been trapped by the Additional EPOSS
Reconciliation facility were reviewed in detail with
ICL Pathway design and development present on
2/12.
5209
Mike Coombs to provide Chris French with specific
comment on the Pathway view of the differences of
interpretation against the criteria for Al376 and Al4o8.
MC
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STATUS
Pathway’s view has been documented in a letter from
JCCD. A workshop held last week agreed how Al376 and
Al408 will be monitored between 3/12/99 and 13/01/00.
Action closed.
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