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Message
From:
Sent:
To:
Subject:
Rob Houghton
in Horizon I problemswithpol
Thanks for this.
R
From: Gavin. Belli”
Sent: 11 July 20:
To: Rob Houghton
Cc: pete.newsome' Peter.2.Thompsor,
Subject: RE: The Dalmellington Error in Horizon I problemswithpol
Rob, Rod
Hopefully this summary helps. Pete Newsome will send over the documents from the time tomorrow.
The fix was put in place in January and no reoccurrence has been seen since.
Here is the history of this Problem:
The Outreach Issue
The issue was identified by the following being reported to Fujitsu by Post Office:
The Dalmellington Post Mistress who runs a Core and Outreach branch remitted £8,000 out of the Core branch
and then attempted to remit the cash into the Outreach Branch. However when the cash was remitted into the
Outreach Branch the system repeated the inward remittance transaction 3 times, thus remitting in a total value
of £32,000. This was £24,000 more than the actual cash being remitted and so resulted in the system at the
Outreach Branch showing a deficit of £24,000. All these transaction show up in the Branch Reports.
Problem Identification
There were actually 2 separate issues which if they occurred in combination lead to the scenario described
above. These were the pouch script itself and the Force Log Off, which if they occurred together caused the
issue. The scenario was:
i) Clerk starts to log on, entering username and password
ii) Clerk steps through some of the “post login checks” (e.g. Cash Declaration)
iii) Clerk abandons “post login checks” ~ walks away
iv) Counter “times out” and eventually Force Logs Off the Clerk due to Inactivity
a. An omission in the Counter code left this in the “incorrect state”*
b. The state in question tracks the progress through the use-case
vy) Clerk later logs on again ~- this time going all the way through to the Front Office menu
vi) Clerk tries to perform a Remittance
a. This Remittance use-case “inherits” the “incorrect state” from earlier.
vii) At the end of the Remittance the transaction gets “stuck” due to the earlier bad state which prevents
Remittances from finishing properly.
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Each repeat press of the enter key caused a new remittance to be recorded but each one appears in the branch
reports and transaction records.
The Dalmellington case was the first time this had been identified to Fujitsu as an issue (even though there had
been present in HNGX from day 1).
Problem Correction
This error was corrected at Counter release 12.88, CTR_APP_X1288_V646 following approval by POL by
modifying the logic for these transactions so that the state tracking the progress through the current PDL
transaction is reset so that it is not “inherited” by the next PDL use case. The milestones of solution
implementation were:
e 4th January 2016 Model office testing.
e 7th January 2016 Pilot phase.
e WC [Ith January 2016 Live deployment.
Prior to the fix, following the issue being raised, active monitoring was put in place. No incidents were seen.
Wider Context
As well as performing the fix Fujitsu ran a process of checking for duplicate pouch details from the transaction archive
and transaction logs. In total 112 instances were found. These were all individually investigated and had either at the
time been ‘corrected’ by the subpostmaster themselves or the Post Office support desks when a call from a sub
postmaster had raised the occurrence. All cases explained and closed.
Since the fix has been live no further incidents have been seen and the active monitoring for this has now been stopped.
Best
Gavin
Sent: 08 July 2016 12:32
To: Bell, Gavin <I
Ce: Rodric Williams ¢
Subject: RE: The Dalmellington Error in Horizon I problemswithpol
Thank you ~ when you come back could you copy Rod as well please in response?
Monday?
R
From: Gavin.Bel
eavin.ee
Sent: 08 July 2016 10:43
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To: Rob Houghton
Subject: RE: The Dalmellington Error in Horizon I problemswithpol
Rob Hi
We put a number of changes into the system to deal with this fast year/ beginning of this year. Will come back with
detail shortly
Gavin
From: Rob Houghton [mailto:
Sent: 07 July 2016 13:39
To: Bell, Gavin ¢~ ;
Subject: Fwd: The Dalmellington Error in Horizon I problemswithpol
Gavin - could you let me know please?
R
Get Outlook for iOS
From: "Rodric Williams"
Date: Thu, Jul 7, 2016 at 11:
Subject: FW: The Dalmelli
To: "Rob Houghton" <
Rob ~ please find attached Fujitsu’s report on the “Branch Outreach” issue, which Mr Tim McCormack references in his blog.
I think the first thing to check is whether Fujitsu has implemented a fix for the issue, and if so, when.
Thanks, Rod
-----Original Message-----
From: Jane MacLeod
Sent: 01 July 2016 12:30
To: Alisdair Cameron; Rob Houghton
Cc: Tom Wechsler; Paula Vennells; Rodric Williams
Subject: RE: The Dalmellington Error in Horizon I problemswithpol
All
We are on top of this. Mr McCormack regularly writes to us in unpleasant terms and unfortunately he also posts very unpleasant
blogs. All the matters of which he complains are the subject of review by the CCRC.
Jane MacLeod
General Counsel
Ground Floor
20 Finsbury Street
LONDON
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EC2Y 9AQ
-----Original Message-----
From: Paula Vennells
Sent: 01 July 2016 09:36
To: Alisdair Cameron; Rob Houghton
Cc: Tom Wechsler; Jane MacLeod
Subject: The Dalmellington Error in Horizon I problemswithpol
Dear both,
This needs looking into please.
https://problemswithpol. wordpress.com/2015/1 1/10/the-error-in-horizon/?iframe=true&theme_preview=true
Can I have a report that takes the points in order and explains them.
Tim McCormack is campaigning against PO and Horizon. I had another note from him this am which Tom will forward, so you are
both in the loop.
We must take him seriously and professionally.
This particular blog is independent of Sparrow but clearly related in that it appears to present similar challenges that were raised in the
course of the scheme.
I'm most concerned that we/ our suppliers appear to be very lax at handling £24k. And want to know we've rectified all the issues
raised, if they happened as Tim explains.
Thanks.
Paula
Paula Vennells
Chief Executive
Post Office Ltd
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