21 tips to understand an AS-IS process

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Learning the AS-IS process of a system is the first and foremost thing a person has to do while designing a solution to automate it. Here are few pointers on how to go about understanding it.
  1. Learn the basic end to end flow
  2. Know what are the data entry points
  3. Understand what happens to the data that enters a system
  4. The places where data are presented to the user
  5. The points where communication is send to the customer/user
  6. Make a list of systems that interact with the concerned application
  7. The different protocols (like SOAP) used to communicate between applications
  8. If there is a communication, the acknowledgements being sent/received if any
  9. The various validations that happen at various places within and outside the system
  10. Check for duplicate validations
  11. Make a list of manual interactions that take place in the process
  12. Figure out error prone areas- Tip: manual interactions are error prone
  13. Thoroughly understand exception handling situations
  14. What happens when one of the interacting systems fail?
  15. Make a list of validation rules and messages
  16. Are there alternate sources for the same information?
  17. The typical number of people who use the application/process
  18. The different roles that the different users of the application assume (agent, manager, team lead, administrator etc.)
  19. SLAs that are applicable to the application- SLAs of individual actions and SLAs of the complete system
  20. The statuses that are applicable to the various systems, if any. eg: Created/Initiated, Work in Progress, Resolve/Rejected
  21. The various geographical locations from where the application is accessed and the languages the application supports.

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