Thoughts and Learnings

Most IT applications will involve some kind of integration with an external system. This external system can be a database or any other application. The communication between systems determines how well the overall system performs. Integrations are crucial links and help us leverage the capabilities of different systems effectively. But, these integration points are vulnerable and information can be lost if all possible scenarios are not addressed. There are basically 2 scenarios that happen when a request is placed to a system- Response (System responds) No response Response can be further broken down to- Positive Acknowledgement with Data Negative Acknowledgement with Data Data- Data can be send with any/both of the responses. Whenever, there is no response from a system, there is loss of data. To retrieve the data we may have to send another request. This is where exception scenarios come and they need to be defined. The following can help us defining the scen...

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. Learn the basic end to end flow Know what are the data entry points Understand what happens to the data that enters a system The places where data are presented to the user The points where communication is send to the customer/user Make a list of systems that interact with the concerned application The different protocols (like SOAP) used to communicate between applications If there is a communication, the acknowledgements being sent/received if any The various validations that happen at various places within and outside the system Check for duplicate validations Make a list of manual interactions that take place in the process Figure out error prone areas- Tip: manual interactions are error prone Thoroughly understand exception handling situations What happens when one of the in...

This pertains to the management of a Sales Order. It is a simplified version of an MNC available in the public domain. The processes that come under this are: Expedite Cancellation Reporting Wrong shipments  Keeping Wrong shipments Returning Wrong shipments Order Expedite An expedite is a request to improve a promise date on a Customer sales order/ship set. It can be raised by customers who have raised the order.  It can also be raised by Account Manager assigned to a Customer’s account Two Types of Expedites Standard Expedite - A standard expedite can be requested by the Customer/Partner Executive Expedite - An Executive Expedite is an expedite request that has Exceptional Items Status (EIS) status or has been assigned a new product hold. Customers/Partners can only request an Executive Escalation through an Account manager, who can decide whether to proceed with the Executive Escalation. If an account manager proceeds, he/she must submit a valid busin...