Maduro & Curiel's Bank Speeds Up Maintenance 500% with 100% Accuracy
1. Background
Some 3 years ago, I started working for Maduro & Curiel's Bank (from now to be known as MCB) as a Jr Banking Analyst at the System Support Department. This Department consists of Project Managers, Banking Analysts and Testing Officers whom are constantly testing out new products and solutions to offer users and customers. In the first months on the job, the Bank started with a massive upgrading process of their core banking application. This upgrade included four separate islands of which two had separate mortgage banks. During this upgrade process the bank received great support from our vendor, Fiserv based in Orlando FL.
Maduro & Curiel's Bank had many customized programs that Fiserv needed to retrofit to accommodate our needs. One of the programs required to be retrofitted was a program that provided customers with a financial limit on their checking account. This was a process that ran automatically on a specific day of the month for some 6500 customers on average. Fiserv presented a listing of programs that would be costly and extremely difficult to retrofit, where this program was on the top of their list. Based on their recommendation we decided not to spent big and retrofit the program, but find an alternative (cheaper) solution. That's when the search began to find a replacement for our customized program, and whatever additional use we could have for it.
2. Introduction to Foxtrot
Our former Department Head informed Management of this software package he used previously while working at a different bank on the island. When he claimed this package could replicate user keystrokes at a very fast pace I was quite intrigued to finding out how we could take advantage of this technology. Luckily he got the green light to purchase one license of the Foxtrot Enterprise Edition. Once we received the application we immediately installed it and started to create scripts to simulate the user keystrokes that would provide the same result, as the previous program would do at a fraction of the cost.
With some help from Fiserv representatives, who are also familiar with the software, we developed our first Foxtrot script that would help us to continue providing the same service to our customers without sacrificing hours and hours of manual input. Proving that Foxtrot would and could provide us with an automated solution, we purchased 3 additional licenses and never looked back to finding an adequate solution to all of our mass maintenance problems (We have been running this script every month for over 3 years now with no end in sight!).
3. Strategy employed using Foxtrot
Once we got passed our initial troubles, we requested to receive training for the software package to better inform us of the possibilities it offers, to virtually eliminate any manual input and speed up the process of delivering to both users and customers.
We run Foxtrot LE against our AS400 mainframe using IBM's I-series emulator to connect to our banking application. We have one pc server where the Enterprise Edition is installed and various workstations where Foxtrot is installed and connect to the server to acquire a license. When building our scripts we always use our test environment to do so. This way we can replicate how the script would run in our production environment; eliminate all bugs and errors to ensure a smooth run and most important have a 100% accurate update. Mostly we receive user requests to create a program that would update or maintain certain information on customer's accounts. These requests often run for more than 1000 records and the largest number to date of 55.000 records. All user requests submitted go thru a committee to get approval for development.
Depending on the weight of the request (if it's a one time maintenance update or regularly) a program would be developed, or a Foxtrot script. Most of the time Foxtrot wins the decision by ease of use, and ease of building the scripts.
During the years of using Foxtrot we have setup projects based on the subsystems in our banking application. This way all users with authority to run scripts know exactly where to find a proper solution. If no script is available a new one is created and tested. Once it is tested successfully it is promoted and made available for future use.
As we have been getting more efficient in creating scripts, we have gotten comfortable enough to be able to create a script for almost any function in our banking application on the AS400 and with the addition of the Foxtrot GT and Foxtrot GTi packages; we are close to supporting every product we offer our clients with a Foxtrot script. In the department, where we test each new product the Bank offers its customers, enhancement requests for a product or problem log, we research ways to be more efficient in testing our applications and cutting time to deliver projects.
This not only gives us more time to focus on more important issues related to the product such as verification and pin pointing errors, but also enables us to better test the product in the time given. Testing of new products is what it is all about in the department. Using Foxtrot we have been able to cut time in input and verification that we are not able to imagine not having a tool like this to work with.
4. Results
The results we have received and user requests successfully delivered are simply astounding. Using Foxtrot we have been able to accomplish so much and continue to do so every day. We have been able to relief our programmers from so many user requests using Foxtrot that we could not imagine trying to provide the same results manually. The simplicity the software offers even a novice user is simply amazing. Within minutes a novice user is able to create a simple script from scratch.
Using Foxtrot, we are able to speed up our updated maintenance requests by 500% when comparing to development of a program. With Foxtrot we are able to create and test a script in half a day and run it when required. This solution provides any user with access to it, the possibility to automate their manual work that would normally take an hour to a 5 min job.
Foxtrot has become so popular these days at MCB that even a enhancement request from a user indicates their preference of using Foxtrot for the job i.s.o a custom built program. The most important thing is to always have a good database to start with, from there the rest is easy. It's like I say, when creating a script we often think of a much more complex solution than the script actually turns out to be. Downloads:
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