Transcript Course Outline

Deploying IT resources
(MIS 533)
MBS in Management Information Systems and
Managerial Accounting Systems
(2006 / 2007)
Fergal Carton
Business Information Systems
Last week
• Team creation
– Getting the right skills is key
• ERP support post go-live
– Support is no longer local!
• Requirements analysis
– Brown papers
• Projects issues
– Resources
– Data
• Cisco project
– Good team, with authority
– Compelling event: system outage
– “Virtual close” in theory, what happened in practice?
MBS (MIMAS) / MIS533 / Deploying IT Resources
This week
• Project resources
• Data issues
– What is data migration?
– Data issues
• Operational issues
– Systems admin
– HelpDesk
MBS (MIMAS) / MIS533 / Deploying IT Resources
ERP project resources : CSF’s
• Adequate on-site project team to engage users
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Specification
Testing
Conversion
Go-live
Key functional expertise for workarounds
Users with 4 weeks hands-on before go-live
Managers defend design decisions made
Project team keeps ownership of project
Prototype early, prototype often
MBS (MIMAS) / MIS533 / Deploying IT Resources
ERP project resources : CFF’s
• Adequate on-site project team to engage users
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Specification
Testing
Conversion
Go-live
Loss of know-how to SI
Legacy experts unwilling to make
jump
System untested by users,
processes not validated by users
workarounds
Key functional expertise for
Users with 4 weeks hands-on before
go-livebuy-in not secured
Management
Managers defend design decisions made
Project team gets bogged down in
Project team keeps ownership of project bureaucracy
Prototype early, prototype often No time for re-design in plan
MBS (MIMAS) / MIS533 / Deploying IT Resources
Project issues: resources
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Availability of team members / users
Decision making processes
Developing workarounds
Timeline too tight to allow resolution of issues
Massive learning curve for team
Expectation management
Retaining ownership of process related decisions
MBS (MIMAS) / MIS533 / Deploying IT Resources
Hardwiring business processes
• Human decisions replaced by data and interfaces
– An approved sales order triggers the creation of an
invoice (running Accounts Receivable “interface”)
• Business processes : management by exception
– Controlling AR interface error report
– Pushing “fix” back to point of data entry, re-running
interface
Increased focus on data!
MBS (MIMAS) / MIS533 / Deploying IT Resources
Data cleaning must address
• Different department record same info
under different codes
• Multiple records of same company (under
different names)
• Fields missing in input tables (eg: a/c #)
• Different depts. Record different addresses
for same customer
• Use of different units for time periods
MBS (MIMAS) / MIS533 / Deploying IT Resources
Data Upload
• Several rounds:
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Trials
Static data
Open items
Dynamic data - transactions
Balances
• Staging areas
– Local initially
– Then central area
• Upload into live system
– Specific predefined sequence (RDB)
– Extract, translate, load
– Rental of platform specific tools from vendor
MBS (MIMAS) / MIS533 / Deploying IT Resources
Database issues …
• Guaranteeing “high availability”
• How often should Test be refreshed?
• How many environments should I have
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Test
Production
Development
Training
Business Simulation
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JB McCarthy:
Testing on
live system
• If I implement a change to Production, do I need to implement
the same change across all environments?
• 20 programmers developing / testing new code every day: how
do I track releases to production?
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MBS (MIMAS) / MIS533 / Deploying IT Resources
Resources : Technical (IT ops)
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Database administrator
Systems administrator
Operators : core apps
Server operators
Storage technicians
HelpDesk
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MBS (MIMAS) / MIS533 / Deploying IT Resources
Project handover to HelpDesk
• Prior to go-live, implement procedures for :
– Logging calls such that it will be routed to the right person and
tracked, reported on and escalated
– Training for HelpDesk to be able to ask the right questions
concering an application issue
– Troubleshooting application issues to be able to deal with simple
“fixes”
– Ongoing consultation with application team regarding new
functionality being rolled out, common errors, planned outages, …
MBS (MIMAS) / MIS533 / Deploying IT Resources
Systems admin issues …
• Ensuring system access for users
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New users
Changes to existing profiles
System downtime for maintenance
Forcing users out of system
Tracking source of corrupt data to user profile
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MBS (MIMAS) / MIS533 / Deploying IT Resources
HelpDesk issues …
• Calls arriving at HelpDesk are either :
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Forgotten password
New user
Changes to user profile
Printing problems
Connectivity problems
Response time problems
System crashes
System error messages
PC problems
I need more training
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MBS (MIMAS) / MIS533 / Deploying IT Resources
HelpDesk issues …
• …or :
• Functionality questions (how do I transact an
invoice?)
• Process questions (when should I post to GL?)
• Reporting (I need a revenue report)
MBS (MIMAS) / MIS533 / Deploying IT Resources
Post Go Live
• Team is disbanded
– Back into business
– Promoted
– Next wave of roll out
• Structure is permanently altered – eg: shared services
• ERP team put in place
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Data experts / maintenance
Application experts – on-going developments and fixes
Platform experts – uptime
Business analysts – look to future releases and future requirements
Typical size 20 /25 staff full time for a multinational
Various names used – eg: knowledge centre
MBS (MIMAS) / MIS533 / Deploying IT Resources
Post Go Live
• The technical support offsite is atrocious.
We are very very disappointed with that. …
• Since the core team moved away, and since
the next wave started for SAP
implementation, they lost interest
MBS (MIMAS) / MIS533 / Deploying IT Resources
Post go-live example
• “There was an awful lot of resources thrown at golive, most of those resources were gone after golive. Trying to get something fixed, it wouldn’t
happen.”
• “In order to actually utilize it in a way that
actually improves our lot, took, is still taking,
quite a long time, and if you can’t do it yourself,
it’s even worse, because you can’t get IS available,
at times to do the work.“
MBS (MIMAS) / MIS533 / Deploying IT Resources