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C&C® PROJECT DESCRIPTION This
package could be looked at as the first stage of a full-blown DATA WAREHOUSE
system. Hundreds of thousands of revenue/charge streams are loaded into
C&C®
from several DATA MARTS (such as CDR - Call Detail Reports, and other
mainframe repositories). The data has to be cleaned first, therefore C&C®
has a built in ETL module (Extraction, Transformation and Performance)
with automatic cleansing tools.
Mainly, it (a) extracts data from data banks; (b) validates and tags it
(a different commission rate could be applied later to each tag), and removes
inconsistencies; (c) then logs the data on a DATA STORE. The users can now
apply its built-in processing tools to calculate the commissions multi-dimensionally
(that is, on either
a phone,
contract, or payee basis). A contract can have any number of phones.
A contract's commission may be payable to none, one, or many payees.
Furthermore, a payee can be beneficiary of commissions paid on several contracts
(what in our relational database terminology we call a many-to-many
tables-relationship). C&C®
has built-in querying tools to analyze results. It also has many predefined
queries and reports. C&C®
thus becomes an intricate part of the department operations, as well as a DSS
(Decision Support System) to the Management of this Payphone Division. On
a monthly basis, commissions' results are automatically loaded on several logs
(repositories) from where they can be analyzed with data mining tools. C&C®
-integrated with our Wesroc®
product
(a Payphone Management and Administration System)- would become
a full DATA WAREHOUSE for Sprint’s Payphone Division. Not
just the Sales Department can benefit, but also Marketing, Parts Inventory,
Repairs, Box-Collection Dispatching, Product Pricing (which now has commission
tiers' homogeneity across geographical areas), and Accounting (better control of
Payables and Receivables).
I wear as many hats as any Program Manager can have, in
other words, I was: 1)
Project
Lead
– Who would commit to aggressive and achievable milestones and dead lines. 2)
SME
(Subject Matter Expert)
– Who needed to expand quickly his knowledge of Telco’s CDR (Call Detail
Reporting), to be able to discuss with the client-company the most subtle
details of application’s usage. 3)
Business
Analyst
– Making sure the business rules are correctly interpreted and implemented,
and that the program has all the needed features, some of which had not even
been contemplated on the original specs. 4)
Data
Modeler Designer
- At ITC we did not have CASE tools (Computer Aided Software Engineering), such
as Popkin or Rational Software.
Therefore the building of the ERD (Entity Relationship Diagrams) and all
the METADATA had to be done the old fashion way, by brain power.
Of course, with some help from utilities built-in on the Microsoft SDK
framework (Systems Development Kit). 5)
Data
Loader
– Although I had administrative personnel helping me at the Client's premises,
for that support to be effective it was paramount to be in close proximity with
them. Thus, I relocated to an office at their headquarters in
Overland Park, KS. Yet, during the first stages of development though, the
client had not seen the programt, meaning that the developer had to be data
loader as well. 6)
Application
Programmer
–I had to come up to speed in C++, and acquire adequate dexterity and
knowledge of MFC (Microsoft Foundation Classes) and Visual C++.
I had to refresh my SQL, which was needed to write embedded code, and the
"stored procedures" that trigger execution of processes directly on
the server (making the client thinner, what improves performance). 7)
Application
Tester
- I did all TPC Benchmarks (Transaction Processing Performance).
Designed the tests, and created the test data sets to exercise -if
possible- all branching of the design’s flowchart . Then do all the
time-consuming analysis of test results.
Indeed, very tedious and labor intensive functions that would normally
require -a least- one full time engineer to do these tasks alone. 8)
Technical
Writer
– Regardless of how friendly the application is, and how well documented the
sources are, a trail of documents have to be created along the way, such as the Progress
Reports.
Finally, a User Manual had to be written for the Client, so to
understand how the program operates, on how it is that it meets and complies
with the required specifications. 9)
Trainer
– After all of the above had been done, I had to give training seminars
not just to users on the Client's premises.
I had also to submit to code reviews (accolades and criticism)
from peers at ITC headquarters, so as to learn from their input and for them to
have an opportunity to learn from your achievements. |
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