Completion Report
Project Summary:
Scope
Replace end-of-life payment utility (ALBACS) with the new supported product (C-Series)
Objectives
To replace ALBACS with C-series both of which are supplied by Bottomline Technology
The project objective has been achieved - Albacs has been replaced by C-Series
Deliverables
The replacement of ALBACS with C-series is to deliver:
| Deliverables | Priority | Completed | |
| 1 | Mechanism for approving and authorising outgoing BACS payments (like-for-like) - complete | must | complete |
| 2 | Mechanism for authorising and sending Direct Debit instructions and collections (like-for-like) | must | complete |
| 3 | New infrastructure - Test and Live servers | must | complete |
| 4 | Installation (only) of code for outgoing International payments (new) | must | complete |
| 5 | Documented process for Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity | must | complete (documented in Section 5 of the TAD) |
| 6 | Decommission ALBACS after completion of successful payment runs | must | complete (Albacs switched off) |
| 7 | HSM (Hardware Security Module) was purchased and has been delivered during this project | must | complete |
All the above project deliverables have been met.
Benefits
- The C-series application is supported by Bottomline (and will be able to continue having outgoing payments supported)
- International payments will now be possible, at a later date, under a future Finance project. International payments are currently paid manually via Santander and reconciled manually.
- Having the international module installed will allow for a future review on how these payments are dealt with.
- There is now a test site for C-Series, which means that future upgrades and patching can be fully tested before deploying to the Live service.
- Now that there is a test site for C-Series any future changes to the Bank used by UoE can be tested before deploying to the Live service.
- There was no current Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity processes documented. This project has provided this documentation, so that DR procedures can be formally set in place in future.
Success Criteria
| Success Criteria | Achieved | |
| 1 | Outgoing BACS payments are issued via C-Series | yes |
| 2 | Direct Debit instructions and collections are requested via C-Series | yes |
| 3 | Servers were purchased and installed on Test and Live | yes |
| 4 | International Payments module has been installed onto Test and Live applications - installed | yes (installed) |
| 4.1 | The intention is for Finance to be able to use International Payments (in future Finance projects) and to do this, required the module installed onto Test and Live applications - this has been done Bottomline know what is agreed with the bank and how Finance make submissions to the bank (as there are multiple methods). This is all that this project required - there was no intention to run International Payments in this project | yes (completed) |
| 5 | Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity processes are documented and stored within IS/Finance - documented | yes (documented) |
Analysis of Resource Usage:
Staff Usage Estimate: 60 days
Staff Usage Actual: 78 days
Staff Usage Variance: 30%
Other Resource Estimate: 0 days
Other Resource Actual: 0 days
Other Resource Variance: 0%
Explanation for variance:
Hardware Security Module - HSM and other delays
HSM (Hardware Security Module) work was added to the project and the project budget was increased to 80.5 days.
Delays to progressing the project during new student year (CAB) set up - see
- The project Issue Log is available of the project website
- For more information relating to scope changes (can be found in issues 8 and 10)
- The introduction of HSM (Hardware Security Module) required restarting all servers (Issue 12)
- Closure delayed to allow 3 months running in LIVE before the decommissioning of Albacs (Issue 10)
The fact of installing HSM (Hardware Security Module) required all servers to be restarted before HSM (Hardware Security Module) could be activated involved a large service request to ensure it was planned at the correct time, which had an impact on the project's progress
There was a 4 month delay before the Vlan and HSM (Hardware Security Module) set up could be managed, more history relating to this can be found below:
- Unidesk Call (reference I59820-0346) and its history in the journal of Networks and HSM set up (Issue 13)
Further to all this
- Business were successfully responsible for verifying the Live testing (that is ensuring that all the current DD had run using C-series successfully
- User id's were required for accessing the HSM (Hardware Security Module) user ids and 11 user ids were set up with a small number of them with admin authority to approve the work. Systems Accountants were responsible for ensuring that the 11 user ids were set up (working along with the supplier) to ensure personal ids were completed from a security point of view. This was looked after by the System Accountants
Key Learning Points:
Where different stakeholders require to be involved, ensure knowledge of what is required from all of the stakeholders early on, is established. eg - bank, ITI networks, production management, System Accountants (Finance) and Bottomline
Outstanding issues:
There are no outstanding issues related to this project.