Completion Report - ODL Card Image Upload Project
Project Summary:
Objectives
The objective of the project was to complete the outstanding tasks from DEI006, to enable ODL students to upload images for card services electronically.
The benefits of the project were outlined as follows:
- Tangible - Savings in postal costs and in staff administration time in not printing, folding, posting forms, as well as not scanning images.
- Intangible - It will improve the University student experience and address the ODL community who are expected to complete their studies fully online. In addition, in this functionality may be able to be extended to the wider population of staff, students and visitors.
The success criteria for the project were as follows:
- ODL students are able to upload an image online via MyEd - this criteria has been met by the project.
- Card Services have the capability to review and, if necessary, reject and re-request an ODL student image - this criteria has been met by the project.
- The project is managed to within time and budget - the project budget and timelines were revised as a result of issues highlighted through the project governance process.
Deliverables
The key deliverables of TEL005: ODL Image upload for card services are:
- Complete a review of the MyEd image upload and the image management application in the Development environment, including supporting documentation, to ensure readiness for Testing - COMPLETE
- Deploy functionality into the Test environment, and complete integration testing of the MyEd image upload and the image management application - COMPLETE
- Complete User Acceptance Testing - COMPLETE
- Complete deployment of the MyEd image upload and the image management application into Live environment - COMPLETE
- Complete handover of the MyEd image upload (i.e. MyEd portlet) and the image management application to Application Management - COMPLETE
Scope
The scope of the project was to complete the remaining tasks from DEI006 to:
1. Enable ODL students to upload an image on-line via MyEd
2. Enable card services to manage the images that are uploaded (ie accept/reject image) , then proceed with the normal card printing process.
Under DEI006, the project reached the stage where all key deliverables were built and peer testing had successfully concluded in the development environment. The build review had not completed.
During the life cycle of the project, the following clarifications were made to the scope of the requirements:
- Clarification that additional testing was required to validate that ODL applicants should not be able to see the new ODL portlet; this required investigation to confirm that the MyEd set up of groups could accommodate this request and required new test accounts/ test plans to complete
- In UAT, the email notification process was clarified and a change required to accommodate
- In addition some validation/ rework of tasks undertaken under DEI006 was required. In particular, confirmation that the infrastructure assumptions under DEI006 were still valid (as the environment/ set up had changed in the interim period) and revision to the TAD to reflect the current Card Service infrastructure.
Schedule
The milestone schedule was met as follows: (comparison between Brief date and Actual dates)
Project Brief - 21st February 2013
PPBR: Build Review - 15th March 2013 (milestone achieved)
PPIR: Integration Review - was 29th March; complete 14th June. The delay to the completion of the Integration Review was due to the following issues:
- At the point the application was ready to be deployed into TEST, confirmation was received that the MyEd environment was going to be rebuilt in TEST. Therefore, deployment had to be delayed to accommodate this issue (see piccl 8). Milestone revised: 29/3 to 12/4.
- Test accounts were set up via EUCLID; an issue was identified with identities corrupting between EUCLID and MyEd (due to a combination of set up, IDM and Eugex issues). Milestone revised: 12/4 to 10/5. First stage of testing completed at this point.
- Server issues/ HUBTEST issues were again impacting the Test environment and due to Tester's annual leave, further delay to completion. Milestone revised: 10/5 to 7/6
- New Eugex test feed issues identified which deleted test accounts. Following several rebuilds of Eugex feed, it was agreed that we would go ahead with a combined UAT and Integration Test for second stage of testing. Milestone completed: 14/6
ASOR - Acceptance Sign off: was 17th April in Brief, revised to 8th July
- Delays as per Integration review - ongoing issues with Eugex feed/ test accounts (see piccls 9 and 13) were resolved on 26/6 and testing, bug fixes and retesting completed on 8th July.
- JIRA provides a full log of all issues identified during testing: https://www.jira.is.ed.ac.uk/jira/browse/TEL005
Deployed to LIVE: 10th July 2013
- Deployment date was also revised in the interim period to accommodate a request from Card Services as, due to ongoing delays due to Eugex, deployment needed to be rescheduled around leave/ support for other projects.
DSOR: Deployment review - was 30th April; complete 24th July 2013
- Delays as per integration review (milestone revisions to 22nd July)
- Further delayed to 23rd July due to issues identified in LIVE with the application set up
Analysis of Resource Usage:
Staff Usage Estimate: 20 days
Staff Usage Actual: 41.7 days
Staff Usage Variance: 109%
Other Resource Estimate: 0 days
Other Resource Actual: 0 days
Other Resource Variance: 0%
Explanation for variance:
The below is the status as a closure.
| Team | Estimate at brief | Revised Estimate - As at final revision on 17th May | Actual |
|---|---|---|---|
| Development Team | 6.7 | 5.9 | 7.6 |
| Applications Management | 4.4 | 3.2 | 3.7 |
| Configuration Team | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Development Technology | 0.8 | 4.2 | 3.4 |
| Project Services | 5.8 | 12.4 | 13.6 |
| Directors Office | 0 | 0.3 | 0.1 |
| Contingency & Closure | 2.3 | 12 | 13.3 |
| Total | 20 | 38 | 41.7 |
The variance is as a result of the following:
- Development Team - Additional time required to fix bugs identified in UAT and revise documentation. Due to complexity of applications set up, Dev team needed to give more support than anticipated to Dev Tech to complete the deployment to both TEST and LIVE.
- Apps Management - The original estimate included time for completion of an OLA which was not required.
- Development Technical - Additional time required to investigate and resolve infrastructure issues, revise the TAD (significantly out of date), deploy to TEST and LIVE and handover to Tech Management.
- Project Services - Covering both project management and business analysis, the time required was more than planned due to the volume of issues that were identified throughout the lifecycle of the project. Time was required to manage the resolution of the eugex issues and replan/ review options.
- The unplanned time/ contingency time predominantly covered: handover to new project manager, resource allocation time from resource managers (due to number of replans required), eugex issue resolution (1st set of issues only; Apps management time on 2nd issue not charged to project - only project management time for second issue charged to project), associated rework/ set up on test accounts (required after eugex changes) and additional development time following clarification of the email notification process following UAT.
Key Learning Points:
- When test accounts are set up by SACs team for testing, the account set up must be done in stages. The stages are:
- Initial test account set up (applicant status)
- Allow IDM to pick up new student details
- Process student as "UF" status
- Allow IDM to pick up update to student status
- Process student with a start date (to simulate matriculation and provide ATR status)
Completing the set up in stages (rather than doing all steps in initial set up) will then allow Eugex, IDM and MyEd to process changes correctly.
- Where possible, avoid a delay between Build and Test as changes to the environment in the interim period can have an impact. If this is not possible, allow greater contingency for rework of key documentation (e.g. TAD) and to confirm that interim infrastructure changes have had no impact.
Outstanding issues:
- Roll out - The project has deployed, but not yet published the new application. Card Services are seeking to coordinate the communications of the new application with other planned student activity. Therefore, responsibility for communication and pubilshing will transfer to Card Services.
- The project completed accessibility testing and no major issues were identified. It has been agreed that Card Services, as service owner, have responsibility for the completion of the Equality Impact Assessment screening and form (if required).