Project Tools
Use a centralized approach to project management, leveraging DriveMethod, Drivestream’s Project Management platform.
Shown in the figure below from a project milestone-tracking point of view, it is a Cloud-based solution extended to the entire project team. It is this very platform embedded in our Management and Implementation methodologies that allows Drivestream to ensure consistent project-delivery success 100% of the time.
Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM) in DriveMethod
Throughout project implementation, DriveMethod is accessible to the entire project team for real-time information, status, communication, etc. through an internet browser. Our platform includes the following components, each of which is easily exportable to Microsoft Excel for additional offline analysis or reporting purposes:
- Project Plan
- Issues/Risks/Decision Management
- Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM)
- Status Reporting
- Resource Management
DS Cloud Integrator
DS Cloud Integrator manages all aspects of data during a cloud migration project quality, security, organization, extraction, transformation, load, integration and reporting. It uses open source, commodity, enterprise grade technologies – java and MySQL and interoperable code libraries so it can tun on any operating system, on-premise or on the cloud. It has the following features:
dMKit: Contains pre-packaged data extraction routines for popular on-premise applications such as PeopleSoft, E-Business Suite. The extraction routines are built using ANSI-SQL for interoperability in various databases.
Data Conversion Engine: Contains built-in data templates, validation rules, automates the orchestration and loading to Oracle cloud and performs a comprehensive reconciliation of loaded data against the data extracted from legacy. It has the following components and features:
Data Conversion Templates: Oracle Cloud provides tools such as HDL and FBDi that are comprehensive, have a semi-structured metadata driven format making them flexible but at the same time difficult to understand and prepare data for. We created easy to use Excel data templates developed by our data conversion specialists in collaboration functional practitioners drawing on our vast domain knowledge and cloud experience with easy instructions for populating each data element to simply the data collection process.
Data Organization: Data conversion is a complex and messy process with data files for each object, maybe by each country business unit and system. Also, each file may be extracted several times creating multiple version of the file. In addition, there is the additional dimension of which environment the data was extracted from where it should be loaded. Since Oracle Cloud is a cloud application there is no place to store all this information. The DS Cloud Integrator solves this problem by providing a structured, organized and secure way to store, retrieve and audit the data used for the conversion process.
Data Validation Rules: Based on our vast experience with Oracle Cloud, the underlying data structures and processes we have developed thousands of data validations. These rules go beyond just the basic data type; mandatory values check to validate complex business scenarios that go across multiple rows and business objects. The DS Cloud Integrator performs the following types of validations:
Level 1: Mandatory value checks. This may be customized for each client to include fields that not mandatory in Oracle Cloud but maybe required for the client business.
Level 2: Data type checks. This validates is the data received in the template is appropriate for the data field. It checks the field length, precision and format as well.
Level 3: Data sequence checks. Oracle cloud is effective dated, which means it preserves data as it was when a transaction happened and so does not allow out of sequence transactions to happen. This is also true while converting data. Ensuring that a hire record of an employee is loaded before other transactions such as promotion or department change is a simple example of such validations.
Level 4: Referential integrity checks. Check to see if an employee’s person record exists before loading their job data.
Level 5: Process validations. A simple but elegant example of such a check is to ensure that an employee’s manager in their hire record was hired before the employee.
The unique features of the DS Cloud Integrator are:
- Comprehensive one-step validation: The validations is performed across all objects in one step, so all data errors are identified immediately as opposed to the common practice of validating one object or one record at a time. This is a significant amount of effort and time.
- Error messages made simple: The error messages built into the DS Cloud Integrator translate the complex system error codes into easily understandable simple English error messages. In addition, an error dashboard categorizes and aggregates the errors making it easier and quicker to get to the key data issues.
- Error resolution plan: For each error a possible resolution is also provided to help fix the problem.
- Regular updates: The validations are reviewed updated quarterly to keep pace with changes to the Oracle Cloud and lesson learnt from our cloud implementations.
Data Load Automation: Oracle Cloud data import tools such as HDL and FBDi require a multi-step load process. In addition, some data loads require the data to be loaded in a specific sequence due to data dependencies. DS Cloud Integrator automates and orchestrates the data import process, including generating the HDL or FBDi data files from the data Excel data templates, making it transparent and seamless and thus significantly reducing effort and time.
Begin-to-End Data Conversion Reconciliation: After the data is loaded to Oracle Cloud it is then compared with the original data in the data templates to ensure that the data load was complete and accurate and providing a begin-to-end audit of the data conversion of process.
Data Security: Client data is directly uploaded to the DS Cloud Integrator and our consultants can handle client data only within it and thus provides a safe and secure staging area for all data exchanges between Drivestream and our clients. The data is access-protected and completely secure and monitored, which also prevents data exchanges via emails and other unsafe means.
DS Secure: What’s more! we include an instance of DS Cloud integrator on our cloud servers that is client specific as part of our implementation services. It is provisioned as part of the project setup and requires no involvement from the client business or IT team. Members of the client’s project team get free access to the system.