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New Post 9/2/2014 12:36 PM
Unresolved
User is offline Karma
6 posts
10th Level Poster


Automate Data Migration 

I have been working on a project for automating manual upload of spreadsheets in to General Ledger system. I am struggling on how to approach on my Functional requirement document. What are the things I should include in this document. I feel like my BRD was almost like FRD.The planing ( design prospective) so far is creating staging table and then formatting as required by business from that point and uploading. 

 From BA point of view how should I approach and what should be included in my FRD. Any help and suggestion will be greatly appreciated. 

Thanks so much 

karma. 

 

 

 
New Post 9/7/2014 11:24 PM
User is offline Adrian M.
764 posts
3rd Level Poster




Re: Automate Data Migration 

Hi Karma,

In terms of identifying requirements and solution, a data migration project is not any different than any other project a Business Analyst would work on.

I would begin by asking some of the basic questions (and documenting the answers in the FRD 'system shall' statements, diagrams, tables, etc.):

  • Why - Why is this project important?  What is the rationale behind this project?   What benefits are going to be realized by this project?
  • Who - Who will be benefiting from this activity?  Who are the key actors (direct or indirect)?  Who will be generating the spreadsheets to be uploaded?
  • When - How often do these spreadsheets need to be uploaded?  Is the uploaded triggered by a system event, timer, user, business event?
  • How - Are there any business or user requirements which place constraints on how the solution should be crafted?
  • What - What type of information is contained in the spreadsheets?  Are there more than one type of data to be uploaded (ex: credit card debit transactions, invoices, journal entries, wire transfer transactions, etc.)

Specific to your situation, here are some things you'll need to consider in your requirements and/or solution:

  • Are there going to be one type of spreadsheet ore more than one?
  • How will the import process know what data is what? Ex: will columns have labels, will first column always contain transaction ID...
  • Are there any assumptions as to the quality of the data? Ex: are all fields required, does the system assume that column x contains dates formatted as mmddyyy? etc.

In terms of the format of information in the FRD, it depends on what you want to show:

  • For assumptions, a table listing the assumption and if it was confirmed by whom.
  • For types of upload records/data, a class diagram (business object model) would be great.
  • For actors and what they want to accomplish, maybe a use case diagram with use cases such as: Upload Off-line Invoices, Upload Adjustments, etc.
  • For non-functional requirements, you could use 'system shall' statements such as: "The system shall support up to 20 spreadsheet uploads per day."  "The system shall support spreadsheets of up to 10,000 records." etc.

Hope this helps!

Adrian


Adrian Marchis
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