The STU Review. The new SKIES Data Warehouse. SKIES Technology Upgrade Project

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1 SKIES Technology Upgrade Project Volume 1, Issue 4 December 2013 The STU Review The new SKIES Data Warehouse INSID E THI S ISSU E: New SKIES data warehouse 1 Interface testing 2 Browser compatibility 2 STU Fun Facts 2 Password reset feature 3 Questions & answers 4 Integration testing 5 In progress 5 What s next 5 Where are we? Development phase done Testing is in progress User acceptance Training Implementation Post support As part of the STU project, the SKIES Data Warehouse has been converted from Oracle to Microsoft SQL server in a test environment. Power users are rewriting and testing their queries in the new system to ensure they work properly. This testing period will continue until STU is close to implementing. Differences include: Server and database connections will change. Security will be by Windows authentication. Database tables have changes in name formats. Table and column names are now in Pascal case to conform to standard STU naming convention. For example; the name SEEKER_DATA today becomes SeekerData in STU. The new database will contain everything in the SKIES database as of Saturday night, every week. A power user is a member of the business community who s authorized to access the SKIES Data Warehouse to run queries and produce reports. The application is designed to be both accessible and flexible, and does not require technical assistance to pull system data. Power users have a variety of tools they use to do this work. How they access the data and what format the results will be in is entirely up to them. By moving the SKIES Data Warehouse out of Oracle and into SQL Server, power users will be able to more easily join data with other Data Warehouse data. Today, joining SKIES Oracle data with other Data Warehouse data stored in SQL server is a more complex effort. Development and testing of the new SQL SKIES Data Warehouse was completed and made available to power users December 2012 to allow for plenty of time to make coding changes.

2 page 2 THE STU REVIEW Interface testing Interface testing ensures that any data sent by or received by SKIES works correctly and updates what it should. Interfaces include: Go2worksource.com GUIDE NGTS ACES (DSHS) All of these interfaces are running in our development environment. We are in the process of making sure the data being passed by these interfaces are correct. Browser compatibility Unlike today, the new SKIES will be a web application that runs using a Web browser. The current ESD browser standard is Internet Explorer 8 (IE8). Browser testing makes sure that the application will work correctly using the current standard as well as Internet Explorer 10 (IE10), which is expected to rollout early next year. In addition, we have updated the browser requirements found in insideskies under State Policies/ Additional Resources/ SKIES Basic Network Technology Standards found in the System Requirements table. Did you know? STU fun facts The STU project has 1.5 million lines of programming code, including: SKIES application Performance test scripts Reports Interfaces Batches - 584,421 lines 410,126 lines 309,689 lines 178,111 lines 26,922 lines

3 THE STU REVIEW page 3 SKIES password reset feature Today, when you forget your password, you have to contact the SKIES Help Desk or your designated security administrator for help. With the new SKIES, we are introducing a new feature; password reset. This means if you forget your password, you can reset it yourself, at your convenience. If this occurs during off hours or on a weekend, you will not have to wait for the next business day to contact the SKIES Help Desk or designated security administrator. If, however, you type in your password too many times or your password has expired and you are locked out of the system, you will still need to contact the SKIES Help Desk or designated security administrator for help. When the time comes, you ll be asked by the project to enter some information into the new SKIES so you ll be able to reset your own password. Your address and securityquestion answer needs to be recorded before you ll be able to reset your own password. Earlier this year, we added the ability in the current SKIES application to enter your address through Staff Functions Change Password. In addition, administrative staff can enter your address for you while helping you with your password. All addresses recorded in SKIES today will be brought over into the new SKIES application. How the new password reset feature will work: 1) Click the Forgot your Password? button. 2) Answer the predetermined security question and click the Reset Password button. 3) SKIES will send your new temporary password to your address on record. 4) Log in using your temporary password, and then create your new password when prompted. 5) Log in using the new password you created.

4 page 4 THE STU REVIEW Questions & answers Q. Will I get training before STU goes live? A. Yes. Everyone who needs to use the new SKIES application will be trained shortly before the system goes live. Because of the goal to maintain the same look and feel as SKIES today, more traditional style of training is not needed. Minimal hands-on training will be used. Watch for more information about training in future newsletters. Q. If a significant concern is found during user acceptance testing (UAT), will there be enough time to fix it before the new system goes live? A. We are testing incrementally during development and functional testing. As a result, we anticipate that UAT testing may uncover the need for minor changes, but will not lead to major changes. In any case, STU will not go live until it can perform business as required. Q. After STU goes live, will the current SKIES application be kept live for a while as backup? A. No. We are thoroughly testing STU to ensure we won t have any major problems. Q. What if the new SKIES goes down? A. STU is built using newer technology that s more reliable. As with other ESD systems, there will be people and processes in place to respond if there s an unplanned outage. Q. Will the new SKIES Data Warehouse go live at the same time as STU? A. Yes. STU and SKIES Data Warehouse will implement at the same time. All questions submitted will be answered, whether or not they appear in the newsletter. Click here to view the complete list of questions and answers. Submit your questions to: Rachel Nedrow at RNedrow@esd.wa.gov

5 THE STU REVIEW page 35 Integration testing PROJECT LEADERSHIP Lisa Marsh, Executive Sponsor Bill Pruett, Project Sponsor Sandy Miller, Chuong Nguyen, The grand finale of testing is called Integration testing, also known as end-toend testing. This is the final step before business acceptance of the product begins. Before that, the system is tested first in small pieces (unit test), bigger pieces (functional test), and entire systems (reports, interfaces, application). Each area is exercised multiple times to ensure we produce the best product possible. Integration testing is putting all of the pieces together to check the functionality and flow of information from the beginning of an action all the way through updating databases and producing reports. Any bugs found during integration testing go through the defect cycle of repair and retest. Most bugs found at this level of testing are usually minor in nature and easy to repair. Rachel Johnston, Hal Greenbaum, In progress Rachel Nedrow, Project Manager Testing of reports, interfaces, and batch jobs The first of three performance/stress tests is done. Browser compatibility testing Regression testing What s next? In December and January we will: o Complete browser testing o Continue performance testing o Wrap up regression testing The February issue Performance testing results More about user acceptance testing Deployment practice makes perfect your questions or comments about this newsletter to Rachel Nedrow, Project Manager at: RNedrow@esd.wa.gov