Financial Industry Expertise

Project 1:

The commercial investor reporting department (IRD) of a Large Bank is responsible for the monthly reporting and monetary remittances for commercial mortgage backed securitized transactions and commercial loan warehouse relationships serviced by Structured Products Services (SPS). IRD prepared 125 monthly distributions representing over 7,000 loans with a total balance of $52 billion.  The majority of the distributions are for Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities (CMBS) transactions that are reported using the industry’s reporting standards as defined by the Commercial Mortgage Securities Association (CMSA).  SPS needed to automate the investor reporting function in order to provide reports and data more efficiently and to manage current and future reporting capacity needs.

 

 

The general monthly activities include:

• Scheduling reports and remittances based on timelines established in the applicable Pooling and Servicing Agreement (PSA)
• Capturing payment data as of specific ‘determination dates’
• Reporting loan level payment activity and financial data in CMSA format
• Determining monetary advancing amounts; remitting money collected and advanced to the respective Trustees
• Tracking repayment of advances and calculating interest due on advances

 

Another important factor is that 80% of the IRD’s reporting timeframes occur within five business days of the month. SPS currently uses the McCracken Strategy loan servicing system and various in-house databases for housing the loan level data. Currently, reports are prepared using Excel spreadsheets. Source data comes from Strategy (manual, no automatic feeds), in-house financial database (Excel reports), Special Servicer reports (outside SPS), and manual calculation by reporting analysts.

 

The automation process is to be carried out by developing an Investor Reporting Application. The new system is intended to give the following important business benefits

• Robust front end application to help in data entry
• The proposed system will have a new and common database for generating CMSA and warehouse reports.
• Data priming and validations
• Migration of existing financial data from Microsoft Excel to Oracle Database
• Integration of finished warehouse data with the proposed IRA-SPS system
• Deal Set-up with automated validation parameters
• Ability to receive data from third parties, i.e., sub-servicers, special servicers
• The proposed CMSA database shall fetch strategy-related data from warehouse and shall not interact directly with strategy.
• Standard report Generation in Excel spread sheets that includes:

• Loan Setup File- 100% development
• Loan Periodic File – 25% development
• Delinquent Loan Status Report-100% development
• Remittance report -100% development
• Warehouse reports -100% development

• Automated Report Routing within department and to Trustees upon proper levels of approvals.
• Provide flexibility to make manual changes/additions/corrections to database.
• Ad hoc Reporting capability with a third party tool/Oracle Discoverer
• Service Fee Tracking & Accrual, Automated Appraisal Reduction worksheet.
• P&I Advance, Servicing Advance, Advance Interest Tracking, both at the Loan & Pool Level.

This scope also includes requirements gathering, requirements analysis, project planning, project management, configuration management, data modeling, high level design, prototyping, low level design, coding, unit testing, system testing, user testing, acceptance, and user training.

 

Project 2:

The Real Estate and Capital Markets Group required a new Reporting Database and a new web-based system for CMSA Reporting. The new database was to allow the client to store the CMSA data in a central repository. The new web-based system was to provide a new web user interface to access, manipulate, and generate reports in CMSA formats.

Before the development the CMSA group processed each loan and pool manually running through 10 to 15 man-days to create each report. The client wanted to speed up the process so that its clients could take advantage of changing market scenarios and invest in lucrative mortgages rather than allow the time lag to affect their investments.

We put together a robust and scalable, thin-client, n-tier J2EE solution which has since been deployed.

Product scope

The main scope of the IRP include:

• Automation of most of the manual processes.
• Development of a centralized repository to store the CMSA Reporting Data.
• Provision of a seamless and automated way to upload data from different sources to centralized repository.
• Provision of web-based, user-friendly screens to display and manipulate information from various sources.
• Automation of the generation, approval and declining processes of CMSA Reports (standardized reports).
• Generation of ad hoc (user defined, run time) reports based on information in the database.
• Construction of an auto process for periodic upload of data, generation of standardized reports and placing loans under watch list.
• Creation of a feature to enable users to quickly jump to specific loan details stored in the e-Servicer database.
• Creation of supporting administration screens

 

The application was a multi-tier system with an Oracle 8i database.

Project 3:

A Large dynamic, diversified, financial services company – providing banking, insurance, wealth management and estate planning, investments, mortgage and consumer finance from more than 6,500 stores, Internet banking site and other distribution channels across North America and elsewhere internationally.

 

The REG had decided to automate the posting of incoming Wires in the REG Disbursement and Operations center, the Denver Loan Center and the San Francisco Loan Center. The incoming wires for the four Loan Centers are currently processed manually.

 

As the volumes of incoming wires had increased significantly over the years, the centers had decided to explore an efficient automated system for posting the payments into the loan accounting system. We presented a cost effective solution using its best practices and methodologies. It realized the following Business benefits:

• The automated process resulted in better data quality, higher efficiencies in the different Loan centers.
• The processes in each of the operation centers are consistent with each other.
• Interfaces with the existing systems have improved data integrity and a reduction in the redundant input.
• It eliminated some databases and spreadsheets in the Denver and SFO Loan Centers.
• It helped all Loan Centers to develop more consistent wire templates.

 

The volume of wires processed manually in a month is approximately 1,500 per center.

The wire data is downloaded manually and the wire amount is matched with the invoice amount. If both the amounts match, payment amount to be applied to AFS Loan System is calculated and sent to the supervisor for approval. On approval, the payment is applied to AFS, GL tickets are created and transaction is sent to Audit Trail Group.

Mismatch between the wire amount and invoice amount could arise in three cases – Principal Curtailment, Short Payment and Overpayment. Additional research is done for these mismatches and final payment amount to be applied to AFS is calculated and sent to the supervisor for approval. On approval, the payment is applied to AFS, GL tickets are created and transaction is sent to Audit Trail Group.

Because of increase in the volume of wires processed every month, the bank was looking for a more efficient, electronic solution to get the payments into the AFS Loan Accounting System.

Project 4:

The Loan Operations Centers envision the following process. MTS (the wire system) will provide wire data to the new application every 10 to 15 minutes. The new application will also get a download of data daily from AFS for matching purposes. The application will match the key data from MTS with that of AFS. The data will be available to the Operations Center users for viewing, for modification as defined in the requirements and for exception reporting.  Once the data has been matched, it will automatically feed into AFS and payments will be applied as per the AFS invoice. If any one of the key data fields does not match, the item will show as an exception.  Users will then modify data and re-match.

The application will separate the wire data by Operations Center based on the Wire In Process (WIP) account. The application will provide specified reports, as detailed in the requirements, to the Operations Centers.

The scope of this project is to build a new system to process incoming wires and post wire payment information to AFS System. The system will process all loans serviced in Denver, San Francisco, San Francisco-LAG and El Segundo loan centers. The system functionalities in the scope of the project were:

• Receive and load incoming wire information from RGW System using MU
• Load incoming AFS feed file
• Matching process for the wires with the AFS data
• Provide edit facility to correct wire data
• Handle exceptions
• Real time posting of wires data to AFS using MU technology
• Updating Loanlocator for all correct wire records
• Providing access for Translog group to create feed file to update Colts Translog
• Generate reports as defined in requirements
• Provide role based user access

 

The scope also included:

• Requirements management and analysis for the overall system
• Convert business requirements to technical specifications
• Prototype development for the new system
• Design the new system and database for the new system
• Provide online screens to view and edit data in the database
• Generate reports as per business requirements
• Provide user level security and role-based access mechanism
• Coding and testing of all the programs
• Help in installing the new system
• User testing and training
• Provide the system documentation as per deliverable guidelines

Project 5:Credit Management System

Project background & description:

 

The client is a large bank in the West Coast, USA. Credit Management, is a part of a broader initiative CEO (Commercial Electronics Office), within the bank. CEO is a portal to provide product offerings to the corporate customers, one of which will be Credit Management. Credit Management will use the existing infrastructure of CEO and, at the same time will be constrained by it.

 

Credit Management application provides various online functions through Internet to Commercial Banking and Real Estate Group customers. The bank’s Credit Management service lets its customers manage the loan activity quickly and easily, right from their desktops. A single sign-on allows viewing loan balances and current interest rates, as well as selecting rates for loans with interest rate options. All this means that customers now have more control and greater flexibility than ever before in handling their loan accounts. With the new system, customers will be able to obtain advances on lines of credit, make loan payments and quickly view accurate loan account information with just a few clicks of the mouse. Information includes loan summaries, available balances, maturity dates, interest rates, advance funds, pay downs, loan billing statements and checking account balance information. The system provides easy, customized access and the loan information are displayed automatically. Anytime the customers want to check the status of their loan accounts, they can just select the account number to see the details. Access to specific loans can be customized for each user or viewed by multiple users.

 

Simple Interest Rate Selection For loans with rate options, Credit Management offers a simple way to select interest rates. When a fixed rate matures, customers are notified and shown interest rates available for their loans. Then all they do is make a choice and their interest rate is set.

 

The system provides Anytime, Anywhere Access to the loan accounts (at home, work or while traveling, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week).

 

State-of-the-art Security Account information remains confidential because access is secured through user identification codes, password combinations and 128-bit Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption.

 

Overview of work:

 

• Feasibility study including evaluation of possible technologies
• Requirement Analysis, design and specification, code development, testing, user testing, and implementation.
• Security implementation and role based user access.
• Production Support

 

Technical Architecture:
MVC (Model-View-Controller) architecture has been used for Credit Management System. This would help to provide flexibility, manageability and separation of responsibility. This would also allow easier extensibility and maintainability.
 

Education Industry Expertise

Student lifecycle management solutions that deliver a 360 degree view of the student and eliminates friction between touch points as the students navigates the various touch points within the institution.

  

We can create an architected solution that works off a longitudinal student file and captures all pertinent information on the student and their goals.

 

• Address/Contact Data
• Demographic Data
• External Educational History (Transcripts, Test Scores, etc.)
• Student Accounting Data
• Admission Applications
• Program Registration Information
• Academic and Financial Holds
• Academic Performance
• Course Registration History
• Correspondence History
• Majors/minors/concentrations
• Financial Aid data
• SEVIS data
• NCAA data
• Course equivalency information/transfers/credit management

 

On the other hand, we architect the institution and its various processes to harness efficiencies of scale

 

• Course scheduling
• Resource management
• Capacity planning
• Online learning frameworks
• Advising and alert systems
• Dashboards
• Room scheduling
• Enrollment management
• Dropout rate predictions

Healthcare Industry Expertise

Our healthcare practice leads in providing HIPAA assessment and education services to multiple Healthcare market segments.

As a provider of solutions to providers, hospitals, practices, and healthcare agencies our solutions allow our customers to provide better customer service while improving their top line and bottom line. With the onset of newer initiatives like the health care bill, EMR and others, providers are looking to streamline operations, reduce expenses and provide superior services to its members. We will provide you will the expertise required to stay on top of the legislative changes and apply technology models that will help you transition. We are able to provide various solutions around EMR, Patient management systems, revenue cycle management, healthcare IT architecture, CRM, Health care analytics, HIPPA, Hospital Information Management systems, claims management, Services around ARRA.

We have significant experience with both mid-size healthcare entities and establishing project management offices (PMOs) for large scale assignments. Managing multidisciplinary projects that manage a wide variety of operational areas is the benchmark of HIPAA compliance. Because many business processes and application systems are affected, regulations, tight project management is critical for successful completion of HIPAA initiatives within the implementation time frame. Our field-tested and proven methodologies and tools can support Elder Care Alliance HIPAA initiative.

Elements including education, organizational preparedness, change management, GAP analysis, strategic and project planning, Security and Privacy audits, remediation and testing.

Medicare System

The Internet allows exchange of information between users no matter who they are and where they are. People want real-time information about anything and everything. So is the case with medicines and diseases. Users want to know more about a particular medicine or symptoms of illnesses. Such information is invariably difficult to access from any one portal or website. Most times, websites containing specific information about diseases, illnesses and treatments are maintained by individual users whose professional credentials could be suspect. Large, well maintained medical portals run by professionals are often specialist in that they do not offer information about generic problems people could be facing.

The Medicare System is the second opinion that every user would want. Medicare System is a web-based application featuring Tamino XML that presents users with details on medication and expert online advice from medical professionals.

Using the Medicare system is easy. On registration, users are logged into the system and can search for specific treatment, medication and seek advice through the message boards. Professionals logging in can seek their colleagues’ expertise on, perhaps, unknown health problems and treatments. An administrator ensures that information available in the Medicare System is always up to date and can remove users who seek to disrupt the activities of the message boards.

The benefits of using the Medicare System are:
Information on any drug could be accessed online.
Users can view the physical appearance of the drug
Online queries could be sent to medical practitioners who would answer them
Users get to know the possible side effects on the usage of any medicine.

 

 

 

 

Data Conversion Strategy

Our team will develop the overall strategy to convert the existing data to the new HIPAA Compliant System. The team will study the existing functionality of the current system and review the GAP analysis report. At the end of this phase, the detail data conversion strategy would be available. Some of the activities that will be performed in this phase are:

• Detail functionality and data analysis of the existing system.
• Analysis of existing data structure.
• Perform a HIPAA requirements assessment and translation.
• Review the GAP analysis report, which is already available.
• Interface analysis.
• EDI Security setup and transport requirements.
• Data and System Security Analysis.
• Create the data-mapping document for HIPAA compliant fields and database fields.
• Perform the changes to the data structure, if required.
• Document the Data Conversion Strategy.

Reverse Engineering

The reverse engineering process will consist of extraction of business and validation logic from the existing system and documenting the functional specification. The current process flow, workflow, business logic and validation rules will be documented and used as the base specification of the proposed Billing System. In addition, users meeting will be conducted to confirm the findings of the reverse engineering process. Our team will prepare the System Requirement Specification (SRS) document to ensure a common understanding of requirements. Some of the activities in this phase are:

• Billing and Claim Identification Process.
• Identify other key processes and workflows.
• Identify reports requirements – report layouts.
• Analysis of existing data handling/transmission methods.

Project 1: Home Healthcare System

Case study

Description: Development of Home Healthcare System for a leading Healthcare Software Solutions Provider in US

 

Project background:

 

The client provides innovative computer software solutions for a variety of health care entities, which includes home health agencies, hospice agencies, and hospitals in several states. Most of the client’s products were windows based and used technologies like Foxpro, Citrix etc. The products also had the limitation on number of concurrent users.

 

The objective of the project was to develop and implement web based systems using the latest technology for the existing products of the client. The system had modules like patient demographics, medical records, electronic billing, statistical reports, accounts receivables, management reports etc. The new system was built using Windows DNA architecture on Windows 2000 platform.

 

The new systems were developed using Microsoft’s DNA Architecture. Each layer was divided into independent objects, which were COM compliant and hence could easily communicate with each other using COM. The implementation of each object was independent of each other

 

The architecture of the system is depicted in the component diagram in the following page. The User Layer was comprised of HTML Pages generated using Active Server Pages, which was running under Internet Explorer 4 or above. The Business Layer was comprised of various business components like Patient set-up, Consolidated Billing etc running under MTS and could be accessed by the User Layer using COM Architecture. The Business Layer was interacting with the Data Server using RDO or ADO.

 

Software Configuration:

Windows 2000 Advanced Server, Sql Server 2000, Microsoft IIS 5.0, Visual Basic 5.0, Crystal Reports 8.5, ERWIN, Visual Modeler, Silk Performer.

 

Overview of work:

 

• Architecture evaluation and design of the project.
• Requirement Analysis, design and specification, code development, testing, user testing, implementation and post-production support.
• Scope of work also included Project Management (planning and control) and Resource Management.
• Report using Crystal Reports.
• Role based user access.

Project 2 : HIPAA Compliant Claims Processing system

Description:

Development of HIPAA Compliant Electronic Claims Processing system for a Large Hospital in US

 

Project background:

 

This application is designed to process claims electronically for a major hospital. It is used to automate the existing workflow to enhance the profitability, productivity and efficiency of the existing billing system. This was accomplished by complying in conjunction with the established guidelines of HIPAA and Medicare. EDI is used for the data interchange between Medicare Intermediary and a provider. The application deals with ANSI ASC X12 Health care claim transaction sets. The various HIPAA formats that were complied with are 834, 270/271,275/277, 276, 820, 835, 837, 278 UB-92 and 997 formats.

 

 

Overview of work

:

• Involved in the analysis of Health care claims processing.
• Complete analysis on ANSI ASC X12 (834, 270/271, 275/277, 276, 820, 835, 837, 278, UB-92 and 997 formats.
• Designed and developed EDI modules that provides information on HCPCS and EC codes.
• Mapping of ANSI ASC X12 Health care claim transaction set.
• Used automated EDI toolset like Mercator for Health care transaction processing.
• Populated the data from flat files into databases
• Unit testing and final system testing of the application

Legacy System Production Support

Project1

Legacy systems

• Order Management System
• Tracking System
• Purchasing.

 

 

The total inventory is as follows:

• COBOL – 4000 programs and 4 million Lines of Code of which 30% are obsolete
• Corvision – in six different development areas. Less than 2 per cent of the programs are in Spanish. Up to 90 per cent of the back-end system is same for different offices (for example, US and Mexico office), but 10 per cent of the FMS form library use different user interface.
• Online systems are of two types:

• Using Corvision
• Using FMS and COBOL programs
• System wise breakup:
  • Focus – 662 FMS forms and 3371 COBOL programs
  • Purchasing – 350 Screens, 128 datasets, 170 procedures
  • Tracking – 531 Screens, 160 Datasets

 

98 per cent of the programs are in COBOL and Corvision except for DCL and Datatrieve.

 

Other technical aspects: It is understood that no database is used in the systems and mostly RMS Indexed Files and flat files are used. The systems also have fair amount of EDI interfaces. some interfacing systems use Oracle database.

 

Other Interfaces

• EDI Interface (CARAS – Automotive Systems, etc.)
• TIBCO Interface
• Intranet applications (using CGI, OSU web server for VMS etc.)
• B2B (other COBOL programs to receive pricing information from other legacy systems etc.)
• The main three systems (Focus, Purchasing, Tracking) also interface with each other. There is also another system for Standard Costing, which interfaces with Focus.
• Data warehouse
• I2
• SAP System
• Reports (Datatrieve is being used to generate ad-hoc reports)

 

Solution

 

 

The project mainly involves providing maintenance, enhancements and production support for existing VAX/VMS based applications. Maintenance tasks and production problems can be categorized into following severity levels:

 

• Severity 1

Severity 1 is defined as the total inability to perform the normal operation of any significant business function or as stated in Business Service Levels. System unavailability, major hardware failure, or program problems could cause this. The result is that the business group or groups cannot function properly, and the problem is resulting in a loss of revenue for the Company. These kind of problems need solutions within a few hours.

• Severity 2

Severity 2 problems severely restrict the use of an application, system, or piece of equipment. This can result in a serious re-scheduling of business resources, and can result in a loss of revenue to the company if it continues. Typically, a severity 2 problem should be fixed within a day.

• Severity 3

Severity 3 problems allow an application or piece of equipment to be used, but not at full capacity. The restriction is not critical to the overall operation of the business or the department. A severity 3 problem does not require an immediate fix. This kind of problem can be fixed within a week

• Severity 4 and Enhancements

Severity 4 problems are minor irritants or “nice to have changes”. Some of the system enhancements will also fall under this category. These problems can take more than 1 week to be fixed.

Project2

Client profile

Leading company in the semiconductor sector, based in the USA. It manufactures semiconductor chips, boards, systems, software, networking and communications equipment, and services that comprise the “ingredients” of computer architecture and the Internet.

Product Description

The Data Warehouse is the central repository for information that comes from business systems across the organization. Data is collected, formatted, transformed and then loaded into the data warehouse servers, across three geographic locations, worldwide. The Data Warehouse Management System comprises of the front end – GENEVA, a high performance data engine that runs on IBM Mainframes and the Data Warehouse System that comprises of the database servers and application servers.

System handles around 4 Terabytes of data. And has over 32,000 job steps in every cycle. Daily cycle is executed for each of the 3 main geographic sales areas.(USA, Europe, APAC)

Scope of work

• To provide 16×7, Level-2 Production Support for the Data Warehouse applications by resolving production issues raised during the on-call support time.

 

Service Level Agreement for production support issues:

• 15 minutes Response Time
• 2 hours Resolution Time

 

Adaptive and Corrective Maintenance towards solving Trouble Tickets, Production Discrepancies, Engineering Change Requests and other Customer / Partner queries raised during the Extract, Transform & Load (ET&L) Cycle of the application.

(Scope involves analyze change request, and provide time and cost estimates to client PM, schedule code modification, code modification, unit testing).

The team operates in two shifts, between 06:00 and 21:00 hours, IST. On weekends, the team supports the application from home. The team is equipped with laptops, cell phones and pagers for this purpose.

Technology Used

• MVS, JCL, COBOL, DB2, CICS on IBM Mainframe S-390
• Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise 11.5.1 on NCR UNIX SVR4 3.02
• SQL Server 6.5 on NT Server 3.51
• FTP (From Mainframe to NT Application Servers)
• MDI Gateway (DB2 Notification queue to SQL Server on UNIX)

Tools Used

• Online Change Manager for change management
• REX Action Remedy Software for logging and tracking trouble tickets
• EXTRA Client for IBM Mainframe remote connectivity
• Console Manager for monitoring ET&L cycle scripts
• DB Artisan for Sybase database management
• Visual Source Safe for configuration management
• MS-Outlook for e-mail
• Intranet for online documentation, reporting and information sharing

 

 

Key Success Factors

• Project transition in 3 Phases. 1) Knowledge Transfer Phase (2 Months), 2) Test pilot Phase (1 Month), 3) Parallel Phase (1 Month)
• Speed of Response due to Implementation of Help Desk (Accessible through a US Inter-state number, assuring first-time connection. Help desk pages the primary on-call resource)
• Connectivity established in short time.
• Ability to mobilize resources
• Persistence
• Intensive reporting protocol
• Deviation from standard offshore model