The next undertaking by Richard was a business directory called Lokhul another impressive piece of work that went unfinished - but the Ideal opportunity for ThE GOLF HUB.

If Richard can combine the Company Structure Processing for Sodexo with the Business Directory function pf Lokhul we will have a viable product which should bring advertising revenue for my division ONBOARD PROMOTIONS.

Sadly Richard is over extended and has little time for Redcamel Systems. / Red Octopus.

I had unfinished business at Sodexo.

1. The creation of a new Payroll System for Potential Bank Employees for the NHS PFI at Wythenshawe Hospital - An Extension to the Casual System.

2. Payroll General Ledger Re-Design

3. Company Structure Re-Design as a Bill of Material

4. SSNA - Structured Social Networking Implementation

5 Shady Hollow - Funeral Planning. (See Shady Hollow / Verastar)

6 Q Core Security Systems 

7 TrainIT - Ersasmus NVQ Extensions / Replacement.. (See Verastar)

It is now in Retirement that I can focus on these little projects with Sodexo Ex-Employee Richard Gilbert as my Programmer.  I shall develop as much as I can using SSNA Google forms  before leaving it to Richaard to finish off.

Hopefully we will see that there is a business here providing the IT Community with Standard Package Products such as Q Core Security Systems for Red Octopus Business Services Limited.

Employment services said that my career was over and that I would never find work in the IT Industry again without a degree.

Being self taught this did not put me off - I took a course in C Programming and with the help of Richard Gilbert and Charlie White learrnt ASP.NET.

That should have been enough to secure me a position as a trainee programmer but it proved not to be the case.

My vision was that the world would change and that on the horizon something would arise that empowered the home user.

My career with ASP.NET was short lived - I did not like the grid that I was using and I tried to get Richard and Charlie to come up with our own standards. I failed - and I have spent 21 years trying to get Richard to do the 3 basic transactions that I need to become a SQL Server Designer.  The transactions are simple - A database addition, a database amendment and a database deletion but it is the style of transaction which is thwarting me and it is the reason why Universities do Full Stack IT Courses.

My situation today is that I started looking at MVC - Had a little success with creating views but failed integrating raw White As Milk HTML pages.  I struggled until I read the book that Richard supplied on MVC which stated that it was not an extension to ASP but something entirely new. I opted not to read further in the book and left it within chapter one.

My theory being that as a Business Analyst with tools like google forms I can be a hyper effective designer and leave the technical build of SQL Server Transactions up to the true programmers - who with artistic licence can create something magical.

Anyway in 2000 I left the IT industry to start a career in marketing - I obtained a reasonably well paid job.

A divorce in 2002 took me out of the IT game totally - any hope of getting a job as a trainee programmer had to be put aside with two mortgages to maintain.

But my interest in IT never failed - By now I was stacking up second hand computer books and I had networks of PC's in my home.  But I continued to fail on becomining a programmer. Richard had moved away and my brother Paul was not showing any interest in me - which was upsetting as I started Paul off in his career as a programmer by showing him Jackson Structured programmming when we truied to develop the game monopoly on the commodore pet.

Throughout the last 21 years Richard and Paul have been there for me when I have had technical queries but the have not devoted any time to progressing my agenda.

As predicted the world did change when the Microsoft Blog came out circa 2004 - I might be wrong by the year but by 2007 Wordpress had appeared and social bookmarking with Deliceous and I was empowered to Develop SSNA.

SNA was IBM's System Network Architecture - The term SSNA now refers to Structured Social Networking where the use of tools like Webadore, Wix. Wordpress, Protopage, Facebook and instagram can be used to perform function.  

I can not recall the year that Google forms arrived but that tagged the end of me wanting to become a programmer. The use of google forms now allows me to do SQL Server Design. And to that end I have formed a company called Foundation Consulting.

Now it should be simple we should be able to prototype solutions using google forms - there will be a time when Microsoft or Google or Apple will create functionality to update a sql table and have amendment / deletion transactions - now that really will upset the applecart.

Sadly we have not got to the stage yet where Richard is taking on Google Design - he is still insisting on specifications - some sort of Flow Specification which we are still in the process of refining.

I really need to think of a new name for this methodology - I have used the term Pegasus Agile and Phoenix. 

I think i will go for the term Phoenix now i have learnt how to spell it.

So from now we will call the process of turning a Google Document into a SQL Server Transaction - Phoenix. to celebrate my return to the IT Industry as a Sysems Designer once more which was what Sodexo employed me as.

With the support of my great friend Richard - Ex Sodexo and persuasion to get Paul onboard we should do great things together.

 

 

I know we need a MVC View 

I know we need code to connect to the database and that this code is just a few lines long. My examples are long lost.

I know that we need SQL Code to insert into a table - I would like this to be stored procedures if possible.

All this amounts to not a lot.

I would expect a skilled IT professional programmer with his portfolio - library of standard procedures to be able to knock something out within the hour.  It takes 10 minutes to do a google form.

My expectation is this that a programmer prepared with his infrastructure should be able to prototype one SQL Table per evening without any stress of real effort - Given that the transactions are White as Milk without any graphical interface.

Transition to the end product is something where I am short on experience - Full Stack Development of a graphical interface is beyond me but is something  that I am not interested in at this time - I am only interested in raw data manipulation.

GMP had the application called UNI2000 which is primarily a payroll application - but they did not have he payroll - or if they did it was administered by a team outside the data centre - I never got to see the payroll or a payroll interface.   My time at GMP was spent fire fighting errors - I joined the company with a folder about 3 inches thick of reported errors. I set about classifying them and noticed a lot of the errors wee with screen painting history data - there were many problems with occupancy and a lot with court orders.

Screen painting was simple to resolve - they had elected to design the screens so that they scrolled horizontally. There was a scroll function that automatically constructed the screens if you chose to scroll vertically. Screen too a tenth of the time to develop and they were guaranteed to be perfect and did not need testing. I undertook the changer without user authorisation which made me very unpopular.

The first change I made at GMP was to take the terminals out of the middle room and place them on my programmers desks. I was accused of being mad by Nigel Milne !  Andy White allowed me to get away with it - I had obtained caballing from a Network friend of mine at another company.

It is really sad that I can not remember any of the data that was held in UNIPOST so for my exercise here I will write a Company Cars ERA.

and i will limit the data to car registration and tax renewal date.

.

The data base was defined incorrectly - I had decided to leave GMP because of poor management. The team consisted of two teams of three people when reality the whole job could have been done by one person - the method in which development was done was not Agile - everything had to be put through committee and every change had to be justified - there was no momentum.  Easy on the team working on the project but not my cup of tea - I wanted consolidation with the payroll.

I was introduced to Hayes Tables and acting up but never got to grips with the payroll interface - that seamed to work and my focus was on what was not working.

On reflection I got it wrong - I should have focused on documenting the system producing a decent User Manual whist I assigned errors to the team. The team were not dynamic held back by having one member of the team who was severely disabled. 

One thing that i did at GMP was validation standard - that is validating the whole database for errors - which is something that I did export and migrate into sosexo.

Joining Sodexo was a bigger disaster than GMP - there were more errors to fight - but the code that too me three weeks to develop at GMP was invaluable - I produced a report over 4 feet high of database errors.   This made me very unpopular with my manager and the payroll team as i had shown up deficiencies in there development and implementation.  My error reporting made  support life simple for me - whilst it was gifted to the user department they never really took it on board - it was easier for them to report an error to me to resolve.  Sodexo did not want a systems designer they wanted a support analyst and that is the part that i played mainly for 6 years.

I did get a little bit of development work but was not allowed to use unipost - I got company cars and NVQ reporting. But i did great work developing the system - I changed tyhe company structure reducing the schedule by about 8 hours and i designed the year end system. I was not allowed to get my hands on general ledger interface which was so badly designed.

Sodexo personnel system was badly designed they had introduced user hooks for abscence management which was not working. Because of the volume of problems we had to extend the team, We could not get IBM people so we got ICL People in with Payroll HR Experience - Sandra took over Administering the Team / Harry took over absence Management - basically because I refused to look at User Hooks and we go Paulette who had no IT Experience - Sadly Paulette never took to UNi2000 learning IBM is a big step and I did no take her under my wing. I was content developing my test systems and refining the operational aspects of the job.

I changed the job control to be parameter driven so that I could run multiple systems in parallel using the base production job control. I also introduce CMS input of the runtime parameters by the User giving them control of the base control dates and BACS dates - another more that made me unpopular in the users eyes. The users used to like to think that they were in control of the development and Sandra did a good job keeping lifer easy for us. But it was my work that moved the project forward, It was my understanding of VSAM that enabled me to strip records out of the production system real time and to drop them into a testbed.  I could then make changes and run a period end in minutes presenting the user with a gross to net.  Anne Jones never took to this approach she wanted to see changes to her assurance region so that her team could verify it - so that is what i did and it took days because the one region was shared by Harry Paulette and Sandra.

What Sodexo should have done was to have taken off link validation from their screens which would have given the system a totally different feel and they should have cleaned up their data.  Sodexo should have been brave and done an in house development for absence management with an interface into the payroll and put the Uni2000 product back to a standard product. That way they could have reduced the team to being a two man team which it should have been from the offset with control of the general ledger.

Sodexo Should have introduced Unipost for NVQ and Company Car processing - Which I will do now.

I will keek Personel simple to Hays table processing.

In fact what i will do is a TrainIT module that links Personnel Acting Up, Unipost and Occupancy, with a pay element called Acting Up. (which was not the Sodexo way)

I will also do BANK as a personnel function as an extension to the Casuals System for people working within the NHS PFI at Wythenshawe Hospital.

This will Introduce you to SSNA Mystudy Buddiies and NHS Infonet

I want to develop a payroll system where all the pay and deduction elements are defined as charge elements with proportional costing.

We will see how UNIPOST can be used for Acting UP.

Unipost will need to contain:

Post ID 

Date in Post 

Date out of post

Pay Grade 

Pay Scale

Training Courses Achieved (Many)

Commendations Awarded (Many)

Sodexo elected to go to SaP - I think that was a good move the Ersamus System was so terribly designed with poor cross validation and no data integrity validation plus it was not taking advantage of interfacing. There should have been many PC Solutions interfacing with the core database.

I can only imagine what a system would look like had somebody decided that google forms were a valid front wend interface.

This work never got started as in 1988 Ingersoll Rand elected to move away from mainframe solutions.

I moved into facilities management and my career as a solutions designer was over.

Sodexo should have given me everything that I wanted but it was not the case - They were a PC Development House - The skills on the mainframe side were very thin and there was no real interest by the management team to develop effective mainframe solutions. I did my best but it was hard work without a technical support team / DBA.

When I joined Sodexo I was assigned a programmer David. He did not have the skills to assemble and linkedit a program I had to step down from being a designer to being a programmer which on reflection was a bad thing to do - it proved costly in the long term and systems did not move forward with the momentum that was needed - I was swimming against the tide.

Back to ingersoll Rand - A great system - Just Payroll with a few personnel codes. but with a great in house front end system that reconciled job cards with attendance clocking.

We will attempt to drive out a modern front end which whilst processing attendance and absence management which Sodexo so desperately needed.

We will need and establishment database a personnel database and an attendance database and a task database to achieve this development.

All development will be done under project Zues on Adams Machine in his bedroom.

Ingersoll Rand was Simple Pay the Salary was input as an annual amount and the monthly pay calculation was the annual salary divided by 12. There was an adjustment pay element for pay awards within period. Something that the Royal Mail Parcel Force needed !

I joined him a week into the project to find we were in dispute - the user wanted a pay calculation which involved pay history and the calculation of pay changes within period. But the IT Department were putting space restrictions on the package. Brian went ahead with a complex pay calculation which I estimate he took 3 months to refine - I am still uncertain at he end of the exercise if it was working as we had to bring in a third consultant to test it.

My involvement was with the remainder of the pay and deduction elements, payslips, reporting and the online systems plus managing the project and the conflict with IT. IT were operating SAR to control the reports but would not work with us on SAR standards. I don't think IT liked the idea that consultants had been brought in to their patch.

The development went well - I was there for a year and would have liked to develop the year end procedures but the IT department said that was operations role.

My solution to the Rotal Mail is this. Change your business rules to reflect that a change of grade / scale is effective from the 1st of every month.

For pay upgrades within period set up an acting up pay element that inputs the number of days at a differential pay rate. This would negate the need to maintain history items at the overhead of the payroll department having to do a manual calculation - this could be done on the notification form from personnel that they are to receive a pay rise. The royal mail did not take UNIPERSONEL as part of the UNI2000 product so personnel procedures wee out of out remit.

In addition to Acting Up we could have developed a catch all Pay Adjustment pay element and a Pay Adjustment Deduction element for starters and leavers within period.

This method of pay would have taken Brian 1/2 a day to develop - he knew better ! It kept us in dispute and employment for 3 months.

I did get involved with Brian's code when  he was struggling by flowcharting it for Sid to test.

The code catered for starters and leavers within period plus multiple changes in pay. My argument was that the payslip did not reflect the employees salary. 

       

So we will focus on the calculation of gross pay for taxable pay and  elements

We will requirw 

elements 00 to 06 for pay elements

element zz for gross pay charge element 

codes 500 to 506 for proportional costing percentages 

codes 510 to 216 for proportional costing values

We require formulae 200 for Salary calculation 

We require formulae 2zz for proportional  costing calculation.

Code 001 Pay Grade 

Code 002 Pay Scale

Table 001 should be accessed by Pay Grade and pay Scale to find the Annual Salary.

Should only run if the status is Status 1 or 4.

This program should initialise 9nn codes if the file status is 4..