A public utility company was looking to automate and streamline data transfers with their merchant bank. Their requirements were to orchestrate the transfer of statement information and provide a reliable system to deliver that information to their internal cash management and check refund systems.

They were also looking at adding several banks, which would have made an unweildy process much worse since the download process and file formats from each bank were completely different.

We proposed that they approach each bank and request the data in "BAI 2?" format, which most banks are equipped to deliver. Using their existing Gentran Server software from Sterling Commerce, and an external ftp server, we set up a process for receiving the files that included automatic audit trail and archiving functionality. On the delivery side, the different applications for the file required that different subsets of the data be delivered to different groups on several different platforms. Because they were in the process of redefining their internal EAI architecture, we proposed a very lightweight solution that avoided reliance on any complex or expensive components.

A simple perl script was used to parse the file, validate that the file contained the correct data for the correct accounts and days, split it into parts for the various consumers of the data and then delivered it using ftp. The script accounted for banking holidays, company holidays and handled both positive and negative notifications for the arrival and state of the data from each bank. New banks and accounts could be configured in a matter of minutes, as could new recipients.

The project immediately saved one FTE and dramatically reduced the time required to download and consolidate the data. The verification features came into play almost immediately as banks occasionally delivered data for the wrong days, for the wrong accounts and with invalid formats. Instead of requiring a time consuming backout process (as the best outcome), the errors were caught within minutes of the data arriving. The client estimated that this feature alone more than justified the cost of the project within days of beginning operation.

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