Client:
This bank is one of the largest banks in Poland with the majority of Polish capital. The Bank addresses its offer to individual customers, the segment of small and medium-sized companies, local governments, housing communities and large corporations.
Automatic closing of CURRENT accounts
PROJECT CHALLENGES
The process of closing savings and settlement accounts took a lot of time on the side of the Bank users. The process was not automated, it was based on data entered into Excel, then this data was distributed through tools such as sharepoint, and all activities performed on the accounts to close them were ‘clicked’ manually on the screens.
The client wanted to receive one system that would allow the entire process to be completed from start to finish and in which it would be possible to automate the activities performed earlier manually.
PROCESS FLOW
The project was divided into 4 stages. Each stage was implemented separately. Within each stage, the works were carried out in 2-week sprints. Only material previously prepared analytically (analysis and development could be overlapped) could be sent to a sprint. Each of the sprint goals was delivered to the Bank’s environment and was tested by the tester in the same sprint, which enabled regular integration with external systems. As a result, subsequent functional tests and UAT tests could take place without solving integration problems.
The first stage was the transfer of all business work from Excel and sharepoints to the system we created, while all activities were still carried out manually. Further stages implemented the automation of subsequent paths in the process, thanks to which, as the final product, we received a process that in a positive path is implemented fully automatically, without any user intervention. Only processes for which exceptions or errors have been defined, have to be carried out partly manually on particular screens.
TECHNOLOGY
The process has been implemented on the webMethods BPMS platform. Connection to services providing the functionality of external systems (all services constituting the account closing, as well as many others, such as downloading currency rates, reading the customer’s file, etc. – a total of about 30 services) was implemented in flow and java on webMethods Integration Server. For the needs of the process, a system for managing customer applications (CaseManagement) was created. It was implemented in Java in the Spring framework, and the application server was Integration Server. Exposing the spring application on IS was possible due to the use of Application Platform technology provided by SoftwareAG. User screens were created in AngularJS and CAF.
THE SOLUTION
The project was implemented by several teams (the BPMS team
creating the process, the ESB team exposing the services of external systems, as well as the team responsible for exposing the API to the account management system). Coordination of work was problematic given the large relationships between teams – e.g. It was not possible to call the service in the BPMS process until it was implemented in the ESB. For this reason, the work was divided into several stages and the teams worked in an overlapping mode. In the first stage, BPMS created the system based on screens, and the ESB issued services that BPMS could use in the second stage, etc. This enabled full automation in 4 stages of the project (each stage was followed by production deployment). We also introduced a generic system to handle customer requests with screens that meet the requirements for user operations, as well as provide reporting mechanisms. Thanks to this, future projects can be implemented faster and use the functionalities offered by CaseManagement (the time to connect a new process in CaseManagement is many times shorter than the time to develop dedicated screens anew).
WHAT THE CLIENT GAINED FROM THE IMPLEMENTATION?
A central, documented system for process management, thanks to which knowledge about the implementation of the process has been recorded, systematized and can be easily obtained.
Automating the operations of Bank users – no need to manually perform all activities gives huge time savings for users.
Immunity to human errors – in the automated process the possibility of making a mistake by the user is minimal.