Business Need
A major financial institution with a payroll service bureau operation determined
its current payroll system does not support their projected growth goals. They decided
to replace it with a more robust payroll system that is expected
to scale and perform
as required. The financial institution decided to validate their selection by conducting
a performance and scalability test with the assistance of their technology group.
The following criteria
were identified:
- Estimate the maximum number of clients
the system can support per instance
- Determine the application and system performance
criteria along with acceptable
ranges
- Determine software/hardware requirements and associated costs
- Identify potential bottlenecks and technical shortcomings
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Approach
America OnShore (AOS) worked closely with both teams at the financial institution
to define a multi-faceted plan which began by establishing critical payroll elements
required to support a service bureau environment. With AOS's experience in enterprise
software development and HR/Payroll systems knowledge, a comprehensive test plan
was created to include a baseline for measurable criteria, detailed scenarios and
acceptable performance ranges. AOS network engineers and software professionals
reviewed and provided recommendations for the technical environment. The final challenge
was establishing a process in which to create sound test data. Given that payroll
data is sensitive and companies are required to adhere to stringent privacy rules,
AOS proposed
creating a tool to generate simulated test data to replicate production
data. The financial institution and AOS worked jointly to establish company profiles
and document normal and peak period payroll processing volumes to assist in the
planning of scalability testing. |
Result
The entire project was a collaborative effort that delivered a comprehensive
performance and scalability test plan. AOS developed an automated data creation
tool which created test data from defined company profiles and populated the test
environment for the internal team to conduct its stress testing. The technical team
was supplemented with AOS resources to create and execute test scripts and they consulted on performance monitoring tools and provided templates for reporting results.
AOS was able to provide these services to the financial institution by leveraging
its technical knowledge, payroll experience and product knowledge. The financial
institution validated their software selection which generated the
management information
used to obtain executive approval to move forward with the next project phase. |
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