Project Details: BIGS (Business Intelligence and Global Standards)

In Resume
Project	BIGS(Business Intelligence and Global Standards)
Customer	BP International
Period	Sep 2008 to Sep 2009
Description	BP International has initiated the Business Intelligence Global Standards (BIGS) project to provide a consistent, transparent and accessible approach for Management Information (MI) reporting. Lubricants and Services is a global business that has evolved over many years, with individual country offices implementing a mix of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems for providing MI. This mix of systems has led to a focus on local reporting requirements at the expense providing a consistent picture of SPU/BU/PU performance. With this model the SPU strategy is not fully delivered. The BIGS project has been implemented to mitigate this.
Role	Team Member
Solution Environment	Windows 2003 server, XP SP3, Solaris(Unix), Oracle 10g Database, Kalido Warehouse, Citrix Metaframe, JDEdward
Tools	Business Objects 5.1.7, Informatica 8.1
Highlights	Involved in the below activities Development of reports in Business Objects Maintains the security by using supervisor. Working with multilingual settings Testing of Business Objects on virtual servers Writing macros for report template. Gathering user requirements for report development Enhancements for BO and Analytics Support activities

                I was absorbed in a project called BIGS (Business Intelligence Global Standard) for the client British Petroleum or BP International. I was selected from a pool of fresher after an interview on my basic knowledge learnt from Initial Learning Program. But on the first day my manager allocates me as a junior support executive for Citrix administration, which was unexpected and weird.

                Though I was selected as Business Objects developer, an employee who was handling the Citrix administration for the project for last 5 years was started teaching me about the project infrastructure and Citrix administration. I was so enthusiastic to work on BI and asked my manager to give me a position in reporting. But there was no position left at that time and the guy was leaving and he has to give knowledge transition to someone.

                Though I thought that my career path is about to change, but I didn’t stopped learning BI and started learning project works on the Business Objects reporting. As the man was not only handling Citrix administration, he was also handling the total infrastructure of the project I was lucky to get hold of those knowledge too.

                Soon the scene became changed and another senior resource was identified for the infrastructure and I was assigned to Business objects reporting support project as there was an enhancement request came.

                So, on the day one at night I was told to talk to a US client and get her requirement note down.  Wallah! She was the toughest client in the whole project. I didn’t know that, and the discussion went fine. I documented the whole requirement and from next day onward my manager assigned me in that enhancement with a senior.

                That worked well and my senior was excellent in knowledge but don’t want to work. So she started guiding all of the time and I started developing and soon started doing on my own.

                The project was based on MDM and handling 34 countries data. As reporting team is always client facing and we have to discuss with clients all the time, I learned communication (verbal and written) in every aspects. I identified that how the requirement changes by geography. I used to communicate with US and Europe client who are really different in nature.

                I came to understand that developing report will not help me to grow faster. I have to develop Universe to get control over all the aspects of Business objects. Scope was really narrow as there was no requirement for new development. Fortunately I was assigned to a set of report which needs major universe change. I started with Bang and removed the master universe from server by mistake. But before all users started login into system I managed to up and running the universe. I learned the recovery of universe and tagging to the existing reports without any flaws. Only few of my colleagues knew this. The universe modification was over and those reports got appreciation from clients. 

                In that project, soon senior people were started leaving which was dangerous for the project but best for fresher to learn such things which were forbidden to them. Time logic was one of the major parts which our reporting system was using. This was a set of some tables which was controlling timing for all the geography. That have very complex logic into it and all of the possible time is present in those tables. The man who designed and developed the logic was about to go and he explained that to us. I picked up fast and started exploring the usage in the project.

                The project was very stable and huge and there were lots of things to learn, specially the ETL logic. As I was continuously working with ETL team soon I start understanding the ETL logic implementation and monitoring part.  But that’s all; I never developed any interest in developing ETL logic and continue my exploration in reporting world.

                I was using Business objects 5.1 and 6.5 in that project. But I was trained in BOXIR2 which is much better tool and I was looking for any option which is coming. As Business objects was now a SAP company they want to stop supporting application developed in BO 4.5, 5.1, 6.5. BP was looking for upgrading the application using new version. Step was costly and time consuming and client was delaying the upgrade as they don’t want to change a stable system.

                A proof of concepts was done by our seniors previously and my managers wanted to look into those documents and learn what changes we are expecting from the upgrade. I started looking that and also exploring the version upgrade process. Though TCS had many pre-defined rules but there were lots of things which were not covered in provided documents. I started digging all forums and collected huge set of information. Meanwhile client requested an issue list which were really impacting our projects and need a solid support for getting finance for this new upgrade project. I provided a detail report and the extract of that I published in my blog (this blog I am not updating anymore) sometime later:                                                     

http://arkaandbiold.blogspot.com/2011/09/list-of-bo-issues-faced-due-to-lower.html

                Still, there was delay in implementing the project and my project was not ready to release me. But they want me to go for a new type of assignment which changed my way of thinking.