1. T r u s t
t h e
E x p e r t s
Assuring a revitalized ATOM!
(Case Study at a US Fortune 500 conglomerate)
Crompton and Boyd (CNB) the management consultants engaged by the US Fortune 500 Conglomerate, Zaphire Inc
had randomly picked the ATOM Revitalization Program (ARP) as a test case, to review the internal workings, systems
and process efficiencies of the Treasury department. It was the job of Colin Minzberg the CFO to facilitate the process
and accordingly he decided to prepare a case study with which to brief CNB, which they could then review.
He remembered that Cynthia Stevens, who had taken over from Mark Guttenberg, was the QA boss of Treasury who
had overseen the ARP. Earlier she was Mark’s assistant during the Wall Street Suite (WSS) upgrade. He assigned the
work of preparing a comprehensive case study to her.
The Case Study
Background:
ATOM (Advanced Treasury Operations Management) is one of the legacy source applications, at Zaphire, that is used
to manage short term funding and investments globally, across multiple funding centers since 1993. Though the ATOM
application supported the growth in Commercial Paper (CP) funding from $25 billion to a peak of more than $120 billion,
its inflexibility became a real problem. It did not optimally support multi-currency CP funding. This resulted in manual
workarounds and offline reporting leading to process inconsistencies and the risk of compliance exposure.
The project began to take shape in 2011 and was launched as a Treasury “Top 14” Initiative in June 2012. The purpose
of the revitalization project was to completely upgrade ATOM’s older application stack, including the database and OS
layers. Additionally, the system was to migrate to the new infrastructure in line with the latest treasury standards.
The QA team validated and ensured that the new application functionalities were working as per business requirements
and also ensured that data hand-off between the new application and the Interface systems are functioning as
expected. However it was felt that Zaphire needed the assistance of a specialist testing house to business assure the
application, comprehensively.

2. Award of Contract
So began a renewed search! Soon realizing that they had worked
with a specialist testing house; Thinksoft Global Services Ltd
(TGSL) over a period of five years, particularly on a successful Wall
Street Suite (WSS) upgradation project. The testing contract was
awarded to TGSL, though it was initially awarded to a different
vendor,. The factors that weighed in TGSL’s favor in an
engagement of such a large magnitude were:
 Track record of testing Treasury and Capital Market
Applications
• WSS (for Debt, Derivatives and Forex)
• Kondor + (for Trade and Risk Management)
• Reuters Electronic Trading
• Temenos T24 (for Core Banking)
• Flexcube treasury services
•
•
•
•
Money Market Instruments
Short Term Lending and Borrowing
Long term Debt Instruments
Derivatives and Forex
 Domain focus and expertise
 Expertise gained from similar engagements resulting in
business-process-based functions
 Industry acknowledged certified professionals
The Testing Process:
With the revitalized ATOM in view, TGSL prepared the QA and
UAT testware covering ‘short term funding’, ‘investments’, ‘cash
management’, ‘accounting’ and related interfaces, clearly
defining the scope and approach.
 Knowledge of the Treasury Domain with:
Process Flow Diagram
Bloomberg
CP Rates
Market Data
CP Rates
Email
MDM
Master Data Interface
CP Rates
CP Rates
Market Data Updates
CD
Brokers
CD Traders
ESB
CP Trades / Asks
Payments/Fore Casts
Payments / Forecasta/
Cash Positions
Cash Management
Interface
JEs
IPAs
JEs
S
CP Trades / Acks
New ATOM
Application
Issuing & Paying
Agents
E
On Demand
B
Ledger
Accounting Interface
Trade Data
(CP / Investments)
Saleslogix
Bank Management
Interface
Bloomberg
Reporting
CP Trades / Acks
Trade Data
CP E Trade
Execution
DTCC / Omgeo
CP Trade
Confirmation
Adaptiv
Bancware
Risk and Collateral
Management Interface
CP Confirmation
HotScan
ESB-Enterprise Service Bus
Trade Data
(Informatica)
Trade Data
Trade Data
(Informatica)
Data
Warehouse
Legend: DTCC = Depository, Trust and Clearing Corporation,
Saleslogix = CRM solution, Adaptiv = Point credit and market
risk solutions, Bancware = Asset and Liability Management,
HotScan = Counterparty credit worthiness check
Term Funding Manager-IT’, the ‘MD (Corporate Investments)’,
the ‘Analyst (Cash Operations and Treasury)’, and the ‘Finance
Leader’. All of them were satisfied with the QA team’s coverage
on the business functions front.
The QA and UAT testware covering the in-depth business
functionalities was then delivered to the Project Manager, who
drove the engagement from the client end. The testware was
then reviewed by the ‘Short Term Funding-Director’, the ‘Short
The ‘test plans’ prepared by TGSL were then executed as two
comprehensive rounds of ‘application testing’ with the related
interfaces and one round of ‘critical business functionalities
discrepancy testing’.
TGSL(CS)12 ATOM Revitalization

3. A team of one ‘onsite coordinator’ at the client location, a
‘business analyst’ and four ‘test engineers’ at the offshore
location drove this engagement.
Multiple interfaces were connected to the core application,
which threw up greater challenges in validating the
interfaces:
Challenges encountered by TGSL
• Defect fixes in a staggered manner
• Unavailability of Interfaces on time
The initial challenges were: inadequate documentation, non
availability of ‘business requirement’ documents and the
‘functional specifications’ of the application’s business
processes. To their credit, despite not having any prior
exposure to ATOM, the QA team tided over the situation
banking on their vast domain knowledge and ability to
understand the business processes and application nuances in
a very short span of time.
Stakeholders being located across various geographies
posed additional challenges:
• Co-ordination with all the poles
• Coordination across various time zones
• Coordination with multiple business groups to get the
testware reviewed and defects classified and analyzed
Multiple touch points for a single interface:
For example: While testing - a functionality confined to a
particular region - Issuing & Paying Agents (IPAs), trades to be
created were instructed by the Treasury pole leader in Paris to
the QA team in India & USA. QA team would capture the trade
files and send them to the IPA in London. After processing the
trade files, the IPA team in London would send the files to the
Processing team in Mexico to process and create a
reconciliation file for QA validation. The QA team would then
coordinate with processing team in Mexico on non receipt of
the reconciliation file within an agreed timeframe
Business Processes Covered
The TGSL team conducted End-to-End testing of the ‘short
term funding’ and ‘investments business processes’. The team
also ensured complete coverage of the business processes
and the application’s functionalities.
Treasury Short Term Funding & Investments Functionalities Tested
Business Processes
Short Term Debt
Accounting
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
• Accounting GL Entries
• Accounting Reference
Rate Management
Trade Management
Reference Data
Limits Management
Bloomberg Rates upload and E-Trade
CP Trades Confirmation
CP Trades Settlements through IPAs
Structured Debt
• Trade Management
• Reference Data
• CD Trades Confirmation
Investments
• Trade Management
• Limits Management
• Reference Data
Cash Management
• Concentrations (Leveling)
• Payment Release
• Direct Wire Payments
TGSL(CS)12 ATOM Revitalization
Reports
•
•
•
•
•
Short Term Debt Reports
Structured Debt Reports
Investments Reports
Cash Reports
Accounting Reports
Interfaces (Handoff Testing)
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Bloomberg
CD&CP Confirms
IPAs
CP Rates upload Email
Market Data
Webcash
Ledgers
Risk Mgmt (Adaptiv & Bancware)
Saleslogix,
DB to Prestage
Instrument Types
Short Term Funding
• Commercial Papers
• Certificate of Deposits
Investments
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Commercial Papers
Certificate of Deposits
Government Debt
Commercial Papers
Money Market Funds
Agency Discount Notes
Belgian Treasury Bills
BILLET DE TRESORERIE
German Treasury Bills
Dutch Treasury Bills
UK Treasury Bills
AUSTRALIAN T-BILLS
Japanese T-BILLS

4. Trade Actions Coverage
Module
Trade Action Type
•
•
•
•
26% defects from Downstream Interfaces
16% defects from Cash Management and Banking
13% defects from Trade Management
10% defects from Reports
Short Term Debt
Change
Short Term Debt
Partial Buyback
Short Term Debt
Full Buyback
Short Term Debt
Change Principal Full
Short Term Debt
Change Principal Partial
Short Term Debt
Cancel
Short Term Debt
Partial Buyback Reversal
Short Term Debt
Full Buyback Reversal
Short Term Debt
Reorder
Short Term Debt
Reversal
Code
Short Term Debt
Partial Resolve
Data Related
Short Term Debt
Full Resolve
Configuration
Structured Debt
Change
Environment
Structured Debt
Cancel
Structured Debt
Change Principal Full
Structured Debt
Change Principal Partial
Investments
Cancel
Investments
Change
Value Addition by TGSL
Investments
Change Principal Full (Sell)
Investments
Change Principal Partial (Sell)
Investments
Change Principal (Buy)
• The team collated requirements in the form of business
processes and functions through discussions with
various business users and training sessions
Investments
Extend
After about 105 days of QA service TGSL presented the
following report. What was missed in the Unit and UAT testing
were correctly identified by the QA team and reported for action.
Business Functions Level Defects
13%
10%
5%
16%
26%
7% 2%
Reference Data
Cash Management & Banking
Reports
Confirmations
Settlements
Downstream Interface
Trade Management
Market Data
Upstream Interface
TGSL(CS)12 ATOM Revitalization
12%
73%
• 73% defects related to Code
• 12% defects related to Data
• The team provided Testware to UAT users to facilitate
their UAT testing
• A consolidated defect report was generated for QA and
User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
• (UAT)HP-ALM administration – set-up and maintenance –
UAT Testware and UAT defects were managed by TGSL
for the Client’s UAT team
TGSL prepared Testware which comprises of End-to-End
functional testing by bringing in domain understanding of the
application functions and the scope of business processes.
The client was able to Go-Live as planned “On time and within
the budget”
Highlights
Accounting
Pre Trade Management
7%
Benefits
3%
7%
5% 3%
Documentation
TGSL’s Report
10% 3%
Category Level Defects
At various instances during this program the QA team’s
meticulous and proactive involvement was applauded by the
Zaphire’s senior IT leadership team.
The defects identified and reported by the QA team surrounding
the IPAs, ensured that the trade settlements were seamlessly
carried out.

5. Client Speak
Correspondence at the US Conglomerate (client) also copied to TGSL (QA)
“
We would like to ask for additional assistance from QA. The QA team has great
knowledge of the ATOM tool and some of our functional team are still coming up to
speed, attending training, etc.
Our main trader needs some help in answering application related questions
coming from the poles. Peter has agreed that Michael will be a point of contact and
the developer is also providing a point of contact for questions.
Our business has asked if we can add someone from the QA team as an additional
source of knowledge around the tool so that questions get answered quickly.
Program Manager
Funding Systems,
Treasury Business
”
T r u s t t h e E x p e r t s
For more details, visit www. thinksoftglobal.com
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TGSL(CS)12 ATOM Revitalization