1. EI Newsletter
May - 2009
01
A Glimpse into year 2008
Welcome to the latest
issue of EI Newsletter! It
is almost a year since our
last publication, so we
have a lot to catch-up.
The year 2008 began on
a good note both for
NetSol and EI as we
received the ISMS certification. EI
resources fully participated in this and made
sure that everyone understood and
implemented the requirements set forth by
the ISO 27001 standard.
For EI, the year started well with our
Application Development and Testing teams
that got involved in the JASPER project at
an early stage and got a chance to work
closely with the core teams in UK. Up till
now, teams in EI are continuing to work
diligently in the fast paced iteration based
approach. The development team also got
involved in the Innovation Works project for
the US region. However, the most
significant achievements were the going live
of ABCR and Hertz projects. ABCR went
live on January 25, 2008 and Hertz on June
2, 2008. From EI’s perspective it was great
news as we had a significant number of
resources involved in all phases of
development.
Last year, we laid lot of emphasis on getting
our resources trained and certified on world-
class accreditations. The Application Testing
team took the lead and worked towards
CSTE, ISEB, and AIS certifications.
Similarly, the BA team worked to get the
INS track and AIC certifications from
AICPCU. The Application Development
team targeted SCJP and the Application
Support had its eyes set on Oracle DBA
and Linux administration certifications. In
the last 12 months, EI has achieved 3 AIC,
11 CSTE, 5 AIS, 5 ISEB, 5 QC, 9 QTP, 1
LoadRunner, and 5 SCJP certifications with
more to follow in the near future. Hats off to
all these hardworking individuals who
despite their busy schedules managed to
achieve all these certifications.
Another important event during the first half
of 2008 was Jeffrey Bilbrey’s and Michael
Carson’s visit to Lahore. This was
significant because both these individuals
came all the way from US to Lahore to meet
and congratulate the brilliant resources who
had worked behind the scenes day and
night to deliver one of the most anticipated
projects for Innovation Group in US.
The year 2008 ended with the EI Annual
Dinner. As always, the dinner night was full
of fun and entertainment. On this occasion,
outstanding performances for the year were
acknowledged with appreciation and
awards.
‘ EI is different, ’ the success story
continues and this is all because of the
wonderful team that keeps on making an
impression on everyone across NetSol and
Innovation Group with their efficiency,
expertise, and excellence.
A GLIMPSE INTO YEAR
2008
OPERATIONS INSIGHT-UK
HONORS & AWARDS
NETSOL ROUNDUP
EI PROFILES
EI ACHIEVEMENTS
EI ANNUAL DINNER
FUN ISN'T IT
PROJECTS GONE LIVE
TEAMS AT THEIR BEST
HighlightsHighlights
© 2009 Extended Innovation. All rights reserved www.extendedinnovation.com

2. 02 © 2009 Extended Innovation. All rights reserved www.extendedinnovation.com
Projects Gone live >>>
Projects Highlights
“It's all about the *team* - without everyone
working together, we'd never have achieved
the goal, and your fellows know what real
teamwork is!”
Hertz went live on June 02, 2008, in
UK. Ever since, the system has been
running smoothly and we haven’t had any
major glitches. The next target was Benelux
(Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg)
which also went live successfully on 4th of
May 2009. This was an achievement for EI
as all the development and testing was
EI bagged another project to its credibility:
The Jim Morgan Family Enterprises –
Guaranteed Asset Protection known as
JMFE – GAP went live. JMFE has been
involved over the past 40 years in
Automotive Industry providing Finance and
Insurance solutions to the industry. It is
currently ranked as number 22 on Forbes
List of Top Private Companies in the US
market. Other products and programs which
JMFE has been offering include Vehicle
Protection Plan, Lease Vehicle Protection
plan and others.
The project kicked off on 9th Jan, 08 and
was delivered to the client on 21st Dec, 08.
The JMFE team faced various challenges
during the project – one of them was the
involvement of Client during System Testing
which invoked various business changes.
The team had to achieve tight deadlines
with changing requirements which was a
major challenge. The Project Manager
Christina Jacobs deeply admired the JMFE
team work: JMFE is completely developed
by EI resources starting from its business
analysis till its final delivery. No doubt Its a
great achievement for us.
Innovation Works is a feature rich, end-to-
end claim and policy solution that addresses
the needs of the worker's compensation
industry that is far rooted into other
commercial insurance product lines.
Innovation Works is supported by a highly
flexible workflow and rules-based engine
that enables insurers to effectively mitigate
their overall exposure, maintain profitable
growth through streamlined management
processes, increase operational
understanding and improve customer
service. Innovation Works is developed
using state of the art tools and technologies
and harnesses the power of the Microsoft’s
Asp.net pages with configurable workflows.
Its current development activities include
the incorporation of persistence framework,
3rd Party integration services, workflow
builder and XML builder for providing user-
friendly access to configurations. The
product development road map is comprised
of three cycles out of which two have been
completed. A strong marketing campaign is
in progress and many prospective clients
have shown interest in the product.
Innovation Claims is a component of the
Innovation Insurer Product which will be
used as a Base Product by The Innovation
Group for insurance industry. This product
was previously known as Jasper Claims.
Currently Innovation Claims is moving
quickly towards a stage where a deliverable
is being finalized. This deliverable is
The framework that is proposed to be
used for development going forward
(JSP for presentation and Java
services for the claims build, it is in
essence IDS v3) instead of IDS 2.0
or older versions
Innovation Claims is using Agile
Development Approach which supports the
product to be delivered in smaller chunks
known as Iterations to increase the
manageability and visibility to
customers/stakeholders.
Innovation Claims is being developed for the
US, UK, Canada and Australia region. The
product will be handling different LOBs (i.e.
Motor, Property etc).
This product Innovation Insurer has now
been divided in two phases, first phase of
which is now complete which mostly
includes the required features/functionality
for Motor claims LOB. Focus of the
development during second phase will be to
concentrate on completing features for
Property LOB and also to give support to
upcoming project deliveries (i.e. Safe Auto
/ Enterprise UK) change requests.
In addition to this product will be matured
for different regions in the mean time.
Innovation Claims has two modules FNoL
(First Notification of Loss) – Front Office
Environment and Back Office.
FNol provides you with the functionality
needed to log the initial details of
motor/property insurance claims. Whereas
Back Office is mainly dealing with the
Claims Handling activities, creating diaries
and referrals, audits, handling features and
claim payments against reserves.
Being part of the Innovation Insurer product,
Innovation Claims has reached a point
where its completion requires dedicated
time from experienced resources. And to
avoid the efforts, Jasper project is being
carried on to evaluate the best use of time
and effort. We hope that, Jasper becomes a
success and a more efficient development
environment that could deliver more flexible
applications in a faster timescale.
mainly done by us.
Benelux is also a huge
success for Innovation
Group as it is the first
IDS 2 claims
implementation ever to
go live in multiple
countries, handling multiple currencies and
languages. We are now moving forward to
achieve the same milestone for some other
countries like France, Germany, Italy, Spain
and Switzerland which reflect growing
confidence in Hertz.
Innovation Works
Innovation Claims – Introduction
¢

3. 03 © 2009 Extended Innovation. All rights reserved www.extendedinnovation.com
Teams at their Best >>>
EI DEV Team
EI QA Team
EI Support Team Highlights
EI’s Development
wing underwent
major changes
related to the
technological
perspective during
the last year, as
Innovation Group decided to upgrade
its Integrated Development Platform
(the Insurance Design Studio) from
version 2.0 to 3.0 (JASPER), and
started moving towards the Thin Client
architecture from a Thick Client one.
For the very same purpose, a significant
number of resources from EI went over
to Innovation Group and were involved
in the development of the new Policy
and Claims systems. Both these teams
recently delivered iteration 19, which
was targeted towards completing auto
and home insurance business for the
US.
In addition to Hertz, two more projects,
ABCR and JMFE, went live during
2008. Again, these projects were mainly
resourced by EI, and made us all proud
as these projects were a huge success
for both Innovation Group and Extended
Innovation.
The Development team is also providing
onsite support for the NUI (Norwich
Union Insurance) project, which is
based on Innovation Policy , and as part
of its Run Team, the developers are
providing 24/7 support for the deployed
IDS (v 2.0) application to the client.
They also successfully implement and
deploy monthly releases after
incorporating new requirements from
the client.
Innovation Works (a US based Policy /
Claim Management Application, based
on the .Net architecture) was kicked off
during the first quarter of 2008.
Members of the EI Development team
are involved in the development of the
Claims side of the application in
addition to developing and maintaining
customized supporting applications,
which add up to the dynamism of the
overall project. Work includes the
application’s XML builder and the
workflow builder.
Individual development teams have
been praised by their counterparts,
team leads, and Project Managers at
Innovation Group because of their
excellent development and application
support work. For the same reason,
Innovation Group targets EI as its
primary resource pool for almost any
project that comes its way.
By now it is a well
established fact that
our QA team knows
best to execute any
critical tasks. Quality
work produced by
them is well
recognized and
respected in Innovation Group and
Netsol. They have proved it time and
again.
The team has achieved their goal of
having all the resources well equipped
with QTP skills without any external
help. EI now boasts a good number of
Quality professionals with 11 CSTE, 11
QTP, 6 ISTQB-CTFL, 5 QC, 5 AIS and 1
HP Virtual User Generator certification
and we are proud that these include a
fair count of female resources. Saima
Wahab topped as she secured 91%
marks in CSTE.
Currently QA is solely responsible for
test automation work on Claims 6.0 and
handles most of the automation stuff on
Policy 6.1. EI has developed a good
knowledge base for these products that
will lead them to play an important role
in upcoming projects. The other
projects under test are Hertz and
Innovation Works. Support Test team is
providing well diversified Testing
services for CLEAR, Core Classifier,
Core Geniq, Allstate Claims, RAC,
motorCare and ABCR.
Over the last few months, EI
Application Support team has worked in
the US, UK, Canada and Pakistan.
With Innovation Group’s growing
confidence in the capabilities of our
Support team, we were asked to
spearhead various projects like Hertz,
JMFE and CCRG. All of these projects
have gone live now and our support
specialists are continuing to lead these
projects. In addition to these, we have
also embraced the releases for
InterAct, Geniq Core and DocProd.Our
Support specialists are also providing
the QAS support to various Innovation
Group’s projects using this post code
lookup service. We are also in the
process of training our support
specialists on the latest Innovation
Group’s products to enable them to
work proficiently in the new products’
world. Along the way, we have received
fantastic feedback for our work.
EI BA Team Highlights
In the last couple of
months, EI Business
Analysis team has
worked in the US,
UK, Australia and
Pakistan on various
projects and
successfully
completed their assignments. In the
US, our BAs were involved in the
analysis and design of JMFE which
has gone live now. We have also
helped Innovation Group’s Sales team
in the US during their sales cycle. In
the UK, our BAs performed the
analysis and the design of the
Innovation Group’s latest product
(Innovation Insurer). In Australia and
Pakistan, we did the gap analysis of
the Australian and Pakistani insurance
requirements respectively to ensure
that Innovation Insurer can be tailored
for these regions as well. As usual, we
got marvelous feedback from around
the world for our work. We have also
received Performance Excellence
Award from NetSol.

4. 04 © 2009 Extended Innovation. All rights reserved www.extendedinnovation.com
Operations Insight-UK
Honors & Awards
NetSol Roundup
Mr-Sajjad Kirmani receiving the FPCCI
exports trophy from Prime minister
Yousuf Raza Gilani
Though Innovation
Group offices
worldwide and EI
office in Lahore are
connected through
high speed
communication
networks, need for a
resource to be permanently placed in
global PMO was being felt for some
time.
After very careful deliberations an
agreement was reached to place
Usman Asif in Whiteley office to sit
alongside PMO and the skill set
managers.
Primary objective has been to provide a
presence that can be used to get
instant feedback and resolution of any
items arising related to resource
allocation, relationship management,
performance and collaboration.
Apart from filling in this relationship
gap, Usman has been an active member
of project management team in
Innovation Group. He was involved as a
PM in the delivery of a technology
refresh project to Claims People Group.
He provided project management
services in the pre-sales phase of
delivering Symbility (Innovation being
VAR for Symbility in UK) to Royal &
Sun Alliance one of the leading
Insurance companies in UK,
subsequently he is managing this
project in its implementation phase.
While blessed with a
hardworking team,
we at EI also have
our share of HR &
Operational
challenges. Most of
the challenges are a
result of our global
operations and cross-cultural issues.
The HR & Operations team headed by
Saima Momin works as a service
provider and lends good support to
management. It plays a useful role in
promoting EI’s open culture and
employee friendly practices. An effort is
made to show care and maintain
relationship with all resources, which
over the period has helped in relatively
better employee retention and
employee satisfaction.
At EI we understand that our biggest
asset is our people, we try and treat
them the best as we can. HR all along
has made a useful contribution in EI’s
success and continues to play its role in
these fast changing times. Besides the
team also provides support in all
operational matters, thus helping the
management to focus on core work and
delivery tasks.
Alongside HR & Operations
the team also handles
Administration, travel and all
star related activities. Coordination with
NetSol’s corporate HR and other
related departments is also a part of its
responsibilities.
The team takes pride in its role and
would continue contributing to EI’s
success and always make people feel ‘
EI is Different.‘
The management continues to present
cash rewards and merit certificates to
acknowledge and appreciate the
brilliant performers among the
employees. Following employees were
awarded Performance Excellence
Awards during the first quarter 0f 2009:
Business Analyst
Principal Software
Engineer
Senior Software
Engineer
Business Analyst
EI HR & Operations
Fatima Arif
Sohail Iqbal
Faizan Amjad
Khan
Majid Javed
Netsol Technologies awarded
Information Security and Quality
Engineering contract with the
leading commercial bank in UAE.
Netsol has won the Federation of
Pakistan Chamber of Commerce
and Industries (FPCCI) Exports
trophy for the fifth consecutive
year.
Netsol Technologies acquired Ciena
Solution LLC, bringing SAP
consulting services into Netsol’s
solutions portfolio.
Saleem Ghauri (Chairman and
CEO, NetSol Technologies
Limited) appointed as Chairman
Task Force on Information and
Communication Technologies.
Nissan Services Austalia (NFSA)
goes live with Netsol Technologies
suit of financial products
¢
¢
¢
¢
¢

5. 05 © 2009 Extended Innovation. All rights reserved www.extendedinnovation.com
EI PROFILES
EI Annual Dinner
EI Achievements
Mubashir Hassan
Zargham Faisal Khan
Awais Maqbool
Qindeel Riaz
Mubashir Hassan
joined Extended
Innovation in
June 2006, currently
working as Pr. SQAE.
He has done masters
in Computer
Sciences from
Hamdard University, Karachi and has
recently cleared the CSTE (Certified
Software Test Engineer) exam. He
brings over 5 years of experience in
Software testing roles including Testing
Team Lead and successful delivery of
Banking Software Solutions. Mubashir
has a substantial background in
Financial/Banking products and
services. Mubashir is a hardworking,
cooperative resource and his efforts
are highly acknowledged by the people
at UK office.
Zargham Khan joined Extended
Innovation in May 2006 and is working
as Sr. Software Architect. He
possesses 10 years of IT experience in
leading the architectural design,
development, and Implementation of
large-scale, multi-modular technological
solutions to meet challenging business
needs. Accountable for successful
implementation of new system and
enhancements, constantly exceeding
customers’ expectations. Extensive
qualifications in all facets of system
development life cycle, from initial
feasibility analysis and conceptual
design through documentation,
implementation, user training and
enhancements. Zargham has done
Masters in Computer Science and has
also achieved technical certifications
such as SCJP & SCWD.
Awais joined Extended Innovation as a
part of Application Development team
in Feb 2006. Not only that he attributed
th team with his technical knowledge he
also firmed his grip on Insurance
domain by clearing a couple of
certification exams and proved himself
as a valuable addition to the team.
Combined with his
excellent analytical
and communication
skills he also proved
his ability to learn
new domains quickly
and was moved to a
role of a Business
Analyst. As a business Analyst, he went
to USA to conduct the onsite analysis
and requirement gathering of a key
project and played an important role in
the successful delivery of the project.
He carries over 4.5 years of on hand
experience in the field of business
analysis and software development.
Awais has done bachelors with majors
in IT and Business and is very keen to
pursue further studies.
“Qindeel Riaz joined
Extended Innovation
in July 2007 as a
Software Engineer in
application
development. She
joined AllState policy,
DocProd team and
performed exceptionally well. She then
moved to claims and joined Hertz, one
of the key projects of Innovation Group,
and acquired appreciation for her
dedication and hard work. She also has
been participating in the IDS Advance
Rule Documentation. Qindeel has
achieved technical certification for java
i.e SCJP with outstanding percentage
of 91. She also has good expertise on
various programming languages which
include C, C++, Visual C++, Java,
HTML, Visual Prolog and Assembly.
She has a BCSE (Hons) degree from
University of Engineering and
Technology, Lahore.
Our Event Management Team stands
out amongst the best that NetSol has.
Arranging and organizing the annual
dinner is a regular feature at EI. The
Annual Dinner 2008 was held at
Defence Club, Lahore. Relatively low on
budget; nevertheless EMT’s creativity
made it a memorable event. It was very
well attended and everybody had a
great time.
Some department heads were also
invited on the occasion.
Aamir Chaudhry Saima Momin
spoke a bit about E . The event was
marked by distribution of certificates to
achievers in various areas, followed by
entertaining kits and comedy. The
evening was thoroughly amusing and
fetched well deserved applause. Sajjad
Kirmani, Col. Shakeel Kazmi, Aamir
Ishaq, Shahid Mukhtar and Abdul
Following certifications were achieved
during the last quarter of 2009:
Project Management Professional
certification was attained by Asim
Mirza and Khuram Hafeez Qureshi
Shahzad Zia and Qindeel Riaz
attained the “SCJP” certification
Jawwad Sadiq passed the “Quality
Center” exam.
“OCP” certification was achieved
by Waqar Ahmad.
Foundation Certificate in Software
Testing was attained by:
Rubina Hassan Naqvi
Salma Saleem
Mehnaz Tariq
Sajjad Kirmani,
and
I
s
¢
¢
¢
¢
¢
¢
¢

6. 06 © 2009 Extended Innovation. All rights reserved www.extendedinnovation.com
Wahab were prominent amongst the
guests. Generally people came with
their spouses and children, and all
enjoyed the opportunity to socially
interact with each other.
Funny Computer Acronyms
- It Still Does Nothing
- Arrogance Produces Profit-
Losing Entity
- World Wide Wait
- Defunct Operating System
- I Blame Microsoft
- Most Applications
Crash; If Not, The Operating System
Hangs
- Produces Erroneous
Numbers Through Incorrect
Understanding of Mathematics
- A Merely Insignificant Game
Addiction
- Meaningless Indication of
Processor Speed
- Will Install Needless
Data On Whole System
- Most Intelligent
Customers Realize Our Software Only
Fools Teenagers
1: What is the computer's first sign of
old age?....
2: What does a baby computer call his
father?....
3: What is an astronaut's favourite key
on a computer keyboard?ISDN
APPLE
WWW
DOS
IBM
MACINTOSH
PENTIUM
AMIGA
MIPS
WINDOWS
MICROSOFT
Fun Isn’t it
Riddles
EMT Head:
EMT Lead:
EMT Memebers:
Saima Momin
Rao Farhan
Farhan Farrukh, Salma Saleem, Tahir Akbar Khan, Aabid Imran, Mudassir Nazir, Rida Riaz, Awais Maqbool, Zamran Khan,
Mohammad Affan
EI Group Photo Credits
Program In charge:
Editor:
Other Contributors:
Saima Momin
Sara Afzal
Khurram Pervaiz, Rahat Sadiq, Najam S
Khan, Ayesha Gull Haroon, Tahir Akbar
Khan, Usama Majeed
MemoryLoss
Data
SpaceBar
Event Management Team (EMT)
The EI event management team is well experienced in organizing attractive events like amusement trips, birthday parties, farewells and sports tournaments, and
annual dinner gatherings.These events are enjoyed and appreciated by EI’s resources, who welcome them as a much needed break from the hectic work routine.
The EMT team structure is as follows;