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9/2/2014 1:36 PM

	Karma
6 posts

Automate Data Migration

I have been working on a project for automating manual upload of spreadsheets in to General Ledger system. I am struggling on how to approach on my Functional requirement document. What are the things I should include in this document. I feel like my BRD was almost like FRD.The planing ( design prospective) so far is creating staging table and then formatting as required by business from that point and uploading.

From BA point of view how should I approach and what should be included in my FRD. Any help and suggestion will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks so much

karma.

9/8/2014 12:24 AM

	Adrian M.
765 posts

Re: Automate Data Migration

Hi Karma,

In terms of identifying requirements and solution, a data migration project is not any different than any other project a Business Analyst would work on.

I would begin by asking some of the basic questions (and documenting the answers in the FRD 'system shall' statements, diagrams, tables, etc.):

Why - Why is this project important? What is the rationale behind this project? What benefits are going to be realized by this project?
Who - Who will be benefiting from this activity? Who are the key actors (direct or indirect)? Who will be generating the spreadsheets to be uploaded?
When - How often do these spreadsheets need to be uploaded? Is the uploaded triggered by a system event, timer, user, business event?
How - Are there any business or user requirements which place constraints on how the solution should be crafted?
What - What type of information is contained in the spreadsheets? Are there more than one type of data to be uploaded (ex: credit card debit transactions, invoices, journal entries, wire transfer transactions, etc.)

Specific to your situation, here are some things you'll need to consider in your requirements and/or solution:

Are there going to be one type of spreadsheet ore more than one?
How will the import process know what data is what? Ex: will columns have labels, will first column always contain transaction ID...
Are there any assumptions as to the quality of the data? Ex: are all fields required, does the system assume that column x contains dates formatted as mmddyyy? etc.

In terms of the format of information in the FRD, it depends on what you want to show:

For assumptions, a table listing the assumption and if it was confirmed by whom.
For types of upload records/data, a class diagram (business object model) would be great.
For actors and what they want to accomplish, maybe a use case diagram with use cases such as: Upload Off-line Invoices, Upload Adjustments, etc.
For non-functional requirements, you could use 'system shall' statements such as: "The system shall support up to 20 spreadsheet uploads per day." "The system shall support spreadsheets of up to 10,000 records." etc.

Hope this helps!

Adrian

Adrian Marchis
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