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Distributor mandatory standards raise the bar

ESG Standards Version 16 highlights

V15 testing requirements

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By Chris Whitside

Do you have plans for the Thanksgiving weekend, October 8 to 12? The technical staff at FundSERV certainly do. They'll be in the office to facilitate FundSERV's conversion to ESG V15, and they will be on the phones helping customers with their own conversions and testing. Although the changes with V15 are significant — not the least of which is the adoption of XML and IBM's WebSphereMQ — FundSERV is ready. Months of planning, testing and preparation have already gone into the effort to ensure a smooth transition. The challenge now is to coax customers into making their own preparations early.

"Customers can rest assured we are doing everything we can at FundSERV to anticipate problems and to come up with contingency plans," says Paula Olson, manager technical support and UAT/QA. FundSERV will be contacting customers through September to help them re-test their new production connectivity options and to assist, where possible, with our customers' planned conversions. Even so, customers should by all means refer to the FundSERV Web site for more information and help."

Testing

The connectivity options are part of the conversion to IBM WebSphereMQ. Customers selecting connectivity option three (MQ to MQ and using an SSL certificate) will require a new production certificate from FundSERV's PKI team — the testing certificate cannot be used. Also, it's important that the technology platform used for testing is identical to the production platform. Otherwise, configurations carried over may not operate correctly.

FD file conversion

To ensure that all fund information is accurate, fund companies must provide a special fund setup (FX) file, in V15 format, for all active funds prior to the conversion weekend. FundSERV will begin accepting these files on September 1. Users should also be aware that although the new process is automatic, there are changes to workflow procedures. Some of the changes will be unforgiving.

"Our testing and analysis of current procedures tells us that users will have to be more careful, in particular when entering dates," says Dominic Ionadi, business analyst. "Sixty per cent of all FD rejects are caused because users did not use a future effective date. If past or current effective dates are entered, the FD file will be rejected automatically."

Important deadlines

There are a couple of critical deadlines that customers must meet before the weekend shutdown. Distributors need to be aware that the cutoff for V14 orders is 4 p.m. on Friday, October 8. Any V14 orders missing that deadline will be rejected. Orders that miss the deadline will have to be resubmitted in V15 format when the system comes back online on Tuesday, October 12. The FundSERV Web screens will be the only source to inquire on V14 orders after then.

Manufacturers will be required to produce their V14 batch files and NFU responses by 7 p.m. on Friday. FundSERV suggests that manufacturers process their NFU responses before their transaction runs to ensure they beat the cutoff.

Avoid the rush

"Of course, anyone wishing to guarantee that their orders and NFU messages are processed before the system shuts down on Friday would be wise to get their orders in a day or two in advance," adds Paula Olson. "In the final hours before shutdown, manufacturers will be dealing with their own conversion efforts on top of their day-to-day processing. There's no point in risking a log jam at the last moment."

Learn more now on the FundSERV Web site

For details on plans for the conversion weekend, including a schedule, please refer to the FundSERV Web site. Throughout the weekend, status reports will be available to customers 24/7 through an automated voice message system. That number and other contact numbers are available on the Web site. The technical support helpdesk will be available for live telephone support when the WebSphere MQ queues first become available for connectivity and production testing on Sunday at 2 p.m. Those help lines will be available until 5 p.m. and again on Monday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

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