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Siemens Upgrades
Email 09/05/2005
To all TIS-Web bureau customers.
This E-mail is just to keep you up to
date with the updates that are planned to be introduced on the TIS-Web
service in the next 2 - 3 months. The updates will address many
longstanding performance, reliability and reporting issues. Also
highlighted are two significant opportunities for interested Bureaus to
possibly generate further on-going business.
Working Time Directive
The new
reports and features needed to support the analysis of Working Time
Directive have taken a little longer to develop than originally
anticipated but will be available on test servers from Thursday or
Friday of this week. If you would like access to the test servers to try
the new reports please contact me and I will set up a test account.
Should you wish to try a test account you must only enter data that you
can afford to loose. You will be using test accounts that will not be
transferred to the live service, data may be corrupt - the reports are
still under test and the test server will eventually be reformatted to
support other development. If no major faults are found during final
testing during the period 12 - 20 May then it is currently planned to
install the WTD upgrade during the weekend of May 21 - 22.
This is a major upgrade that not only requires the installation of new
software but will also require automatically adding additional data to
every chart in every account. Current estimates are that an average
account will take from 3 - 4 minutes to upgrade during which time it
will not be useable. The upgrade will be fully automatic and the vast
majority of accounts will be upgraded during the weekend, however a
small proportion are likely to still need upgrading during the following
Monday. Until an account has been upgraded it will not be able to
provide accurate WTD reports.
To reduce the time required to upgrade accounts we would appreciate it
if all Bureaus could check their records and let us know of any accounts
that are no longer in use. Deleting these unused accounts will
significantly reduce the amount of time required to upgrade the service
and will also help improve server performance in the longer term.
Off-Line Entry and scanners
Development of
a combined Off-line data entry and scanner package is now entering final
test. This software module will also support off-line entry of charts
using the QFOS reader or Compact Chart reader. The final software
release is scheduled for 17th May and should be available for test, over
the internet, from the week starting Monday 23 May. The off-line entry
module will allow a user to enter data without requiring an active
internet connection. This should shield a customer from any internet
related performance issues. Data will still need to be uploaded to the
servers as a batch prior to reporting.
Siemens VDO Trading are inviting Bureaus to take part in the final
testing of the off-line entry system prior to release. If a Bureau
wishes to take part in this testing then Siemens VDO Trading is prepared
to pay the Bureau a flat rate of 30p per chart as long as the Bureau can
meet the following conditions.
A) The data
must not be live customer data - it will have to be discarded after the
test
B) The bureau can guarantee to add at least 2000 charts during the test
period, probably no longer than 2 weeks.
C) The bureau adds no more than 3000 charts during the test period
D) All data will have to be added during a tightly controlled period
agreed in advance with Siemens VDO Trading
E) The bureau agrees to report all issues to Siemens VDO trading as soon
as possible.
It is planned
to complete this testing before June 17th but if major issues are found
then this deadline will be reviewed. Siemens VDO are looking for at most
four bureaus to take part in this testing.
Chart entry and Hours Law issues
An improved
chart entry control is now almost ready for installation, this will
include a revised tab order to increase productivity during chart entry.
However due to the urgent need to deploy the WTD reports the improved
chart entry control will not be finally installed until at least one
week after the WTD reports have been installed. Therefore the new chart
entry control will not be installed until the weekend of the 28 - 29 May
at the earliest. This may mean the service is off-line for approx 1
hour. When installed the new chart entry control will be automatically
downloaded at next log in. You may need to ensure that all users have
full admin privileges to successfully download the new control.
At the same
time we will be releasing a fix for the occasional problem where an
Hours Law analysis locks and the Infringement Report and Drivers letter
cannot be run.
The final date
of this release will be determined by the success of the WTD release and
testing of Off-line entry. A more definitive date will be published at
the end of next week.
Performance
Since WTD has
come into force the TIS Web service has experienced some exceptionally
heavy traffic with a corresponding performance delay during peak
periods. Two major upgrades are planned in the next two months to
increase network and processing capacity.
1) The
communication lines are to be upgraded in the next fortnight by BT to
give approximately 8 times as much capacity as is currently available.
The exact date of the switch to new lines has still to be decided,
possibly as early as this week, but will be no later than Tuesday May
24th. Normally we try and ensure that upgrades take place at weekends
but in this case BT cannot oblige. When the upgrade happens the service
is likely to be off-line for approx 30 minutes. We will keep all
customers posted as to the exact date and time of this upgrade.
2) New servers
have also been purchased. These will be installed during the 2nd half of
June and all existing accounts will be transferred to the new hardware.
When this happens the TIS-Web service will be offline for an entire
weekend. Again we will let you know the exact weekend that this upgrade
will take place. We hope to be able to give a fortnights notice to allow
weekend work schedules to be planned.
Business Opportunity
Siemens VDO
Trading are currently talking to a leading Fleet Insurer with regards to
using tachograph data and analysis to refine risk analysis. The insurer
is thinking along the lines of reducing premiums for any fleet
that can prove it monitors driver fatigue and that its operations meet
certain KPI's with regards to drivers rest and infringement / fault
frequencies and claims. The insurer does not wish to set up its own
Bureau but will in the long term monitor or use the data generated by
existing tachograph analysis Bureaus.
The Insurer
initially needs lots of data to assess the relationship between driver
fatigue, Infringement frequencies and known claims histories. Siemens
cannot offer this data without a customers permission but is naturally
already canvassing its own direct customers. If any bureau are also
interested in taking part in this trial then please let me know.
If you are
interested I will forward your contact details to the insurer who will
have the final decision on who, if anyone, they contact. If you do wish
to take part then you will need to ask customers permission to use their
data, Siemens cannot use your clients data.
If this trial
is successful it is likely to see a large increase in tachograph
analysis across the industry to gain the benefit of reduced premiums.
The insurer will insist that a fleet has its charts, or digital data,
either entered or audited on a regular basis by a reputable agency,
probably from a short list that they nominate. This obviously offers a
huge source of potential extra business in the long term. If you require
further information please do not hesitate to call.
Best regards and apologies for the
frustrating delays in delivering these much needed enhancements.
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Email 19th May 2005
To all TIS-Web Bureau customers
Working Time Directive - System upgrade
A final decision on whether the
upgrade will happen this weekend 21, 22 May is to be taken this
morning. Currently there are no known major bugs that should stop this
happening. It is Siemens VDO Tradings' intention to go ahead with the
upgrade Saturday morning as long as only minor bugs exist. We will
publish a list of any known bugs (Currently only minor formatting
issues on printouts) and these will be addressed in patches in the
month following.
As stated in my earlier E-mail, after
the upgrade has been installed on Saturday the system will need to
recalculate weekly WTD totals for every chart in every account -
currently well over 1,000. This process will be running constantly
over the weekend but will almost certainly not be complete by Monday
morning. The accounts will be processed in the order that they have
been added to the service so it is likely that accounts that have been
added recently may not have completed WTD calculations by Monday.
Whilst the recalculation is in process the following should be
expected.
The service will be down most of
Saturday 21 but should be back up and running Saturday evening.
Recalculation will be running from
Saturday afternoon until at least Monday evening. Accounts
will still be useable, charts can be entered, reports produced etc.
while the recalculation is in progress.
The service may run slower while
recalculation is underway.
To analyse data using WTD reports an
operator will need to visit the Options - Hours Law Setup page and
switch from EU Drivers Hours to WTD Analysis for existing accounts.
They will then need to visit the WTD configuration page and set the
type of reference period that they wish to use for that particular
account. This page will not be available until the service has been
upgraded on Saturday.
All new accounts created after Monday
23 will automatically be set to use WTD by default but it is still the
operators responsibility to set WTD parameters such as type of
reference period.
WTD Infringements based on chart
activities such as 60 hour warnings, Insufficient break after 6 or 9
hours duty, excessive night working etc will be available via
Infringement report and drivers letter even if the calculation process
has not been started or completed on an account.
New reports that analyse the 48 hour
average working week will not give accurate results until
recalculation has completed.
The WTD recalculation will only go back
as far as Monday 3rd January 05. Therefore should a WTD weekly
analysis report be run prior to Jan 3rd the weekly average figures
will be inaccurate. We do not feel this will cause undue problems
given that WTD is not enforceable prior to Apr 4.
If we discover a major defect, that
cannot be fixed and tested in the next 24 hours, and that means we
cannot upgrade this weekend then the upgrade will happen the weekend
after. However we are doing our utmost to ensure that the upgrade does
go ahead this Saturday.
Normally we try and ensure as much
warning as possible before taking a service down for a planned
upgrade, but given the delays in releasing this functionality and the
urgent WTD needs of many of our customers this upgrade will be
installed as soon as available.
Please call if you need to discuss any
of the above.
Andy Thorley
tel direct line: 00 44 (0)121 326
1253
switchboard: 00 44 (0)121 326
1234
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