The PaceMetrics Professional Services team deployed monitors initially in the most critical areas i.e. the trade life-cycle and the inter-application communication. This immediately provided real-time end to end control and full transparency into every transaction with no impact on system performance.

Over time, these rules were expanded and enhanced to give ever increasing insight into, and control of, the overall process. The business logic covering different transaction types was defined using the Rules Engine. Here, it was essential to recognise the sub-components of each transaction as they were being processed by the various sub-systems. A useful by-product of this exercise was the identification of business process gaps which were highlighted by the surprising areas where exceptions were arising.

An intuitive Dashboard displayed a traffic light system to gave instant visual warning of any transactions that had failed or were about to fail, so that the team could respond systematically and logically. Where appropriate, customers could be advised as the exception was passed to the Exception resolution module of PaceMaker. Fire-fighting was eliminated and staff could instead concentrate on more productive work.

Now all authorised team members had a holistic view of the entire process, with multiple disparate systems pulled together into one logical view. Managers could keep an eye on the ‘big picture’, while Operations staff gained detailed views into the process, based on their roles and responsibilities. Bottlenecks were identified in time to be managed, which significantly enhanced the transaction flow as payment cut-off times approached.

Exception resolution is automated wherever possible, although in some cases, manual resolution is appropriate. In either event, PaceMaker also monitors the progress of resolution. Using workflow, exceptions are resolved by a series of pre-defined methods – escalation via email, alerts to predefined roles and people etc.

An important component of the Bank of Ireland solution is the Operational Event Store (OES). This is a database of all transaction processing statistics, transaction details and resolution history. In addition to providing a comprehensive source for documentation and reporting purposes, the OES provides valuable information for on-going process improvement and operational risk management. A number of reports were generated from this store identifying “out of the ordinary” transactions and activities.