EI NewsletterMay - 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

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

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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.

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

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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

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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

Memory Loss

Data

Space Bar

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;