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TRACS Overview

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Introduction• TRACS stands for Thomson reservation and accounting control

system. (Or Thomson reservation and administration control system, take your pick!).

• TRACS is the selling system of Thomson holidays. However TRACS is much more than simply a selling system, it’s the :– Holiday inventory system, including ancillary items sold with the

holiday, and holiday price and all other charges.– Booking administration system.– Accounting system for holiday payments, whether through travel

agents’ or direct with customer.– System for controlling and reporting VAT on agents’ commission.

For all TUI UK holidays.

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Introduction• What does TRACS sell

– Flights– Hotels– Insurance– car-hire– extra facilities

• What TRACS does not sell– Airport car parking– Airport hotels– Train tickets

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Introduction• Brands sold on TRACS

– Thomson– Portland– Just– Platinum– Gold

• Brands not sold on TRACS– Lakes and Mountains, Ski, Worldwide (sold in FSS)– Other SHG brands – Simply Travel, etc– thomsonfly.com

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History• 1969-1976 TRACS in development

TRACS started life as a package application called TROPICS bought from KLM airlines in Holland in the early 1970’s. TRACS is related to ACP/ALCS/TPF.

• 1976 to 1982:TRACS ( Thomson reservation and accounting system )on 1st April 1976 the TRACS system was introduced. Although this is April fool’s day, no major incidents were reported!

Before then bookings were still made by the retail travel agent or customer phoning in to Greater London House, where a huge room was set up with cards to indicate holiday availability for each flight and hotel combination (a ‘holiday package’) by geographical region.

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History• 1976 to 1982:TRACS ( Thomson reservation and accounting

system ) continued……Introduction of TRACS was a big step forward for the company and allowed for future expansion without needing a room larger than an airline hangar! The telephone sales staff, based either at head office (GLH) or in regional offices, were equipped with IBM-style computer terminals (3270-style terminals). These were connected to a central IBM mainframe computer.Through their computer system they could:– Book any holiday package.– Access up-to-date availability information.– Enter holiday payment details sent in by travel agents or

customers.The computer system took care of administrative tasks (printing confirmations, expiring options, etc). This freed the regions sale staff to concentrate on selling and agent development.

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History• 1982 to 2000:TOP (Thomson Openline Programme )

After a highly successful pilot project CARS (Computer aided reservation system), it was decided to proceed with a system of direct agent booking. The project name was at the time known as 'Agent TRACS', and later became 'TOP'.

Each Travel agent has one (or more) Viewdata sets in the shop. Viewdata sets can be thought of as simple visual units. The Viewdata sets are connected via a network to the Thomson computer system. The agents may use their viewdata sets to.

Book Holidays, Cancel Holidays, Modify Bookings, Search Holiday, display administration details and information, etc.

The TOP system was an immediate hit with the agents and is still considered one of the best in the trade.

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History• 2000 - onwards: The Internet beckons

The new millennium poses many and interesting challenges to TRACS. The surge of a new selling channel, the Internet, and its enormous potential ,has led to the creation of search and book facilities on brand-new WEB sites.

A relational database (DB2) was set up for holding availability and price data to be used for holiday search from the new WEB sites.  Data for the DB2 database is transferred overnight and in real-time directly from TRACS.  Bookings are still made on TRACS.

A software product called Shadow WEB server was bought from a company called NEON systems, which enabled linkage to be made between the WEB application and TRACS.

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History• 2000 - onwards: The Internet beckons (continued….)

The first WEB site in TUI UK to be created was for JUST holidays; then close behind came PORTLAND and CLUB FREESTYLE.

The running costs involved in operating DB2 searches were deemed higher than was acceptable, hence for the 'thomson.co.uk' site, created after the above sites, a different approach was adopted; this used TRACS itself for holiday search in a similar way to that used for TOP searches.

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History• Notable Other enhancements:

TAB (Thomson Automatic banking) - A direct debit system for automatic collection of  holiday payment on a weekly basis from independent travel agents.  Introduced in 1987 / 1988.  This system used to be known as EFT (electronic funds transfer) until we noticed an agent could put TH (Thomson holidays) in front of the title to make THEFT!     .

VAT - The system was created to manage VAT on agent’s commission.

FLUID PRICING - A method of being able to vary holiday prices on a daily basis in line with demand and marketing requirement.  Has led to the massive level of discounts expected by today’s customers.

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History• Notable Other enhancements: (continued…..)

CREDIT CARD PAYMENTS - Introduction of an online link for authorisation and payment of direct holiday bookings by either debit or credit card . Later enhancements include an automated card refund facility, and payment plans to allow a customer to set up future-dated instalments for payment of their holiday, very convenient for making a booking and arranging payment with a single phone call . 

• OCD Link - OCD is the operational arm of APHRODITE, the TUI UK customer database.  Existing customer details can be retrieved from OCD during a selling conversation on TOP.  It also allows a new customer’s details to be stored. Customer details are collected for all direct bookings, plus UK travel agent bookings within the TUI group and certain other agents’.      

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History• Notable Other enhancements: (continued…..)

Link to OSCAR - All bookings are stored on OSCAR as they are created on TRACS.  OSCAR is used to manage program change, and offer covering letters to customers and possibly compensation if action by Thomson, or a supplier, causes a detrimental effect on their holiday e.g. a promised facility turns out to be not available.  If compensation is offered, a link from OSCAR to TRACS applies the compensation, and allows the booking to be automatically refunded.

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Technical Environment• Most of the TRACS programs are written in ASSEMBLER ( IBM

OS/390 ), but to allow  the update of the DB2 databases linked to TRACS, DB2-SQL instructions are embedded in a few of those ASSEMBLER segments. Also, XML-enabled code is being embedded in some segments to update the SUN ORACLE availability database for ETAIL .– Total number (approx.) of Assembler programs : 3872, from

which:• 547 are TOP screens.• 31  have DB2 code embedded.• 10  have XML-enabled code.

– Total number ( approx.) of JCL jobs: 1072 ,

• Other languages used in TRACS are REXX & Selcopy.

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Technical Environment• TRACS and MONITOR.

TRACS uses a bespoke operating system, “MONITOR”, which works with IBM OS/390 mainframe operating system and RNC’s, Remote Network Concentrators’[for TOP], to control messages arriving at the gateway into TRACS from terminals or Viewdata [TOP] , handle data access and updates for storage, and process responses.

Monitor is a database manager and TeleProcessing monitor that is used by TRACS to accomplish its aims. TRACS is enhanced according to business priority by the TRACS Development Team.Monitor is maintained by personnel within the technical architecture team . The TP monitor side of Monitor is called Monitor/DC and the database management side of monitor side is called Monitor/DB.  .

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Technical Environment• File Structure.

TRACS is based on a hierarchical, or networked, database, with links between records.  This style is not the flavour these days, but still maybe the most efficient for on-line real time applications.  It remains the architecture of Global Reservations Systems and the likes of Amadeus, Galileo, Sabre, etc. where speed and reliability are key factors. It has two main kinds of files:– FMFT , fixed length blocks of data linked together in hierarchical

and networked ‘chains’  . Inherited from the TROPICS database and is unique.

– VSAM , available since 1982 , a more flexible way of storing data.VSAM is a standard IBM data storage method.

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Technical Environment• Link with other systems.

– TOLCICS, TID, OSCAR Batch interface.– OSCAR (DB2) Online interface.– Etail, YMS, MIDAS, Enterprise MQ interface.– Etail / Greenfield TRACS sends XML MQ messages to

update Oracle D/B.– Budget uses TOP.– budgetholidays.com uses TOP.

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Business Function • Holiday sales are highly seasonal. Peaks tend to occur :

– Immediately after brochure launch.– In January , the traditional post-Christmas holiday purchasing

period.– In July and August , for the late bookers for high season.

• TUI needs a complex computer and network system that can handle with ease these peaks. At peak times TRACS may process up to 5 million messages [requests for TRACS services] per day.

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Business Function • Some interesting figures about TRACS:

– Number of viewdata sets connected to TOP 35,000 – Number of travel agent shops with TOP access 7,000 – Number of holiday customers on TOP/TRACS up to 4 million per

year – Number of concurrent seasons is 5 (1 historical, 4 current) – Number of Bookings – 1,000,000 (average of 2+ pax per

booking)– Number of Packages – 600,000

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Workflow • In order to keep abreast with the Business needs TRACS is being

updated continually. The TRACS team has 2 sections:– Development team doing project work.– Support team fixing problems, and carrying out small

enhancements.

• In general the work is grouped into 3 categories:– ITSM Problem management.– Small enhancements requiring only a few days work.– PROJECTS. Any larger enhancements to TRACS  .

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Workflow • ITSM and small enhancement changes are picked up in the first

instance by the TRACS support team and PROJECTS by the TRACS development team.

• However the 2 sections work flexibly to ensure business needs are fulfilled, and this may involve development staff fixing urgent problems which require their specialist skills, alternatively support staff offering their expertise and consultancy on projects .

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Questions