Introduction                                                                                                          (top) 

The BbyB Beacon is an electronic publication to keep the members of Bit by Bit informed about the current affairs of the company. It contains announcement of important events like training programmes, Management Review Meetings, etc.

From the Management

Never in my wildest dreams did I believe that the company I started 12 years ago would grow to its current size. As our name indicates we did it "bit by bit" starting with just one employee to nearly 30 today. Along the path we picked up strong technical skills which gives us our strength today. What we didn't do along the way, is pick up strong systems required for a company this size to function. ISO 9001 will hopefully plug that gap and give us systems which will enable us to grow to greater strengths. Let us all support our MR Jayaraj in this endeavour and have something to celebrate during our stress buster holiday at Amblee.

I also had the privilege recently to attend a user group for MESaLS. Even though there was a lot of criticism from users, one thing was quite clear - the stabilization exercise carried out by Bit by Bit was greatly appreciated. This fact is also borne out by the fact that users on the stabilized versions are reporting far fewer bugs than users on older versions. I hope all of you join me on giving team MESaLS a pat on the back.

The training programme for database specialists was quite a success and Ismail surprised us with his training skills. Thanks are also due to Shashi and Usha for this success.

Let me also welcome the new comers to the Bit by Bit team:
Dev Anand
Imran
Sai Ramesh
Usha
Uma
I hope all of you will make an effort to make them feel comfortable and part of team Bit by Bit.

Let me thank all of you as it is all of you who are responsible for BbyB's success!!!
Raghu.

From The Editor

Employee Feedback

The Employee Feedback process has been put in place, thanks to ISO. This process will enable the management to receive anonymous feedback from the members of the organisation and use it as a guideline for continual improvement in employee satisfaction.
The method used by the management elicited an effective feedback on a number of dimensions. The management analysed the results of the feedback and then met the members of Bit by Bit to discuss ways in which it could further increase its effectiveness. I found the process to be both enlightening and constructive.
The Feedback process can go a long way towards helping everyone at Bit by Bit improve communication, teamwork, and effectiveness. Now that all the members of Bit by Bit are well informed about the Feedback process, I am sure that there will be a whole-hearted participation.


Contact Information

Any contribution to the newsletter in the form of technical articles, or items of general interest, are welcome. Please send them to pratima@bbyb.com or sreedhar@bbyb.com

News From Abroad                                                                                              (top) 

Shashi's Trip to U.K.

Shashi was in England from 29-Apr-2003 to 14-May-2003.

While in England, he successfully oversaw the upgradation of MESaLS to Ver. 3.01.09 at three sites, namely, Derbyshire, Aylesbury and Swindon.

Shenoy's Trip to U.K.

Shenoy was in England in the month of May to attend the user group.

The MESaLS user group was held on 21st and 22nd May 2003 at the Stonehouse Court in Stonehouse, Gloucester. About 30 users attended it. There was very good feedback from the users for the 'Managing Failed Transactions' in Ver 3.xx.xx, also for Super-Duper MESaLS which is going to be released as 4.xx and also for the Pocket PC based version of MESaLS.

Achievements                                                                                                       (top) 

StaffBank has done it again!!

“Just to let you know that we have won the StaffBank contract for Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust. Starting immediately with a planned go live in September”
- Chris Lee FCCA, Partner, Baum Hart & Partners To The members of the StaffBank team.

“in all this ‘emailing’ i forgot to thanks you guys. the live update went very smoothly indeed, as did the upgrade in general. well done.”
- Gary Hewitt – Senior Manager – NHSP London, in his mail to Usha after upgrading to the final version of StaffBank.

Usha would like to add to the above – “the credit should go to two members of the StaffBank team, namely, Shenoy and Arun.”

Sepia and ASP

Aruna has been instrumental in implementing sub-reports in the ASP version of Sepia, under the guidance of Santhosh I P.
This achievement was appreciated by Raghu.

ISO Overview                                                                                                      (top) 

The pre-audit will be held on the 4th June 2003. The main audit is scheduled for the 24th June 2003.

Education & Training                                                                                           (top) 

Talk on VSS by Devaki on the 19-May-2003

This was a talk on the usage of VSS. It was a practical session where Devaki showed the participants how to create projects, add files to them, rename them or delete them. She also spoke of branching, sharing, pinning and labelling of projects.

This session lasted over an hour, with Shashi and Jayaraj chipping in. This was an absolutely enlightening discussion, since most of the participants were not fully conversant with the usage of the VSS.

There was recapitulation on the 27th May 2003.
Training of new recruits from 15-May-2003 to 31-May-2003

Potential candidates had undergone training for database preparation activities , after which, they were evaluated.

The training programme started on Thursday, 15th May 2003, wherein 11 candidates were selected for training in MS Access, MS Excel and SQL server at our offices for 2 hours every weekday - evening (6 p.m. to 8 p.m.) and for 4 hours on weekends (10 a.m. to 12 noon, 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Machines were provided to the candidates so that they could practice what they have learnt.

They were evaluated on the 1-June-2003, and two of them, Uma and Usha Y H, came out in flying colours and were selected to be a part of the Data Preparation Team.
Data Preparation

We receive data from our clients in various formats – CSV files, Excel sheets, Access databases etc. These need to be ‘conditioned’ and then transferred to SQL Server database.
The conditioning of the data obtained from the various formats is known as Data Preparation.


Seminars on Computer Science Basics

Guruprasad and the other members of the VC team are planning to conduct a few seminars on the fundamentals of Computer Science.
They will cover Data Structures and Algorithms.
The objective of the seminars is to see how best these fundamentals can be used practically.
They propose to have the seminars in the second week of June. However, the exact dates are going to be announced shortly.

Meetings & Events                                                                                                (top) 

The second Management Review Meeting was held on the 14-May-2003. The participants were Raghu, Jayaraj, Usha, Guruprasad, Devaki and Sreedhar. The MRM was held to discuss -

1. the manpower required for data prepping activities.
2. customer feedback and complaints – The main issues addressed were communication, promptness with respect to deadlines and testing.
3. Testing of software.
4. Non conformances.
5. The results of the first round of Internal Quality Audits conducted in the first week of April.
6. The extent of implementation of the QMS.
7. Training and recommendations on continual improvement.

The management met the members of Bit by Bit to discuss the Employee Response on the 15-May-2003. The objective of the meeting was to discuss the Feedback that the management elicited from the employees. 19 out of 23 employees filled up the feedback form
Other News                                                                                                           (top) 

Santhosh’s Engagement

I am sure that this is just the beginning of a long chain of happy occasions for the members of Bit by Bit: -

Santhosh got betrothed to Dr. Jyothi on 25th of May 2003. This happy event took place at Vijay Residency in Gandhinagar. Most of the members of Bit by Bit attended the function.

Santhosh, Congratulations on Your Engagement and Best Wishes as you look forward to your Wedding Day.

Vacation                                                                                                                (top) 

The choices offered for the BbyB stress buster - June 2003 were Srirangapatna, Mahabalipuram, Mangalore, Kalsa (Silent Valley Resorts), Kabini, Chikkamagalur and Coorg.

When we took a vote, Kalsa won the vote hands down, but the people at the resort said that it was not nice out there during the monsoons. Amblee is where we are going. We are there between 27-Jun-2003 and 29-Jun-2003.

Note: 21-Jun-2003 is going to be a working day, as we will be taking 27-Jun-2003 off for the Stress-Buster holiday to Amblee.

Srirangapatna

Srirangapatna is 14 km north east of Mysore, on the Bangalore - Mysore highway. It is the erstwhile capital of Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan, famed as the Tiger of Mysore. It is located picturesquely on the banks of River Cauvery. Places of Interest...

Tippu's Palace and the FortSomnathpuraMysore PalaceRanganthittuBalmuri fallsTalakaadu

Kokkere Bellur

Shivanasamudra

New Recruits                                                                                                        (top)
R. Dev Anand


Dev Anand, an engineer in Electronics & Communications, completed his course in 1998, from A.K.College of Engineering, Krishnankovil.

He joined Bit by Bit on the 7th of May 2003 as a member of the Testing team.

Sai Ramesh P V

Sai Ramesh, a Mechanical Engineer from M V J College of Engineering, completed his course in 1999.

He joined Bit by Bit on the 2nd of June 2003 as a member of the Testing team.

Masood Imran

Masood Imran, an Engineer in Electronics & Communication from Ambedkar Institute of Technology, completed his course in 1999.

He joined Bit by Bit on the 2nd of June 2003 and is working on Smart Card.

Uma M.

Uma M, an Engineer in Computer Science from JSS Academy of Technical Education, completed her course in 2002.

She joined Bit by Bit on the 2nd June 2003 and is a member of the Data Preparation team.

Usha Y H

Usha, an Engineer in Computer Science from JSS Academy of Technical Education, completed her course in 2002.

She joined Bit by Bit on the 2nd June 2003 and is a member of the Data Preparation team.

Let’s wish them all the success

Upcoming Birthdays                                                                                             (top) 

Many Happy Returns of the Day

Arun – 14-Jun-2003
Dev Anand – 18-Jun-2003
Shenoy – 28-Jun-2003

Three members of Bit by Bit are going to be celebrating their birthdays this month. We will be celebrating Shenoy’s birthday at SriRangaPatna.

All the members of Bit by Bit are invited to the cake cutting ceremony on all the three occasions.