Introduction

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 announcements of important events like training programmes, Management Review Meetings, etc.

Contact Information
 Any contributions to the newsletter in the form of technical articles, or items of general interest, are welcome. Please send them to padmabaliga@bbyb.sdc.int or padmabaliga@bbyb.com

Editorial                                                                                                                    (top)

April has been an exciting month for BbyBers and especially the StaffBank team. The month kicked off with AfC and Oxford Payroll going live.

Halfway through the month, BbyBers took a much deserved break at the bi-annual company stress buster and headed for the woody and serene environs of the Jungle Lodges Retreat at Kabini. A series of land and boat safaris helped put everyone in touch with Nature again and bird watching was taken up with great gusto. Sai’s infant son, Sharan with his unending chortles and undiluted enjoyment of the outing became the undisputed mascot of the group. In the section Other News, Malovika brings that weekend back to life again with her magical prose. In that same section, you can also read about Sonu's exciting trek in Manali.

The section New Office has something interesting for everyone. Please do check it out and give us your feedback.

Under Colleagues Cognizant, we swing the limelight on two young ladies, Divya and Sumathy. We have also started a new feature called Weekend Jaunts, one that truly belongs to you, the reader. Read about it and write in to us.

Summer has settled in, the temperature has started soaring and things get mighty uncomfortable when the famed Koramangala mosquitoes make their presence felt. But our team at Bbyb is an amazing one and they keep their cool in the face of all inconveniences and work goes on, undisturbed. Long live the spirit.

Regards,
Padma

From The Management                                                                                       (top)
Dear All,  

My apologies for not writing last month’s ‘From the management’. Usha, Arun and I were caught up in the AfC go live, which was to take place on the midnight of March 31st.

There is now a date on the move to our new premises – 1st July 2006. As we start July with a weekend, we will use this to shift the furniture and computers across and work at the new premises will start on 3rd July. We are currently working out a schedule for transport from the current offices to the new offices.

I am really looking forward to this move, as we will start working from one office again. The divided office is not something that I am happy about but had to accept because we had no option. Even though we may not interact on a daily basis, I believe that working out of one office definitely improves the team spirit.

There are some photos of the new offices in this newsletter. As you can see the physical shell of both the main office and the canteen at the back are complete. Currently flooring and glass and electrical work are in progress.

Some of you had raised an issue that Citibank was charging you for not having Rs. 5000.00 minimum balance in your accounts. This came about because Citibank had changed their software and our payments were not being recognized as Salary payments. The logic being – a salary account doesn’t need to have the minimum Rs. 5000.00 in it. Jayaraj and Sharada have pursued the matter with Citibank and they have now given us a new payment method for crediting salaries. It has been tried out for the first time this month and hopefully this should put an end to the minimum balance charges that you are paying.

Regards,
Raghu

Projects News

StaffBank                                                                                                            (top)

Agenda for Change or AfC is a return to a single pay system for the great majority of NHS staff, and aims to both meet the need for equal pay for work of equal value and to allow greater flexibility in modernising services. Quoted as being the biggest pay reform ever, it is UK wide and affects around one million staff. Its highlights are:

--Fair pay based on the important principle of equal pay for work of equal value.

--Opportunities for NHS staff to develop into new roles and appropriate reward for those who take on additional responsibilities.

--Harmonization of hours, leave and other conditions of service.

--Enable staff working across the range of clinical and managerial roles to identify and follow clear career pathways.

--Annual appraisal and performance review to support career planning and personal development.

With everyone’s effort, the StaffBank team successfully completed this very important and challenging project. Raghu Shenoy, Usha and Arun were in UK for the AfC implementation and with everyone’s co-operation in the Staff Bank team, it’s been a great achievement. South and North regions have accepted AfC project early this month, and London is going to accept AfC on the end of this month.After the successful upgradation at NHSP South and North, loads of appreciation from our clients started pouring in. (Turn to Other News to read more about it)We have one more issue to cheer about this month – Oxford Trusts have moved over to StaffBank recently and this is what we heard from Paul De Lacroix of Baum Hart and Partners:

Oxford have just informed that since they transferred over to StaffBank, they have a fill rate of 91.4% (6.9% Agency and 84.5% Bank). This is the highest fill rate ever achieved by any region!! Furthermore, earlier they were averaging about 80%. Oxford are very happy with this result and this has also endorsed the decision to move over to StaffBank.

After the successful AfC implementation, it was time for the stress buster and to enjoy the happy moment, we had been to the Kabini River Lodge on 14, 15 and 16 of April. We had good fun with the animals, birds and also the social animals. “It’s a matter of luck that we had been to Kabini and a bonus point for us.”Till next month,

Uma for StaffBank

MESaLS                                                                                                                  (top)

Mesals Team was very busy for the whole of this month.

Sperrin did a dry run and went live on 25th April. LBWF have postponed their Go-Live to May to enable them to do some more testing of the application. Foyle are doing a dry run and are scheduled to go live next month.

We have developed another Interface called 'SAP Interface' for importing purchase orders information from another application used by LBWF.

The month of May is expected to be much more hectic because of three scheduled
Go-Lives and three dry runs.

Aruna for MESaLS

pFACT                                                                                                                   (top)

We had two releases in April - Version 2.00.a and 2.00.b in SQL. We have also released the Testing Version of pFACT with Jes Cost Uploading Facility.

On behalf of the pFACT team, I am glad to invite Pravitha K. to join hands with our team in developing efficient applications.

Sumathy for pFACT

Sepia                                                                                                                   (top)

This month Shashi was in UK for the importing of Dorset data from CPA to Sepia.

We had four beta releases for Ver 3.08 and one for Ver 3.07 with changes to the Careworker file and MHA changes. Milton Keynes had come up with some other
new Enhancements and bug fixes which were included in Ver 3.08. MHA issues and enhancements were also included in Ver 3.07 and 3.08 along with the other changes. Probably we will be going live with these 2 Versions within a few days once Dorset is done with Sepia system training.

The Online Help and the Introductory Guide are being updated for Dorset reports, MK enhancements and customised print forms.

The Sepia Data dictionary is still in progress.

Manoj for Sepia

New Office                                                                                                               (top)

Now that the structure of the new office is in place, it is time to think of the interiors. Our MD. Raghu Shenoy, has suggested that the cafeteria be done up with murals on the walls. A few types of murals have been short-listed and can be viewed below. As you can see, they are numbered. Please write back to me at padmabaliga@bbyb.com indicating your first and second choice. This is your canteen where all your breaks during a working day will be spent. So go ahead and make your choice!!

Murals
1	2	3
4	5	6
7	8	9

Other News                                                                                                        (top)

It’s celebration time all around as various projects report great news.

Agenda for Change Go Live Charts an Agenda for Success

The AfC Go Live implementation went through smoothly thanks to the efforts of the team behind it and the long hours and humungous efforts they put in. In many ways it was a race against time and it must a very satisfying feeling for all concerned to know that they defied time and won. Congratulatory messages have been pouring in and we present extracts from two of them.

Jeff Lynch of NHS Professionals (who was in charge of AfC Go Live) wrote:

Just a quick note to thank Chris, Paul, Alan, Raghu and the rest of your team for the huge amount of work that you have put in to deliver such an enormous change in such a short timescale. If I had any idea that this project was going to touch every part of the organisation's operations in the way that it has, I would have gone back to the unions to tell them that we were looking at April 2007, not 2006.

Carmel Flatley, the Chief Executive of NHSP said:

I have to admit that I was very nervous about the switch over on Saturday but am very relieved that it went so well thanks to the tremendous time and effort that everyone put into this project. A great team effort not only within NHS Professionals but with our Baum Hart supplier as well. We much appreciate it.
As Jeff has already said, this is a big step forward for NHS Professionals and for a new code within the NHS that will make more sense of temporary staffing - both on usage and on spend.
Well done to everyone. Hope you all caught up on your sleep!

Farewell to Saneesh
We bid farewell to Saneesh P.M. a member of the Sepia team who left us on 7th of April. We wish him all the best.

Stress Buster

A walk on the wild side – Kabini trip

“Every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver.”
If you shut off the engine of your car, delete that nagging thought of something that you forgot at home and push back that excruciating reminder of unmet deadlines, then you will possibly hear Earth’s poetry.
Kabini River Lodge is undoubtedly the destination for stressed out office goers and city dwellers. It’s a reminder from Mother Nature of a sweet lullaby that soothes a troubled mind.
And so the team of Bit by Bit Computers followed a trail that leads to a haven tucked away in Nagarhole National Park. Kabini is a tributary of the River Cauvery that surrounds the River Lodge. It is located at Karapur near Nagarhole national park. The lodge is spread over 55 acres. The scenic Kabini River Lodges, located at a distance of 220 kilometres from Bangalore, was our much needed anti-distress-dose.
There was room for everyone. Sharada and the girls found themselves plush rooms depicting the colonial style. The married couples, bachelors and even the two married bachelors (Arun and Chaitanya) were spread across the tented cottages overlooking the river. The remaining few landed the luxurious riverside cottages.

Safari rides

What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, men would die from a great loneliness of spirit.
There’s something truly magical about spotting animals in their natural habitat. It gets even better when you have a trained naturalist around. Jayaraj’s close friend, Kartikeyan, helped us capture the natural details which we would have otherwise missed.
Did you know that if you rub a leaf of a young teak wood plant it reddens your palm? Or that the blue jay, a lovely bird, is the State Bird of Karnataka? Or that elephants eat almost 200 kgs and drink 100 litres of water in a day because they have a poor digestive system? Or that the spotted deer shed their antlers after mating season and it grows back each year? These and many such details were real eye-openers for us.

Thanks to the frequent salt pits around the Safari trail, maintained by the wildlife tour operators, we were able to spot several spotted deer that were eating salt. Wild tuskers, peacock, giant squirrel, wild fowl, and black-faced langoors were a common sight who obliged us with some great camera moments.
The giant squirrel seemed to compete with the langoors when it came to leaping from one tree to the other. The wild mongoose remained a blur for our cameras as it scurried around too fast to be shot. On the other hand, peacocks seemed to be enjoying the morning walk through the jungle, uncaring of our presence, in fact teasing us in a way.

Seeing elephants and deer share the evening on bank of the river took our breath away, as we saw how harmoniously the creatures co-existed.

In contrast, when cruising along the river on the boat safari, we were treated to a Tusk-fight between two bull elephants. These two guys were engaged in a duel for over 10 minutes, jousting with their trunks and tusks for a few seconds followed by a break now and then. The routine amused us while the rest of the herd of 20 elephants was going about their normal business along the riverside.

The forest in some parts didn’t seem as dense as the BR Hills, but trees especially teak and bamboo grass, are found aplenty. Around several stumps of chopped down trees, new life could be seen sprouting. The forest was growing and at the same time ageing. The more the forest changes, the more it remains the same. Kartikeyan pointed out the symbiotic nature of the dead trees and creatures like woodpeckers, termites and insects who still extract nutrients from the fallen trees.

Prized sightings

On Day Two of our trip, the jungle seemed to have turned its wild side on. The jungle came alive with a lot of alarm calls from the monkeys, warning of a predator nearby. And rightly so, as Raghu, Shashi and their jeep mates got to spot the wildest cat of the jungle – Tiger! But even before you could say ‘Tiger, tiger burning bright’, the animal crept slowly out of sight and into the thickness of the trees.

And to think of it, Raghu and Usha had just arrived at Kabini, and were joined by Shashi and Kavitha, who had dropped out of the boat safari after they had failed to find a seat for themselves on the boat.

The news of the tiger spread like wild fire and next day every jeep set out on the scent of a tiger. Our group of 15-odd people had our eyes peeled for every movement, lest it’s a tiger. Then came the prized sighting – no, not the tiger – but the elusive Sloth Bear. It’s true that curiosity shot the bear! Yup, we got some superb visuals of the bear sprinting away from our jeep; it got even better when the big bear stood on its hind legs, perhaps trying to get a better view of us, same as we stood up on our seats to watch him! The standoff lasted for a good 5 seconds, enough for Sreedhar to get a good shot. The curiosity didn’t end for this shy animal here, as it went behind the tree only to peep out for a last glimpse of us humans, before vanishing away. The excitement last for a long 3-4 minutes and made our safari worthwhile.

A river never sleeps

To lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky – dreams are made of such stuff.

The tranquillity of Kabini River grasped all of us in a way that’s indescribable. To watch land meet water and sky is amazingly restful and peaceful. Lines of reflection blur and you don’t know where the image starts and object ends. The leafless branches of dead trees growing out of the water surface seemed to stretch out towards the open sky inviting birds to enjoy its cradle.

The feeling of being one with Nature is a lesson we can learn from the birds. They make nests, take food from the surroundings, and yet leave without spoiling anything. We witnessed the harmony of river, trees and the birds as each element communicates in a language of melody.
The crocodiles were hiding underwater to escape the din of our motor boats, while the egrets, the different herons, ducks, and terns took turns in keeping us entertained. The sight of the migratory birds like the painted stork was indeed welcoming. Amid these big birds, were the small kingfisher and the largest butterfly, the Southern Birdwing (I hope I got the name right) that had us squint-eyed for a better view.

These winged creatures watched the sublime sunset on the river as eagerly as us. The dusky sky splashed myriad colours across the horizon with a hint of a light drizzle. The two and a half hour boat ride gave the perfect opportunity for many to get some breathtaking photos. Wish the sun didn’t set so fast.

BbyB business

When it comes to ‘kicking’ up some fun, no one does it better than the boys of BbyB. I am referring to the infamous BbyB Sandwich and BbyB B’day Bumps. This time the fresh victim of the BbyB Sandwich was new joinee Omprakash.
Unsuspecting Muthu fell victim to the gang’s b’day bumps soon after he returned from watching a wildlife movie. The gang’s next target was the unfortunate Vinod who paid for not drinking (it’s still up in the air why he didn’t. A measly bet didn’t warrant such will power from him!!). The others, needless to say, got a good laugh.
The other attraction was Sai Ramesh’s son, Sharan who took centrestage with his antics chasing an empty soft drink bottle. He seemed like a new creature with his peculiar style of crawling on all fours (what do you feed him, Sai Ramesh?).

The goodbye
Sunday morning, it was time to leave with bags packed and lightened souls. The 3-day trip finally concluded, leaving us rejuvenated enough to take on the routine humdrum of life in the city. Only this time we were taking back with us some precious memoirs of Kabini and its residents.

By S V Malovika

Sonu Conquers the Ski Slopes

Jayaraj’s daughter, Sonu (aka Lakshmi Priya) always does the unexpected. This summer, she signed up for a 2-week trekking and skiing course in Kulu Manali with Woody Adventures. At 9 years of age, she was the youngest participant. Sonu prepared for the gruelling trek by jogging every morning and undertaking a weight gain diet. She left on April 12th and returned on 26th.

Here are some extracts from her diary:

April 16th: We had an ice water bath. I kept my rucksack with the others’. We walked and walked. We had tea at a tea-shop and continued. We saw patches of snow. We made snow balls and played. After walking 6-7 kms., We reached the campsite. It was snowing.

April 17th: I got up early. We went to our kitchen tent to brush. The water was frozen because of the snow. So we did not brush.
We went out for our first taste of skiing. I fell down. After some tea, I tried again and skied three times. I twisted my ankle and stopped for lunch.

The action continues but the travelogue stops here. Readers who’d like to learn more can contact Sonu for details. Kudos to Sonu for being so plucky, daring and determined.

Holidays                                                                                                                 (top)

May 1 celebrated the world over, as May Day is a holiday. May 1 falls on a Monday.



New Recruits                                                                                                        (top)

Pravitha This month, we welcome Pravitha K., Domain Member, ASP.NET, pFACT team. Pravitha completed her M.Sc in Computer Science from Calicut University. Pravitha moved base to Bangalore late last year after marrying Praveen, a Senior software engineer with HCL. She has been with BbyB for more than 3 weeks now and says that the homely and helpful atmosphere that prevails here is fantastic.

News From Abroad                                                                                              (top)

Arun, Usha and I were in the UK for about a month to switch NHSP over to the new Agenda for Change (AfC) payment methodology. During our stay there we had quite a few client visits which gave us the chance to see StaffBank in action.

The switch over took place on the mid night of 31st March – 1st April and all three of us along with Alan Cruikshanks (BHP), Mathew Caudwell (NHSP) and Gary Hewitt (NHSP) were on site at the National Finance Centre. Once the database backups were done we started running our scripts at around 23:00 and things progressed smoothly until one of the scripts on the South database generated an error. We found out this was due to some NHSP staff adding AfC codes into the database – something that they were asked not to do! Bit of a panic when we tried to correct everything that went wrong because of this. The last thing that needed to be done was to run the scripts to correct auto email. Everything looked like it had gone smoothly until we realized that the emails were not being sent out. Panic all over again because we couldn’t figure out a reason for this. We then put out a call to S4B who maintain the hardware, asking them to stop and then re-start the emailing service and thankfully that re-starting cured it and emails started going out once again.

Given the magnitude of the changes all of us had anticipated quite a few problems with this switchover but it was accomplished without any major hiccups. That said we did have a bit of a handholding to do over the next couple of weeks especially at payroll time as this was the mechanism that had changed the most.

Compounding this was the fact that the Oxford call centre was going live on the same day. Not only were we taking on 20 new trusts, we were also switching them onto AfC. Usha went on a site visit to the Oxford call centre along with Paul De Lacroix (BHP) to help them test their new payrolls.

We were lucky enough to have a few weekends free – We used one Sunday to go down to Liverpool – saw the museum and then came down to the Albert Docks and went to see the Beatles story – a museum dedicated to the music of the Beatles. Usha and I also got to spend half a day at Oxford and we both think that it is an absolutely spectacular city. The university buildings are gorgeous and we took a walking tour through Oxford which both of us enjoyed immensely.

We also got to spend a weekend in London. It coincided with the time that Shashi and Kavita were there so we got to meet them as well. We did the usual sites in London – The London Eye, The Tower of London, Madame Tussad’s… I leave you with some photos from our trip to the UK.

Raghu

Shashi writes in.....

The main purpose of my visit to UK, i.e. to migrate Dorset to Sepia, was not achieved as they felt they did not have sufficient hands-on training with Sepia. Though disappointing, I did leave them with the psuedo live system. They will be using the system side by side with the existing CPA system. This way they verify that the data migration has taken place to their satisfaction and in the process they get hands-on training on Sepia system.

This apart, Kavitha joined me in UK after the scheduled work was completed. Both of us took a "postponed several times" holiday in UK and covered a few places. Some of the places we visited in South were, Isle of Wight (an island just below Southampton in South of England), Salisbury Cathedral (which apparently has the tallest spire in England), Bath, Stonehenge, Cheddar and Wells. Then we travelled North to Scotland, visited places like Edinburgh, Glasgow, highlands of Scotland including Loch Ness, Fort Williams, etc. We came back to South for few days to London and caught up with Raghu, Usha and Arun who were on a weekend visit there. We finally wound up our thoroughly enjoyable holiday in UK with a day trip to Oxford (where few of our Indian Prime Ministers have studied) and headed home from Birmingham.

Here are few snaps from our trip. Hope you enjoy them (as I did taking them).

From Shashi's Album

Colleagues Cognizant                                                                                           (top)

Sumathy

Sumathy is a quiet and pleasant person and works as a .Net developer with pFACT. Her job responsibilities include understanding the custormer’s needs and developing an efficient application accordingly. In our chat with her she came across as a young lady who is level-headed and has clear priorities. Read on….

1. When did you join BbyB?
I joined on 1st June 2005. It was an unforgettable day for me as it gave me a new break in my career.

2. Describe yourself in 2-3 lines.
Every one says I am a quiet person. I would call myself Simple Sumathi - I believe in simple living and high thinking.

3. What do you like and dislike most in BbyB?
The thing I like most in BbyB is that here everyone is treated alike.

4. How do you plan to grow in your career?
I would like to learn more and more as this will help me grow career-wise.

5. What motivates you in BbyB?
My team mates who always give me support and courage.

6. Which place in the world do you like the most? Why?
My house. My home is a nice place to be in for it is filled with happiness.

7. You vibe well with….?
With everyone in the office.

8. What are your strong and weak points?
Patience is my strong point. As for my weakness, I want everything around me to move at a fast pace.

9. Your favourite time-pass……..?
Watching TV and listening to music.

10. How do you see yourself five years from now?
I see myself working as a Project Manager.

Divya

Divya joined BbyB on 16th February 2005 as a Testing Engineer. She loves her job which she says consists of finding the mistakes the software engineers have done, and running behind them to get things to work correctly on time.

In this short chat we had with her (punctuated with a lot of dimpled smiles), we learnt that she sure knows how to shoot from the hip.

1. Describe yourself in 2-3 lines.
I am a very nice, good, great, lovable, hardworking, honest, punctual, dedicated gal. Really yaar, why don’t you believe me? After all, sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction. (smiles) I was just kidding. It’s better that others comment on my character.

2. What do you like and dislike most in BbyB?
The motivation that one receives is great here; as well as the support from my testing team leader, and of course the team. What I dislike is having to work during the weekends frequently.

3. How do you plan to grow in your career?
I really don’t have a long-term goal for my career. Rather I make some short term goals and as I succeed in achieving each of them, it helps me achieve my life’s goals. (May I have God’s blessings for the same!)

4. What motivates you in BbyB?
For any employee, the Review is a motivation. And obviously if there are any bugs in MESaLS (the project I am working on) that also motivates me because by finding the bugs, I can feel satisfied that I have done a good job.

5. You have had a longstanding romantic friendship. Can you define Romance for us?
Romance for me is a very beautiful bond of relationship, which stands strong with love, care and understanding. I am lucky to have such a relationship in my life.

6. Which place in the world do you like the most? Why?
That’s easy! My native place, because that’s where my parents are.

7. What is the secret behind your smile?
Thanks for the compliment, but secrets should not be disclosed.

8. What made you move to Bangalore? Give us your views on this city.
My career made me think of this beautiful city, and of course, a great man who taught me how to dream in my career, and who helped me to move to this beautiful city. Bangalore is simply amazing and provides me with all that I want in my life. I hope God will maintain this forever in my life.

9. You are known to be a music lover. What kind of music do you listen to?
Music is known to be loved by almost all. Each one has their own taste. I like melodious Malayalam songs the most.

10. We understand that you are a die-hard non-vegetarian. What would you order if you were stranded for a whole day in the neighbourhood of a vegetarian restaurant?
It is true that I love to have fish and chicken, but I am sure I won’t starve without them. Obviously there are so many dishes which I can order - juices, icecreams, dosa, etc… and of course masala dosa is one of my favourites.

11. What are your strong and weak points?
My strong point is that I can get things done by crying (smiles). And my weak point, I guess, is that I lose my temper easily.

12. Your favourite time-pass……..?
Sleeping and annoying Rejeen.

13. How do you see yourself five years from now?
The Project Manager of my family certainly… Let’s see where my career will take me.

Meetings and Events 

On 21st April, Sai Ramesh, Datta and Manu, our Testing engineers, attended the launch of the Bangalore Software Process Improvement Network (South chapter) at Electronics City. Mr. K. Dinesh, co-founder of Infosys addressed the gathering and spoke about how Infosys went about improving their software processes. He narrated the story of a small firm called Texas Nameplate company whose workforce consisted largely of high school graduates or dropouts but had such excellent business processes that they managed to win the prestigious Baldrige Award. Business excellence was achieved by TNC through leadership by example, and it was noteworthy that the CEO of the company was only a high school graduate when he started it but put himself through college and an MBA degree in the process of building up the company.

SPIN Bangalore will meet on the third of every month. Sai says that those who are interested can ask him for details or check out the site www.bspin.org.

Weekend Jaunts                                                                                                  (top)
  

When malls begin to pall and the heat gets oppressive, it’s time to leave the confines of the city and drive out into the countryside. I am sure everyone has a favourite weekend haunt and we’d like you share it with us. The accompanying photographs are of a place called Kalamachal, a mere 20 kms. away from Thiruvananthapuram, the state capital of Kerala. There must be wonderful retreats like this around Bangalore that you have discovered or visited, which will be both a visual treat and a relaxing break.

So do write in, with details (such as location, route, highlights, etc.) and a picture or two and we’ll put it up in this space for everyone to read and act upon. Send in your contributions to padmabaliga@bbyb.com. Cheers!

Nisha's Birthday Snaps

Prathibha's Birthday Snaps

Uma's Birthday Snaps

Aruna''s Birthday Snaps

Manoj's Birthday Snaps