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)

New Year Resolutions

Another year is about to dawn! Many people will be thinking of how to make this new year better than 2007, and may plan to make or have already planned New Year resolutions. Every time we make new resolutions, we step into a new year with a positive attitude. We make resolutions to improve our spiritual life, health, overcome bad habits, have good personal relationship with others, earn more money, quit smoking, lose weight, etc.

In fact, the New Year is a time to plan for the future, but for any significant change to occur, there has to be a long term commitment. Coming up with a list of goals and ambitions for the next year may take just 30 minutes. But it takes a longer time to achieve them, particularly if we plan to change or improve anything for a lifelong period.

Almost all of us are conscious of the significance of a New Year and we plan for a better way of living with great expectations and hopes. It is good that we make New Year Resolutions, for “There is a future only if you continue to struggle”. Many times we may fail terribly in implementing a resolution or plan and we may fail again and again, but once we start working hard on it we will have a better life than other people who have never made resolutions or never tried to improve their lives. So when we start on something new, remember that perseverance is just as important as planning.

It’s time again to wish everyone a Very Happy New Year. Hope all your Goals and New Year Resolutions are successful, and your life is filled with Peace, Prosperity and Good Health.

Projects News

StaffBank                                                                                                               (top)

Let me start by wishing you all a very happy new year!

December was a very busy month for the entire StaffBank team as the NHSP Single Instance merge coincided with other important change controls like ESR, MLE, E-Rec... This meant that the entire team had it's hands full.

For the first half of the December, both Raghu and I were on site at NHSP to ensure that everything went smoothly. Though things were very hectic, the implementation went very smoothly and has been recognized as a success by NHSP. This was possible because of great team work between the NHSP team and the StaffBank team.

Once we were back from the UK, we treated ourselves to a movie 'Taare Zameen Par' at PVR Gold Class. For those of you who haven't seen the movie, I would like to say 'Go and watch it!!!'.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the team for their great effort in making this project a success. Hoping that every project in the future enjoys similar success.

Until next time,

Usha

MESaLS                                                                                                                  (top)

The significant events in this month for our team were the upgrades of two trusts, Telford and Bromley, who moved over to Mesals V4 from V3. We also worked on the data preparation of another trust, Norwich, who will be switching over to V4 from V2. They are scheduled to go live on the 4th of February 2008. We are currently working on few changes for a trust (Lyncare) in Ireland who have a slightly different working model than other Mesals Trusts. We are also working on completing the new Requisition wizard. These changes are expected to bundled into an intermediate release by the end of January. Meanwhile, the changes prioritised by the Users for including in the next general release of Mesals have been received. The development of these changes will begin from the first week of January.

Another significant development has happened in Mesals. We had only 3 general releases this entire year (in fact, from August 2006), which shows we are firmly into the bi-annual release cycle. What a huge change from releasing 16 versions in 12 months between September 2005 and August 2006 !!

Yet another year has gone by. This is as good a time as any to make an analysis the positives-negatives, achievements-failures of the past and plan for the days ahead. That's all for this month and the year.

Wish you all a very Happy New Year !!!

pFACT

For the first week of December,pFACT team's schedule remained quite busy in the major release of integrated pFACT(2.02). After the release, pFACT team had a relaxed month as there was less work and pressure compared to other months.

Phani was busy in preparing the databases in SQL server(only set up details) for oracle client databases as well as sql client data bases. Lakshmanan took the initiative in introducing the pFACT Application in .NET 2005.This is going to be next major enhancement which will keep pFACT team busy for next couple of months. I was busy in updating data dictionary and creating new help document for currently used stored procedures. Rejith was busy with preparing testcases and testing the enhancements.

This month we bid farewell to Pravitha. We wish her All the Best in all her future endeavours. On behalf of our team, I wish sumathy a speedy recovery.

Wishing you all a very Happy and Prosperous New year!!

Sephali

News from Abroad                                                                                             (top)

Raghu and I were in the UK from the 26th of Nov to 19th of Dec to ensure that NHSP had a smooth implementation of their “Single Instance” merge project. NHSP wanted to merge their multiple call centres into one large call centre with the idea of increasing efficiency.

When we left Bangalore we were a bit apprehensive about this merge. Though the team here was putting in a lot of effort, we just didn't seem to be meeting NHSP's expectations. Once we got to NHSP, this apprehension disappeared as things went very smoothly when we were there and the merge was a great success and far exceeded NHSP's expectations. I could only put this down to the great team work between our StaffBank team and NHSP.

It was great working with an NHSP which knew exactly what they wanted. Below are the pictures of some of the people who we interacted with at NHSP.

Harby Takhar and Me

Matthew Caldwell

Stephen Thompson

After many weeks of working weekends and not having a single day off, we were finally able to get a weekend off in London. Even though London was bitterly cold, thankfully it wasn't raining and we were able to do some sight seeing. We went back to Madame Taussad's as I wanted to do see the new Wax statue of Shah Rukh Khan. So what if all those SMS's I sent to KBC hoping to meet SRK didn't work, I was at least able to get a photo standing right next SRK! Below are some of the pictures from our sightseeing trip:

Shah Rukh and Me

Shrek and Me

Raghu and me in cold London

The Queen Guards

London Eye

London Eye in the night

The buildings of London

Traflgar Square

The Big Ben

The last few days, we worked form Baumhart new offices in the Wirral. The office is a nice modern independent building set in a business park. It was nice to meet the StaffBank team @ Baumhart and finally could put faces to names that we only knew from emails. I couldn't get to take any pictures of the team but I promise to bring some next time!

Until next time, its bye from me!

Usha

Colleagues Cognizant                                                                                       (top)

This time we present Poornima from StaffBank, who joined BbyB in July 2006. A quiet person and a very committed worker, she is liked by one and all. Let’s see how she faces the questions.

Tell us about yourself.
I am a very simple and jovial kind of person.

What do you like the most in BbyB?
Working environment here is good and people are very helpful and co-operative.

How different was it to work here, in terms of area of work / company?
Even in my previous company I was involved in Testing. But here I have learnt many things and have improved a lot especially in technical aspects.

Tell us about your work and being part of StaffBank team.
It’s really amazing to work for StaffBank. Right from the beginning, I have been part of this team and involved in Testing. I am happy that am able to handle things well, whatever the workload may be.

How do you spend time during your weekends?
Usually I go for an outing with my friends.

Your strong and weak points?
I think I always like to have perfection in my work. I can say that too much of perfection can also lead to some problems. So Perfection itself is a strong and weak point in me.

Your likes and dislikes?
Whenever I get time I like to play badminton and read some good books. I don't dislike any thing as such.

How are you planning to celebrate New Year? Any plans for 2008?
I have not yet planned anything for New Year. Usually whatever resolutions I make, I don’t keep it up. So better not plan too much.

You are a silent person in office. How are you at home and with other friends?
Basically I am a reserved type of a person. It is not that I am so only at office, but I am like this at home, with friends and everywhere.

How do you see yourself in another 5 years?
I just want to see myself in a good and respectable position.

Your ambitions in life?
I have a sea of ambitions, so I can't say anything in particular.