Data Validation A Key to Project's Success
As one of the largest aircraft manufacturers in the world, The Boeing Company wanted to incorporate their human resources information into an enterprisewide PeopleSoft HRMS solution. The PeopleSoft solution would help Boeing streamline and improve their benefits program, successfully recruit on a worldwide basis, and better manage a complex and rapidly evolving global workforce.

However, validating the integrity of data inbound to PeopleSoft can be one of the most resource-intensive parts of the implementation process. A PeopleSoft HRMS implementation can contain hundreds of tables, and the need to fully understand and build data validation rules for the data fields in these tables can affect the successful and timely deployment of the application.

More specifically, the Boeing implementation required data to be migrated from several legacy sources, and this data required extensive validation for a number of reasons:

• The legacy data required extensive cleanup
• Data transformation routines needed to be validated for completeness
• The integrity of the PeopleSoft tables could not be compromised in any way
• Data loaded needed to conform to the PeopleSoft application
• Data could not violate the Boeing business rules within the PeopleSoft application.

Daman's BRMS technology makes the difference
To address these complexities, Boeing chose Daman Incorporated to design and execute the construction portion of the data migration process, including data validation. Daman realized that the right technology could make a tremendous difference in optimizing the validation process.

Drawing on their deep experience with data movement and enterprise application integration, Daman developed a Data Validation Utility to load data automatically into PeopleSoft HRMS 7.5 applications.

The utility takes advantage of Daman Business Rules Management System™ technology, the industry's most architecturally advanced technology for business rules management.

Working with ETI*EXTRACT Tool Suite from Evolutionary Technologies International, Daman BRMS automates the validation process by determining which business rules need to be executed, based on a call from programs generated by ETI*EXTRACT.

Benefits take off for Boeing
With Daman technology and expertise, the Daman/Boeing migration team was able to—

• Reduce the effort and time spent in analysis and definition of data validation rules. These rules are necessary to ensure that the target PeopleSoft application is populated with valid data.
• Reduce the ongoing and iterative testing required by more traditional 'hit and miss' approaches to data validation.
• Concentrate on data transformation activities, while also reducing the effort in developing transformation logic due to a more advanced understanding of the target.
• Allow capture of metadata of validation logic, while also facilitating reuse of developed business rules.
• Develop a solution that operates on varied platforms ranging from MVS and Unix to Windows NT.