Sunday 11 January 2009

Just Passed 70-541 - Technical Specialist: Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 – Application Development

After the success of last week's exam (see http://ddkonline.blogspot.com/2009/01/just-passed-microsoft-exam-70-630-ts.html), I followed up with the Windows SharePoint services application development (WSS 3.0 development) exam. One of the main differences between the format of the 70-541 and 70-630 exam is that there is first a survey about (basically) how good you think you are at different areas of WSS development. I don't know if these affect the questions you are asked in the exam proper - but it is possible they use it as a way to choose the set of questions you recieve. Your guess is as good as mine, unless the folks at Microsoft/Prometric want to let us know how the application works...

The exam itself was slightly longer than the MOSS 2007 one (59 questions vs 51 questions) and as is typical for development exams - the difficulty level was a lot higher. You have to know some of your configuration basics PLUS the coding side of things. I came out of the exam after I got my score (900/1000) and was a little miffed that I answered the way I did for some of the questions. Many of the questions try to lead you up the garden path - and I probably was trying to anticipate what the exam creators were thinking a little too much.

I am considering Performance Point (70-556 - Technical Specialist: Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007, Applications) next as Oakton has some clients who are interested in using it - and skills in the area seem to be in short supply. One problem is that there are no recommended readings for the PeformancePoint exam, so it will largely be a Technet and MSDN study effort. I was in a similar situation for the ASP.NET 2.0 beta exams as well - so I should be OK.

Thursday 8 January 2009

ABA bank payment file format (Australian Bankers Association) - Field Definitions and Sizes

I'm currently working on a payroll application for a large Australian engineering firm. As part of this, I need to export files for processing in the Australian defacto standard for Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) files - the ABA format. If the file doesn't go through, hordes of angry engineers and mine workers won't get paid - so it is important that the file format of these files is in order.

So where does this fixed width .ABA file format come from? The Australian Bankers' Association is the national organisation of licensed banks in Australia, ranging from traditional retail, trading bank-style organisations to regional banks, foreign and wholesale banks.

These Banks (including the "Big Four", namely National Australia Bank (NAB), The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) and Westpac Banking Corporation (WBC)) reached agreement on a file format for Electronic Funds Transfers (EFT).

I presume for legacy reasons that the chief solutions architects at the banks chose a fixed width file format rather something more advanced like XML with XSD schema definitions (which would allow a simpler process for file format validation and improved readability). I suppose that readability isn't one of the primary goals for these "system generated" files.

Seeing as we are stuck with the format for now, I often have a hard time finding format definition for these files. e.g. the main ABA website doesn't seem to have it documented in any part of their site - http://www.bankers.asn.au/. Instead, for future reference, I've detailed the (.ABA) file format below with a list of the fields and dimensions of these fields:

1. Definitions


Commonly used terms associated with file formatting and their definitions are as follows:

  1. Left justified - start input in the first character position of that field
  2. Right justified - end input in the last character position of that field
  3. Blank filled - fills the unused portion of that field with blank spaces
  4. Zero filled - fills the unused portion of that field with zeros
  5. Unsigned - used in amount fields. Amounts will not be specified as debit or credit.




2. Header Record Definition ('0' record) (just the first line):
































































Character PositionField sizeField descriptionSpecification
1 1 Record Type 0 Must be '0'
2-18 17 Blank Must be blank filled.
19-20 2 Reel Sequence Number Must be numeric
commencing at 01. Right justified. Zero filled
21-23 3 Name of User's Financial
Institution
Must be approved
Financial Institution abbreviation. Westpac's abbreviation is "WBC".
24-30 7 Blank Must be blank filled.
31-56 26 Name of User supplying file
Must be User Preferred
Specification as advised in Application. Left justified, blank filled. All
coded character set valid. Must not be all blanks.
57-62
6Number of User supplying
file

Must be User
Identification Number which is allocated by APCA. Must be numeric, right
justified, zero filled.
63-74 12 Description of entries on
file e.g. "PAYROLL"

All coded character set
valid. Must not be all blanks. Left justified, blank filled.
75-80 6Date to be processed
(i.e. the date transactions are released to all Financial Institutions)


Must be numeric in the
format of DDMMYY. Must be a valid date. Zero filled.
81-120 40Blank
Must be blank filled.





3. Detail Record ('1' record)






























































































Character PositionField sizeField description Specification
1 1 Record Type 1 Must be '1'
2-8 7 Bank/State/Branch Number Must be numeric with a
hyphen in character position 5. Character positions 2 and 3 must equal
valid Financial Institution number. Character position 4 must equal a
valid State number (0-9).
9-17 9 Account number to be
credited/debited
Numeric, hyphens and blanks
only are valid. Must not contain all blanks or zeros. Leading zeros which
are part of a valid account number must be shown, e.g. 00-1234. Westpac
recommends that (except in the above example), ALL hyphens are edited out.
Where account number exceeds nine characters, edit out hyphens. Right
justified, blank filled.
18 1 Indicator "N" -for new or varied
Bank(FI)/State/Branch number or name details, otherwise blank filled.
Withholding Tax Indicators: "W" -dividend paid to a resident of a country
where a double tax agreement is in force. "X" -dividend paid to a resident
of any other country. "Y" -interest paid to all non-residents The amount
of withholding tax is to appear in character positions
113-120. Note: Where withholding tax has been deducted the appropriate
Indicator as shown above is to be used and will override the normal
indicator.
19-20 2 Transaction Code Must only be valid
industry standard trancodes (see list). Only numeric valid.
21-30 10 Amount Only numeric valid. Must
be greater than zero. Shown in cents without punctuations. Right
justified, zero filled. Unsigned.
31-62 32 Title of Account to be
All coded character set
valid. Must not be all blanks.
credited/debited Left justified, blank
filled. Desirable format: - surname (period) blank
- given names with blank
between each name
63-80 18 Lodgement Reference All coded character set
valid. Reference as submitted by the User indicating details of the origin
of the entry e.g. Payroll number, invoice, contract number.
Left justified, blank
filled. Must not contain all blanks.
81-96 (81-87) 16Trace Record (-BSB Number
in format XXX-XXX)
Bank(FI)/State/Branch and
account number of User to enable retracing of the entry to its source if
necessary. Only numeric and hyphens valid. Character positions 81 & 82
must equal a valid Financial Institution number. Character position 83
must equal a valid State number (0-9). Character position 84 must be a
hyphen.
(88-96) 9 (-Account Number) Right justified, blank
filled.
97-112 16 Name of Remitter Name of originator of the
entry. This may vary from Name of the User. All coded character set valid.
Must not contain all blanks. Left justified, blank filled.
113-8 Amount of Numeric only valid. Show
in cents without punctuation.
120 Withholding Tax Right justified, zero
filled. Unsigned.



4. File Total Record ‘7’ (Trailer)


























































Character
Position
Field sizeField description Specification
1 1 Record Type 7 Must be '7'.
2-8 7 BSB Format Filler Must be '999-999'.
9-20 12 Blank Must be blank filled.
21-30 10 File (User) Net Total Amount
Numeric only valid. Must
equal the difference between File Credit & File Debit Total Amounts.
Show in cents without punctuation. Right justified, zero filled. Unsigned.
31-40 10 File (User) Credit Total
Amount
Numeric only valid. Must
equal the accumulated total of credit Detail Record amounts. Show in cents
without punctuation. Right justified, zero filled. Unsigned.
41-50 10 File (User) Debit Total
Amount
Numeric only valid. Must
equal the accumulated total of debit Detail Record amounts. Show in cents
without punctuation. Right justified, zero filled. Unsigned.
51-74 24 Blank Must be blank filled.
75-80 6 File (User) count of
Records Type 1
Numeric only valid. Must
equal accumulated number of Record Type 1 items on the file. Right
justified, zero filled.
81-120 40 Blank Must be blank filled.


5. Direct Entry Transaction Codes











































13Externally initiated
debit items
50Externally initiated
credit items with the exception of those bearing Transaction Codes
51-57 inclusive
51Australian Government
Security Interest
52Family Allowance
53Pay
54Pension
55Allotment
56Dividend
57Debenture/Note Interest


Saturday 3 January 2009

Just passed Microsoft Exam 70-630 Technical Specialist: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Configuring with Full Marks

Yesterday, I just passed my first SharePoint 2007 exam (70-630) with a score of 1000/1000. I've done many Microsoft exams but this is the first that I received full marks for. It was a bit of a shock!

Funny thing was, I almost didn't get to do the exam because the Prometric testing site @ North Ryde (in Sydney) didn't have my name registered (and the name of 3 other guys who arrived at the testing centre). This was because I rescheduled the exam online (at http://www.register.prometric.com/Index.asp) the day Prometric closed over the holiday period. I had to wait around for an hour before the Prometric help desk opened up and did a data synchronisation. Why the process isn't just a scheduled SQL job is beyond me.

Without violating the Non-Disclosure Agreement (these are all in the preparation guide at http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exams/70-630.mspx), here are some of the things to look for:
  1. Content types, Content types, Content types
  2. Security, Audiences and how to enable/disable Personalisation functionality
  3. Business Data Catalogs
  4. Know all the stsadm command line parameters inside out - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263384.aspx
  5. Know the innards of the logging and diagnostic functionality of MOSS.

My primary sources of information were the 1200 page corker named "The Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Administrator's Companion", SharePoint 2007 Central Administration online help and, of course, TechNet for SharePoint - see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-au/office/sharepointserver/default.aspx