Experience

Over the past 20+ years, I have had the opportunity to work on a number of projects. Some of the projects I have been involved with have been small, affecting just a few users. Other projects have been large, multi-million dollar, cross-platform, eCommerce developments, with major impact to the organization’s bottom line.

Past Projects

Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS) Compliance

Execute PCI DSS compliance remediation for a complex regulatory reporting system within a major financial institution.

Technical and functional Business Systems Consultant (BSC), within the Enterprise Risk Management Technology (ERMT) team, executing a complex enterprise wide PCI DSS regulatory project for Currency Transaction Reporting (CTR) Systems.

  • Primary point of contact for enterprise wide regulatory and compliance project.
  • Understand and interpret PCI DSS and enterprise requirements and determine impact to LOB applications.
  • Design and document functional specifications to align with enterprise and PCI DSS security standards.
  • Function as SME for all PCI DSS remediation activities across all LOB applications and systems.
  • Translate requirements and designs to produce technical, functional and support documentation.
  • Consult with developers on technical implementation of design solutions.
  • Provide support and guidance during development and testing of solutions.
  • Influence and build relationships with stakeholders, technology leadership, internal and external service providers and architecture teams.
  • Provide guidance to divisional application managers on enterprise technology roadmap for PCI DSS compliance.

Cross-Domain eCommerce Product Entry System

Worked on developing a number of interfaces  and processes for an in-house application to enter product details for an eCommerce site. The system needed to connect information from multiple, back-end, cross-domain, legacy systems with a new product entry system, and transfer the information to a front-end eCommerce platform.

Product, pricing and inventory information was created and stored in a back-end mainframe system used by the Buying, Pricing and Replenishment groups. All of the mainframe data was designed to service store sales, and was not designed for selling on the web. Products on the mainframe were not organized into customer-centric web categories, and did not have web friendly descriptions, or advertising style copy associated with them.

Images for products were stored in a client-server based system used by the Advertising group, and were not directly connected to products using style, SKU or UPC, the way products were defined on the mainframe.

After analyzing several possible solutions, I recommended to management, and other stakeholders, that the best option was to create a new system to meet the goal.

Existing product and pricing information would be maintained solely by the Buying and Pricing groups, and images would continue to be maintained by Advertising. The new system would allow the Web Group to create web categories, add products, assign images, and create web copy, without having to duplicate any of the existing product or image information.

To populate the web, a series of nightly batch processes would pull data from both the mainframe and the new system, and transfer the extracted information to the web servers. Data loading programs, that were part of the eCommerce platform, would load the data, creating and updating products as needed.

I presented the recommended solution to management, and other stakeholders, to gain approval. I described the benefits of the solution, and the value that would realized.

During requirements and development, I facilitated workshops with end users to generate user stories, and ensure that the users understood how the system would work. I created requirements documents, and assisted developers with interface design. I designed data mappings and process flows, and engaged with DBAs to design database structures to store the new product info.

I worked with Pricing and Fulfillment groups to understand business rules, and to discover processes they had developed that we could leverage in our extract programs.

The eCommerce platform we were working with required files in XML format, and to be loaded in a particular order. I performed a series of experiments to verify that we had the correct format, that all required information was included, and that we could maintain all the data in the eCommerce platform, including adding, updating and deleting as needed.

I defined a series of nightly extract batch processes, and worked directly with developers to be sure they understood the requirements for the data extracts needed to populate the web. I created SQL to extract information, and also XSD’s that could be used to generate, and validate, the XML file extracts.

I managed user acceptance testing (UAT) of the the new system and extract processes. Using a SharePoint project, I tracked issues and resolutions, and maintained approvals and sign-off by all stakeholders as test cases were completed.

Working with IT Management, Release Management, Production Scheduling, DBAs, stakeholders and the Network Infrastructure group, I coordinated a production environment implementation plan and monitoring plan. I created troubleshooting documents, and participated in an on-call, escalation group, for production issues.

Over time, as additional product, pricing and promotional information became necessary, I also helped to redesign existing processes and interfaces, and incorporate new ones.

Custom Electronic Sign Creation Program

Helped to develop a customized sign writing program with a contracted vendor.

The new program was to replace an older, outdated program, and would save the company money by allowing us target signs to stores based on their inventory. The program would also generate value for itself by giving us the ability to add features unique to our company.

At the start of the project, I created the project proposal, researched technology, developed cost and savings models, and generated the estimated ROI.

I elicited requirements from all the stakeholders that would be interacting with the application. I assessed each groups needs, and created requirements documents, wireframes, and complete process flows for the contractor. I worked with DBA’s to create database definitions, and to define multiple levels of access authority based on the user group, and the interaction they would have with the system.

I created test plans for the off-shore developers, in-house QA group, and worked with each user group to refine their test plans. I managed the testing process, tracking all issues and working closely with the testers and developers to determine the root cause of issues, and the appropriate corrective actions.

During implementation, I coordinated equipment purchasing and software installation with our support group. I worked with the networking group to establish, and test, high speed communications to all stores. I wrote training manuals for all the different stakeholders, and conducted training classes for all end users, travelling to remote locations to train end users.

Post implementation, I created troubleshooting guides for the help desk to support store and corporate end users. I maintained, and updated, the troubleshooting guides as any new, and unique, issues were encountered.

Custom Product Creation Web Page Redesign

Worked with a web based picture framing company to streamline their custom order process, redesign the web page, and make the form easier for customers to use.

I was presented with the problem that the company’s custom framing web page was cluttered, and confusing to customers. There were a number of options that customers could select, but the order of the options was not presented in a logical progression.

During my discovery process, I uncovered that, due to rapid, uncoordinated development, there were three different custom frame creation forms. Depending on how the customer navigated to the custom form page, they would be presented with a different version. Additionally, each of the three form versions had a different layout, and they presented different options to the customer.

I compared the different forms to collect all of the possible options that a customer could select. I engaged the customer to develop user stories, elicit all the options that should be presented to the customer, and define the business rules governing option selection. I generated wireframes, and created process flows to visually confirm the complete flow of the proposed form redesign.

My recommendation focused on three areas:
1. Layout
2. Usability
3. Affordance

Layout

I proposed new layout would move all functionality into a single accordion structure on the left side of the page.

Each step in creating a custom frame would be mapped out for the customer. The order of the steps would be such that it guides them through all the steps.

The order of the steps would take into account options that cause restrictive choices in other areas. For example, if a frame size that would not allow for a multiple opening mat is chosen, then the option to choose multiple opening mats would be disabled.

Whenever an option is disabled, a description would be provided to the customer explaining the reason it is disabled. The disabled option explanation would, if possible, tell the customer the minimum requirements to enable the option.

Accordions with options would only allow one accordion to be open at a time. Limiting the number of open accordion objects creates a visual guide for the customer showing them exactly what step they are on, what they have done, and what is left to do.

Using auto-collapsing accordions keeps the page uncluttered, and the focus on the options and the visual preview.

Usability

My recommended solution was designed to increase usability by reducing the number of objects the customer needed to interact with. Utilizing a single accordion column would create a visual top to bottom flow. Top to bottom flows are psychologically more understandable for customers since they can relate to them almost like a checklist of items to do.

The solution would also add restrictive choice logic, such as limiting mat styles by frame size, or image upload quantity by mat opening amount, reduces the number of choices a customer is presented with.

Restrictive choice logic would decrease the chances that a customer would select conflicting options, which, historically, reduces customer service calls, and increases the customer’s satisfaction with the purchase experience.

Affordance

noun af·ford·ance \ə-ˈfȯr-dəns\ :
The qualities or properties of an object that define its possible uses or make clear how it can or should be used.

Functionally, limiting the items presented directly to the customer increases their ability to understand how to interact with each item.

Visually, limiting items creates more white space, which gives the page balance, and makes it look less complicated to the user.

Automated WooCommerce Product Import

Worked with a client that had two eCommerce sites, on two different platforms, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain each site separately. The client had one eCommerce shop on Etsy, and another eCommerce site using WooCommerce.

Keeping both shops up to date required the client to do dual entry of all product information. The client needed a solution that would allow them to maintain products on Etsy, and then import any additions or changes to their WooCommerce site without rekeying everything.

The Client wanted to be able to get the following product information from Etsy:

  • Title
  • Price
  • Description
  • Options (Size, Color, etc.)
  • Inventory

Researching Etsy, I found that they had a number of API’s developed that would allow me to extract all of the required product information, and more. The API’s returned data in JSON format. Since WooCommerce was built on top of the WordPress platform, which used PHP, I would be able to use methods that were part of PHP to parse the JSON data, and import it into the WooCommerce database.

I wrote up an initial proposal for the client. In my proposed solution, I informed the client that, in addition to the information they wanted, the Etsy APIs would also be able to provide:

  • Images
  • Categories
  • Product Keywords/Tags
  • Product Creation Date
  • Product Last Updated Date
  • Shipping Options

I presented my solution to the client, explaining that including the additional information would deliver more value, and would be worth the added effort.

The client agreed, and gave me the go ahead to generate the solution as presented.

I designed and implemented a user interface that the client could open as part of their WordPress admin tools. For security, the UI was password protected, and required the user ID to have admin authority.

The client could pull product info from Etsy based on a date range of created date, updated date, or both. The products found were displayed in a list, with accordions that could be expanded to show details.

Presenting the products in a list allowed the client to select any, or all, products to import. Expanding the accordion enabled them to edit any of the product info before importing.