B.3 Problem Description

The above use case went through extensive analysis and discussion with the team and stakeholders. It is core to the philosophy behind the system, and was new to the client and the team. Mainframe systems were simpler, less elaborate, and more focused on storing bare-bones data and implementing rules. It was not until the initial design iteration and the first build completed that a large issue came to light: Each integrated system is independent, and there was no notion of a transaction across the breadth of systems.

A new enrollment process first stored the document image, then created a shell account with the minimum possible data, then created a "new account setup" workflow event. If, for example, the workflow event creation failed, there were serious consequences: The imaging folder contained an orphaned image, the business system contained an account that contained insufficient data for business, and the enrollee would not have an account created and would never receive an acknowledgment. In short, the system would fail. The problem statement is this: The initial requirements did not specify how exceptions should be handled across the integrated systems.