CAI's Proprietary IT Operational Tool: Tracer

Quality Control Process Configuration Resource, Event & Time Tracking Issue Management Standard Estimating Document Management MS Project Bidirectional Interface Real Time Service Level Metrics Help Desk Interface Enabling CMMI Compliance Enabling ITIL Compliance

Tracer is an IT operational tool that integrates process management, workflow control, and resource and time tracking with service level management... all in one place. This integration enables the IT organization to monitor, control, measure, and improve their development and support performance.

Tracer was designed for the day-to-day operating environment of IT application support and software development organizations. IT professionals can now focus on “work” and not “data entry.” The flexibility of Tracer’s configuration tables allows for easy adaptability to virtually any IT environment. Tracer’s realtime customizable dashboard displays the status of all assigned work tasks to managers, developers, and support personnel. Within the dashboard, color coding (red, yellow, green) highlights those tasks meeting or jeopardizing service level goal thresholds.

Resource and time tracking are integrated within all work processes. This brings a dramatic improvement in the accuracy of work and resource management.

Only Tracer has these critical IT process management and work and resource tracking components:

1. Defined process templates for application support and development
2. Process enforcement based on configurable rules
3. Integrated work, resource, and time tracking
4. Service Level Agreement (SLA) and metrics tracking

These components function seamlessly within a single integrated operating environment and data repository.

Tracer Functionality includes:

Quality Control

Quality control process checkpoints and quality control checklists are included in Tracer’s process templates. Quality checkpoints, and associated quality checklists, aid in identifying errors. They provide a structured process to review a unit of work and ensure that the work products delivered function according to specification. As a result, the overall quality of work products is significantly improved. Back to top

Process Configuration

The Process Configuration Manager (PCM) within Tracer provides the ability to either modify predefined process templates or create new process templates. These templates contain a sequence of steps that specify how a process is completed. They have multiple control characteristics that affect the behavior of the process. The PCM contains the ability to model and define any IT process. Back to top

Resource, Event & Time Tracking

All work events, tasks, resources (onshore or offshore), and effort expended, are scheduled, tracked, and managed within Tracer. The tool enables the scheduling and prioritization of all work events for a team. A dashboard on each team member’s desktop provides a prioritized list of tasks that need to be addressed, along with the scheduled due date and estimated effort. As a team member works on a task, their expended effort and elapsed time is recorded in Tracer. This information capture is a by-product of doing the actual work rather than a separate activity. Tracer’s design enables the close integration of resource, work, and time with little administrative overhead.Back to top

Issue Management

Issues can impede or disrupt the progress of a work activity. They can require management attention. This formal communication mechanism, enabled by Tracer through the development and distribution of electronic documents, ensures that all parties are aware of issues, have any necessary background information, and understand the potential impacts. Tracer’s issue tracking and management also enables root cause analysis. Issues are classified via predefined criteria. Trends are identified through multiple sorting and filtering options, resulting in the identification and resolution of continually occurring issues.Back to top

Standard Estimating

Standard estimating ensures the reliable, accurate, and consistent definition of project effort. Standard estimating also provides a system metric for measuring productivity across software projects. Tracer is installed with a standard set of estimates for various technical environments. The estimates are based on a review of over 15 years of accumulated standard hours per work unit data. Standard estimates can be modified or extended as necessary.Back to top

Document Management

Tracer allows all project related documents or electronic artifacts to be kept current and instantly available. Templates or completed documents can be stored, managed, or linked to the specific work event and process step that created them. The stored documents can be viewed within that work event or through an independent list with a reference to the producing work event.Back to top

MS Project Bidirectional Interface

Tracer has a bidirectional interface with MS Project Server to provide maximum flexibility in planning and scheduling a project. Projects can be defined either in Tracer or MS Project Server. Once a project has been identified as one that needs to be synchronized, the two tools automatically update each other. As a result, the power of MS Project Server can be used for defining tasks and their dependencies, as well as resource leveling and scheduling. Tracer’s power is the ability to track tasks and effort at the resource level as work is being performed.Back to top

Real Time Service Level Metrics

Tracking Service Level Goal (SLG) trends enables compliance with Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Tracking measurement data provides the ability to perform root cause analysis. It is through root cause analysis that the reasons for missing SLGs are determined. Resolving the root cause of missed goals leads to improved performance and increased customer satisfaction. Tracer is installed with a pre-loaded set of SLGs that were developed based on 25+ years of application support experience. These pre-loaded SLGs can be modified or replaced.Back to top

Help Desk Interface

The ability to automatically transfer data from a help desk to a Level 2 or Level 3 technical support team enables a streamlined process that keeps you from costly and error prone recreation of data. CAI has developed a bidirectional API transfer of tickets between Tracer and virtually any industry help desk system. Tracer’s standard API extracts data from the help desk system, stores the data until an appropriate time interval or record volume has been reached, and then triggers an update into Tracer. Completed tickets with appropriate data components are transferred back to the helpdesk system via the same API Back to top

Enabling CMMI Compliance

Tracer’s structured processes enable an organization to achieve CMMI compliance. Tracer’s process templates and associated artifacts are in alignment with the process characteristics within CMMI including repeatable (Level 2), defined (Level 3), managed (Level 4), and optimized (Level 5).Back to top

Enabling ITIL Compliance

ITIL is a framework that defines IT service standards. CAI’s predefined application support process templates, supplied with Tracer, enable compliance with ITIL service support and delivery standards. Tracer’s process templates address all major work event types within an application support environment including: application maintenance, enhancements, call support, and incidents. Back to top