How does Mobile Wallet works?

Mobile Payment is combination of technologies. These technologies include Mobile Wallet providers, Mobile Technology providers, Banking, Software and Hardware providers.
Mobile Wallet is the technology which runs on the Mobile devices or Smart phones that we carry every day. Mobile Wallet is a mobile app which either comes pre-loaded on a brand new phone or consumers have to download it from the service provider. Google Wallet, Square Wallet, LevelUp are some of the examples of leading Mobile wallet providers. A consumer can download these apps from internet on his mobile phone.

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• The ABCD of Mobile Payment

• What is Gamification?

• Biometric ATM in India

• What is Big Data?

• What is Google BigQuery?

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These Mobile wallets can store credit card, pre-paid card or virtual card information. They also store the Offers, receipts, loyalty points, transaction histories information. Once you store the card and accounting information the Mobile wallets usually check and validate this with the financial institutions or card issuer companies.

Mobile phones use either NFC (Near Field Communication) or QR Code (Quick Response code) or GeoFencing or some other form of technologies to communicate with the Point of Sale machines of merchants or retailers. POS machines have software’s or card readers which interact with the mobile phones or mobile wallets.

Mobile phones that are coming with NFC enabled technology have a special designated area which is use to store credit card and accounting information. This Special area is not accessible to store regular phone data such as text, video, photo etc.
Some of the technology providers use cloud to store your credit and banking related details
Here are some of the interesting videos from YouTube on Mobile Wallet that you can enjoy and get yourself educated on this subject.
QR Codes: What They Are and How to Use Them

What is Google Wallet

Disclosure: The Video shown on singhvikash.blogspot.com are available on YouTube.

The ABCD of Mobile Payments

One of the greatest inventions of mankind is "Mobile phone" or "cell phone". This small device evolves and changes its feature and layout so fast that latest bought mobile phone seems old in couple of weeks.
The question of "What you can do with a mobile phone?" can be answered in a long list. Let us not get into that. One of the things that can be done through the Mobile phone is making payments. Payments in restaurant, gas stations, shopping malls, market complex or even bill can be paid using Mobile phones. No wallet or plastic cards are required. May be in next couple of years you will reach out to your phone only when it comes to payment.
So how does the Mobile Payment system works?
The Mobile Payment system works using a combination of technologies and interfaces which runs in the background. A buyer who is paying through mobile phone is not concerned with what went in those 10-20 seconds.
In this post we will understand what actually goes in the background in those 10 – 20 seconds.

The first thing is Mobile phone. The mobile phone is your identity. There are all kinds of mobile phones available globally but not all phones are eligible to do Mobile Payment.
Today’s smart phones come with a built-in technology called "NFC" – Near Field Communication. This technology is similar to Bluetooth. It is a wireless and contact less technology and it gives mobile phones capability to interact with a distance of 4 inches. Using this technology the mobile phones interact with Point of Sale machines. You bring the mobile to the proximity of 4 inches and it can interact with the POS (Point of Sale).
The list of mobile phones for Mobile Payment is available and you can check your mobile and model is among them or not. This list is of all the mobile phones from different manufacturer who are shipping the phone with this technology.

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• What is Gamification?

• Biometric ATM in India

• What is Big Data?

• What is Google BigQuery?

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So what is in the mobile phone that initiates the mobile payment process? The answer is Mobile Payment app. There are many Mobile payment apps available on internet and on Google Play store. Google Wallet, ISIS (Google biggest competitor in USA), Square, PayPal, QuickTap, Orange, Apple are some of companies who are offering their Mobile Payment apps online. One needs to download and install the mobile payment app to start using Mobile Payment services.
The mobile payment apps stores the credit card and accounting information. You can store more than one credit card information with your mobile apps and at the time of payment you can select which credit card you want to pay with from your mobile screen.
When you make the payment using Mobile phone the mobile phone uses NFC technology to interact with the POS machines and pass on your identity and banking details. The POS machines then send these details to TSN – Trusted Service Network.
TSN is the gateway which interacts with the payment gateway and authorizes payment to the POS machines. TSN in its background facilitate the entire process of authenticating your banking details with the financial institutions. Once your financial transactions are approved inside the TSN; you are done with the mobile payment and you will receive the confirmation that payment has been done.
Here are some of the videos from YouTube on Mobile Payment that you can go through and enjoy it.
Google Wallet Mobile Payments Video

CIBC Mobile Payment Video

Disclosure: The Video shown on singhvikash.blogspot.com are available on YouTube.

SSIS: How to read SSIS Package properties without opening it?

Today I am sharing a small C# application that can be used to read the SSIS package properties. To see the properties of SSIS package such as Package name, no of connection managers, protection level, version number, GUID etc we generally have to open the SSIS package in design mode and check each of the properties.

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With the help of this application we can read the properties of SSIS packages without opening them in design mode. The application interface is simple. You have to click on the browse button to select your SSIS package and then click on the button “Click to Read SSIS Package”. The list view control will show the properties name and their corresponding value.

The application code is following. You can customize this application further to read other properties of SSIS package.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Runtime;
namespace WindowsFormsApplication1
{
    public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
        public Form1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Runtime.Application app = new Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Runtime.Application();
            Package mySSISpkg = new Package();
            mySSISpkg = app.LoadPackage(textBox1.Text.ToString(),null);

            listView1.Clear();
            listView1.Columns.Add("Properties Name",150);
            listView1.Columns.Add("Value", 400);

            listView1.Items.Add(new ListViewItem(new string[] { "Package Name:", mySSISpkg.Name }));
            listView1.Items.Add(new ListViewItem(new string[] { "No of Connections Manager:", mySSISpkg.Connections.Count.ToString()}));
            listView1.Items.Add(new ListViewItem(new string[] { "Build No of package:", mySSISpkg.VersionBuild.ToString() }));
            listView1.Items.Add(new ListViewItem(new string[] { "Version No:", mySSISpkg.VersionMajor.ToString() + "." + mySSISpkg.VersionMinor.ToString() }));
            listView1.Items.Add(new ListViewItem(new string[] { "GUID:", mySSISpkg.VersionGUID.ToString() }));
            listView1.Items.Add(new ListViewItem(new string[] { "Protection Level:", mySSISpkg.ProtectionLevel.ToString() }));
           
        }

        private void button2_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            openFileDialog1.ShowDialog();
            textBox1.Text= openFileDialog1.FileName.ToString();

        }

       
    }
}

The below picture show this application in action. I selected a package which was stored in my system and click on the appropriate button and it fetched me the properties of SSIS package.

This is useful in case you are dealing with large number of SSIS packages and has to open SSIS package frequently to check the settings and properties.

PEGA TutorialWhat is New in PEGA 7?

PEGA has launched the PEGA 7 the newest version of BPM (Business Process Model) platform. There are a lot of new features that has been released with PEGA 7. Here are some of the features of PEGA 7 :

1. Omni-Channel UX: With the introduction of this feature in PEGA 7 now applications development for all kind of devices (mobile, desktop, tablet, webpage etc) will be simpler and cost effective. Omni-Channel UX gives the ability to developer to design the page once and forget about how it will looks on small devices like mobile Smartphone, tablets and on large devices like desktop. The Omni-Channel UX will take care of displaying the pages correctly on all kind of devices.
   
   
2. Embed PEGA screen to existing webpage: With PEGA 7 the ability to embed a Pega screen to existing website or WebPages or desktop applications is very exciting feature. You can integrate PEGA screen or Data into your existing applications.
   
   

---

• What is PEGA?
• What is BPM?
• How to setup PEGA PRPC system in your local machine

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3. Omni-Channel UX: With the introduction of this feature in PEGA 7 now applications development for all kind of devices (mobile, desktop, tablet, webpage etc) will be simpler and cost effective. Omni-Channel UX gives the ability to developer to design the page once and forget about how it will looks on small devices like mobile Smartphone, tablets and on large devices like desktop. The Omni-Channel UX will take care of displaying the pages correctly on all kind of devices.
   
   
4. PEGA Pulse: With PEGA 7 users can incorporate and integrate social tools into their work. What it means is you can advance a process or complete a case from the conversion feed on PEGA Pulse, a social tool available inside the PEGA environment. You can also include conversion from external social media tool such as facebook, twitter etc. It will be interesting to watch this feature.
   
   

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• What are WorkType and WorkItem in PEGA?
• What are different Operator Roles in PEGA?
• What are Business Rules in PEGA?
• What is DCO in PEGA PRPC?

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5. UI Inspector: With PEGA 7 developers can hover over the user interfaces and it will show the related information in a panel quickly.
   
   
6. PEGA 7 now supports the PostgreSQL database.

For a complete list of all new features of PEGA 7 please visit PEGA 7 product page

You can also enroll to get first hand look into the PEGA 7 features through the upcoming webinars.

PEGA Tutorial What is Application Profile?

Application Profile is one of the DCO (Direct Capture of Objective) tool in PEGA. The other two are Application Accelerator and Application Documentation.

Application Profile is used by the Business Analyst or System Analyst when a project starts. The main purpose of using Application Profile in the beginning of project is that it is mainly use to capture client requirement and business objective of the customer.

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What is DCO in PEGA PRPC?
What are different Operator Roles in PEGA?

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Collecting requirement of a project is a big task and especially when it is a large project and involves dozens of stakeholder. Creating requirement document and maintaining version of each of the requirement document is difficult job.

What PEGA has provided is Application Profile in which a project manager or business analyst can capture the business requirement, business use cases, and project objectives all inside the PEGA environment. Project manager or BA does not have to create a word, excel or use any specific template to capture the requirements.

With Application Profile following requirements can be captured.

1. Business objective of the project
2. Business processes and specifications
3. Project end users; their roles and responsibilities
4. Any assumptions captured during the project initiating phase.
5. Kind of correspondence (email, letters, fax etc) which application need to generate.
6. Estimated Scope of work in the project.

Once the Application Profile is ready it can be shared with the project stakeholders and their approval can be taken before the development can begin. Once the stakeholder approved the application profile the System architect of the team can use the information collected as an input to Application accelerator which in turns create the complete application skelton of the project. It creates the Stub Rules which project teams can work upon.

Project Management through Pictures What are Organizational Structure?

Every organization has a certain structure or hierarchy under which it operates. The kind of structure a company has play important role in terms of project management.

Mainly there are three type of Organizational structure:

• Functional
• Projectized
• Matrix

In a Functional Organizational structure there are dedicated team or departments. For example a company have HR, IT, Accounts, Sales, Training department. Each of these departments has a department lead. He is called functional manager. Every one working on his department reports to him and no project manager can assign any work directly to the team members working in the specific department. Project Manager has to go through the Functional Manager before assigning or availing services of team members working in his/her department.

So Functional Manager has Power in a functional structure.

In a Projectized Organization structure; every one works in a project. Every one reports to their project manager. Project manager has direct control on the resources and he can assign task to them.

So Project Manager has Power in a Projectized Organization

In a Matrix Organizational structure a team member reports to two bosses - Functional Manager and Project manager.

If the organization is following the Strong Matrix structure, the project manager has the power/authority over the functional manager.

If the organization is following the Weak Matrix structure, the functional manager has the power/authority over the project manager.

If the organization is following the Balanced Matrix structure, the functional manager and project manager both has the power/authority to control or assign task to resources.

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What is a Project Charter?

What is a Project Management Plan?

What are Organizational Structure?

What is Brainstorming?

PM: Do you know your Project Cost?

PM: How accurate is your Project Cost Estimates?

How to calculate Team utilization index?

How to motivate your Project Team?

PM: Do you know your Communication Channel?

What is XMR Chart?

What is Plan Procurement Management?

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Project Management through PicturesWhat is a Project Charter?

A project charter is a document that formally announces the start of a new project. This document is issued and signed by Project Sponsor. This document is a written approval to the project manager to start the project and you have the authority to spend money to manage the project.

What input is taken to create a project charter? To create a project charter there are five inputs.

Project SOW: This is statement of work and it is created by the Project sponsor if the project is an internal project. If the project is an external project, it is created by the customer/buyer.

Organization Process Asset: This includes Company existing process, procedures, policies and historical information.

Enterprise Environmental factors: This includes Govt or industry standards, Political climate, Market place condition, Company culture and existing system etc.

Contract: This includes the contract between buyer and seller of the project.

Business Needs: This is the need of business and how does it fits into the customer strategic planÉ

---

What is a Project Charter?

What is a Project Management Plan?

What are Organizational Structure?

What is Brainstorming?

PM: Do you know your Project Cost?

PM: How accurate is your Project Cost Estimates?

How to calculate Team utilization index?

How to motivate your Project Team?

PM: Do you know your Communication Channel?

What is XMR Chart?

What is Plan Procurement Management?

---

SSIS: How to setup Package Configuration and run it from Command Prompt?

SSIS Package configuration is a great feature with SQL Server integration services and MSBI (Microsoft Business Intelligence). SSIS Package configuration is primarily used for two purposes.

1. By using SSIS Package configuration feature you can read or update the property of SSIS package, tasks, components, connection managers etc. at run time. For example, you can set the connection string property of a SQL Server connection manger at run time
2. Secondly, we use Configuration so that it helps to move the SSIS packages from Development, testing to production environment. The Package configuration will use the property value available in different environment (dev, sit, prod) and we do not need to change anything when we move the package or update it frequently.

In this post, I will share how you can setup the SSIS Package configuration and how you can use DTEXEC utility to run the SSIS package. I will also share how you can create a batch file which you can use to schedule a SSIS package run.

Let us take example of a simple SSIS package. In the picture below we have the design of a SSIS Package. We have a Data Flow Task. In Data Flow Task we have two components. We have a OLE DB Source and a Flat File Destination task.

We will use SSIS Package Configuration to set the Flat File connection manager property. For the demonstration purpose we will only set one properly called Connection string.

To start with we will choose from menu SSIS => Package Configurations.

This will open the Package Configuration Organizer window. We will click on the checkbox “Enable package configuration” and click on Add.

Next we will choose configuration type from the drop down list. We have five choices here - XML configuration File, Environment variable, Registry Entry, Parent package variable and SQL Server. In this space we are selecting our source where the SSIS Package will store the configuration information.

Next we will select all the properties which we want to store in our Configuration file. We have selected the “ConnectionString” of Flat File connection manager as we want to store only this property.

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Next we will click on Next button. Here we have to provide name to our Configuration.

Our SSIS Package is ready and we are done with our SSIS Configuration setting. We have set one property “ConnectionString” of Flat File connection manager to be part of the configuration. Next we will see how we can use DTEXECUI utility to generate syntax for our Batch file which we will to execute our SSIS package. We will go to START=>RUN=> Type DTEXECUI. This will open the Execute Package Utility window.

From the Package Source select File System and from the browse button next to Package select the SSIS package we have created above.

Click on "Configuration" and click on "Add" to add the configuration file which we created above.

Next click on Command Line and you will see the command line syntax; copy the entire syntax.

Open Command Prompt window and write DTEXEC and paste the syntax code you copied from DTEXECUI window.

You can see that SSIS package is running and it completed successfully.

Next if you want to create a batch file to run this SSIS package as a window scheduler job. Go ahead and open a notepad and write the same code you have written on the Command Prompt window and save it as a .bat file. Now you can either double click the bat file to run the SSIS package or set it as a window scheduler job to run it periodically.

Project Management through PicturesWhat is a Project Management Plan?

If you have ever worked in a project you must have hear about the Project Management Plan. It is nothing sort of a bible for a Project Manager which contains all the details how the project will be managed.

A project management methodology says that there are 10 Knowledge areas, 5 Process groups and 47 processes in Project management.

Here is a look of what Project Management Plan contains – It mainly has two things; Plans and Baselines.