ABC Worldwide®
ABC Banks in Action™ Simulation Software
Requirement Document
Table of Contents
Table of Contents .......................................................................................................................................... 1
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 2
Vision............................................................................................................................................................. 2
Background ................................................................................................................................................... 2
Scope of ABC Banks in Action 2.0.................................................................................................................. 3
Simulation Enhancements and Updates .............................................................................................. 3
Language Expansion ............................................................................................................................. 3
Application Environment .............................................................................................................................. 4
System Requirements ................................................................................................................................... 4
Introduction
ABC Banks in Action is the first ABC Worldwide program developed for international use and is part of
ABC’s suite of high school programs. This project is an enhancement of an existing product currently
delivered.
The current ABC Banks in Action online computer simulation is available in three languages:

English

Spanish

Portuguese
The ABC Banks in Action online computer simulation includes a “Quick Start Guide” and “Strategy
Guide” within the Help menu.
In this document, we will refer to the new application as ABC Banks in Action 2.0.
Vision
ABC Worldwide intends to improve its online computer simulation, ABC Banks in Action, by converting
the current application from PHP running on a Unix environment to .NET on a Windows environment
and adding the ability to support multiple languages in Unicode character set.
Background
ABC Banks in Action was first developed by ABC Argentina with financial support from Bank XYZ
Argentina. The XYZ Foundation has continued its support of ABC Banks in Action to expand its reach to
students worldwide. In 2006, with XYZ Foundation sponsorship, ABC Worldwide upgraded and replaced
the original program with the new ABC Banks in Action program so students can increase their
understanding of the banking industry through a computer simulation available online.
ABC’s Education Group has developed a product which will use an interdisciplinary approach to
educate high school aged youth about banking and the banking industry. ABC Banks in Action is a
volunteer-led program built around eight classroom sessions. During each session, students learn the
fundamentals of the banking industry and then have the opportunity to apply what they learn in a
competitive environment using the ABC Banks in Action online computer simulation.
Through the online simulation, students form banking teams and operate a bank over time by making
several decisions, each of which represents three months or a calendar quarter. Six key decisions are
made that involve:

Setting short-term deposit interest rates.

Setting short-term loan interest rates.

Setting long-term deposit interest rates.

Setting long-term loan interest rates.

Investing in research and development.
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
Investing in marketing.
Competing banks are doing the same thing and the banks start out on an equal basis. The banking team
that develops the best strategy and makes a greater profit than its competitors is the winner, earning
the title “Bank of Choice.”
Scope of ABC Banks in Action 2.0
ABC Worldwide intends to improve upon ABC Banks in Action in the following areas:
Simulation Enhancements and Updates

Migrate application to Microsoft-oriented technologies (.NET) to make it easier to support and
develop additional features

The application is currently written in PHP with a Flash client.
Language Expansion
Specific program enhancements are to include:
1. One user interface to add additional languages as needed by ABC Worldwide.
2. Enable the system to support multiple international languages in order to expand the accessibility of
the application. Application must be developed to support Unicode and accommodate special
characters in the way in which a particular language is read (top to bottom, left to right and right to
left).
3. Languages requiring translation can be considered in four categories with varying levels of
challenges.
a. Roman character set-based languages that can be represented in Latin 1 (most European
languages) - Process only develop, document, and test pipeline process.
b. Roman character set-based (Latin) languages that require other character sets (for instance:
Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Romanian, etc) - Process and Technical (loading additional
character/font sets).
c. Cyrillic Languages - Non-Latin alphabet based languages (such as Russian, Arabic, etc) Process, Technical, and Design (layouts may need to change).
d. Character-based languages (Japanese, Chinese, etc.) - Process, Technical, and potentially
major design changes.
4. Build a language administration module for creating new language libraries, proofing the language
libraries, and adding them to the system. Allow ABC to use MS Office applications to translate text
of the simulation that can be imported into language library.
5. User should have ability to select language when logging onto site and it should be connected to
user account. User should not have to reselect preferred language every time user logs on.
6. The ABC Worldwide Education and IT Groups will monitor the quality and consistency of the
translations to ensure that the program works as designed. In addition, the project team will work
closely with the selected vendor to notify, fix, and manage any discrepancies.
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Application Environment
The client application will be designed to work with at least Microsoft Windows 7 or higher and
Macintosh OSX or higher systems in a web environment. The database shall not require user to purchase
additional software or licenses. The application is currently written in PHP with a Flash client.
ABC Worldwide intends to standardize the administrator user interface across our variety of online and
offline systems. Although not called out as a deliverable within these requirements, this goal should be
kept in mind when adjusting or changing such interfaces.
System Requirements

Application must be a web application and must not require a download from the user
to operate.

Application may require a .Net, Java, or Flash download if those are part of
the application.

Server components must run in a Windows Server environment using .Net and MS SQL Server
for the database.

Client environment should not be operating system specific and the application should run on
the last and current major revisions of Microsoft IE, Chrome, Firefox and Safari.

Client must not use any hard disk space, except for browser, .Net, Java, or Flash
system files.

Server system requirements are negotiable based on functionality and approved design.

System can require IIS but we would prefer support for any Web server.

We would prefer the system include support for load balancing and not require a single affinity
connection. This is important because all of the teams may have the same IP address when
accessing the system.

Vendor will provide system specifications that will be designed to handle 1,000 concurrent users
with the ability to scale upward by adding more equipment.
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