2001 Systems Engineering Capstone Conference • University of Virginia
FTP MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR CAPITAL ONE
Student Team: Catherine Austin, Ashley Hinds, Jessa Kopecky, Faheem Rahman
Faculty Advisor: Christina Mastrangelo
Department of Systems Engineering
Client Advisor: Don Taylor
Capital One
Marketing & Analysis Decision Support Systems
Richmond, VA
E-mail don.taylor@capitalone.com
KEYWORDS: graphical user interface (GUI), file
transfer protocol, database design, usability testing
ABSTRACT
Capital One is one of the largest bankcard issuers in
the United States. They partner with external
companies, called vendors, to cross sell products and
services to their customers. To communicate with
vendors, they rely on an antiquated file transfer system
to send and receive important data files.
Our Capstone team developed a new file transfer
system to better meet Capital One’s growing needs. To
accomplish this, we conducted a thorough systems
analysis. The final solution includes a vendor
information database, file-tracking capability, file
scheduling tool, automatic e-mail notification, and a
comprehensive graphical user interface (GUI).
We tested the efficacy of the GUI with a usability
test phase characterized by a series of use-cases.
Testing was administered to Capital One associates and
their feedback was used to make further improvements
to the GUI. We also tested the individual components
of the system through unit testing and all tests produced
positive results. The proposed file transfer system will
save Capital One valuable time and resources in the
form of decreased system maintenance and improved
file management.
providers of MasterCard and Visa credit cards in the
world. The Business Week Global 1000 ranked Capital
One the 241st largest company in the US and the 477th
largest company in the world, based on market
capitalization (Capital One, 2000).
Using its proprietary Information-Based Strategy to
generate constant innovation, Capital One links its
database (one of the world's largest) to prize-winning
information technology and highly sophisticated
analytics in order to scientifically test ideas before
taking them to market. This methodology allows
Capital One to tailor products to the individual
customer (Capital One, 2000).
With 25 million accounts, Capital One has a large
collection of accurate contact information that can be
used for direct marketing. To take advantage of this
opportunity, Capital One has formed partnerships with
other businesses (called vendors) to cross sell their
products through various marketing methods. Each
time a product is purchased, the cardholder is entered
into data files.
Capital One relies heavily upon File Transfer
Protocol (FTP) to send and receive files from vendors.
Multiple scripts are executed through a generic UNIX
scheduling program to process these files. These
scripts control the decryption, conversion, and
movement of the vendor files across various servers as
well as check for certain errors.
INTRODUCTION
CURRENT FILE TRANSFER SYSTEM
Headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia, Capital
One Financial Corporation is a holding company whose
principal subsidiaries offer consumer lending products.
Capital One is one of the top 10 bank card issuers in the
United States and its subsidiaries are among the largest
Due to Capital One’s continued growth, the number
of files received daily via file transfer protocol from
vendors has quickly increased. Daily, Capital One
exchanges many files with vendors that range in size
45
FTP Management System for Capital One
from 10 kilobytes to 800 megabytes (Iskandar and
Wester, 2000). While the frequency of file exchanges
has increased, the method that processes these files has
remained the same, causing Capital One many
difficulties. Due to the number of errors in the scripts,
the procedure requires a more than acceptable amount
of time for error correction (Iskandar and Wester,
2000).
Keeping this in mind, our Capstone team decided to
focus on decreasing the number of errors in the scripts
as well as eliminating inadequacies of the current
system. The current system has the following problem
areas:








E-mail lists are stored in flat data files and are
difficult to create and maintain.
Vendors’ information is also kept in a flat data
file that is difficult to maintain.
There is no functionality to handle condition
specific e-mails, such as an e-mail that notifies
of a decryption or conversion error.
The job stops entirely when it encounters a bad
file or a duplicate file. This wastes time
because files cannot continue processing until
the on-call associate fixes the problem.
There is no logging process that allows a user
to check the progress of a file. For example,
when a file fails there is no way of knowing
the reason for its failure (i.e. unsuccessful
decryption).
All functionality resides in a single script and
there is no modularity. This makes the system
susceptible to failure.
There is no method for detecting late files.
There is no standardized user interface.
GOAL
The overall goal is to increase the efficiency of the
data exchange process so that Capital One can better
serve their vendors, and ultimately save money. The
Capstone Team aimed to achieve this goal by
developing an FTP Management System for use by
Capital One associates. By increasing the efficiency of
the data exchange process, the system enhances internal
communications.
46
OBJECTIVES
Cost and Time Objectives
It has been determined that Capital One associates
spend too much time fixing vendor related problems.
The cost and time objectives for the project include:





Reduce the startup cost of the system.
Minimize the maintenance cost of the system
over its lifetime.
Minimize the time required to plan, develop,
implement, and test the system.
Ease integration into current operating
procedures of Capital One and vendors.
Minimize time required to educate system
users.
System Objectives
The proposed system aims to solve the problems of
the current system and also enhance its capabilities.
System objectives include:





Decrease the number of errors that occur and
improve the method that detects and handles
these errors.
Improve communication between Capital One
and vendors.
Ease administration of vendor information.
Streamline the vendor file transfer process by
making it automated.
Make the system more user-friendly.
PROPOSED FTP MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
The current file management system is not only
faulty and inefficient, it is also extremely difficult to
use since there is no front-end interface accompanying
the system. The proposed FTP Management System,
developed by our Capstone team, adds an easy-to-use
GUI, as well as several other functionalities that will
improve Capital One operations. These include a
vendor configuration database that allows the user to
easily input new vendors or make changes to current
vendors, a tracking database that allows the user to
easily search for files based on a wide variety of
criterion, a file scheduling tool whereby the user can
keep track of when specific files are due to Capital One,
and an automatic e-mail notification tool which allows
users to customize their options. The combination of
all of these components makes the proposed FTP
2001 Systems Engineering Capstone Conference • University of Virginia
Managements System more manageable than the
current system.
RESULTS
System Architecture
The proposed FTP Management System comprises
three elements: a database, a graphical user interface,
and scripts. The database stores information about files
and business partners; the graphical interface allows
users of the system to easily retrieve and manipulate
information stored in the database; and the scripts
provide functionality for the interface to access
information in the database as well as for other tasks to
be completed automatically.
Database
The database was designed using an entityrelationship approach where data was described as
entities, attributes, and relationships. The relationships
required particular attention because they represented
the interactions between entities and were essential in
database development. The entity-relationship model
concentrated on specifying the properties of the data
rather than the data storage requirements.
After much analysis and discussion with database
experts, the Capstone team decided that a single
database to store all the information concerning
business partners and tracking files would best suit the
system’s needs. Figure 1 illustrates the entityrelationship diagram for this database.
In the diagram, entity classes are represented by
rectangles and their respective attributes are the
connected ovals. The attributes that are underlined
depict the unique keys of each class that are used for
identification purposes, and the diamonds connecting
the classes represent their respective relationships to
each other. The 1’s and M’s are the cardinality
constraints that put restrictions on the number of
relationships that may exist at any one time. For
example, in a one-to-many relationship, an entity in one
role may have any number of relationships, but an
entity in the other role may have at most one.
According to the model, each vendor can provide
many services, which are uniquely identified using the
company name, file type, and product. Every service
has a schedule of the frequency that files need to be
sent to Capital One in addition to a list of contacts
responsible for that service. Each service can produce a
variety of files with associated logs that contains
information, from the status table, to track the file as it
is processed. When needed, this log sends email
notification to the contacts (both on the Capital One and
vendor side) that are responsible for each service to
inform them of the progress of the file.
The database, based on the entity-relationship
model, was originally created in Microsoft Access for
prototyping purposes. For the final version of the FTP
Management System, the team decided to use Oracle
because it is more efficient for storing and accessing
large amounts of data.
Graphical User Interface
The goal of the interface is to provide the user with
as much functionality as possible while still
maintaining ease of use. The team created the interface
using Microsoft Visual Basic with graphics created in
Paint Shop. Once the first iteration of the interface was
complete, the Capstone team conducted usability
testing with Capital One associates, which further
enhanced and modified the interface.
Figure 1- Vendor Configuration & Tracking Database
The first screen the user sees after selecting the FTP
Management System icon is the login screen (see
Figure 2 next page). The user’s login name and
password authenticates the user and determines what
access he or she is allowed. Administrators have full
access, and non-administrators have read-only access
with the ability to edit their personal information.
47
FTP Management System for Capital One
Figure 2- Login Screen of GUI
Once the user logs in, he or she has access to screens
for file tracking, vendor, product, and contact
information. These screens allow the user to search,
edit, or configure new information.
Figure 3 (below) shows the tracking search screen.
This screen accepts information from the users and then
searches for all files that fit the given criteria. The
results are displayed in an easy-to-read table after the
user hits the “search” button in the bottom right corner.
Similar search screen are also available to search for
vendors, products, and contacts.
Figure 3- Tracking Search Screen
Users can easily add new vendors, services, and
contacts using the appropriate screens. As an example,
Figure 4 (following column) shows the contact add
screen. To add a new contact, the user simply fills in
the appropriate information, most of which can be done
using pull down menus. Once the changes are saved,
all information is stored in the appropriate tables in the
database. New vendors and products can be added in
the same fashion.
48
Figure 4- Contact Add Screen
The graphical user interface was designed taking
into account the important aspects of usability. For
example, by making buttons and labels intuitive, users
can operate the system with little or no training. The
results from usability testing illustrate that the FTP
Management System with GUI is a considerable
improvement over the current file transfer system.
Scripts
The code that connects the database to the interface
and handles automated tasks is the backbone of the FTP
Management System. These scripts are responsible for
scheduling files to be received, file tracking, automatic
email notification in the case of an error, and accessing
and modifying information concerning files, contacts,
and vendors.
Because Capital One already has scripts that provide
some of the functionality that the FTP Management
System requires, the Capstone team was able to utilize
them and develop new scripts as necessary. However,
the original scripts needed to be modified because they
were lengthy, difficult to understand, and contained
redundant code. The majority of the modifications
involved modularization so that each script serves a
specific purpose and can be re-used and easily
maintained as necessary.
At the onset of the project, the Capstone team
determined that some of the scripts for tracking files
should be left for the client to implement because they
require detailed knowledge of the network at Capital
One. The team redefined the project scope for the
backend functionality to only include writing new Unix
and SQL scripts. Rewriting the existing scripts will be
2001 Systems Engineering Capstone Conference • University of Virginia
left for Capital One Information Technology associates
to complete in a second phase of the project.
administrators, analysts, and vendors, which ultimately
saves Capital One time and resources.
Below is a brief description of the new scripts that
provide functionality for the e-mail and scheduling
tools:
The solution has three main components, including
the database, the graphical user interface, and the
scripts. The database stores all of the information for
files, vendors, products, and contacts; the graphical user
interface allows users of the system to easily access and
modify the information in the database; and the scripts
allow users to query the database using the interface
and also provide the backbone functionality for the
system.






Generate E-mail – (Unix) Creates a list of all
files processed on the current date that have a
status code requiring an e-mail. The send email notification script is executed for each
file meeting these criteria.
Send e-mail notification – (Unix) Retrieves the
contact information for each file through the
SQL statement get contacts. The e-mail is
sent to those contacts by the send e-mail script.
If this was executed properly, the log table is
updated to show that an e-mail was sent.
Send e-mail – (Unix) Sends notification e-mail
to the specified contacts.
Get contacts – (SQL) Based on the vendor, file
type, product, and status code, a list of
contacts is generated.
Scheduling Completed Files – (SQL) Queries
for files with a status code indicating that the
file was recently processed. Updates the due
date fields based on the frequency. Changes
the status code to indicate that it was processed
in the past.
Scheduling Late File Finder – (SQL) Creates a
list of files that were due that day, but not
received. Creates a record in the log database
with a status code of “late file”. The e-mail
scripts will send a notification e-mail.
In order to support the proposed system, the team
also recommends several changes to the existing
scripts. For a complete list of detailed script changes,
refer to the Final Document. Other suggestions include
modularizing the scripts to eliminate lengthy, redundant
code and improving the code commenting so that the
purpose of each function is clearer.
CONCLUSIONS
The thorough analysis and goal-centered design led
to a feasible solution that solves Capital One’s needs.
The FTP Management System corrects the errors with
the current system and provides users with enhanced
capabilities, which allows them to better manage files.
The result is improved communication between
Significance
By eliminating the need for constant monitoring and
error detection and correction, the proposed FTP
Management System will significantly reduce the
workload of system administrators. Associates can use
this additional time to concentrate on other projects so
that Capital One can continue developing technology to
support their Information Based Strategy and remain at
the forefront of the industry.
By giving business analysts access to information
concerning file receipt and processing, they are better
able to serve their business partners. The increased
knowledge gained by using the FTP Management
System provides analysts with the resources needed to
handle many routine activities and problems without
relying solely on administrators as they did in the past.
Vendors will also benefit from the proposed file
transfer solution in the form of improved
communication and less file transfer errors on the
Capital One side. Completely eliminating vendor-side
complications would require implementing an FTP
Management System for vendors. However, Capital
One has formed partnerships with a wide variety of
vendors who use many different types of operating
systems, and so it is extremely difficult to establish
standardization across vendors, which is necessary for a
non web-based vendor FTP Management System.
Maintenance
The FTP Management System was designed to ease
the workload on Capital One associates as much as
possible. Although the system is, for the most part,
self-sufficient because all of the components function
automatically, the system still requires maintenance and
updating on a regular basis. Because the system mainly
requires back-end maintenance, such as updating the
49
FTP Management System for Capital One
scripts and making manual changes to the database, this
job will be delegated to an associate in Marketing and
Analysis Decisions Support Systems. (This department
is responsible for maintaining the systems Capital One
uses to interact with their vendors.) The front-end
component of the system, the GUI, will not require
maintenance unless Capital One decides to add
functions to the system. This would require updating
the GUI to accommodate such changes, as well as
changing the database to support the GUI.
the FTP Management System can simply be adapted for
use on a larger scale. The design of the system is
generic enough that it can easily be expanded and
modified in the future.
Future Recommendations
Capital One. (March, 2001) About Capital One.
http://home.capitalone.com/about/corpinfo/.
There are several improvements that could be made
in the future to further improve the system. The two
suggestions that would have the most impact if
implemented are a vendor-side system and user
customization.
Vendor-side FTP Management System Developing a
vendor-side FTP Management System would be the
next challenge in streamlining the file transfer process
and easing the workload on Capital One associates.
This would include:


Creating a web-based vendor side interface
allowing vendors to view the status of the files
they have submitted, and maintain their
contact list.
Developing a vendor side file submission
program that automatically generates proper
file names and ensures that the file is
encrypted, compressed, and transferred
properly. This will eliminate the large element
of human error on the vendor side.
User-customization The GUI is already tailored
specifically for a Capital One associate, but this could
be taken one step further by customizing the GUI for
each individual user. This would include:

Allowing the user to customize the start up
screen of the interface based on their login.
This could automatically display the status of
files that they are concerned with, or display
the screen used most often by that user.
The FTP Management System was originally
developed only for Capital One associates in Marketing
and Analysis Decision Support Systems (M&A DSS)
and Partnerships and Small Businesses (PASB).
However, the system can easily be modified to provide
assistance to the entire company. The framework for
50
REFERENCES
Austin, Hinds, Kopecky, Rahman. (October, 2000)
Capstone Team Goals and Objectives. Capital One,
internal document.
Iskandar, K., & Wester, P. (2000) Interviews,
conducted June- August 2000.
BIOGRAPHIES
Catherine Austin is a fourth-year Systems Engineering
student, with a concentration in Management
Information Systems. After graduation she is going to
spend her summer traveling and then begin working in
August at Capital One.
Ashley Hinds is a fourth-year Systems Engineering
student, with a concentration in Management
Information Systems. Next year she will be working in
Atlanta as a consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers.
She will spend this summer in Japan hiking Mt. Fuji
and enjoying sushi.
Jessa Kopecky is a fourth-year Systems Engineering
student, with a concentration in Management
Information Systems. Next year she will be working
for Capital One, but plans to stay as far away as
possible from the FTP Management Project. Before
beginning work in August, she will spend the summer
at the beach and traveling.
Faheem Rahman is a fourth-year Systems Engineering
student, with a concentration in Computer Information
Systems. He enjoys Charlottesville so much that next
year he will remain at UVA for graduate school.