OTIS – Online Trading Information System

OTIS (Online Trading Information System) is a product that I designed while working at ProcServe to make the ProcServe Trading Network more flexible, easier to use and simpler to integrate with (you can read more about my work at ProcServe on the ProcServe project page).

The ProcServe Trading Network is an online collaborative procurement system. Which, in plain English, means it is a system that allows organisations to trade with each other online through a controlled, secure, common set up.

Suppliers can publish online catalogues listing their wares, with special prices for customers with specific contracts. Customers of these suppliers can search these catalogues and raise requisitions (orders that need approval from someone’s boss, or finance controller) for the products in the catalogues. If the boss / finance controller approves the requisition, the ProcServe system will automatically process the order and pass it on to the Supplier, who can return an electronic invoice through the system back to the customer for payment. Think Amazon, but for B2B transactions.

Many organisations have various procurement and HR solutions that they have invested thousands of pounds in deploying and customising. Unfortunately most of these tools have varying degrees of ability, can be complicated to use and especially hard to integrate with online trading networks, such as ProcServe’s.

Time and time again at ProcServe we came across organisations that desperately wanted to use and benefit from access to the ProcServe Trading Network, but were unable to do so because of the internal systems that they used and the cost in time and money of changing them.

OTIS was designed to address this problem. OTIS offers organisations three possible ways of interacting with the ProcServe Trading Network:

1. as a simple online portal into the network. Users can login and access the ProcServe Trading Network using nothing more complicated than their browser and an Internet connection. They use OTIS like they would use Amazon, but with the ability to see unique, contract driven catalogue content that is specific to their organisation
2. as a hybrid solution in conjunction with their internal systems. Many organisations have very strict, ridged procurement processes that have been modeled and built into their internal systems, but still need a way of accessing the content and contracts that the ProcServe Trading Network contains. OTIS is designed to offer users the ability to access these contracts and content and pass this information into their internal systems to ensure the correct procurement processes are followed
3. as a management interface for controlling their internal system integration with the ProcServe Trading Network. Some procurement and HR tools allow for integration with online trading networks, but they and the network need to be configured correctly for this integration to work. In this third scenario OTIS is designed to be an online interface for controlling aspects of this configuration. This provides organisations with a self-service interface for configuring their systems, allowing them complete control over how their organisation uses their access to the ProcServe Trading Network.

OTIS is also designed to be used by ProcServe’s own staff to configure and manage the system for administration and maintenance.

OTIS was a huge project and design and development effort for ProcServe. I was involved from the beginning of OTIS, from its conception, right through to its development and testing.

Business & Technical Skills used

• requirements analysis and design (including running workshops with internal and external customers)
• system specification design (documenting the entire design, feature by feature, function by function)
• Information Architecture (IA) design
• wireframing and prototyping (including a complete xHTML, browser based mock up of the entire application)
• User Experience and Interface design
• xHTML & CSS development.