Non- Functional Requirements Definition
The conveyancing industry has a history of deploying technology to enhance its productivity and minimise costs. Financial institutions have developed sophisticated loan and mortgage documentation systems to service the demand for mortgages efficiently. Mortgage processors have developed special-purpose systems to deliver mortgage documentation and completion in the shortest possible timeframe. Legal and conveyancing practices have increasingly adopted proprietary case management systems to automate and control their preparation of conveyancing transactions. Information brokers have developed systems that provide other industry participants with ready and seamless access to the external information services needed to complete transactions. Land Registries have developed electronic titling systems and Revenue Offices have developed electronic systems for duty assessment.
These systems are integral to the business operations of most industry participants and their continued viability is dependent on their availability and reliability.
While NECS will be available for use through an Internet browser, most industry participants are expected to use NECS via Web Services to provide seamless integration with their existing systems and to ultimately achieve straight-through-processing (STP) of their transactions. For these arrangements to be effective in achieving industry and government expectations of increased efficiency, NECS must meet stakeholder performance requirements. To distinguish them from what the system must do (ie its Functional Requirements), these performance requirements are the system’s Non-Functional Requirements.
In February 2009, the National Office commissioned Saratoga Professional Services Pty Ltd to undertake work in defining the Non-Functional Requirements for NECS. Saratoga undertook extensive consultation with industry participants and developed requirements set out in the report dated August 2009 available here.
In November 2009, the National Office commissioned Ajilon Australia Pty Ltd to extend and clarify the Non-Functional Requirements necessary for the NECS environment with particular emphasis on applying the software engineering quality criteria of Australian Standard AS9126 in satisfying stakeholder expectations. Ajilon’s report dated March 2010 is available here.
From these reports six principal performance characteristics have been identified as the key non-functional requirements for NECS:
• Security (the ability of the system to protect information and data from unauthorised access)
• Reliability (the ability of the system to deliver a level of performance)
• Useability (the ability of the system to be easily understood, learned and easily used)
• Efficiency (the ability of the system to maintain its performance under varying loads)
• Maintainability (the ability of the system to be conveniently and efficiently modified and
enhanced)
• Portability (the ability of the system to be transferred to another operating environment).
Each of these system characteristics has a number of features, each with a criteria to assess performance. In some instances the criteria are quantifiable (eg must achieve XX%) and in others they rest on qualitative compliance (eg must comply with XX).
While all six system characteristics are important, security, reliability and useability are particularly important to the success of NECS as essential infrastructure for the conveyancing industry in the future. The significant investments required of industry participants to ready their legacy systems and procedures to use NECS effectively, and the future dependence of their businesses on the continuing availability of NECS, make the level of NECS performance in operation a critical consideration in its provisioning. NECS cannot afford to be the weak link in the chain of systems delivering STP processing.
The recommended Non-Functional Requirements for NECS are available in an issues paper being considered by the National Project Team (NPT) and available here.
If you have any comments on the Non-Functional Requirements for NECS, please provide them here.
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