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3.1 Change
15. Document Policy
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3.1.15. Document Policy:
Business documents are just another variety of web page that matches business requirements in terms of fonts, themes and layout.   Every business document is created and presented as an HTML web pages that may be saved, downloaded or emailed.   Most human languages in the world are supported by employing UTF-8 character set encoding.

Placeholders:
A business document is created by saving a sample document as an HTML web page.   Variable data is edited into a placeholder that shows where data from the database is to be inserted.
Placeholders enable one or more rows of data to be presented and for rows to be hidden when certain values are zero, blank or null - Blank-When-Zero is a supported technique.   Internal calculations and totals can be derived automatically as any normal report generator.

Privileged User Procedure:
PCI-DSS regulation demands that privileged users are subject to special change management procedures to mitigate against fraud and errors.   A principal is that several different people with assigned roles must cooperate in a fixed procedure to effect any operational change.
1. The Change Manager will approve a improvement request and will specify the components that may be changed by making a copy available in a development environment.
2. The Project Manager will schedule an Information Engineer to make the approved changes in the development environment.
3. The scheduled Information Engineer will make the approved changes in the development environment.
4. The Validation and Test Manager will verify approved changes in the development environment.
5. The Release and Deployment Manager will copy the specified components from the development environment to each production environment.
6. The Configuration Manager will document the specified components and update all meta data.

Reference:
It would be wrong to markup a business document with its first operational date so an encoding method is used.   The year, month and day are each reduced to a single alphabetic character.   Year 12 is shown as "L", month 10 is shown as "J" and day 17 is shown as "Q". "LJQ" on a document means it was first operational on 17 Oct 2012.   It is easy to identify the earlier edition with "LCT" as its operational start date.

Editions:
Every business document has a first and last date when it may be used.   When a change is to be applied to an existing document, that document is cloned as a new document that may be change with a first date that is some years into the future.
While the new edition is being tested against a future date, the existing document continues to be used without any change.   When the new edition has been verified, it is enabled by changing its first date to tomorrow and the current document edition has its last date changed to today.   When the business document is requested, the document edition that is applicable for that date is selected and used.
CRM business data never needs to be concerned with a specific document edition - it only needs its inception and/or created date that is built into all business data.

Document Folder:
When a business document is created, a copy of that business document is stored in the report folder where it will be held for at least seven years.   Any business in the report folder may be selected for email or download by authorized people.
Because an operational business document can never be changed and must have a valid first and last date, any business document can be recreated for any historical date.   Fraud is totally excluded as nobody has the ability to change an operations business document or to change what edition of a business document should be used for any date.   Compliance audits have verified these procedures as fit for purpose.

Fall-back:
In the event that a changed business document is not as expected, the prior edition of the business document can have its last date extended to make it operational and the start date of the new edition can be set into the future.   The effect is that within a new moments, a prior edition of a business document can be reinstated.   These benefits can only be achieved by not holding business document edition numbers in any business data.
While it is normal that a business document change will take place on a specific date, when needed, a new business document can be implemented at any time without any impact on current live users.   When the new edition has been verified, it is enabled by changing its first date to tomorrow and the current document edition has its last date changed to today.   When the business document is requested, the document edition that is applicable for that date is selected and used.

Placeholders:
A business document is created by saving a sample document as an HTML web page.   Variable data is edited into a placeholder that shows where data from the database is to be inserted.
Placeholders enable one or more rows of data to be presented and for rows to be hidden when certain values are zero, blank or null - Blank-When-Zero is a supported technique.   Internal calculations and totals can be derived automatically as any normal report generator.

Change Management:
Once an edition of a business document is assigned a current date, that business document is locked and cannot be changed in any way.   A clone of a business document can be created and that clone can be changed and tested, but once it is assigned operational status, it cannot be changed.
Business documents have roles that must match the permissions for the person requesting the business document.   Depending on the state of a record, different documents may be assigned to be used by the function access manager.

Change Environment:
Business documents in a production environment are never changed and procedures are in place to ensure that no operational business document can be changed.   Business documents will contain style guides and images that are cached for up to 6 months and so cannot be dynamically changed.
Where a new image or style guide is created it must be assigned a unique name.   Where an existing image or style guide is changed, it must be assigned to a new folder.
Dynamic changes to business documents may be made in a development environment by authorized Information Engineers, but this does not apply to images or style guides that are cached.

Project Management:
Business documents are just a special kind of web page that have been subject to virtually the same update procedures for more than ten years.   Change control can be applied at any time of the day or night without any impact on active users and with very few dependencies.   A large number of trivial improvements are always more successful than delays leading up to a massive change with disruptive consequences.