Assignment:
Respond to two or more of your colleagues in one or more of the following ways:
- Offer your colleague one or more lessons you have learned, based on your own experience with the types of data resources and systems presented.
- Expand on your colleague’s post by sharing how your organization has used these data resources and systems.
- Offer ideas for how the data resources or systems presented might be used in your organization. Identify any obstacles that your organization might face or has faced when using these data resources and systems.
- Compare your colleague’s findings with your own to develop a set of recommendations from which organizations with similar data resource and processing needs might benefit most.
- Expand upon potential issues that could arise and offer one or more additional recommendations about how you would address those.
Please be specific, and use citations and references as appropriate and necessary.
1st Colleague to respond to:
Shared Practice—Data Resources and Processes That Matter to Your Organization
Within my current organization, there are multiple utilizations of data resources, data processing, and or storage systems. Without such services and systems our organization would be non-existent and unable to compete within the industry today. The four most critical data systems are our electronic health record which would be identified as a data processing system, an accounting system that utilizes a database application to track receipts for payments and donations, Paylocity a web-based data system that tracks time and attendance through payroll software, as well as serves both physical and virtual which would be considered a data storage system.
The Electronic Health Record (EHR) is hosted on a virtual server that allows the organization to collaboratively document and track the status of clientele. The virtual server is a secured server that has an encrypted single host to ensure the confidentiality and safety of all information being computed and stored. Thus, allowing everyone at the agency to work from the same portal and have shared access to all organizational records. Enhancing patient coordination and care. Within the utilization of a virtual server when updates are made to the physical server, we are not able to access the virtual servers. We also have slow response times due to high traffic times within the system. All these technical issues interfere with productivity. I feel that a viable solution to resolve such issues would be to have a physical server within each region that the company provides services rather than just one central hub.
The accounting information system (AIS) which utilizes a database application allows for efficiency within tracking and monitoring the financial gains and losses/disbursements within the organization. Thus, being able to recoup lost capital and consistently working towards balancing the financial ledgers. Even though we are a non-profit organization we still are a business that must keep accurate records of all monetary exchanges. Even more so as a non-profit to provide annual reports of expenses identifying where charitable and government funding is being utilized and disbursed. The information with the AIS is that only specific users have granted access to navigate the system. Therefore, clinicians are often asked to address financial issues and recoup payments without any knowledge regarding the client’s bill. This creates frustration for the client and clinician. I believe that a feasible solution is to grant everyone access to the system with limited parameters. I also feel we could make the system more user friendly by utilizing open source networking and allowing clients access to their billing information via web portal.
Within our organization, we also utilize (Paylocity) payroll software through web-based data systems that track the time and attendance of all employees within the organization. This software allows the organization to rationalize the financial assets of the employee based on how many clock hours they are identifying towards their productivity within the organization. It also allows for individuals to submit vacation requests and PTO requests calculating every pay period how much time everyone has earned versus utilized. This makes tracking easier for managers and takes assumptions out of pay variances leaving it solely up to the hours tracked and accounted for within the system for that pay period. The issues with Paylocity are that it can be edited by anyone within the organization, therefore, leaving room for deceptive time clock entries and mistakes. I feel that this could be solved by adding a finger scanner that automatically populated time versus having individuals type in their times manually.
The organization utilizes physical and virtual servers. The physical server is located at the main facility in Iowa City and the other locations utilize the virtual services as host systems. This allows for multiple users in the same system at various times. The physical server supports the virtual servers throughout the organization. “A server system can be a plurality of the physical servers and the virtual servers implemented on them or it can be a plurality of the virtual servers executed on one physical server” (Tormasov, & Shaikharatov, 2011). Virtual servers are the way of the future within organizational information systems. According to Daniels, “Virtual server technology unlocks unused capacity and allows the CPU, memory, disk, and controllers to be maximized for each physical device” (2009, p.10). The issues with this type of system are that it takes a lot of manpower to maintenance and control as well as the financial expenditure of such a system. One way I could see addressing such issues is transitioning to renting more of our data storage and utilizing more open based web services such as services provided by Amazon cloud.
References:
Daniels, J. (2009, September). Server virtualization architecture and implementation. CrossRoads, 16(1), 8-12.
Tormasov, A., & Shaikharatov, O. (2011). Management of virtual and physical servers using central console (US, Grant, Patent). US Grant. US7941510B1.
2nd Person to Respond to:
In today’s society, there are many automated systems and processing functions that make employees’ lives easier. Data resources represent relevant information that is accessible to an organization. There are various ways data is stored. To process data, employees use a computer, hard drive, transfer, or even cloud sharing systems. These functions are able to store data that are important and can be useful at a later time. Many large and small businesses use these data systems to compute, learn, and process information at a given time. The most common systems that are used today are customer data, Internal financial data, Automatic data processing, and Cloud storage. Some prime examples are Amazon, Chase, or Ford. These widely known companies use the same tactic in using data resources to store information about their company or consumers.
Any business firm is well known for its customer. The customers are what makes a business thrive. Customer data can be defined as interacting with the organization in which the customer produces the data to employees. Then it is collected by organizational team members to analyze it. This interaction can be done via the website, mobile applications, surveys, social media, marketing campaigns, and other offline or online streaming services.
Internal financial data is a way to grow the company. This space explains the financial health of an organization. The financial data includes information about assets, equity, liabilities, balance sheet, and other important functions that shows a company’s loss or profit. Every company has this structure to be organized and on track.
Automatic data processing is an efficient way to generate the desired output after performing data processing. In ADP the task is to provide input to the computer system, the data then will be processed automatically. This saves a lot of time in firms. According to Thakur (n.d.), “These kinds of systems help in increasing the productivity and efficiency of the office workforce by automating simple tasks (para. 3). Once data is processed, the outcome is collected then analyzed. The speed of processing is high and the chances of error are low. In my organization, this method would be useful because when I am processing teller transactions sometimes customer’s information is not saved. This would save time for regular customers that would constantly have to pull out their ID’s. Regular clients are frustrated because our system is outdated, and they have no choice but to pull out their ID. When clients are in a hurry, they tend to get more frustrated because they expect us to know them by now. But when dealing with thousands of customers it is difficult to differentiate every customer. If this were implemented it would save me time and prevent an error because then I do not have to worry about clicking the wrong customer’s name and customers would not have to pull out ID anymore.
Cloud storage is when an organization stores data in a cloud where all the information is saved and retrievable. This saves space in the organization where it allows more room to save important information. As Alexander (2006) stated, “And in most cases, you can log into your account from any computer using a web browser–a great way to retrieve files when you’re away from your PC” (para. 9). To access this information is very simple. The main benefit of using cloud space is to recover from a disaster. If an organization result in any kind of failure, they may lose data but using the cloud storage they are able to recover the data without any loss. In my organization, we use a system named MAX. This cloud database has all of our clients’ personal information that can be found after opening their accounts. This storage allows us to save data after every conversation and keep them on file in case a customer needs their account information. Many customers do not know their own information that is where we step in to help them. Without this cloud, we would not be able to efficiently serve our clients. All of these processes and tools are very much needed.
Two short term issues with these systems and processes are lack of expertise and high costs that an organization may have to accept. Two long term issues are loss of data and security issues. These problems can arise anytime and anywhere from a simple mistake. That is why it is very important to clear the customer’s information before the end of the day. A recommendation that might enable my organization to formulate a response would be to update software regularly. This would ensure that all data stored is being kept safe and sound. Organizations can install a program that ensures that security and information are up to date. This is an easy and effective cost way to help organizations save money and time.
Reference:
Alexander, P. (2006, December 20). Choosing the Best Data Storage Solution. Retrieved May 19, 2020, from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/172226
Thakur, D. (n.d.). Dinesh Thakur. Retrieved May 19, 2020, from http://ecomputernotes.com/mis/information-and-system-concepts/typesofinformationorganizationsuse