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Federal Reserve Bank of DALLAS HELEN E. HOLCOMB DALLAS, TEXAS F I R S T V I C E P R E S I D E N T AN D 75265-5906 C H IE F O PER ATING OFFICER November 5, 1997 Notice 97-103 TO: The Chief Operating Officer of each financial institution and others concerned in the Eleventh Federal Reserve District SUBJECT Federal Reserve System Strategy for Customer Testing DETAILS To continue to keep you fully informed about the Federal Reserve’s Century Date Change (CDC) project, we have prepared the enclosed Century Date Change Bulletin, issue No. 2. This bulletin contains information necessary for your own Year 2000 project and defines our CDC testing strategy for those institutions planning to test the CDC readiness of their automated interfaces with the Federal Reserve. Please circulate this bulletin to the appropriate management and technical staff in your institution with responsibility for your Year 2000 project. As our plans progress and the CDC testing schedule is fully defined, we will continue to share critical information with you. We expect to release the testing schedule and sign-up information in February 1998. In addition, our next Century Date Change News, with new tips and guidelines for Year 2000 project managers, will be released in November. ENCLOSURE A copy of the Federal Reserve System’s Century Date Change Bulletin, issue No. 2, is enclosed. MORE INFORMATION If you have any questions regarding the Century Date Change project or need more information on the contents of this bulletin, please contact Sarah Jennings by phone at (800) For additional copies, bankers and others are encouraged to use one of the following toll-free numbers in contacting the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas: Dallas Office (800) 333-4460; El Paso Branch Intrastate (800) 592-1631, Interstate (800) 351-1012; Houston Branch Intrastate (800) 392-4162, Interstate (800) 221-0363; San Antonio Branch Intrastate (800) 292-5810. This publication was digitized and made available by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas' Historical Library (FedHistory@dal.frb.org) 333-4460, ext. 5259 or via E-mail at sarah.jennings@dal.frb.org. Current information on the Federal Reserve’s CDC project is also available on the Internet at http://dallasfed.org and http:// www.frbsf.org/fiservices/cdc/. For additional copies of this Bank’s notice, please contact the Public Affairs Depart ment at (214) 922-5254. Sincerely, j g l I Century Date Change Ib U L L H iin Please route this information to: Fp/lersil Rpcvrvit) ----------------- No. 2 October 6, 1997 Published by Federal Reserve Autom ation Services, San Francisco F e d e ra l R eserve S tra te g y for C ustom er Testing his Century Date Change Bulletin presents the What You Need to Know and Do Federal Reserve’s strategy for supporting custom er testing for century date change About Test Planning (CDC) readiness o f your automated interfaces with O ur detailed customer test support plan for each the Federal Reserve. Federal Reserve application will be published in the Century Date Change Bulletin No. 3 early in 1998. CDC Test Environments This bulletin will describe the schedule, levels o f support, availability o f the environments, and other The Federal Reserve will be prepared to support CD C special procedures specific to C D C testing. customer testing by providing the necessary test T environments beginning July 1, 1998 and continuing through 1999. Each Federal Reserve business area that offers electronically accessed services will provide an environment to enable you to conduct interface testing with future dates. These environments will be set up at Federal Reserve consolidated processing sites and at local Federal Reserve offices, as appropriate for the application. A series o f future date cycles will be scheduled to enable you to test a number o f critical future date scenarios. At a minimum, these will include: Last business day o f 1999 through January 3, 2000, and Leap year processing - February 28 to February 29 to March 1, 2000. These future date cycles for some applications may be repeated. For example, the Funds Transfer and Book-entry Securities business areas plan to roll these applications through future date cycles in the test environment routinely on a weekly or biweekly basis. This will provide you with multiple opportunities to test your readiness. 1 “Fedline ” is a registered trademark o f the Federal Reserve Banks. For customer-initiated C D C testing, most Federal Reserve business areas intend to mirror existing test support structures. Current scheduling procedures and mechanisms, already familiar to customers, will be used for reserving specific test dates and times. The Federal Reserve may participate in or accom modate specially scheduled weekend end-to-end tests o f specific applications or sets o f applications for groups o f institutions. After you have seen the published schedule, please forward any requests for additional test dates or types o f test configurations, other than those defined in the schedule, to the attention o f your local Federal Reserve testing contact as early as possible. About Fedline The Century Date Change Bulletin No. 1, dated August 1, 1997, stated that customers that use frontend and/or back-end systems to process Federal Reserve files and messages through Fedline® devices should request testing with the Federal Reserve to ensure correct processing o f all date fields exchanged through Fedline.1Prior to testing, all Fedline customers Century Date Change Bulletin should plan to install the C D C release o f the DOSbased Fedline software that will provide correct presentation o f dates. This new release will be available in mid-1998. The Federal Reserve also will provide specific guidelines to Fedline customers on how to use the Fedline software to test century date change readiness. About Bulkdata In the Century Date Change Bulletin No. 1, the Federal Reserve announced its plans to release a new version o f MVS Bulkdata— for computer interface customers that have Bulkdata installed on their own m ainfram e sy stem s- which will allow correct processing o f files when the date changes from December 31,1999 tojanuary 1,2000. MVS XA/ESA Bulkdata Version 5.1.3C will be available to you from your local Reserve Bank early in the second quarter o f 1998. MVS Bulkdata Version 5.1.3C must be installed in a test environment in order to conduct C D C testing of file origination. Please note, however, that this new version is not necessary to conduct C D C testing of file receipt. If you do not have a test Bulkdata system, you will need to create one, w hich can be accomplished using the automated “quick install” process. We strongly recommend that you work closely with your local Federal Reserve contacts to schedule your Bulkdata installation between April and June 1998. In this way, you will be prepared by July 1998 to participate in C D C testing o f your applications with Federal Reserve applications which rely on Bulkdata for file transfer, such as FedACH. Federal Reserve Support for CDC Customer Testing Your readiness for the year 2000 depends on the CD C readiness o f your automation environment and o f the software which is used to generate or process data sent to or received from the Federal Reserve. It is not possible for the Federal Reserve to determine the readiness o f either your environment or your software. Therefore, as a service provider, the Federal Reserve will not certify the C D C readiness o f its customers with respect to Federal Reserve products. However, we will make every effort to accommodate your testing needs. While the Federal Reserve may track progress on customer testing, we do not intend to routinely p ro v id e w ritten c o n firm a tio n o f y o u r test participation, progress, or results to you. Also, please be assured that we also do not intend, for purposes o f privacy, to provide such information to any third party. Each Federal Reserve business area will provide test guidelines for its application(s) in advance o f testing. For example, these guidelines may identify those processes in customer interfaces with the Federal Reserve that span multiple processing days. You will not be charged any fees for C D C testing. If, however, you are changing vendors and, in addition to C D C testing, need to fully retest an application and transmission protocols, then a charge may be assessed. For More Information The Century Date Change Bulletin No. 3, scheduled for an early 1998 publication, will provide the specific details you will need to prepare for C D C testing with the Federal Reserve. As Federal Reserve business areas complete internal preparations to become year 2000 ready, we will inform you o f our progress in future bulletins. If you would like a copy o f the Century Date Change Bulletin No. 1 which details compliance information for Fedline, Bulkdata, and CIPS, or if you have questions and need additional information regarding the Federal Reserve’s plans for year 2000 readiness, please call your Business Development representative at your local Federal Reserve. Federal Reserve
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