ARTS is pleased to announce the creation of the first phase of the Data Model conformance audit program to provide retailers assurance that prospective software purchases use the Model and vendors certification that their products are in conformance with the Model. This Program will ultimately provide vendors & retailers two levels of conformance audit for candidate databases.
Near Physical Conformance: This first level of conformance audits the candidate database(s) for the existence of tables & columns from the Near-Physical ARTS Data Model required to support specific business functions.
System Functionality Conformance: This future level of conformance will audit the candidate database to ensure the tables & columns found to be present in the Near-physical Conformance audit are actually being used by the system as defined within the model.
With this announcement ARTS is prepared to offer Near-Physical Conformance audits for the tables & columns required for the following Business Functions.
The following business functions will be added to the Near-Physical Conformance audit program over the next two months.
Tender Control
Merchandise Flow Management
Ordering
Store Administration
Store & Productivity Reporting
Workforce Management
Customer Relationship Management
To learn more about the Business Functions that are included in the current version of the Conformance Program click here.
In working with two beta candidates, ARTS intends to quantify the four current functions and begin the processing of further categorizing each business function by retail segment, department store, grocery, specialty etc.
The Near-Physical Audit includes the following:
Tables: Checks for the existence of tables as defined by the Business Function Options, the Conformance Matrices and the Candidate Submission Document.
Relationships: When a relationship exists in the data model between two mandatory tables then the relationship shall be mandatory. When a relationship exists in the data model between two entities that are either Mandatory or Optional then the relationship shall be optional.
Data-types: The data storage type of each column in the candidate system will be checked to ensure the candidate system has not chosen a data type which is incompatible with the definition in the data model. Not all columns & data-types can be checked but the following checks could be made:
Tables as Views: A candidate system may include some (or all) tables In the ARTS data model as database views rather than as actual tables.
Primary Keys: A primary key for any table defined in the data model standard may be substituted for a synthesized primary key in any candidate system. In which case the defined primary key shall be present in the table as an alternate key. The compliance audit will check for the existence of all primary keys on those tables that are present in the candidate system.
The Conformance audit program is largely automated to allow preliminary self testing and reduce the on site time requirement of the ARTS representative. To learn more about the Automated Auditing Tool and check if your databases can use the initial version of the conformance program click here.
More information regarding the Conformance Program is available from Stuart McGrigor, ARTS Sr. Technical Architect or ARTS.