ACHIEVING MORE IN ARCHER

UTILIZING THE API

1 Brian Olberz Mark Klimesh
Manager, Software Engineering Senior Software Engineer
ABOUT BRIAN OLBERZ
 Manager, Software Engineering (GRC Technology Solutions)
 8 years Archer administration at Humana
 12 years IT experience with information systems and information security
 At Humana:
− General oversight of the Archer platform and Humana’s extensive implementation
• Archer development team is 13 people
− Custom Policy Management solution
− Design input on custom web services integrations
− Manage other applications, including the credentialing platform and an IDM tool

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ABOUT MARK KLIMESH
 Senior Software Engineer (GRC Technology Solutions)
 7 years Archer administration at Humana
 16 years of IT experience including web, .NET, and database
 At Humana:
− Custom regulatory change solution
− Primary consultant on web service integrations with Archer
− Onshore Lead
− Architectural responsibilities

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AGENDA
 4 Use Cases:
− Selective Recalculation
− Bulk Upload / Bulk Download
− Mail Merge
− Smart Copy
 References

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SELECTIVE
RECALCULATION

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U P D AT E : B U S I N E S S P R O B L E M A N D H O W R S A
RESPONDED
 Humana’s SaaS services server was still recalculating from overnight application recalculations deep into the
morning hours. Business interruptions were happening as notifications were not firing on time and record
recalculations could not happen

 Humana’s issues:
− Large Implementation / number of records
− Heavy API integrations with overnight feeds of data from enterprise data sources
− Many applications were set to fully recalculate overnight

 How Humana solved this

− We created “Smart Calc” which was previously know as “Selective Recalculation”. Essentially, this job could be quickly setup
to consume an Archer report and then API would “touch” the record forcing a recalc. This eliminated many records that we
knew were no longer being changed and allowed us to turn the nightly recalc off for many applications.

 UPDATE
− As of 6.4, Archer can do this utilizing a filter criteria parameter found under Schedules in App Builder
− This appears as an Archer calculation engine touch as opposed to end-user touch that an API touch provides

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BULK UPLOAD /
BULK DOWNLOAD
WAIT, THE AUDITORS WILL BE HERE
TOMORROW?!?!

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BUSINESS PROBLEM – BULK UPLOAD
 The volume of attachments we need loaded into
Archer was also time consuming (as with any web
tool) to load many attachments to record(s)
− Field work by auditors and other compliance specialists
resulted in large number of attachments that were time
consuming to load

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WHAT CAN ARCHER DO OR NOT DO NATIVELY
 Archer currently does not have mechanism for
bulk import or export of attachments.
− Archer’s download native functionality:
• Within a Report, for every record;
• Manually click on each individual file attachment
• Click Save

− Attachment upload functionality

• For every record:
• Navigate to the record
• Open the record:
• Navigate to specific attachment field
• Upload several files at once to single record

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ORIGINAL DESIGN - UPLOAD
 Bulk upload - Console application that
accepts a directory location and within that
directory location:
− Folder name reflects record number.
• Unlimited folders (records to load to) could be
created
− Within each folder, place all the files that you
want uploaded
− You can load to one attachment field at a time
per application.
 Business began to see how onerous this
approach would be
− Rebuild the record attachment structure is
time consuming
− Led to Revised Design

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REVISED DESIGN - UPLOAD
 Bulk upload - Console application that
accepts a .csv (Excel) file that indicates:
− record number to upload
− attachment field ID to load to
− path to the file to load to that record’s
specified attachment field.

 Benefits
− No recreation of folder structures
− Allows for upload to multiple fields and
applications in one file

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 INPUT FILE

Attachment
Record ID Field ID Path To File
1815236 191 C:\Users\markklimesh\Desktop\2018\Misc\Attachment Upload Demo\evidence1
1815237 191 C:\Users\markklimesh\Desktop\2018\Misc\Attachment Upload Demo\evidence2
1815238 191 C:\Users\markklimesh\Desktop\2018\Misc\Attachment Upload Demo\evidence3
1815239 191 C:\Users\markklimesh\Desktop\2018\Misc\Attachment Upload Demo\evidence4
2011524 205 C:\Users\markklimesh\Desktop\2018\Misc\Attachment Upload Demo\evidence5
2011525 205 C:\Users\markklimesh\Desktop\2018\Misc\Attachment Upload Demo\evidence6
2011526 205 C:\Users\markklimesh\Desktop\2018\Misc\Attachment Upload Demo\evidence7
2011527 205 C:\Users\markklimesh\Desktop\2018\Misc\Attachment Upload Demo\evidence8
2011528 205 C:\Users\markklimesh\Desktop\2018\Misc\Attachment Upload Demo\evidence9
2011529 205 C:\Users\markklimesh\Desktop\2018\Misc\Attachment Upload Demo\evidence10
1875246 381 C:\Users\markklimesh\Desktop\2018\Misc\Attachment Upload Demo\evidence11
1875247 381 C:\Users\markklimesh\Desktop\2018\Misc\Attachment Upload Demo\evidence12
1875248 381 C:\Users\markklimesh\Desktop\2018\Misc\Attachment Upload Demo\evidence13
1875249 381 C:\Users\markklimesh\Desktop\2018\Misc\Attachment Upload Demo\evidence14
1875250 381 C:\Users\markklimesh\Desktop\2018\Misc\Attachment Upload Demo\evidence15

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SPECIFIC METHODS
 Bulk Upload:
1. getCurrentAttachments(sessionToken, recordId, tbAttachmentField.Text); –To get the existing
attachments for any record
2. updateContent(sessionToken, recordId, contentInfo.LevelId, tbAttachmentField.Text,
contentInfo.AttachmentFieldValue, contentInfo.Version); --To upload all attachments to Archer
for any record. This method allows for appending attachments

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BUSINESS PROBLEM – BULK DOWNLOAD
 As a heavily regulated company, we were not able to
quickly retrieve evidence from Archer for external
auditors. We could export records, but not
accompanying attachments.

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DESIGN - DOWNLOAD
1. Via console application (example on next slide):
Select the application name from a dropdown.
1. The application populates a list of attachment fields
and sub-form fields
2. Select the attachment fields and sub-form
attachments fields from the two lists
3. Create a report in Archer that identifies records
that you want bulk downloaded. Record the GUID
of that report and enter into the console
application. The only required field on the report is
Tracking ID
4. Enter a path to store attachments download in
console application
5. Click Submit. Upon submission the custom code
combines the attachment fields that you selected
with the records it retrieves from the report you
created
6. The output is hierarchical structure of folders and
attachments sent to the location specified in step
4.
7. See example to the right of an output

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CONSOLE APPLICATION

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SPECIFIC METHODS
 Bulk Download:
1. getAttachment(fileId); -- To get the attachments in bytes
2. GetFieldAttachmentDetailsByModuleId(sessionToken, moduleId); -- to get the Field GUIDs for all
Attachment fields in that application

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PROS/CONS/LESSONS LEARNED
 It is important to align the design with the needs of your business partners

 Bulk Download
− Will the designed output meet your needs?
− Will you support sub-forms and their attachments?

 Limit this functionality to an admin or support team that business can request the upload or the
download. The turnaround time is still significantly faster than doing the work manually. This
should drastically reduce design considerations needed if not opening to larger volumes of
people.
− You must address permission concerns around bulk download and ensure that requestor has rights to
download attachments and that the download folder is secured to the correct stakeholders. Suggest IT
own the download destination.
− Distributing download rights? Consider rights and liability of decision

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MAIL MERGE
AUTOMATICALLY CREATE AND ATTACH MAIL MERGE
DOCUMENTS

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BUSINESS PROBLEM
 Customers wanted a much cleaner communication of the essential details than the record view
provides in Archer.
 A mail merge document is much more presentable for distribution
 Customers wanted to be able to open and review a polished attachment via mobile email client
without linking back into Archer. In many cases these are people who do much of their work
from their phone.
 Creating mail merge documents per records was far too time consuming and inconsistent

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WHAT CAN ARCHER DO OR NOT DO NATIVELY
 Archer allows administrators to create mail merge
templates and have the template available under the
records export options. The end user can create the
mail merge on-demand.
 Archer can send notifications created in the
administration section.
 Archer cannot automatically attach a mail merge
document to a record.

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DESIGN
1. Create an extensible API job (see previous Humana presentations)
that can detect records with a certain flag. E.g. [Status] = “Ready
for mail merge”
2. Manually create Mail Merge template and upload to application
3. Create a status calculation that sets to “Ready for mail merge”
upon whatever condition(s) you desire
4. Job runs and creates the mail merge document combining specific
data elements from the record with the template, attaches new
document to attachment field in record
5. Job advances status before finishing
6. In Humana’s case, a notification is fired that includes the new
document/attachment
7. We generally use a batch method that consists of SSIS packages
that call the API at specified intervals

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SPECIFIC METHODS
1. int StartAsyncMailMerge(string sessionToken, int contentId, int
mailMergeTemplateId); -- This method create the Mail merge document and return
the ID of the Document

2. byte[] PerformMailMerge(string sessionToken, int contentId, int

MailMergeTemplateId); -- This method returns the document in the form of bytes

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IMPLEMENTATION
 Mail Merge: Archer provided us two mechanism to generate Mail Merge
− Asynchronous: This mechanism generate the mail merge document and returns the Mail Merge
document ID, which we used and attach with the original record.
− Synchronous: This mechanism return us the Mail Merge document in the form of bytes, which we used
to create, save and attach the created Mail Merge document to the original record.

 The Asynchronous method places the mail merge request into services server request queue

 We started by using Asynchronous approach, but now we are using Synchronous approach
− If Synchronous fails, then we try with Asynchronous .

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PROS/CONS/LESSONS LEARNED
 Designing and implementing the mail merge template requires more acquired/refined technical
knowledge than originally thought

 Two jobs: one to create the mail merge document per record, the other to attach it to the calling
record

 A “tweak” made several years ago greatly improved the reliability and speed of the job
− We were doing it asynchronously which put the mail merge job into the services queue. Delays in
seeing the creation of the mail merge document were seen anytime there was a strain or delay on the
services server
• Our “fix” for this was altering the job to a synchronous job where the mail merge job fires instantly and attaches to
the record.

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SMART COPY
SELECTIVELY COPY RECORD DATA

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BUSINESS PROBLEM
 Business areas had growing
and regular need to copy part
of a record.
 Sometimes it was more time-
consuming to copy a record
and remove cross references
and other data than it was to
re-enter the information into a
new record.
 A compromise needed to be
struck.

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WHAT CAN ARCHER DO OR NOT DO NATIVELY
 Archer can copy an entire record which means that all fields, references, sub form records, and
attachments copy over with the record.

− There is little to know control over what copies over and cleanup can yield incorrect results even after
significant time is spent on the cleanup activities

− If there are hundreds of cross references, you must manually remove any that you do not want in the
copy

− Easy to miss Record Permission field changes, potentially exposing sensitive data

− Copying can bypass workflows by bringing over the Status of the source record

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DESIGN
 The design of this functionality utilizes an existing job
we built called Automatic Record Generation (ARG)
− Built to automatically create new child records for a
parent record as needed.
− See “References” slide for more information on ARG and
other extensible jobs which have been presented at
previous Summits.
 Some pre-work is needed to hone the fields that
need to be copied
 We modified the ARG job to watch for a “Copy Me”
field which tells the ARG job to copy only defined
fields for that record
 The list of fields to be copied are stored in a SQL
table. The job reviews this list at run time and copies
only the fields listed to the new record. The act of
“smart copy”-ing a record is static and cannot be
different for each record to be copied.

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BRING THE WHOLE FAMILY!
 With a little extra planning and design we were
able to deliver “Smart Bundles” on our first pass of
this new capability

 Smart Copy can be configured to allow a person to

flag a single “parent” record, which automatically
flags all “child” records, so the entire collection
gets copied

 Often, business has “bundles” of records they want

copied. E.g.:
− SOX Engagement + SOX tests (reusing from year to
the next)
− Control Process + associated Procedures

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SPECIFIC METHODS
 ExecuteSearch
Output. This method returns a string. The value is an XML string containing the fields of
records matching the search criteria.

Parameter Data Type Value

Valid sessionToken returned by the

sessionToken String
general.CreateUserSession method

XML string that provides the search criteria.

searchOptions String Note: For details about constructing this string, see XML
Formatting Guidelines for 5.x Search Input.

pageNumber Integer Integer of the page (1,2,3,...,n) of search results to return

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SPECIFIC METHODS
 CreateRecord
Output. This method returns an integer. If the method is successful, the value is the
content ID of the newly created record. If there is a failure, the API issues an exception.

Parameter Data Type Value

Valid sessionToken returned by the general.CreateUserSession

sessionToken String
method.

Internal ID of an application as specified in the Application

moduleId Integer
Builder Application Detail Report.

XML structure of the fields and values to add.

fieldValues String Note: For details about constructing this string, see XML
Formatting Guidelines for Field Input

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I M P L E M E N TAT I O N / P R O S / C O N S / L E S S O N S
LEARNED
 For each business need to copy records for an application, we reviewed the fields that needed
to be copied.
− Perform analysis on existing production data to see what the average “copy” might look like.
− If the business wants to copy cross references or permissions fields pay special attend to those
requests as the may copy over a burdensome amount of unneeded cross references or incorrect
permissions to the newly copied records.

 Once you have this capability, meet with all your business stakeholders to learn about all the
cases where your users would save substantial time if they had this available.
− You’ll probably be surprised by all the use cases!

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REFERENCES

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 REFERENCES
Web Services API Reference Guide and RESTful Reference Guide

https://community.rsa.com/docs/DOC-44145

SmartBear SOAP UI Download (simulate API calls without building code)

https://www.soapui.org/#_ga=1.183570214.162770437.1475868978

Achieving Scalability Across a Large Enterprise Utilizing APIs (2016 Summit Presentation)

Search in Community

Develop Once Reuse Many (2014 Summit Presentation)

https://community.rsa.com/docs/DOC-23723?sr=search&searchId=d796223d-aa04-4254-951d-9fee82505047&searchIndex=0

Here is Integrating With The Enterprise (2012 Summit Presentation)

https://community.rsa.com/docs/DOC-11516?sr=search&searchId=d796223d-aa04-4254-951d-9fee82505047&searchIndex=1

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