Justin Furniss figures that integrating Aspect Communications' contact center management software with SAP can reduce the amount of personal information unwittingly given out to imposters by call center employees.
"We want to create a system to identify a caller, so if a hacker pretends to be someone, a representative would know before critical information contained in Aspect and SAP systems is disclosed," said Furniss, a junior majoring in Information Sciences and Technology (IST).
Furniss's "we" is a team of three students enrolled in IST 421, IT Systems Integration II. Their project: to identify and develop technical options enabling integration between Aspect and SAP's enterprise resource planning software.
The project is the brainchild of Brian Cameron, IST 421 instructor, who with Aspect consultants, devised a scenario requiring students to create an Internet-based application that in response to customer inquiries, shares information from Aspect and SAP systems. Aspect Communications donated software and consulting resources valued at $150,000 to IST.
The challenge for the IST 421 students was to define the project's scope, map out processes and workflows between the two systems, and then evaluate how best to create an integration, Cameron said.
"Integration of disparate systems can solve a variety of business problems and today's systems are built on open standards, so all kinds of integration is possible," Cameron said. "But we wanted the students to go through the research, go down paths and determine the best alternative to use - just like in the real world."
According to Doug Domergue, a 1972 Penn State alumnus and senior vice president for North America sales for Aspect, Aspect solutions are used in a variety of industries. Airlines such as Southwest and government agencies from the Internal Revenue Service to Social Security utilize Aspect software for customer-contact centers.
"This course is helping students learn the balance between business consulting and technical integration - and this knowledge has high market value," said Patrick Gilbert, Aspect's director of Eastern Region's sales engineering, who came to University Park for the software installation.
"The students benefit by being exposed to new technologies and gaining real experience that will help them hit the ground running after graduation, and we benefit because we're helping to develop a new generation of experts who will be able to quickly solve business problems by rapidly integrating different systems such as Aspect and SAP," Gilbert added.
This was the students' first experience with Aspect software and SAP, and they took to the challenge. First, they determined what data in SAP was the most pertinent for their project. Then the team had to figure out how to use that data intelligently in the Aspect system.
"This has definitely helped us professionally because we can say that we have seen SAP, coded against SAP and used it to integrate with another system," said team leader Matthew Stone, also a junior. "This will put us light years ahead of others in the job market."
Not only are the students learning integration technologies, but they also have the opportunity to tweak the project to their own interests - namely, the security issue. While the three may not implement that application this semester, they may have the chance next semester.
"We anticipate this is the first stage in a long-term relationship between Aspect and Penn State," Cameron said. "This could lead to co-development of future team projects as well as student internships."
Helping with the project has been Robert Suwalski, a Penn State alumnus and consultant with Accenture Consulting. He is working with the team as part of a pilot consulting-team-mentoring program Cameron has initiated.
Stone credited Suwalski with helping define the project's scope, pointing the team to resources and assisting in project management.
Like his teammates, Priyank Pandey sees value in this project regardless of whether Aspect or SAP use their integrations.
"This is a real-world project that's very application oriented," Pandey said. "We're seeing the big picture, learning the technical side and getting to interact with managers."
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