Shared data: A ticking Y2K time bomb

By Shawn P McCarthy -- Logistics Management, 9/1/1998

If you've been hustling to solve Year 2000 (Y2K) problems on your company's computers, you may feel you've met your goals if you have a schedule in place for analyzing lines of code so you can identify and fix bad date references.

That will put you on the right path, but you still won't be out of the woods. The data you receive from your business partners also is at risk, and you may not have an easy way to locate Year 2000 glitches in someone else's files.

It's even more complicated if you intend to expand into Internet-based commerce with new partners over the next year or two. That means you'll be gathering data from many new--and untested--external sources.

If you can't trust incoming files, your only alternative may be to install filters that screen out specific date-flawed data. Such filters can be set to stop your system from accepting data from, or interacting with, a system that's not Y2K compliant.

So how do you know what's at risk? In some cases, the data you exchange with business partners may not contain a date code, so you don't need to worry. This is typical for databases or tables used to track transportation expenses or inventory. But you need to analyze data samples closely to be sure.

On the other hand, date codes usually are embedded in databases or spreadsheets that are used to track things like shipment dates, shipping manifests, payroll and benefits records, and credit card transactions.

When partners send you reports that consist of data pulled from such databases, you need to know how they treat date references and how your system will read those references. If you don't know what's in the code, you'll inherit someone else's problem.

Here are some quick ways to address the problem:

* Poll all your business partners to assess how they are handling the Year 2000 problem. If you're not happy with their efforts, set deadlines and be prepared to switch partners if necessary. Have a backup plan in place.

* Run tests on incoming data to see how it may affect your systems after the millennium.

* Work with your partners to establish uniform date reporting standards. If you both need to repair code, try to use the same contractors for the code repairs.

* If you're setting up an online commerce system, make sure to get a guarantee that the system is Year 2000 compliant. That may not help with incoming data, but it does let you focus repair efforts on the data rather than on your new system.

Tip of the Month

The National Association of Manufacturers recently received permission from the Justice Department (DOJ) to build a special Web site that will allow member companies that supply data services to exchange information about fixing computer date codes for shared data. The site isn't up yet, but you can get preliminary information at www.nam.org. The DOJ got involved to make sure information sharing did not lead to any antitrust activities. The site could prove useful to small and medium-sized firms that don't have extensive resources on which to draw for their Y2K fight.

Pointers

* The CyberGuard Firewall for Windows NT offers an option called "MillenniumGuard" that performs rule-based filtering for protection from non-Year 2000 compliant applications. Details are available at www.cyberguard.com.

* To see how the U.S. Department of Transportation has set standards for date codes in exchanged data, visit www.fhwa.dot.gov/y2k.

* There are several sites dedicated to the Y2K issue, including a "National Bulletin Board" at www.it2000.com/, which has a good solutions section with information on date-analysis tools; the Year 2000 Information Center at year2000.com/, which offers demos of tester software; and the Year 2000 Support Center at www.support2000.com/.