2021 MUR4 Enhancements

Requirements Specification

Version No. 1.0

Copyright © 2001-2003 Ford Motor Company.

(U.S. and international notice, and original material was added in each indicated year.)

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1. Introduction
Glossary
Term Definition
MUR4 Mobile Universal Request for All
SP SharePoint
FNA Ford of North America
FOM Ford of Mexico
GDI&A Global Data Insight and Analytics

Background
MUR4 is a form hosted on SharePoint Online where employees submit requests of N type of processes. Services are
created by IT Administrators regarding processes for any skill team or department and the content loads dynamically
depending on certain parameters chosen by the end users. New services and request types are configured through
several SP lists that store the services data, approval chains and the specific HTML elements shown to end users on
the front-end of the tool.
Currently each location using MUR4 in Ford of North America (US) has their specific SharePoint site to configure
their own services. On the other hand, in Ford of Mexico we have two sites: one to manage all services regarding
our 4 manafacturing plants and another one to manage all services regarding non manufacturing locations.
SharePoint Online has a threshold limit of 5,000 records. Once that limit is reached the queries that make CRUD
operations on the lists cease to work. On the non manufacturing site there are not many services configured and
therefore not many requests have been submitted so far. However the site that handles manufacturing services
reaches the threshold limit frequently (approximately every two weeks). This presents a disadvantage to use MUR4,
therefore a backend process was implemented using an Office 365 tool – Power Automate – to move requests, that
have been completed and have reached their retention period, to a subsite to avoid reaching the 5,000 limit.
Currently this process is implemented only for manufacturing services & requests. The backend process also
removes requests that are on “Cancelled” status and those that are on “Approval” status but haven’t been authorized
in 30 days.

Current State
Over 20 locations on FoM and FNA use MUR4; all locations access through the same link/URL and the tool
automatically loads the services configured for the specific location that the user is from based on his/her building
code data (information from – ADFS – our corporate directory).
For more details on the front end of MUR4 see Ref. 001

Characteristics:
 Mobile Responsive
 Accessible through any network (inside or outside from Ford)
 Technologies:
 HTML5
 Javascript
 JQuery
 SharePoint Online

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 Power Automate
 Environments:
o MUR4 Master (PROD)
o MUR4 Testing (QA)
o MUR4 Dev (Development)
 All the code of MUR4 is managed internally through a repository in GitHub.
 Nowadays the code of MUR4 is handled ONLY on the environments mentioned above. The SharePoints
sites that each location in FOM and FNA have are only used to configure the services shown on the
centralized version of MUR4.
 Fixed header section (employee information, location, area, request type and description)
o Employee information comes from the user’s data on its SharePoint profile – that is mirrored from
the corporate directory.
o The locations shown load according to the MUR4 Master configuration. The tool pre-populate the
location based on the employee’s data.
o The data on the Area field is populated based on the location pre-populated or selected/changed by
the end user.
o The data on the Request Type field is populated based on the end user’s selection for the Area
field.
 The dynamic section of the form is the actual request’s fields and it is loaded based on the Location, Area
and Request Type chosen.
o This configuration comes from the “Catalogo de Funciones” or “Services Configuration”
(depending on the SharePoint site) list from each specific location where IT Administrators create
a new item for each HTML element required to appear on the form.
o That mentioned list has several fields to configure to position, size, text to show, options,
restrictions, etc. for each HTML element.
o Available HTML elements that can be configured on the mentioned SP list:
• Input Text
• Text Area
• Attachments
• Dropdowns
• Radio buttons
• Text
• Checkbox
• People Picker
• Date Picker
• Hyperlink
• Repeating Table
 Status:
o New Request
First status, prior to submitting a request.

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o Approvals
A request will remain on this status until the approval chain has been completed.
o Rejected
A request will have this status if one of the approvers on the chain rejects it, and it will remain on
that status until the requestor resubmits the form.
o Analyst
If a request has an approval chain, after it has been completed it will change to this status. If a
request does not have an approval chain configured, the request will be on this status after the end
user submits it.
o Survey
When a request has been completed by an analyst, it will change to this status. Each time the end
user access the request, he/she will get a pop-up with a brief survey to fulfill. It is not mandatory
for the end user to answer the survey, the pop-up can be closed, but it will appear until the end
user answers it.
o Cancelled
An analyst can cancel a request if it doesn’t apply for any reason.
o Completed
A request will change to this status once the end user completes the survey.

SharePoint Lists Details For more details see Ref. 002

IT Services
The available request types shown in MUR4 are configured in this list. IT administrators are responsible for
registering new requests in this SharePoint list.
It is required to create a new item with the following data:
 Building
Code of the building of a Ford location. Based on the company’s active directory database.
 Service
Name of the service that groups several subservices available for the employee.
 Subservice
Name of the specific request type that the user can choose from. Once the employee has picked a location,
service and subservice on the form, the dynamic section (s) of the form are loaded within the tool.
HTML elements are configured against the available subservices or request types.
 Analyst
Person responsible for completing a specific request type. In this field it should be entered the username or
CDSID of the employee.
ONLY one employee can be appointed in this field as the primary analyst.
 Analyst Backup
Backup person responsible for completing a specific request type. In this field it should be entered the
username or CDSID of the employee.

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Any number of usernames or CDSIDs can be inputted in this field – by separating them with “;” or “,” – as
backup analysts.
 Show In Form
Boolean data to indicate if the specific subservice being configurated must be shown in the form.
 Retention Time
Indicates the retention period the requests submitted on the site require to be available online on MUR4.
The flow in Power Automate consults this data to identify when do the requests for that subservice require
to be backed up and removed from the SharePoint list “UniversalRequest”.
This field requires a number and it gets complemented with the data inputted on the “Retention Period”
field.
 Retention Period
Indicates the retention period the requests submitted on the site require to be available online on MUR4.
The flow in Power Automate consults this data to identify when do the requests for that subservice require
to be backed up and removed from the SharePoint list “UniversalRequest”.
This field requires to choose between the following options: Day, Week, Month and it gets complemented
with the data inputted on the “Retention Time” field i.e. 30 Month
 Default Language
Indicates the language used for the form when displayed to the employee or end user.

Approvals
List used to configure the approval chains for each specific subservice or request type. IT administrators are
responsible of indicating the building, service or area, subservice or request type, the approvers’ username or
CDSID, the order of type of approval chain and the level management the approver requires in case it needs to be
changed by the user.
MUR4 has three different types of approval chains:
 By order (sequential)
For this type of approval chain, each of the approvers must be configured with the order which will be used
in order to complete the authorizations. Once the final user submits a request, the tool will send an email
notification to the first approver configured to request their authorization, and afterwards it will advance
within all the approvers in a specific chain until it is completed.
Any number approvers can be configured for each level, additionally, any number of back up approvers can
be configured.

 Simultaneous
For this type of approval chain, all of the approvers will receive an email notification at the same time
requesting their authorization. Once all the approvers have authorized the request, the chain is completed.
To indicate MUR4 that an approval chain is of this type, all of the approvers must be configured as “1” in
the order.
Any number approvers can be configured for each level, additionally, any number of back up approvers can
be configured.

 No approval chain

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If no approval chain is required for a request, there’s no need to create new items in this list. When a
specific request type has nothing configured in this list, MUR4 understands it has no approval chain and
once the final user submits the request, it goes directly to the analyst (s) to work on the request to
complete / fulfill it.

Services Configuration / CatalagodeFunciones

List used to configure all of the dynamic and specific elements within a subservice or request type. In this list, IT
administrators indicate the type of element, the width or column span for the element, the text and / or options that
must be displayed to the user, if the element is a mandatory field within the form, rules regarding date elements,
among others.
HTML elements can be configured on the initial form that the end users visualize before submitting a request.
Additionally, HTML elements can be configured to be shown when a request is in the “Analyst” status.

Languages
List to configure the available languages for the tool. Only the fixed elements such as the first section, email
notifications body, alerts and buttons have the multilanguage capability. The dynamic elements configured in the
Services Configuration list are displayed in the form as the text is stored in the SharePoint list.

Attachments MUR4
Document library used to store the attachment files uploaded within a request. Each attachment has a unique
SharePoint ID and the request ID it is related to.

Universal Request
SharePoint list where all of the requests are being stored. The information inputted by end users on dynamic fields
configured on the “Services Configuration” or “CatalogodeFunciones” lists are stored on a single field on this list a
HTML code that is consulted by MUR4 once a request has been submitted. The information regarding the approval
chain (if it applies) of each request is stored a
This list has two main & public views:
 My Requests
Its purpose is for employees to consult the requests they’ve raised. It has a filter based on who created the
request to limit the items employees can view.
 All Items
Used by IT administrators of the tool to view all the requests that have been created within the tool. This
view has no filters.

MUR4 Sites Configuration

This SharePoint list is only available on the MUR4 centralized sites (MUR4 Master, MUR4 Testing and MUR4
Dev), not on the specific site that each FOM or FNA location manages to configure their services.

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On this list we manage all the sites that are already using the centralized link for end users to access. When a new
site is added we need to indicate the site name, site code, link of the specific SharePoint where the services
configuration is stored, the name of the lists mentioned above (since some site manage different names for each
SharePoint list described), the link where the language files are stored in the specific SharePoint site and the
building code (so MUR4 can know what locations, areas and requests type it should load based on the end user’s
own building code reference).

2. Requirements

Objective
This project seeks to develop a robust process to:
1. Store historical data from the requests submitted & completed on a database
2. Consult the dynamic fields of each request on a friendly interface
3. Review service metrics on a dashboard
4. Maintain the current process to backup requests as PDF – since it is useful for our internal control and
retention of documents policies.

Service Requirements
General Activities:
 Follow-up of activities with the FoM Team Leader(s) on daily standup meetings

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 Backlog definition and administration

 Execute the project in a manner of iterations (2 weeks for each iteration)
 Post-Launch support = 90 Business Days
 Show progress of the requirements assigned to the Project/Product Owner (s) on a bi-weekly demo session
 Each Iteration requires to include application documentation, evidences, coding, and tests (Unit, Functionality,
Integration, System and Customer Acceptance Testing)
 Comply/satisfy the User Acceptance Criteria for each one of the closed requirements
 Use of Ford standard tools and processes
 Business analysis

Skills/Experience required:
 Bachelor’s degree in IT/Systems or related
 Medium to Advanced English level, spoken and written
 SharePoint Knowledge
 Office 365 Suite Knowledge
 Alteryx Expertise
 Qlikview Expertise
 Data Analytics Expertise
 Front end development with HTML5
 Web Development
 Bootstrap Knowledge
 JavaScript Knowledge
 Software Version Control (preferable GitHub)
 Experience developing with Agile methodologies
 Business analysis skills
 Communication, proactivity, innovative mindset and teamwork skills

Requirements Specification

 Backend Process
Reuse the available Microsoft SQL 2016 database to store historical data from requests completed in MUR4.
This database will be used to store historical data from other sources as well, there may be other tables that need
to be maintained since they are for other purposes.
1. The process must run on a weekly basis and iterate on all MUR4 sites configured, indicated on the
“MUR4 Sites Configuration” SharePoint list on the MUR4 Master site, to obtain the records of each
site that need to be archived based on the services’ retention period, its status and whether the request
already has a PDF file generated as backup.

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2. All records that can be archived must be deleted from the specific SharePoint list “UniversalRequest”
of each site that applies.
3. For all the requests that can be archived based on the services’ retention period the process must:
a. Generate a PDF of the request and move it to the MUR4 Backup subsite of each site.
b. Send an email to the corresponding administrators of each site with the detail of the requests
that were archived.
c. Store the data on the corresponding tables on the database.

 Database Design
Create the database design for the tables that will be required in order to exploit MUR4 requests data. The
current data structure on the SharePoint lists is not feasible for data mining. The new structure on database
tables must be designed to obtain information from all the dynamic fields included on each request.

 Dashboard
Create a qlikview based dashboard to consult MUR4 requests’ historical as well as to obtain metrics from the
services that have been used.
The previous requirements are mandatory so the information can be presented on a dashboard with the
capability of filtering the data both from static and from dynamic fields.
Some of the metrics required to be shown on the dashboard:
 # of requests per service
 # of requests per location
 # of requests per status
 Service Completion (considering the date a request has been submitted and the date it actually gets
completed)
 Survey responses per service
 Approval Chain Timing (considering the amount taken for approvers to authorize a request)

The dashboard must comply with Ford’s GDI&A standards.

Additional Information
 Ford will provision the database with the corresponding environments (PROD, QA and DEV)
 Development team will have all rights on the development environment of the database
 For QA and PROD environments on the database a ticket will need to be raised to perform the changes with the
corresponding script
 The project will be executed remotely due to the current global pandemic
 Ford will provision equipment, users and tools required for the execution of this project

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4. Annexed

Ref 001

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Ref 002

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