The failed predictions about the JoAnne effect have got a lot of people wondering. So I've been thinking real hard about what sort of application would work with look-ahead dates AND try to do date comparisons with these look-ahead dates. After all, it is the math that gives the trouble, not the mere fact of a 00 in the field. So I've been straining my brain, and I can't think of any application that would do date arithmetic with dates in the future. However, I've seen lots of applications that compare two dates in the past. Sorry, Pollys, but you ain't seen nothing yet.

-- Amy Leone (leoneamy@aol.com), December 29, 1999

Answers

Aw, c'mon Amy. Strain a little harder.

Think billing and payables.

-- Hoffmeister (hoff_meister@my-deja.com), December 29, 1999.

you know who,

""You need to do more straining""

You are correct sir. That is good advice for the expediate physiological excretion of youknowho@doomersucks.

I took your advice and just waved goodbye as you swirled down the pipes into the sewer where you belong .

-- d----- (dciinc@aol.com), December 29, 1999.

You knowwho

But....but....I thought *you* were the expert! You have to look up past posts to give us an example of such a basic question??? Yet, you have all the answers to how y2k will shake out. Pitiful....really pitful.

-- Bob (bob@bob.bob), December 29, 1999.

All I'm suggesting is that Ed didn't think things through. He does that sometimes. Since you think there are so many posts detailing date comparison logic with future dates, why don't you find some?

-- Amy Leone (leoneamy@aol.com), December 29, 1999.

Billing and payables - well I've never worked with these, but it sounds like you are saying someone is going to be billed for a service that hasn't occurred yet?

Just give me some logic examples, that's all I'm asking.

-- Amy Leone (leoneamy@aol.com), December 29, 1999.

Pro,

YOU ARE an I-M-B-E-C-I-L-E

Natural Selection has your number, I'm afraid. It's too bad you squandered the warnings and information. But then again-everything happens for a reason. Just as vesuvius exploded onto pompeii and its unsuspecting subjects and just as the Discovery Shuttle exploded with the unsuspecting astronauts inside, You MY little dim witted friend will have your just rewards.

Peace be with you in your new life!! lol

-- d----- (dciinc@aol.com), December 29, 1999.

The issue wasn't look-ahead calculations, but calculations involving fiscal years. Many companies, all states, and the federal government, are already in fiscal year 2000 and have been for several months.

For a more specific description of the Jo Anne Effect, look here.

-- (duh@duh.duh), December 29, 1999.

Sure thing.

Look at the payables side. Billing works approximately the same way on the flip side.

A Vendor Invoice is entered in the system, with some "term". Some of the more common are NET30, NET60, NET90. Meaning payment within 30, 60 or 90 days are "net"; after that, interest, penalties, etc accrue.

The due date is calculated and stored. Beginning in October, NET90 terms started calculating and storing due dates in 2000. With increasing frequency since then, due dates have been calculated and stored in 2000.

The payment run then compares the Current Date, or a Payment Date, with the due date to select invoices for payment.

The above is somewhat simplified, but the basic process is there. The majority of potential errors are from entry dates in 1999, and payment runs in 1999. The due date calculation may fail spanning the rollover; comparing a date in 1999 with due dates in 2000 may invalidly select invoices, as well as miscalculate interest and penalties.

Once the entry date is in 2000, no reason to expect the due date calculation to fail. Payment runs may still fail on the comparison of old invoices with due dates in 1999, but due dates in 2000 should now work correctly.

-- Hoffmeister (hoff_meister@my-deja.com), December 29, 1999.

Amy

Morgate applications use date look-ahead processing. You apply for a loan in October. It's approved in November but not effective until February of the next year. Loan maturity dates and interest are calculated using the effective date.

Simple enough.

Deano

-- Deano (deano@luvthebeach.com), December 29, 1999.

Not to mention that the so-called "JoAnne Effect" is actually real. It just didn't cause the catastrophic impact that the doomsayers believed it would.

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), December 29, 1999.

Morgate applications?? What the hell is that??

Obviously that should be 'mortgage'.

Deano

-- Deano (deano@luvthebeach.com), December 29, 1999.

There is a tremendous amount of software out there that does look-ahead with dates. For example there is a company by the name of SAP that produces ERP software. There are other companies such as Manugistics which simply make manufacturing planning software or I2 which makes supply chain software. All of those products run on UNIX and don't seem to have y2k issues. I have been working lately with several customers that use these applications and they all use forward looking dats. The issue for companies that use DB2/AS400 based programs is much less clear cut. Those small companies (<500 people and 100 million in revenue) often depend on an AS400 based system.

I have a small anecdote to provide and I don't care to be flamed for it. I have an acquaintance who was successful at sales and went into sales training and uses the Sandler Institute as curriculum. About 15 months ago, a local services company (air-heat, appliance repair, etc.) hired his company to train their sales staff. It was so successful that the president/owner of the company hired him at a huge salary and bought him out of his partnership in the training business. I have kept in touch and he drops by our office to chat every so often. He dropped in late October and told us that he was quitting after he completed a year (apparently that is what he signed up for as a minimum). He said that he was the only person in the company of 500 with a college degree (because they promoted from within and everyone started out fixing A/C's and refrigerators, etc.).

We got on to y2k and he told us how it was going for these guys. He said that they had an AS/400 that did billing dispatching and paid all thier suppliers. In July they decided they better find out if it was y2k compliant so they had the consulting company that manages the system for them, check it out. Sure enough it wasn't compliant so they paid the consultants to make it so. The first time they declared victory and rolled it forward, all of their service contracts showed that they owed the customers money. The service contracts are ones for which they get paid a fixed amount each month and just do regular maintenance as required.

This caused some hand-wringing and of course the consultants went right back to work. He said at that time (late October) the consultants had tried several times to roll everything forward only to have something else break.

I haven't spoken to him since but I expect that this company will be lucky if the job gets done in time. It doesn't sound real good because they are apparently having to do this work on the current system.

Willy Boy

-- Willy Boy (Willy@home.in.bed), December 29, 1999.

Hmmm. Guess I need a new theory.

-- Amy Leone (leoneamy@aol.com), December 29, 1999.

Amy,

There have been many problems. You're just not hearing about most of them. Way back in the summer a Cap Gemini America/Rubin Systems survey reported that most Fortune 500 companies had experienced Y2K "look-ahead problems" and that most companies had experienced some "financial loss" as a result. A little over two months ago Marcoccio of GartnerGroup (who generally tends to be upbeat in his public statements, as opposed to what is sometimes in the actual written Gartner reports) said that companies were experiencing many Y2K problems but were able to control them "just barely." Well, evidently they are still able to control them "just barely," suggesting that MTTR, manual workarounds, and contingency plans in general may be working better than some folks had dared to hope. The point is, problems are occurring in quite significant numbers; just don't expect companies to hold press conferences or post to the TB 2000 forum about them.

FWIW, somewhere (Hamasaki?) I read that look-ahead programs comprise about 3% of a typical corporate software portfolio; however, that might have been just for *long* look-ahead programs. It seems to me that the one-quarter, one-month, and one-week look-ahead stuff would be considerably more prevalent than that!

-- Don Florence (dflorence@zianet.com), December 29, 1999.