GST-Compliant ProLine, The Fruit of Sleepless Nights

Almost two weeks has passed since GST became effective on the first of April, 2015. We are glad to announce that we\’ve made it through delivering our promise of GST-compliant version of ProLine to our clients. It is arduous to describe the level of anxiety and stress that we\’ve all faced as GST epoch was closing in. Some of us were overwhelm with tasks that required weeks to complete, but had only few days to finish them. And some had to work as late as 11 pm only to return home and dream about ProLine. When having trouble sleeping, consider reading the next article to learn more.

Seriously? dreaming about ProLine? Yes, but not me, I was too tired to even dream :). But the dreaming notion was just to emphasize how much ProLine meant to us, developers, support team, marketers and managers. We had to infuse some passion and commitment in our work to produce something that, at the end of the day, would put a smile on the faces of our clients.

Although it\’s been introduced over 10 years ago, ProLine had to go through a life-cycle of continuous updates and improvements that were important to ensure that the software meets the ever-changing requirements of clients and survive the GST implementation.

My main tasks during the last weeks of March were focused in data migration, which is one of the first steps in preparing ProLine for end-users. Data migration basically involves converting the client\’s spreadsheet-based database, which adopts a certain format,  into the format used by ProLine. The task might seem easy at first thought, which is what I thought earlier, before I discovered that the toughest part was actually importing the data successfully in ProLine and ensuring that it is 100% correct!

I struggled significantly at the beginning as I was\’t not familiar with ProLine, with it\’s complex and intricate UI. Nonetheless, thanks to the help and supervision of my collogues, I have managed to learn as much as needed to accomplish the tasks at hand. Data migration was indeed tough, but also an entirely new and challenging experience for me.

To us in Datum and to many people throughout Malaysia, the uncertainty brought by GST has been a reminder of the Y2K ordeal that shock the entire world 15 years ago. While the Y2K is now a history, the GST ordeal is not over yet. We are still improving and integrating ProLine with other systems to prepare for the GST return.

Ultimately, the GST and Y2K didn\’t brought an end to our world, yet they\’ve made us realize that the world is constantly and rapidly changing. And to cope with that change, IT has to evolve and pace with it.