Subject: Benchmark Process
From: [email-masked]
To: [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2000 08:30:00 -0700 (PDT)

David,

Here is a short list of what it takes to pull positions into the benchmark.  

1)  Once a book is officialized it must be loaded into GRMS BEFORE the 
positions can be pulled into the benchmark.  

2) With everyone officializing books around the same time the GRMS que is 
overloaded and positions are very slow to be loaded into GRMS.  

3)  GRMS processes books in the order that they are officialized.  If one of 
your books is officialized behind either the Nymex, Power, or Canadian books 
your book will not  be loaded into GRMS until these books are finished.  This 
process can take up to 45 minutes to complete.  

4)  I have to manually create text files for deals that they system is not 
designed to handle.  These files must then be loaded into GRMS.

4)  I have to manually override Post-IDs that for one reason or another do 
not come in automatically or that come in incorrectly.  

5)  The benchmark query takes approximately 15 minutes to complete.  The more 
books that are officialized, the longer the query takes.  

6)  When books are unofficialized and reofficialized, this effectively sends 
that book to the back of the GRMS que.  This means that the entire process 
must be started over.

7)  Now that plugging positions is no longer an option, I have to spend time 
researching any variances that arise between the GRMS position and the ERMS 
position.

8)  If the book admin and I cannot solve the problem, then I have to contact 
the GRMS support team.  Since this usually occurs after their regular hours 
it takes a while before they can get back in touch with me.  

9)  I cannot query new data while I'm researching variances or on the phone 
with GRMS support because I need access to  the information that is currently 
in the bench.  

10)  Finally, this is a massive file therefore we frequently get errors and 
have to shut down.  Even if the spreadsheet has been saved and no data is 
lost it still take about 10 minutes just to shut this file down and reopen 
it. 

If you have any more questions let me know.

Robin
x57478