artsymartha68
commented
1 month ago Perhaps creating a workflow diagram is something every VA.gov team should create.
- I think we can all agree that if a team cannot explain their submission workflow then there is little chance of detecting silent failures.
- There should be emerging recurring touch points that can be reused within an individual diagram, no sense reinventing or rediscovering repeated processes.
- Time estimate for creating this kind of workflow: a few sprints.
- We could introduce a Silent Failure Review in the governance process, based on these diagrams.
Workflow diagram/documentation examples:
- Form workflow from VA.gov to VBMS
- 526 normal, backup, and emergency failsafe submission flows - high-level diagram
- Also this 526 process flow diagram has some submission details
- 26-1880 Apply for home loan form eligibility API documentation and determination flow
- SOP: Toxic Exposure/Lighthouse Form526 Submission Troubleshooting documentation
- Endpoint monitoring documentation
- Service blueprint template
From Emily:
- What's every single system involved in your submission end-to-end?
- What happens when the conversation between each system fails?
- Does it have retries, and what happens when those exhaust?
- If any fatal error happens at any point, is the Veteran notified?
- Has the downstream system indicated (in writing) that it notifies or resolves 100% of fatal errors once in their custody?
- Perhaps the guidance could be to make a high-level submission diagram like that and highlight the outcome of a total failure at every step. (or the way total success is confirmed)
humancompanion-usds
By Thursday 9/12 we need at least a draft of a document that explains to VFS teams how they can perform discovery to determine if they have silent failures, and then ideally what to do with that information (which is, at the very least, report it to OCTO).