November 2007
Resources for SQL
Many good books are out there to help with learning SQL code, find the computer section of your local book store or library and you will have your choice. One mentioned on the call was: Teach Yourself SQL in 10 minutes. Also offered by the group were online tutorials or reference sites to help with learning SQL. Check these out sites for Beginning-Intermediate: www.sqlcourse.com and www.sqlcourse2.com, and for the more technical members: www.techonthenet.com or click here for a site about optimizing SQL statements.
Investigative & Analytic Teams
There was discussion about what is the best or most common structure for the LP analysts/investigators who are mining data from the EBR applications and how various companies utilize each structure. It was recommended that for a better understanding of our peers, that we try to include a small profile of the volume of transactions, store counts and LP structure for further discussions as there was some huge variances in LP Analyst headcount based on business types, so this is certainly open for future discussions to help Managers who are looking to transition teams from one model to the next. There were a few comments that confirmed that bringing their teams into a centralized model has been an increase in productivity, as it allowed better focus and collaborative teamwork among the analysts.
Gift Card Discussion
I think that all attendees would agree that whatever your queries may be, that Gift Card queries are still very successful and even the top producing report within the EBR applications in identifying dishonest associate activity. There were also discussions about some of the external components and how to combat that from a data analytics approach. One company was pulling a report outside of their EBR application that looked at handkeyed CC's on Gift Card Sales and would attack this report every day resulting in successful recoveries of the gift card value. The process was to: 1) get the report each day and review it for patterns & anomolies, 2) Identify which transactions are most suspicious, 3) validate that there was an imprint of the card (as it was handkeyed), 4) contact the issuing bank and validate whether the signee was the actual cardholder, and 5) based on the neg confirmation from the bank remove the stored value from the gift card.
This requires some dedicated research, but has resulted in some significant recoveries by attacking this report with thefirst 24-48 hrs after the card(s) are activated. Additionally, David Johnston offered up a white paper regarding prevention of Gift Card Frauds, which contains some interesting information. Dave mentioned that < 40% of POS systems activate post tender, which opens up the opportunities for employees to commit fraud by activating a card then rebooting the register, which kills the transaction record, but retaining a live gift card. Click on the linked text to view the GC white paper documentation sent to the group by Dave Johnston. Thanks Dave!