Certification Testing

External testing services support the onboarding of new external parties, industry initiatives, new or expanded business offerings and external party efforts related to new/modified functionality, regression and business process testing.

The following external testing activities are available:

• New transaction format and processing verification
• Roundtrip processing via batch or real-time data transmissions for:
  Equity/Index Options and Futures trade and post trade processing · LOPR · Delta Position Limit · Collateral · Stock Loan · SOSA
• Creation of outputs including batch or real-time FIXML DDS, core reports and on demand reports

Scheduled Maintenance

Testing will not be available during the windows provided below due to upgrade outages:

• Friday, November 24, 2023
• Monday, December 18, 2023 -> Friday, December 29, 2023

External testing efforts are supported in separate, non-production environments that provide a test arena for external partners to validate any variety of input data, ENCORE processing and subsequent output data for use with their backend systems. Test connectivity must be established prior to testing.

Certification Testing Request Form

Certification Test Process

The External Test environments are available for scheduled testing efforts only. Any testing that requires processing of data transmitted between OCC and an external party also requires some measure of application level setup, as well as initiating and monitoring the applicable processes associated to those activities.

To facilitate the number and frequency of test requests received in an efficient manner, Technical Certification Services will work with the external party to fully scope out the details for each testing effort in advance of the test dates. This provides the right data and resource support such that concurrent testing efforts can take place. It also limits the number of testing efforts that require test date extensions and/or additional rounds of testing in order to meet test objectives.

During the scoping process, it is important that external parties involve all applicable resources so that all aspects of the test can be incorporated into the test plan. Prior to testing, external parties will sign-off on the scope, indicating that they have:

• Ensured that all applicable testing, technical and business resources are engaged
• Reviewed and confirmed that the scope accurately reflects the testing needs
• Communicated the test parameters and schedule
• Confirmed access and/or connectivity needed to participate and verify test results

Testing efforts are coordinated across several distinct testing environments in order to maximize processing efficiencies and minimize overlap in testing activities that have the potential to affect each other.

Individual test dates are scheduled based on the specific test scope and are agreed to by both OCC and the external party prior to the start dates. As testing progresses, it is the external party's responsibility to provide updates concerning their testing requirements, especially as it relates to issues that may delay the ability to complete the testing within the scheduled dates.

In the event that additional testing time is needed, it is the external party's responsibility to provide that information. Depending on the issue and OCC External Test environment/resource availability, OCC can determine how to best support the additional testing, either as an extension to the scheduled dates and/or a separate round of testing.

External parties are responsible for verifying the processing and receipt of data and corresponding results during testing. Technical Certification Services' primary role is to support troubleshooting.

 

External Test Connectivity

The External Test environments are separate, non-production environments, and require distinct connectivity. The following forms of connectivity are supported:  ENCORE Access; Batch connectivity via Connect:Direct/NDM or SFTP; Real-time connectivity via MQ. It is OCC's policy to connect only non-production external party environments to External Test.

Use of the External Testing environments is strictly limited to the specific parameters of a previously scheduled testing effort with defined business objectives, testing partner(s) and start/end timeframes, and extends to all external facing components of OCC systems including, but not limited to, External ENCORE, DDS and MQ connectivity.

External Test Technical Specifications Form

For new test batch or real-time connectivity, please complete this form and email it to Technical Certification Services. External parties looking to establish and/or verify connectivity to External Test should reach out to Technical Certification Services.

 

RegSCI Disaster Recovery (DR) Industry Testing

Please complete the contact and firm information requested on the registration page and click Submit. Once your registration is received, you will be contacted to complete the registration process and schedule connectivity testing.

OCC RegSCI Testing DR Technical Specifications Form

To register, please fill out this form and email it to [email protected]. More information regarding this year's RegSCI Industry Testing effort can be found in Information Memo #42709.

 

Test Extension Request Process

Should additional testing time be required to complete a testing effort, a new online test request must be submitted no later than Noon CT on the last day of scheduled testing.

Only the Test Information section of the online test request form is required for an extension request:

• Describe the reason for the test extension and identify the outstanding test conditions in the Goal of the Test
• Include the additional test dates being requested
• Select Yes to indicate that the new request is an extension of a currently scheduled testing effort

Once the extension request is received, Technical Certification Services will respond to confirm whether it can accommodate the requested dates, or if not, what dates are available.

Certification Testing Request Form