As part of AFT application, we found issues with Automatic Distribution of Outound Transmissions by the distribution scheduler. We raised PMR# TS004448402 for the same. As per the PMR updates, the product is working as designed and required by ACH. But we see there is some scope of improvement here as mentioned in details in the PMR.

On doing test-cases surrounding "Automated Distribution" issue, we found that if a processing batch is "Not Ready For Distribution" and all the transactions inside that batch are either in Held or Rejected status, then Distribution Scheduler works properly i.e. it distributes other Outbound Transmissions. This particular batch sits back in the system and when it's transactions are released and the batch is marked ready for distribution, an outbound transmission is created by distribution engine. Since this is a deadline breached transmission, distribution scheduler does not process this. But still an operator can go and manually "build and release" this transmission. This works for us for now.

However the issue happens when processing batch is "Not Ready For Distribution" but at least one of it's transactions is in "Accepted" state. In such cases, Distribution Scheduler fails with error that one or more transactions are not mapped to outbound. Question here is why does the scheduler check the individual transaction's status and not consider the Batch's "Not Ready For Distribution" status? This is a very valid scenario that the batch might not be ready for distribution even if the transactions in it are in accepted state. For example the batch might be held in Risk Review Queue for one of it's transactions while the other transactions might have passed limit-check.

So we suggest that the product can fix the distribution scheduler to check just the processing batch's status and not depend on it's contained transactions status to identify if distribution criteria is being met or not. This way for one batch, all other batches will not be held from distribution.