A leading University’s medical school looked to take its long tradition of leadership in pioneering research, effective clinical therapies, and creative teaching protocols to the next level. As a pioneering trendsetter in biomedical evolution, the University constantly sought to upgrade its students and academic staff who joined its programs through a highly competitive admission and selection process. The University leadership laid great emphasis on data to track the progress of their students, their programs, and research initiatives. The university leadership invested in the cutting edge Informatica 10.4 as their BI(Business Intelligence) and reporting system.

The University chose DataTerrain to migrate the legacy Oracle PL/SQL stored procedure based ETL jobs to Informatica Powercenter and provide a responsive maintenance support service.  Based on its track record, DataTerrain was tasked with delivering the following –

• Seamlessly migrate ETL jobs to the new platform
• Fix issues and gaps in the legacy system during the migration
• Improve the performance of ETL batch jobs
• Improve service levels to end-users and University teams

DataTerrain’s proprietary approach for Informatica Powercenter rollout and support

SMEs(Subject Matter Experts) from DataTerrain have developed a robust approach for Informatica Powercenter rollouts which they customized for the unique needs of the University. Combining deep domain knowledge with specialized technical skills, DataTerrain performed the following major activities –

• Business requirements mapping and design
  1. User workshops to map AS-IS business processes and document technical implementations including identification of redundant data loads
  2. Consultative discussions to define and document TO-BE requirements including rationalization of data loads and jobs
  3. Documentation of source system design elements consisting of DB objects/mappings/flows/dependencies.
  4. Rationalization of objects/tables/views/flows to create detailed mapping and ETL design documents.

• Development/Enhancement/Bug fixing –
  1. Development of new ETL adhering to the specific business standards of the university and based on industry best practices
  2. Importing required database objects into Informatica Designer and developing new ETL mappings/sessions/workflows/tasks/schedulers
  3. Equivalent transformations created in ETL mappings for the features used in the SQL queries of the source system.
  4. Automated validation scripts developed using python for comparing hundreds of database tables and automatically validating data loads.
  5. Ownership for incident life cycle, troubleshooting, debugging, issues resolution within SLA, and root cause analysis(RCA)
  6. Preventive measures for repetitive issues, and development of permanent solutions
  7. Resolution of complex bugs with long term fixes following best practices and collaboration with University teams for solution reviews

• Support, Load plan/monitoring –
  1. Schedule and monitor the PRODUCTION and UAT jobs every day and troubleshoot/fix the issues
  2. Create and execute monthly/yearly/on-demand ETL data load as per Business requirements
  3. 24X7 production system support including “off hours” and weekend “on-call” production support
  4. Support for daily builds run on UAT and production environment, management of application releases. Migration of the ETL mappings/ sessions/ workflows/ tasks/ schedules from UAT to PROD and update flow for downstream systems to receive data through new ETL jobs
  5. Implementation of change control processes, continuous integration, and ownership for the smooth release of changes into production
  6. Daily spot checks of system health, session monitoring and support for ETL processes,
  7. Logging load statistics, failure, and log analysis,
  8. Communication with stakeholders in case of delays or SLA breaches
  9. Resolving failures and delays during daily process execution
  10. Coordination with DBAs to resolve issues

Benefits to the University

Migrating to Informatica PowerCenter led by DataTerrain’s best-in-class services resulted in significant benefits to the University as below –

1. The business impact of the following advanced features of Informatica Powercenter–
   1. Data Integration agility – Accelerating integration through a metadata-driven approach that enables quick setup of interfaces with a variety of University systems.
   2. Scaleability – A real-time engine that delivers high performance through always-on data integration services that easily scale to support increasing data volumes from multiple users, projects, university departments, and data types.
   3. Robust operations – Delivering consistent performance and timely distribution of quality data to create value for University stakeholders. Early warning systems provide alerts on ineffective resource utilization or unexpected behavior in data integration workflows.
2. Productivity improvement as ETL processes complete faster due to performance tuning performed by DataTerrain SMEs.
3. Faster turnaround and increased user satisfaction due to the timely resolution of issues and completion of defect fixes and enhancements.
4. Improved traceability due to the extensive documentation of data flows and mappings provided by DataTerrain.
5. Reduction in technical debt based on continual improvement initiatives to fix technical issues, resulting in a reduction in the number of incident tickets and a progressive reduction in resolution times.

The DataTerrain Difference

The University leadership has highlighted the following factors as the critical difference made by DataTerrain –

1. Optimized and Seamless delivery with a highly skilled SME team – DataTerrain SMEs advised and guided the University team as trusted partners. They helped rationalize the ETL processes and simplified the implementation of unique requirements like BLOBs/CLOBs and appropriate code pages for Informatica data connection.

2. Global delivery model – DataTerrain teams from its Global delivery centers were available 24X7 to monitor jobs, respond to issues, and ensure that overnight batches complete before the start of every business day.

3. Domain knowledge of DataTerrain SMEs – DataTerrain SMEs quickly understood the unique business needs of the University and helped rationalize and eliminate redundant data loads. The documentation provided by the SMEs is very useful for the University associates to understand the system and project the impact of changes.

DataTerrain has helped the University to quickly adopt Informatica Powercenter and benefit from its many new features. This has helped the University accelerate its quest to improve health through greater collaboration and innovation in health-care, research, and education.

An American specialty retail company with a world-famous family of brands selling personal care, beauty products, apparel, and accessories continued to rapidly expand its global footprint. Its operations across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Greater China had grown to 3000 company-owned retail stores with even more in the pipeline. To enable it’s over 80000 global associates across all locations to manage this scale, this company rolled out the latest HCM system as part of its transformation program.

Given the complexities and unique business model of the customer, an extensive reporting solution was implemented with BI publisher using custom SQL queries for data extraction. Many reports required over 100 columns and the system failed to generate them due to large data volumes and the resulting bottlenecks. Based on the recommendation to migrate from BI Publisher to HCM extracts, the customer chose DataTerrain to lead this migration.

The following highlights of DataTerrain’s track record in helping organizations set up HCM extracts as the primary Outbound integration tool were noted by the customer –

• Extensive experience in enabling a high volume of data to be gathered from database, processes, and archives
• Technical capabilities in converting these archived data to the format of choice and delivering to identified recipients using –
  • In-built formatting options
  • BI publisher
• Domain knowledge with a pool of SMEs(subject matter experts) across all major HCM areas like HR, payroll, benefits, etc.

DataTerrain’s proprietary optimization methodology using HCM extracts

DataTerrain deployed its proprietary approach for the migration of BI Publisher SQL based reports to Oracle HCM extracts. The major phases and key activities performed are summarized as below –

1. Analysis and Design – During this process, the following items were reviewed and documented –
   1. DataTerrain SMEs created mapping documents for each report with the BI Publisher SQL Table/column and mapped it to the equivalent Oracle HCM Extract User Entity/Attribute to minimize run times
   2. RTF, Excel, and XSL templates were designed to produce outputs matching the Excel/text/CSV formats in existing reports. During this process, DataTerrain’s repository of pre-built HCM extracts was also leveraged as an accelerator
   3. Where columns were unavailable in User Entities, suitable Valuesets and Fast Formulas were created
   4. Columns displayed in the layouts were revisited and redundancies were identified to reduce report complexity and improve readability for users. After stakeholder approvals, these format changes were appropriately documented.

A detailed migration plan was created based on the above and calendars of users and key stakeholders were blocked for key activities needing their involvement at every major project milestone.

2. Development and validation – The following major activities were performed by DataTerrain during this –
   1. Development of reports based on the design in the migration document. Refine Extracts feature was used as appropriate to manage HCM parameters as below –
      1. Choosing the appropriate filter type like choice list, list of values, radio button, and date picker
      2. Controlling which parameters would be visible to the user

• Using Lookup to choose the parameter to be used to refine Extracts

1. Setting default values to run extracts based on identified parameters for a specific user group like hiring team or payroll.

1. Performance tuning using techniques like reducing report level calculations, using efficient user entities, filters in extracts, reducing the size of extract XMLs, and configuring threads.
2. Manual execution of test cases and documentation of run times of each test case to ensure they meet the required performance criteria
3. User validation of test results and run times in the test environment and approval for promoting to production.
4. Creation of appropriate documentation, instruction, and report catalogs for promotion of developed reports up to the production environment.

3. Knowledge transfer, Production deployment, and roll-out – Deployment of reports were handled using the documentation provided and key users performed a final round of validation before the respective reports were signed-off. As a key activity during this phase, the DataTerrain team provided detailed documentation and conducted knowledge transfer sessions for the customer technical team.

The DataTerrain difference

DataTerrain completed this project on-time and within budget, following which the customer highlighted the following as major differentiators of DataTerrain that contributed to this successful migration –

1. DataTerrain’s Highly skilled and experienced SME pool – DataTerrain SMEs effectively resolved all the bottlenecks preventing successful execution of production reports. Besides, they bridged a major skill gap in the customer organization. The customer also noted that their knowledge helped to quickly narrow down the problems and where required, help stakeholders make informed decisions for workable solutions.
2. DataTerrain’s Oracle partnership – Major issues were resolved quickly with help from Oracle through well-established working relationships between DataTerrain and Oracle support.
3. DataTerrain’s Global Delivery Model – The velocity of this project was much higher since DataTerrain team members from their global delivery centers ensured 24X7 execution of project tasks. During critical testing phases, time was saved as technical support was always at hand to progress activities and to resolve issues or defects. Daily/weekly/monthly forums ensured timely reporting and appropriate issues escalation for speedy resolution.

DataTerrain has enabled the customer to improve decision making and effectively manage its business by enabling the timely generation of reports required by its business users. After DataTerrain resolved all major performance issues and bottlenecks, the customer is now able to generate value from the investments made in HCM reporting.

A more than 173 years old global technology powerhouse was on an accelerated journey to bring together the digital and physical worlds for the benefit of its customers. The organization works on providing technology solutions to address the greatest challenges of our time in such diverse areas as Healthcare systems, the digital transformation of industry, infrastructure, and mobility, and energy transitions. As the company embarks on cutting-edge initiatives in these areas, managing its human capital of 293,000+ employees worldwide is in focus.

This company migrated from PeopleSoft HRMS to Oracle Fusion HCM to create a new age platform to keep up with the rapid pace of change in its business needs. As the next step, the company needed to quickly migrate the reports in PeopleSoft to Oracle fusion HCM.

The company chose DataTerrain to lead this migration initiative due to DataTerain’s –

• Extensive experience and deep technical skills in delivering complex PeopleSoft to Oracle HCM migrations
• Accelerators available in the form of pre-built Oracle HCM reports similar to PeopleSoft reports. These include reports like the following –
  • TAX007 – Quarterly Federal Tax Summary
  • TAX008 – Quarterly State Tax Summary PAY007 – Deduction in arrears
  • TAX010FD – Tax summary for Federal with the ability to run for a date range
  • TAX010ST – Tax summary for state with the ability to run for a date range
  • PAY013(CN) – Employee earnings snapshot
  • TAX900 – Tax error report
• High-quality, zero-defect methodology for on-time and on-budget delivery over numerous migrations

DataTerrain’s proven migration methodology

DataTerrain executed this migration project using its proprietary framework. The major activities of this framework are summarized below –

• Analysis and documentation:- Every PeopleSoft report was analyzed and a corresponding Oracle HCM document was created with a mapping between the columns in PeopleSoft and Oracle HCM. During this documentation, any missing elements were identified, and any areas requiring user decisions and inputs were highlighted. The SMEs(subject matter experts) team from DataTerrain was onboarded whenever required for proposing suitable alternate solutions. For example – When columns required to deliver a user requirement were not available in Oracle HCM entities, DataTerrain SMEs created additional fast formula/valuesets to implement the columns/parameters the customer required. Where required, DataTerrain SMEs assisted key users and customer technical teams in evaluating options before making informed decisions.  For new reports not already in PeopleSoft, an Oracle HCM mapping document was created based on User requirements. Based on this, the design was documented and a detailed plan was created for sign-off by the appropriate stakeholders.
• Conversion and Validation – Oracle HCM reports were created based on the documents mentioned above. Based on user preference, the size of the data presented in the report, and column availability one of the following reporting methodologies was chosen–
  1. OTBI – Using its visually rich features to create analyses and embed in dashboards with required prompts and fields for users to extract relevant information. Some of these were also configured by DataTerrain SMEs to enable self-service so that users could create ad-hoc reports, alerts, and dashboards to aid decision making.
  2. BI Publisher reports – custom layouts and templates
  3. HCM extracts/excel outputs

DataTerrain’s pre-built Oracle HCM reports were available as accelerators during this migration process. When core-product issues or gaps were identified in Oracle Fusion, DataTerrain front-ended the interface with Oracle on behalf of the customer, raised relevant SRs, and followed-up to obtain and install fixes and patches from Oracle. DataTerrain brought its domain experts and testers on board to validate formats and data between PeopleSoft and Oracle HCM reports and to left-shift issues identification and fixing. The detailed documentation created by DataTerrain was made available to the customer along with migration documents to ensure the smooth promotion of reports from test to production instances.

• Acceptance and rollout – After validation and user acceptance, reports were migrated to production for final user validation. DataTerrain provided knowledge transfer to the customer team using the documentation created during preceding phases.

DataTerrain completed the migration on time and within budget to help the customers improve productivity through the following features in Oracle HCM –

• Visually intuitive dashboards using reports and analytics
• Reports, visualizations, and personalized user homepages
• Delivery of information to users promptly and on a range of devices to expedite the turnaround of transactions
• Predictive analytics across the Hire to Retire process to evolve HCM processes over time
• Evolving innovations in machine learning, digital assistants, adaptive intelligence, and blockchain integration

Value adds provided by DataTerrain

Following the successful On-Time and On-budget completion of this project, the customer highlighted the following as unique value added by DataTerrain –

• Oracle Connect – By front-ending with Oracle to resolve core product issues, DataTerrain saved a lot of costs, time, and effort for the customer.
• Cross-platform expertise – DataTerrain’s formed an integrated team with expertise across both PeopleSoft and Oracle HCM. This helped the customer bridge a major skill gap that had prevented them from completing the migration earlier.
• Global delivery model with robust governance – With the DataTerrain team distributed across its global centers, project activities were executed round the clock to enable faster progress. Daily/regular calls scheduled with customer technical teams and the user community led to faster issues resolution, decision making, and ensured transparency on project progress.

DataTerrain quickly migrated the customer’s reports from PeopleSoft to Oracle HCM to help them accelerate their time to value from their investment. As the users expand the usage of reports in Oracle HCM, the customer continues to seamlessly transform its HCM across its global network of offices.

An established private University of over 142 years was on a multi-year journey to reinvent information technology needs for various departments. Its 9 schools and colleges continued to expand and deliver reputed education programs in arts and sciences, law, business, and health sciences. The over 8820 students of the University and almost 800 faculty members participated in a variety of initiatives. These range from hands-on research, service-learning, and study-abroad to other immersive learning experiences. The University Leadership felt the need for integrated reporting and tracking of HCM data to better manage and address the unique needs of every entity.
The University invested in Oracle HCM to create a solid foundation and platform for the future. To generate value from this investment and address the long-felt needs of the user community, the University decided to revamp its reporting system in Oracle HCM.
Based on its established track record, DataTerrain was chosen for this and given the responsibility for report development and maintenance services. DataTerrain was specifically tasked with leveraging its decades of experience in helping customers derive business value in HCM by enhancing their reporting applications.

DataTerrain’s industry-leading report development and maintenance service
Given the unique needs of the University, DataTerrain SMEs(Subject Matter Experts) leveraged its proprietary methodology to jumpstart this engagement. Deep domain knowledge was combined with expertise in Oracle HCM to establish proven and industry-leading best practices for the University. The following are major activities performed by DataTerrain –
Requirements documentation with advisory support – Domain experts from DataTerrain worked with University users and stakeholders to understand and translate business requirements into report specifications. DataTerrain SMEs took an “Art of the possible” approach and advised users on alternate options to address their requirements. In case required, the Oracle support team was consulted through the customer to design appropriate solutions for business needs not directly supported by the platform. DataTerrain team also referred to its prebuilt repository of HCM reports as required to accelerate this process. Detailed requirements documentation was created as an outcome of this step.

Design – Based on the requirements, mapping documentation was created to relate the expected outputs of each report to the underlying Oracle HCM data structure. Where applicable, fast formulas and value sets were designed for instances where the entities were not available in Oracle HCM. The choice of reporting methodology was made during the design and one of the following was chosen –
HCM extracts in available standard formats and/or excel reports
BI Publisher reports using the appropriate custom layouts and templates
OTBI – Dashboards with required fields and embedded analyses with rich visualizations with the flexibility provided to users to filter information based on relevance.
DataTerrain SMEs advised customers on optimizing and reusing existing HCM extracts to prevent the proliferation of reports. For example, DataTerrain helped the customer reuse the existing Hub Main Extract by adding Fast Formulas for additional columns required by the customer. Legacy knowledge gaps and documentation limitations were also addressed during this phase. For example, for flexfields that did not have documentation to map back to Oracle HCM entities, DataTerrain identified and documented the mapping. This enabled their use in SQL queries in new and enhanced reports.
Development – Based on the detailed designs, new reports were developed or existing reports were suitably modified with additional fields and layout changes. Besides, for identified data loads, translation formulas were implemented to convert from the obsolete PBL(Payroll batch loader) to the latest HDL(HCM Data loader) processes.

Data loading – HDL and HSDL(HCM Spreadsheet Data Loader) processes were created and executed by the DataTerrain team for data loads in areas like Compensation and HR modules

Validation, acceptance, and knowledge transfer – Using test cases developed in discussion with users, DataTerrain validated each newly developed and enhanced report. After these were validated by users in test and subsequently in the production environment, the reports were handed off to end-users. Extensive documentation was created and knowledge transfer sessions were conducted by DataTerrain SMEs to complete the handoff of the reports to the University team.

The DataTerrain Difference
As a part of this engagement, DataTerrain cleared the backlog of User requests and wishlists enabling the University to quickly improve its operational tracking and decision making. The customer highlighted the following as added value brought to them by DataTerrain –
DataTerrain’s domain expertise – The customer noted that the knowledge and domain experience of DataTerrain’s SMEs was key at every critical step and milestone. DataTerrain’s knowledge repository was shown during the development of every new report. Some of these reports include –
Payroll payment changes audit reports
Personal activity report
Salary report by organization
403b audit report
Benefits setup report

DataTerrain’s extensive technical expertise – DataTerrain’s SMEs quickly resolved issues in the existing setup and developed automation that saved time and effort for the University users and technical team. Some examples include –
Using translation formulas to automate the creation of HDL files from the legacy PBLs which were going out of support
Fixing errors in HDL templates and resolving numerous defects in data loads and reports.
Implementation of schedules for the periodic generation of extracts based on a defined frequency.

DataTerrain’s Global delivery model – DataTerrain team members operating from global delivery centers ensured 24×7 progress on the University’s priority items due to which the backlog of report requests was cleared in a short duration.

DataTerrain helped the University to quickly clear its backlog of user requests and resolve issues that prevented them from making the best use of Oracle HCM. The reports created by DataTerrain have set the University on course to strengthen its position as an organization that creates leaders of the future.

A Fortune 100 energy company with a large presence across the energy business starting from power generation and competitive energy sales to transmission and delivery was responding fast to changes in the industry. Creating an organization-wide innovation culture amongst its over 33400 strong workforce was identified as key to meeting and exceeding the expectations of its over 1.8 million customers. This brought an increased focus on modernizing its practices for managing its human capital across its office locations in the US.
After successfully migrating to Oracle fusion HCM from its legacy PeopleSoft HRMS, the company took the first step by creating a solid platform for its HCM transformation. It was now ready to switch its reporting from PeopleSoft to Oracle Fusion HCM to take advantage of its latest features like –
Reports and analytics rendered with creative visualizations on intuitive dashboards and personalized home pages
Predictive transactional analytics for improved decision making across the Hire to Retire process
Timely information delivery in diverse formats across a variety of devices enabling faster completion of transactions.
Leveraging the power of digital assistants, machine learning, and adaptive intelligence
Having identified the need for external skill and expertise for setting up the reporting in Oracle HCM, the customer onboarded DataTerrain for the following reasons –
Knowledgebase and expertise built by successfully executing multiple complex projects involving Oracle HCM reports setup following the migration from PeopleSoft to Oracle HCM.
Accelerated implementation methodology enhanced with DataTerrain’s pre-built Oracle HCM reports repository covering the following major areas-
Payroll reports
Benefits reports
Tax reports
Audit reports
Compensation reports
Security reports
HR reports
Absence-accrual reports
Talent Management reports
Successful track record of on-time and on-budget delivery

DataTerrain HCM Analytics migration methodology
DataTerrain’s proprietary framework is based on the key tenet of zero-defects. The following are the major steps and activities performed based on this methodology –

Analysis and documentation-. An Oracle HCM mapping document was separately created for every report detailing the business requirements and mapping them to individual components for feeding data. Oracle SMEs introduced stakeholders to the features of Oracle HCM during consultative discussions so that they could reimagine their reporting without being constrained by their experience with PeopleSoft. Missing elements were identified and DataTerrain SMEs(Subject Matter Experts) proposed alternate approaches and helped customer stakeholders make informed decisions. As an illustration, additional fast formulas and valuesets were created for additional entities required to address user needs in Oracle HCM. In a few cases, PeopleSoft reports were all also referred to finalize the mapping documents. Detailed development and validation plans were created based on the approved documents and signed-off with key customer stakeholders.

Development and validation – The mapping documents were used as the basis to develop the reports in Oracle HCM. One of the following reporting methodologies was chosen based on the size of data presented, availability of columns, and user preference-
BI Publisher reports – based on templates and custom layouts as applicable
HCM extracts in standard formats or excel outputs
OTBI – Analyses with rich visualizations embedded in dashboards along with the required fields and prompts for users to filter and obtain relevant information. Self-service was also provided to let users create ad-hoc reports, alerts, and dashboards.
Pre-built reports from DataTerrain’s repository were referred to accelerate reports creation in Oracle HCM as applicable. DataTerrain also front-ended the interface with Oracle to raise SRs on behalf of the customer and obtained solutions and patches for deployment. DataTerrain SMEs involved users throughout the lifecycle to ensure that issues are identified and resolved early. Users validated reports tested by DataTerrain testers and the approved reports were promoted to production. DataTerrain created detailed documentation and provided it to the respective customer stakeholders for smooth promotion of validated reports from test to production instances.

User Acceptance, knowledge transfer, and rollout – After migration to production, reports were validated again by users who then provided final acceptance for rolling out to the target user base. DataTerrain provided knowledge transfer to the customer team using the documentation created during the preceding phases.

The DataTerrain difference
While acknowledging the efforts made by DataTerrain for the successful on-time and on-budget completion of this project the customer spotlighted the following critical success factors for the project–
DataTerrain’s Oracle Connect – led to a speedier response from Oracle and core product issues were resolved much faster.
DataTerrain’s deep technical expertise – took care of a major skill gap and hurdle faced by the customer as they were new to Oracle HCM. DataTerrain’s integrated team of domain experts and Oracle HCM SMEs helped to smoothly translate their business needs into user-friendly reports in quick time.
DataTerrain’s Global delivery model with robust governance – resulted in faster throughput with increased transparency. Team members and SMEs across DataTerrain’s global delivery centers kept project activities moving 24 X 7 and help was always at hand to resolve issues. Users were involved from the outset and regular progress updates through daily/weekly and monthly forums provided enhanced visibility to stakeholders and accelerated decision making.

With all reports migrated to Oracle HCM, the customer is now able to use its latest features and provide timely updates to improve decision making and responsiveness. DataTerrain completed this project on-time and has helped the customer accelerate its transformation and get faster payback on its HCM investments.

References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exelon
https://www.exeloncorp.com/company/about-exelon

Expedite Peoplesoft Reports to Oracle HCM Migration Using Pre-Built Reports

PeopleSoft HRMS/HCM to Oracle Fusion HCM Cloud Conversion Made Easy

A 129+ years old west coast university which is ranked among the top educational institutions in the world by major educational publications is on a journey to reinvent itself and continue to remain a thought leader. With 7 schools, 40 academic departments, and graduate programs in diverse areas like law, medicine, education, and business the effort to track HCM information on the 2200+ faculty, 12500+ administrative staff, and almost 17250 students increased in criticality and continued to grow in complexity. Besides, as one of the top fundraising institutions and the first to raise over a billion dollars in a year, robust financial reporting and analytics became a critical requirement. The University leadership invested in Informatica 10.4 as their solution for Business Intelligence(BI) and reporting.
To accelerate time to value and improve responsiveness to the user community, the University selected DataTerrain to provide support and maintenance services. DataTerrain was asked to draw upon its established track record in improving service levels, fine-tuning DWH(Data warehouse) systems, improving their performance, and make improvements to the University’s application.

DataTerrain’s unique approach to EDW support services
Using its decades of experience in managing production support and maintenance of large scale EDW implementations, DataTerrain has developed a robust methodology which it deployed for this University. Combining in-depth technical knowledge and expertise in Informatica with proven practices, this methodology extends to the entire range of services as below –
1.) Application services
a. EDW(Enterprise data warehouse) design changes,
b. implementation, build, maintenance using Informatica Power Center,
c. Data integration, and merging across sources,
d. data profiling and cleansing,
e. performance tuning.
2.) EDW maintenance –
a. Maintaining all EDW tables loaded from a variety of internal and external source systems,
b. running audit processes, and ensuring consistency and
c. adherence to specifications
3.) Development/Enhancement/Bug fixing –
a. Best practices based development of new ETL adhering to the specific business standards of the university,
b. Enhancements to existing EDW and ETL implementation, implementation of SCD(slowly changing dimensions) to track historical data
c. Implementation of business rules in Informatica by creating transformations, robust mappings/Mapplets, utilizing varied transformation logic like a router, filter, expression, aggregator, joiner, Sequence Generator
d. Management of and ownership for incident life cycle, debugging, troubleshooting, root cause analysis(RCA), and issues resolution within SLA
e. Preventive measures for repetitive issues, and development of permanent resolutions
f. Resolution of complex bugs with long term fixes following best practices and collaboration with University teams for solution reviews and incident resolution.

4.) Load plan/monitoring –
a. 24X7 production system support including “off hours” and weekend “on-call” production support
b. Support for daily builds run on UAT and production environment, management of application releases
c. Implementation of change control processes, continuous integration, and ownership for the smooth release of changes into production
d. Daily spot checks of system health, session monitoring and support for ETL processes,
e. Logging load statistics, failure, and log analysis,
f. communication with stakeholders in case of delays or SLA breaches
g. resolving failures and delays during daily process execution
h. coordination with DBA to resolve table space or file system related issues

Customer benefits due to DataTerrain’s services
The best-in-class methodology and approach of DataTerrain have made a visible impact on the customer with the following major benefits –
1.) Improved productivity and efficiency through performance tuning:- ETL load times which were as high as 6-8 hours have now been significantly reduced by the DataTerrain SME team by implementing the following actions –
a. Eliminating bottlenecks by applying performance tuning best practices at source, target, mapping, and DB level.
b. Reducing build execution times using Informatica’s push down optimization functionality and using the integration service to translate the transformation logic into SQL queries for execution in the corresponding source or target databases
c. Accelerating data loads by using Informatica’s partitioning feature to enable parallel execution of the pipeline ETL.
2.) Increased User satisfaction and effectiveness through 24X7 support – The issue resolution time was drastically reduced and users get through their tasks much faster. Ticket backlogs have also been brought down to eliminate any queueing time.
3.) Reduction in technical debt – Continual system improvement has resulted in a significant reduction in technical debt and the impact is visible through the reduction in the number of technical issues and incidents along with a reduction in average resolution time for issues.

The DataTerrain difference
The customer has called out the following unique attributes of DataTerrain’s service as the major contributors to the success of this engagement –
1.) Deep technical expertise – DataTerrain removed technical complexity related bottlenecks and has instituted many best practices to improve performance and maintainability.
2.) Global delivery model – Round the clock support to end-users is ensured by leveraging constituting distributed teams across the global delivery centers of DataTerrain.
3.) Deep domain expertise – DataTerrain’s rich experience in working with major educational institutions has helped create unique and customized solutions for different user groups like the school of medicine, school of finance, MAIS, School of admission, and faculty department management

DataTerrain has set the University on a course to accelerating its returns on BI investments and is a trusted partner in its journey as a global thought leader in this forthcoming decade of rapid change.

References –

Business Intelligence Support Services

https://intellipaat.com/blog/an-audit-of-the-etl-process/
https://www.informatica.com/in/about-us/customers/customer-success-stories/informatica.html

Extensive Oracle HCM reports for a #1 tax preparation company in USA

A US-based leader of the consumer tax preparation services industry offering in-person and online support to customers saw its operations and complexity expand significantly. Its network of over 11000 company-owned and retail franchise offices was on a growth trajectory. These offices covered all 50 states of the US and also included 1600 offices in US military bases around the world, Canada, Australia, and India. Its strength of almost 80000 highly tax trained professionals including 18000 bilingual specialists needed robust tracking to ensure they were trained and ready with the latest tax information to effectively serve customers. The leadership team of this organization decided to migrate from Peoplesoft HRMS to Oracle HCM to support its fast-evolving business needs. One important benefit the customer expected was increased productivity expected from the following in Oracle HCM –
• Analytics and reports on visually intuitive dashboards
• Personalized user homepages, reports, and relevant visualizations
• Timely delivery of information to users across a range of devices to quickly progress transactions
• Predictive analytics to adopt next-gen HCM practices across all stages of the Hire to retire process
• Innovations for adaptive intelligence, machine learning, digital assistants, and blockchain integration
DataTerrain was chosen to lead this migration initiative as the customer wanted –
• an organization that had the experience and deep technical skills to handle such a complex migration.
• accelerated migration without reinventing the wheel during migration. DataTerrain’s pre-built Oracle HCM reports similar to PeopleSoft reports were noted.
• high-quality zero-defect delivery of pixel-perfect reports at a rapid pace. DataTerrain’s automation tool and its successful track record over numerous migrations was identified as a key differentiator.
DataTerrain’s expedited migration framework
The proprietary framework of DataTerrain was followed for this migration project. The major phases and key outcomes are summarized below –
1.) Analysis and planning – DataTerrain’s automated utility examined the PeopleSoft landscape, listed all the elements, identified missing elements, and provided a detailed log that enabled pinpointed planning for potential report conversion issues. DataTerrain SMEs(Subject matter experts) reviewed these, proposed alternate solutions, and helped key users and customer technical team to evaluate options and make suitable decisions. Based on this, a detailed plan was created and signed-off by the appropriate stakeholders.
2.) Automated conversion and validation – In this phase, Peoplesoft reports were migrated to Oracle HCM using the automated utility from DataTerrain. Based on user preference and column availability in each reporting methodology, each report in the target HCM system was created in one of the following ways –
a. HCM extracts/excel outputs
b. BI Publisher reports – including templates and custom layouts
c. OTBI – analyses embedded in dashboards with the required prompts and fields for users to extract relevant information using its visually rich features. DataTerrain SMEs also configured some of these to enable self-service for users to create ad-hoc reports, alerts, and dashboards to aid decision making.
DataTerrain’s Pre-built reports in Oracle HCM were also used as accelerators during this migration process. When product issues on the Oracle platform became bottlenecks, DataTerrain front-ended the interface with Oracle, raised relevant SRs, and followed up for obtaining and installing suitable fixes and solutions from Oracle. The DataTerrain tool automated conversion of reports between Peoplesoft and Oracle HCM reports to expedite conversion and fixing. This saved significant time and effort during the migration of several contractual and statutory pixel-perfect reports. The DataTerrain team also created detailed documentation on the migrated reports and handed off to the customer team during this phase.
3.) Acceptance and rollout – The validated reports were migrated to pre-prod for final customer checks and acceptance. The reports were migrated to the Oracle HCM production environment after acceptance.

Value adds by DataTerrain
During discussions after the successful completion of this project on-time and within budget, the customer team highlighted the following as value-adds by DataTerrain –
• Oracle partnership – DataTerrain leveraged its partnership with Oracle to help the customer resolve defects and performance issues identified in the core Oracle installation and this saved significant time and effort for the customer.
• Pre-built reports – DataTerrain’s repository of pre-built reports in Oracle HCM jumpstarted the migration effort and saved time by enabling quick customizations
• Global delivery model – This was key to accelerating delivery as DataTerrain team members continued to work on project activities round the clock.

DataTerrain has helped the customer set up a robust reporting system on Oracle HCM and proactively addressed previous issues. This has helped the customer quickly obtain payback on its investment made in the migration effort. The customer continues to expand its use of Oracle HCM to transform its HCM process globally.

A global Top 10 semiconductor manufacturer which is also a leading technology company in the United States is accelerating its global operations. As the global market witnesses intense competition for top-notch localized talent, the leadership team of this company decided to focus on transforming its human capital management. Investing in a solution to attract and retain the best talent available in its global centers was identified as a focus area. With an employee strength of over 30000 and multiple initiatives driving personnel changes at a rapid pace, proactive tracking of HCM metrics at a large scale was deemed critical. Standardized reporting and dashboards for leadership teams needed to be balanced with localized information needs and customizations in different divisions. Investments in Oracle HCM and Taleo provided the necessary functional and transactional backbone for the customer to meet its business objectives.
With a strong foundation established across its global HR, payroll, time and labor, compensation, and talent management processes, the customer determined that expanding its customized HCM reporting would be key to accelerating time to value. Integration of business intelligence, social networking tools with enhanced data access across devices also became a necessity while improving compliance with local and international laws.
However, the key challenge for the customer was to manage the technical complexity of integrating data across multiple systems and platforms.
The customer chose DataTerrain to support them through this critical phase of value delivery after evaluating DataTerrain’s expertise and capabilities across different platforms. DataTerrain’s track record for delivering complex integrations and its previous successful project to migrate the customer to Oracle HCM was another major factor in the decision.

DataTerrain’s cross-functional approach
DataTerrain used the understanding gained during the migration and strung together a team of experts across Oracle HCM, Taleo, Oracle BICS(Business Intelligence Cloud Service), OAC(Oracle Analytics Cloud), and ODI(Oracle Data Integrator). The team included functional experts in HCM processes on the one hand and architects, designers, and developers with in-depth knowledge of BICS, OAC, ODI, and Oracle cloud platforms.
The scope of services performed by thus team included –
1.) Understanding and documenting user requirements for enhancements to existing reports and new reporting requirements
2.) Providing business analysis and advisory support to end-users to develop integrated employee views and analytics across HCM, Taleo, and the customized time accounting system.
3.) Adding customized features, enhancing existing report features, and building customized reports where OTBI did not directly address customer expectations. Some of the major types of custom reports in Oracle HCM include – headcount reports, attrition reports, employee diversity reports, and their related trend analyses. In Taleo, this includes reports on recruiting trends and University trends
4.) Developing data integration solutions for user-defined fields in complex customizations
5.) Designing and developing reports including complex data integrations across applications, data sources, and environments.
6.) Recommending and implementing workarounds for information not supported in HCM and requiring external integrations
7.) Independently maintaining the BICS and OAC environments
8.) Maintaining high-performance for the reports and dashboards with minimal downtime
9.) Ensure timely completion of period-end reporting jobs – daily/weekly/monthly/ quarterly/annual
10.) Technical support for Oracle HCM and Taleo on demand
11.) Dedicated 365 days support for end-users

The Data Terrain difference

The customer has highlighted the following as the major drivers for value delivered by DataTerrain –

1.) In-depth expertise – DataTerrain’s integrated team with technical and functional expertise across all Oracle platforms eliminated technical and integration bottlenecks for the customers. This includes data flow and customizations, ODI processes, BICC processes, and BICS. A variety of data sources and formats were seamlessly handled by this team including – UCM flat files, Taleo interfaces, and flat files from external custom Time application. This team also handled the first level of support for maintaining and managing changes on the BICS including the RPD repository. This enabled the customer to focus on the business outcomes they needed to achieve and determine the analytics and reporting they required.

2.) Accelerated customization – DataTerrain’s pre-built repository of Oracle HCM and Taleo reports minimized the time and effort required for the customer. The following are areas addressed by the pre-built Oracle HCM reports repository from which accelerated customizations were made available on demand for the benefit of users –
• HR reports – Employee records, departmental details, aggregate reports
• Security reports – hiring, transfers, role reassignments, termination
• Payroll reports consisting of employees and exec compensation, statutory and tax filings, reconciliations
• Compensation Reports – Reports on incentives and compensation based on salary grades and eligibility
• Benefits reports including commissions, profit sharing, healthcare, 401k, dependent care, ESPP, HSA contributions
• Tax reports employee and organizational level aggregate reports including federal/state/local deductions, medicare, worksite level reports
• Audit reports– compliance reports for EEOC, FT/PT, HRS178, FLSA reports,
Similarly, DataTerrain provided accelerated pre-built report customization support in the following areas –
• Oracle Taleo Recruiting Cloud Service
• Oracle Taleo Onboarding Cloud Service
• Oracle Taleo Performance Management Cloud Service
• Oracle Taleo Learn Cloud Service
• Oracle Taleo Compensation Cloud Service

3.) Global delivery model – DataTerrain team members operate from its global delivery centers and ensure round the clock support to end-users. By ensuring smooth handovers between the onsite and offshore teams, DataTerrain has team members working round the clock to quickly turn around high-priority requests.

DataTerrain has helped the customer unlock the value of its investments in Oracle HCM and Taleo by provided integrated reporting, dashboards, and analytics.

Our customer a world-class technology services organization that leverages its extensive experience and industry insights to help it’s clients attain their digital goals. With a unique deployment model that emphasizes high-quality local engagements, this client’s network spanned 70 client delivery centers across the US, Canada, and Mexico. The business emphasizes speed, agility, and flexibility with dynamic fit-for-purpose teams brought together with customized, industry-specialized service models to deliver proven solutions to achieve results. BI(Business intelligence) and analytics were key to making rapid decisions to shape new deals and manage the execution of projects. Since Crystal Reports was going out of support, our customer needed to quickly migrate to a new platform and chose Oracle BI Publisher.
The customer wanted no impact on the users during this change and retaining the AS-IS look and feel from Crystal Reports was a critical requirement. The customer chose DataTerrain to complete this migration due to its robust and successful automated approach for migration from Crystal Reports to Oracle BI Publisher. As one of the early movers in building a seamless migration path out of Crystal Reports, DataTerrain’s experience had been refined over numerous challenging projects. DataTerrain’s proprietary tool had demonstrated its ability to accelerate conversion and migration through automation.

Accelerated migration using DataTerrain’s automation tool
DataTerrain’s structured approach for migration from Crystal Reports to Oracle BI Publisher was followed for completing this migration on time and within budget. The major phases of the migration include-
1. Automated analysis and detailed planning–DataTerrain’s tool created an inventory of reports and performed a high-level technical and functional analysis to identify nuances to be addressed, flag potential migration issues, performance bottlenecks, and plan manual interventions. It identified redundancies and potential consolidation options. This information was fed into a detailed project plan which was further refined after a few pilot reports were converted and validated as proof of concept.
2. Automated conversion and validation–The migration tool converted each Crystal Report to a corresponding RTF template and deployed to the PeopleSoft server to be made available as Oracle BI Publisher process types accessible using the application engine in the PeopleSoft environment. Where applicable, people code designed for Crystal Reports was converted and made suitable for the new Oracle BI Publisher environment and the application engine. The time saved through automation was used to customize queries and report features for priority items requested by users. Additional drill-downs and prompts were provided for users to filter based on parameters like input year, region, and department to generate the desired report views. Performance issues were also resolved saving execution time and resources.
3. User validation and rollout – User involvement from the initial planning stage was ensured by both the customer project manager and DataTerrain. This enabled the project team to fast track decisions and act on risks and issues proactively. Users validated the reports in the target testing environment as the RTF templates were deployed. The process scheduler in Oracle BI Publisher was also run during the validation and business user acceptance testing which were followed by sign-off and rollout to production.
The customer team called out two noticeable aspects of this migration project as visible differentiators provided by DataTerrain –
• Accelerated project execution using a global delivery model ensuring that the migration completed before Crystal Reports went out of support. DataTerrain SMEs across the global delivery centers ensured that someone was available round the clock to push forward with project activities
• Value adds while retaining Look and Feel – Additional features like filters and long-pending customizationsled to high user satisfaction and positive feedback.

Customer benefits
Some of the major benefits to the customer following the successful On-Time and within budget migration to Oracle BI Publisher include –
1. Seamless integration with PeopleSoft and reduction in effort to maintain and enhance the new system which retains the original look and feel while working on the latest software version
2. Increased flexibility and reuse due to the separation of data layout, logic, and translation. This simplifies the effort for maintenance and lights-on support
3. With multiple layouts possible for the same dataset, the proliferation of reports is slowed down, keeping the overall application lighter and simpler.
4. The ability of Oracle BI Publisher to handle extensive data improved performance and is proving to be a major productivity gain for the user community.
5. The versatile layout editor has made it possible to deliver outputs in a variety of formats like .doc, .xls, and .pdf. The layout editor provides drag and drop features for users to easily customize and create their own report formats.
6. Integration of data from multiple sources like web services, HTTP XML feeds, and file data sources adds additional options for users to track and report critical business metrics
7. Users can now deliver personalized content to multiple destinations in multiple output formats using scheduling and bursting feature in Oracle BI Publisher
8. Developers of bespoke applications in the client environment are now able to hot-plug these reports using web services or JavaAPIs
Following this migration, the customer has continued to expand its usage of Oracle BI Publisher as a strategic tool to improve its decision making and to meet its growing reporting requirements.

DataTerrain’s client is one of 12 Federal reserve banks and responsible for the second largest district of the Federal Reserve based on geographic area, covering 5 states and parts of 2 other states. It has nearly 2000 employees working in diverse areas like monetary policy, banking supervision, payments, and public engagement. Besides, the employees also work on supporting areas like information technology, administrative services, and financial management. The complex reporting and tracking needs of the customer were supported by Business objects on the Taleo platform. Since Oracle announced the end of support to BO after it acquired Taleo, the customer needed to migrate to OBIEE.
The customer had the following key considerations for this migration project –
1. Accelerate project execution to complete the migration before BO goes out of support
2. Minimize surprises for users and assure high quality during the migration process
3. Create a report dictionary – a repository with documentation and details about each report and components for easy reference by the customer team during future maintenance and enhancement.
The customer chose DataTerrain for this project because it is an Oracle partner and had an established track record for the successful completion of comparable migration projects.The customer also wanted to benefit from DataTerrain’s domain knowledge in BO & OBIEE and competency in Taleo reporting,

DataTerrain’s accelerators enabled seamless migration
The proprietary methodology developed by DataTerrain was followed for this accelerated migration project. The major phases and highlights from each of them are summarized below –
1. Audit and analysis – DataTerrain’s automation tool was run to extract details of the AS-IS reports repository, and key information about each report. This included notes on the purpose of the report, owners, run schedules, run times, frequency of usage, unique BO features used, complex queries/functions, etc. Complexities in the BO implementation were identified for objects(dimensions and measures), classes, and joins(relationship definition) between classes. Potential migration issues were flagged and interventions were planned for specific reports as required. Redundant reports and duplicates were flagged and a plan was created for consolidation, after user review and sign-off. Improvement opportunities and performance bottlenecks were also identified for prioritizing customization efforts and issue fixes in discussion with users. Based on these, a detailed project plan was created and signed off with key stakeholders and the project sponsor.
2. Automated conversion and validation – DataTerrain’s proprietary conversion tool was run to transport all elements of the BO report file to OBIEE report files both in BI Publisher and Answers. The utility performed the translation for all individual elements including complex business logic embedded in the reports layer of the BO. DataTerrain SMEs(Subject Matter experts) fixed performance bottlenecks during the migration in addition to customizing reports for a few high-impact priority user requirements.As the next step, the automated utility validated the report layouts and data between the source and target systems. This improved accuracy of testing outcomes and helped to save time spent on manual quality control and assurance.The conversion was pixel-perfect to preserve the significant efforts to design and develop the existing BO reports.
3. User acceptance and rollout – Since users were involved throughout the previous phases and had participated in signing-off major interim milestones, surprises and major issues were avoided during acceptance. The users also reviewed the documentation and reports dictionary created by DataTerrain SMEs by leveraging the outputs from the audit and analysis phase. The converted reports were promoted to production on time, while BO was still being supported by Oracle.

During the project closure and handover, the customer noted the following as highlights and value-adds provided by DataTerrain –
1. Accelerated project execution due to the Global Delivery model. DataTerrain had a judicious mix of team members operating onsite and from its global delivery centers. The onsite team enabled effective communication to speed up decisions. The teams in the global centers ensured that project activities continued to be executed round the clock to keep up with the tight schedule.
2. Domain knowledge and pre-built repository – DataTerrain SMEs saved time and quickly understood customer needssince they had deep domain knowledge in BO & OBIEE combined with expertise in Taleo. Their experience in developing reports in the following areas was noted by the customer – Taleo compensation cloud service, Taleo Learn cloud service, Taleo onboarding cloud service, Taleo performance management service, Taleo recruiting cloud service.
3. Accumulated knowledge and years of effort were carried forward to the OBIEE environment by retaining the look and feel of reports. This also simplified user training and the rollout could be completed smoothly with high user satisfaction.

DataTerrain ensured that the customer smoothly migrated from BO to OBIEE well before Taleo BO went out of support. The improved real-time reporting and analytics capabilities of OBIEE have helped the customer improve decision making and results in its Taleo based processes.

References –
https://www.kansascityfed.org/

HCM & OAC Reports

Business Intelligence Reports Conversion Automation Service

http://everything-oracle.com/mobieeover.htm
https://www.oracle.com/webfolder/technetwork/tutorials/obe/Taleo_Cloud/14B/cvn/cvn.htm
https://nerdsofobiee.wordpress.com/category/business-objects-to-obiee/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Bank_of_Kansas_City

A leading American private business jets company with more than half a century of experience, operating over 750 aircraft of an ever-expanding global fleet decided to consolidate the reporting and analytical needs in Jaspersoft. Given the high expectations of the customer segment served by this company, its flight operations have to meet exacting standards of efficiency and accountability. Numerous teams need to work in tandem to service every flight request starting from matching aircraft to specific customer needs to creating itineraries and tracking weather patterns. The teams include owner services teams, flight attendants, flight coordinators, logistics teams, operational analysis experts, meteorology teams, dispatch teams, schedulers, maintenance crews, pilots, and international flight planners to name a few. Extensive coordination and tracking of thousands of suppliers providing goods and services like catering services, ground transportation, and maintenance are also involved.This requires an integrated BI system for tracking, reporting, dashboards, and transactional analytics to support over 6000 employees on a real-time basis. The company chose Jaspersoft as its BI solution to replace SAP Crystal reports which was going out of support. The customer expected the following additional benefits after migration to Jaspersoft –
• Seamless integration and embedding in 3rd party applications with data from multiple sources
• Enhanced data virtualization and pluggable custom visualizations
• Enhanced performance with in-memory analysis and multi-dimensional analytics
• Enhanced user self-service with the Jaspersoft drag-and-drop report designer

The customer chose DataTerrain to lead this migration due to its unique automation led approach to migration from SAP crystal reports to Jaspersoft.

DataTerrain’s seamless and automated migration approach
With experience gained over numerous successful migrations, DataTerrain has refined its methodology to emphasize Zero business disruption, Zero defects, and Zero unexpected outcomes for end-users. This robust framework was applied along with its well-defined phases for this project. The phases are summarized below –
1. Automated AS-IS mapping and detailed planning – DataTerrain’s proprietary tool created a detailed map of the AS-IS landscape in crystal reports. The inventory of existing reports included information on their unique features, complex queries and data structures, data source related nuances, run times, usage patterns, owners, etc. This was used to identify potential migration issues and proactively plan interventions. Recoding effort in embedded applications was evaluated and plans were made to keep recoding to a minimum. Specific considerations for charts and visualizations were also documented and solutions were designed to address specific user needs and priority customization. This information was fed into a detailed plan which was signed off by key stakeholders.
2. Automated migration and validation – DataTerrain’s tool was used to perform automated migration based on the detailed designs and action plans agreed for individual reports. Some of the major points handled through automation and subsequent interventions by DataTerrain SMEs include –
a. Conversion of crystal reports .rpt to .jrxml. This included complex reports and sub-reports
b. Conversion of reports using JSON reference as data source.
c. Review of reusable custom components, chart engines, and fonts in JasperSoft® Studio. HTML5 charting features were leveraged as a solution for specific customer charting needs.
d. Creation of common resource repository for components like images and controls to minimize redundancy and save time.
e. Mapping of functions, expressions, and calculation logics in crystal reports through JasperReports® variables
f. Reviewing and upgrading grouping and sort orders in JasperReports®
g. Display and update of dynamic queries creation using end-user selections and controls.
h. Reports scheduling and automatic delivery across a variety of output formats. Special emphasis was placed on pixel-perfect reports and any misalignment were corrected during the migration process
i. Creation of generic report templates to provide a uniform look and feel while saving time.
j. Deploying the converted reports to a third-party application
k. Automated validation of templates and data between source and target systems to assure the quality of outputs in Jaspersoft.
3. User acceptance and rollout – The validated reports were shared with users for acceptance in the pre-prod environment. User effort for testing and training was lower since they were involved at every major interim milestone and the deliverables were tuned to the exact needs signed-off by them. After acceptance, the reports were promoted to production.

DataTerrain Value adds
The customer noted the following feedback on value adds provided by DataTerrain during the successful on-time and on-budget completion of this project –
• Customization – DataTerrain used the features of Jaspersoft to deliver a prioritized set of long-pending customization wanted by users and this led to high user satisfaction and faster adoption.
• Resolution of complex technical issues – DataTerrain SMEs proactively identified and resolved existing complex technical issues.This resulted in easier integration with the third-party application and improved chart outputs after migration.
• Accelerated delivery using Global Delivery model – With a judicious mix of on-site and resource teams, DataTerrain managed close hand holding and coordination with end-users. Project execution continued round the clock from the global delivery center and this accelerated the pace of delivery.

DataTerrain seamlessly migrated their reporting from Crystal reports, and provided suitable documentation.The customer organization has begun to leverage the features of Jaspersoftto drive the next level of business results.

A premier private college on the East coast of USA, with a pedigree of almost 90 years had a growing need to track data from its academic programs across its campuses and its online courses. Over 5700 students enrolled in its programs combine on-site and online classes to suit their lifestyle and schedules. This made HCM tracking and reporting quite complex and the college leadership projected that the needs would continue to evolve rapidly. Over the years, individual user needs drove the creation of reports in silos and there was a proliferation of similar-looking reports. When Oracle announced the end to support for crystal reports on Peoplesoft, the college chose to migrate to Peoplesoft BI. The customer also wanted to benefit from the variety of additional features available in Peoplesoft BI and its seamless integration with the Oracle ecosystem.
The customer chose DataTerrain to lead this migration due to its numerous success stories in completing similar and larger projects. The customer also noted that DataTerrain is a pioneer in establishing a robust automation based methodology for crystal reports to Oracle BI conversion.

DataTerrain’s Zero defect philosophy for automated migration
Drawing upon its domain experience gained by working with numerous large higher education institutions, the DataTerrain SME(Subject matter expert) team adapted its proprietary methodology for the customer. The major steps followed are summarized below.
• AS-IS analysis and planning – The automated utility from DataTerrain was run to understand the AS-IS the customer landscape to–
• Categorize reports by data source
• Categorize reports by their complexity
• Evaluate the size and run-time details of reports
• Identify duplicates and opportunities to optimize the number of reports
The analysis helped to group similar queries/tables, layouts, prompts, and filter conditions to create an initial list of optimization candidates. DataTerrain SMEs then helped key users of the college evaluate options to rationalize the number of reports. A plan of action was created for every report and this resulted in an almost 60% reduction in the number of reports between the source and target systems. DataTerrain and the customer agreed on a phased approach to migration to ease change adoption by users and minimize disruption. A calendar was published to block calendars of key users in advance and ensure their availability during key milestones throughout the project. The target environment readiness was also validated during this phase.
• Automated conversion and migration–DataTerrain’s proprietary tool was run to convert the individual components in crystal reports and translate them into suitable elements in Oracle BI. This includes –
• Creation of data models to handle data design
• Creation of RTF templates to handle layout design using conditional styles, data alignment, numerical value formatting, suppress conditions, and structure of the crystal reports. The latest PS query XML from the PeopleSoft environment was used to build the RTF template
• Conversion of layout formatting functions into XSL/Java functions as applicable
• Creation of new queries or modification PS queries aligned to joins and filter conditions for similar reports
• Implementing performance fixes and upgrades agreed with users through manual intervention as required
Every converted report was validated using multiple test case scenarios for the uploaded PS query XML. Real data was used in the test environment to perform an automated comparison of outputs and formats in the source and target environments.
• User acceptance and rollout – A continuous flow of migrated reports was maintained to the end-users. They were given access to the converted reports in the form of BI publisher process type in the PeopleSoft environment accessible through the application engine. End users validated these individually and using the process scheduler.The approved reports were subsequently promoted to the production environment for a phased rollout as planned.

The DataTerrain difference
Some of the highlights of this project noted by the customer include –
1. Zero defects – During the entire project, not a single defect was reported by the customers in the pre-production environment and all issues were addressed in the phases before user acceptance. The automated utility of DataTerrain eliminated significant manual testing effort and was key to achieving zero defects.
2. Savings due to rationalization – Since 60% of the reports from the source environment were either discontinued or combined with others, it has led to significant resource savings, improved performance, and reduced maintenance effort in the new environment.
3. Continuous user involvement – Since key users were involved in every critical step, the outputs and outcomes were exactly the way the user organization wanted it. Continuous feedback helped to identify and resolve issues much earlier in the process and there was no defect leakage to acceptance and pre-production.
4. Global Delivery Model–DataTerrain resources worked round the clock from global delivery centers to increase the velocity of delivery.

DataTerrain ensured that the College migrated from crystal reports to Peoplesoft BI before support for Crystal reports was discontinued in Peoplesoft. The additional features and easy connectivity to the Oracle Suite has unlocked value for the college and its users are now able to track and manage their academic processes much better.

Our customer is a leading supplier of poultry, pet, and animal nutrition products with a diversified business. It has steadily grown to be one of the top 20 poultry producers in the United States and the largest supplier of store brand wet pet food in North America. It serves customers in all 50 states of the USA and more than 40 countries across continents. Operating multiple hatcheries, feed mills, company-owned farms, and processing plants, our client has unique and evolving requirements for reporting, BI, and analytics to support its growing business. Add the complexity of managing a variety of stakeholders including hundreds of poultry growers, farmers, and local farming communities, and the challenge multiplied manifold for the client’s legacy BI(Business Intelligence) system on Oracle Discoverer.
With Oracle announcing the end of life for Oracle Discoverer, the customer chose to migrate to OAC(Oracle Analytics Cloud) to deliver significant additional value to its business. Other than the driver to move out of unsupported software, some of the major benefits the customer expected from OAC include –
• Delivering improved insights to business users using data visualization
• Improving data-based decision making by using business scenario modeling in OAC
• Accelerating business velocity using mobile analytics to deliver timely and personalized analyses
• Enhancing performance management and reporting at the enterprise level
• Simplifying data preparation and management using AI/ML

Bridging the generation gap between Oracle Discoverer and OAC and bringing the right expertise in both was determined as a critical success factor for this accelerated migration. The customer chose DataTerrain since it has a dedicated pool of subject matter experts in both technologies and has demonstrated ability and established credentials in handling such complex migrations.

DataTerrain’s approach ensured seamless migration
Based on its philosophy of ensuring Zero business disruption and minimizing impact to users, DataTerrain planned and completed this migration in these major phases –

1.) Initial assessment and detailed planning – DataTerrain used its proprietary automation tool to perform an initial assessment of the AS-IS customer landscape. This tool created a list of reports and provided insights into the owners, frequency of execution, events, triggers, last run date, execution time, number of outputs/workbooks generated, dependencies, destination files and folders, unique characteristics, and functions used for each report. The tool also identified duplications and redundancies, outdated and obsolete reports. This information was used to create a detailed migration road map for each report and elaborate on the activities and timelines for each step in the project plan.Reports requiring interventions, customization, and user-defined changes were also identified and activities were planned based on individual requirements.This detailed plan was reviewed and signed-off by the customer project manager and project sponsor along with the DataTerrain project manager.
2.) Automated conversion and validation – The DataTerrain automation tool extracted and converted all major components, elements, and objects from Oracle Discoverer like reports, hierarchies, filters, conditions, joins, calculations, conditions, items classes, roles, and security. During the conversion process, Discoverer metadata EUL was converted to OAC RPD and Discoverer workbooks were seamlessly migrated to OAC reports while maintaining the original look and feel. The automated tool validated every element by comparing the outputs in the source and target systems to assure adequate quality control and save time. This time saved was used to customize and make changes to identified reports, addressing some long-pending high-priority needs of key users. During this migration, performance bottlenecks were also proactively identified and resolved.To prevent delays due to technical issues, DataTerrain created an SME(subject matter experts) pool consisting of experts in Oracle Discoverer and OAC. This team played a key role in early identification and resolution of issues in extracting, translating, and converting business logic from Discoverer to OAC.
3.) User acceptance and rollout – Key users were involved during every critical stage in the process and a train-the-trainer approach was followed to accelerate training and acceptance. Since the look and feel of reports were preserved AS-IS from Oracle Discoverer, adoption was easier and quicker in OAC.

Benefits to customer
After this project was successfully completed within the agreed budget and the agreed timelines, the customer noted the following major benefits provided by DataTerrain –
1.) Bridging the expertise gap – DataTerrain’s ability to stand up a team with experts in major technical areas like Discoverer and OAC helped to identify and address issues early and very effectively.

2.) Accelerated execution due to Global delivery model – The high velocity needed for this project was provided by the global delivery model which ensured that project activities were being executed round the clock across DataTerrain’s global delivery centers.

3.) Accelerated user adoption and value adds – User adoption of OAC was greatly accelerated because DataTerrain’s automation tool preserved the original look and feel of reports, minimizing the training effort required. The customization and performance improvements led to high user satisfaction and the quick-wins eased the rollout.

DataTerrain enabled the customer to quickly and seamlessly move their BI and analytics out of the unsupported Oracle Discoverer to the cutting-edge OAC. The scalability and flexibility provided by OAC have reduced the maintenance and keep-it-running effort for our client. They now use this additional bandwidth to exploit user-friendly OAC features like improved self-service and advanced visualizations with mobile analytics to improve business outcomes.

DataTerrian’s client is a comprehensive public research university with an academic pedigree extending over 150 years in Canada. Over 32000 students from 120 countries are enrolled across its campuses in urban hubs and rural communities making its database extensive. Interdisciplinary programs are complex and span physical and life sciences, arts and humanities, social sciences, business, agriculture, and veterinary sciences and need exhaustive tracking. The reporting and dashboard needs are elaborate for this University which features in the top tier in multiple global rankings. The University leadership decided to migrate to TIBCO Jaspersoft after the announcement about the end of life for Crystal reports. The customer also wanted the following additional benefits by using the unique features of TIBCO Jaspersoft –
1. Enhanced integrated data access and scripting by developers using Jaspersoft frameworks to simplify embedding reports and dashboards into user interfaces.
2. Flexibility to connect to data sources in applications across academic departments using the data and architecture agnostic foundation of Jaspersoft for rapid custom features development
3. Improved user experience through the personalized and user-centric design of reports and dashboards supported by a variety of out-of-the-box features and custom components of TIBCO Jaspersoft
The University was keen to carry forward the accumulated knowledge and effort put into building the reports repository in Crystal reports. The customer chose Data Terrain based on its demonstrated methodology and references in completing comparable migrations on time and within budget. DataTerrain’s automated utility and its reputation in the market for accelerating migrations by retaining legacy formats and pixel-perfect reports were the other decision factors for the University.

DataTerrain’s Best-In-Class automated migration methodology
The migration approach of DataTerrain was based on the following key principles –
1.) Zero disruption for end users. All activities were completed without disturbing the daily routines of users.
2.) Zero defects principle enabled by the automated, tool based conversion and pixel-perfect validation
3.) Zero surprises for end users. Original Look and Feel retained after migration. Quick win customization to address pressing user needs performed during the migration.
The major steps followed during the execution of this project were –
1.) AS-IS analysis during which –
a. Legacy crystal report characteristics were documented including purpose, usage patterns, owners, and unique features. Potential migration issues were flagged for planning suitable interventions during the migration process.
b. Redundancy analysis including duplicates and similar reports to list out consolidation opportunities
c. Quick-win and improvement opportunities were identified to provide suggestions for enhancement and betterment of reports using the features of Jaspersoft
2.) Automated migration and validation – Data Terrain’s tool was used to automate the migration and accelerate the conversion process. Some of the best practices followed during the migration include –
a. Maximize use of out-of-the-box features of Jaspersoft
b. Reuse, translate, and add to the available common resources in the repository like controls and images to simplify and avoid redundancies
c. Reuse and maximize the creation of generic report templates to improve standardization of look and feel
d. Create a robust configuration management system for JRXML files and implement strict controls using a version control system.
e. Follow recommended guidelines for report and dashboards development in TIBCO Jaspersoft
f. Early key-user involvement and extensive user feedback during all critical interim milestones
g. Automated validation to ensure an exact match of report formats and data outputs between the source in Crystal reports and the converted TIBCO Jaspersoft reports and dashboards.
h. Improve Precision and accuracy of quality control for pixel-perfect reports using the automated tool
During this phase, prioritized user requirements requiring custom development were also taken up along with the implementation of agreed improvement recommendations and performance fixes.
3.) User acceptance and rollout –After automated quality checks and validation, converted reports were forwarded for user validation in a continuous flow. This enabled accelerated visibility to users, early identification of issues, and quick fixes. The result was improved user comfort, minimized training effort, and accelerated adoption during rollout.
The project was completed on-time, within budget, and well ahead of Crystal reports being phased out. According to the customer, DataTerrain made a difference in the following ways-
• Robust methodology and automation – The customer noted the following highlights about DataTerrain’s methodology –
o performing a detailed assessment, proactively identifying and flagging issues early to plan for their resolution,
o a detailed project plan and communication to orchestrate stakeholder availability
o early user involvement to simplify training and ease rollout.
o Quality assurance through automation, especially for pixel-perfect reports.
• Global delivery model – DataTerrain resources continued working round the clock from global delivery centers to accelerate project execution.
• Customization and value add – Priority user wish list items were addressed through customization during the migration leading to positive user feedback and helped build momentum for a smooth rollout.

The University has continued to unlock the power of TIBCO Jaspersoft and embed customized reports across the internal applications used by its departments.

A leading supplier of poultry, pet, and animal nutrition products with a diversified business in the US recently completed a successful migration to Oracle Cloud against challenging odds. Operating multiple hatcheries, feed mills, company-owned farms, and processing plants, unique and evolving requirements existed for reporting, BI, and analytics to support its growing business. Add the complexity of managing various stakeholders, including hundreds of poultry growers, farmers, and local farming communities, and the challenge multiplied for the client’s legacy BI (Business Intelligence) system on Oracle Discoverer.

With Oracle announcing the end of life for Oracle Discoverer, migration to OAC (Oracle Analytics Cloud) was determined to deliver significant additional value to its business. Other than the driver to move out of unsupported software, some of the significant benefits expected from OAC include:

• Delivering improved insights to business users using data visualization
• Improving data-based decision making by using business scenario modeling in OAC
• Accelerating business velocity using mobile analytics to deliver timely and personalized analyses
• Enhancing performance management and reporting at the enterprise level
• Simplifying data preparation and management using AI/ML

Bridging the generation gap between Oracle Discoverer and OAC and bringing the right expertise in both was determined as a critical success factor for this accelerated migration. DataTerrain was selected for its dedicated pool of subject matter experts in both technologies and demonstrated ability / established credentials in handling such complex migrations.

Zero business disruption approach ensured seamless migration

Based on DataTerrain’s philosophy of ensuring Zero business disruption and minimizing impact to users, DataTerrain planned and completed this migration in these major phases –

1.)    Initial assessment and detailed planning – DataTerrain used its proprietary automation tool to perform an initial assessment of the AS-IS customer landscape. This tool created a list of reports and provided insights into the owners, frequency of execution, events, triggers, last run date, execution time, number of outputs/workbooks generated, dependencies, destination files and folders, unique characteristics, and functions used for each report. The tool also identified duplications and redundancies, outdated and obsolete reports. This information was used to create a detailed migration roadmap for each report and elaborate on the activities and timelines for each step in the project plan. Reports requiring interventions, customization, and user-defined changes were also identified and activities were planned based on individual requirements. This detailed plan was reviewed and signed-off by the customer project manager and project sponsor, and the DataTerrain project manager.

2.)    Automated conversion and validation – The DataTerrain automation tool extracted and converted all significant components, elements, and objects from Oracle Discoverer like reports, hierarchies, filters, conditions, joins, calculations, items classes, roles, and security. During the conversion process, Discoverer metadata EUL was converted to OAC RPD and Discoverer workbooks were seamlessly migrated to OAC reports while maintaining the original look and feel. The automated tool validated every element by comparing the outputs in the source and target systems to ensure adequate quality control and save time. This time saved was used to customize and make changes to identified reports, addressing some long-pending high-priority needs of critical users. During this migration, performance bottlenecks were also proactively identified and resolved. To prevent delays due to technical issues, DataTerrain created an SME (subject matter experts) pool consisting of experts in Oracle Discoverer and OAC. This team played a crucial role in early identification and resolution of issues in extracting, translating, and converting business logic from Discoverer to OAC.

3.)    User acceptance and rollout – Key users were involved during every critical stage in the process, and a train-the-trainer approach was followed to accelerate training and acceptance. Since the look and feel of reports were preserved AS-IS from Oracle Discoverer, adoption was more comfortable and quicker in OAC.

Benefits to customer

After this project was successfully completed within the agreed budget and the agreed timelines, the following significant benefits were noted to be provided by DataTerrain –

1.)    Bridging the expertise gap – DataTerrain’s ability to stand up a team with experts in major technical areas like Discoverer and OAC helped to identify and address issues early and very effectively.

2.)    Accelerated execution due to the Global delivery model – The high velocity needed for this project was provided by the global delivery model, which ensured that project activities were being executed round the clock across DataTerrain’s global delivery centers.

3.)    Accelerated user adoption and value adds – User adoption of OAC was greatly accelerated because DataTerrain’s automation tool preserved the original look and feel of reports, minimizing the training effort required. The customizations and performance improvements led to high user satisfaction, and the quick-wins eased the rollout.

DataTerrain enabled a swift and seamless move of BI and analytics out of the unsupported Oracle Discoverer to the cutting-edge OAC. The scalability and flexibility provided by OAC have reduced the maintenance and keep-it-running effort for our client. This additional bandwidth is now used to exploit user-friendly OAC features like improved self-service and advanced visualizations with mobile analytics to improve business outcomes.

Europe’s largest bank recently completed a transition to IBM Cognos from its legacy Business Objects system. As one of the Top 6 global banks, serving over 40 million customers worldwide, their network is spread across 64 countries. To sail through business-as-usual conditions and turbulent times in the global economy, adaptability was needed in its BI platform to grow its core business and expand business opportunities. While legacy BI reports repositories in Business Objects Analytics and Reporting had grown by the thousands across many business areas and departments, the sheer volume of data increasing by millions of records posed performance bottlenecks. The business needs had grown fast. There was an immediate requirement to visualize historical and current data in real-time by integrating data from multiple systems so that frontline employees could make faster and better decisions. The business accumulated an unprecedented amount of big data, and our customers wanted to combine these in the BI to develop insights for increasing customer satisfaction and expanding their business.

To accomplish these business goals, IBM Cognos was chosen as a new path forward. The project goal was to seamlessly complete the migration in 9 months and benefit from IBM Cognos’s AI (Artificial Intelligence) infused BI (Business Intelligence) solution that enables smarter data discovery and drives better cognition of data and decision making through stunning visualizations.

Due to an established track record in completing fast-paced projects of this scale with zero disruption, DataTerrain was a natural choice to lead this migration initiative. DataTerrain was also tasked with establishing best practices in the target IBM Cognos system landscape from the outset.

The solution approach proposed by DataTerrain sought to automate the entire conversion process while preserving years of efforts by the client in designing reports and their layouts.

DataTerrain’s automated migration framework

DataTerrain applied its robust methodology for Business Objects to IBM Cognos with the following key tenets:

1.    Reduce migration effort by redesigning models/universes using automation
2.    Reuse – simplify and reuse similar reports across business areas
3.    Revamp processes by eliminating manual steps
4.    Industrialize and establish best practices for IBM Cognos in the target system

DataTerrain worked with the client team to create and execute a project plan which had the following phases –

1.    AS-IS Discovery/assessment – using DataTerrain’s proprietary tool to assess the Business Objects set up in the client environment as below:

a.    Inventory – Number of Universes, reports, users, types/versions of reports, number of reports per model
b.    Usage analysis- Owners, users, administrators, size, execution dates, save dates
c.    Structural analysis – Report and model content, tabs, blocks, data providers, filters, prompts, variables, tables, graphics, cross tabs, expressions, SQL
d.    Redundancy analysis – Similarity analysis, report grouping, compression, and targets for scope reduction

2.    Detailed planning and design – The output from the AS-IS analysis was used to plan out the migration effort and flag potential migration issues and considerations to be addressed for specific elements. A pool of DataTerrain subject matter experts(SMEs) developed responses for pinpointed risks and issues, and these were translated into granular interventions to be made during the automated migration. Here are a few examples of specific items given appropriate attention to prevent potential downstream issues proactively:

a.    database-specific functions, undefined cardinalities, aggregate awareness in Business Objects Universes
b.    complex queries, calculation contexts, merged dimensions in Business Objects Reports

3.    Automated migration and validation – DataTerrain’s conversion tool handled the conversion of universes, database objects like tables/joins/measures/dimensions, native functions, and complex formulas based logic embedded in BO reports, calendars/events, security, user privileges, and more. The automation tool also ensured that the newly created metadata (Framework Manager) layer was compliant with best practices for Cognos and supported ad-hoc reports and integration with other tools. Adhering to strict Quality control guidelines, the DataTerrain tool also performed automated validation of every individual object ported to IBM Cognos. This resulted in improved accuracy and saved time.

4.    User acceptance, training, and roll-out – User involvement was maximized at every significant step to ensure they understood the unique characteristics of the new system and to accelerate their training and adoption. Migrated reports were delivered to departmental functions and units for validation in a continuous flow to identify and address issues early and hasten acceptance ahead of a seamless rollout.

The DataTerrain Advantage

Upon the successful completion of this project within the stipulated tight timelines and budget, the customer shared the following highlights as reasons for its success:

1.    Global delivery model – With activities following the sun, this project continued non-stop across the delivery locations of DataTerrain and provided the velocity mandated by the challenging timeline.

2.    Performance tuning – DataTerrain SMEs took charge of the large databases with millions of records and tuned their performance during the project. This resolved a long pending issue faced by the user community.

3.    Value-added customizations – Productivity gains due to automation freed-up additional bandwidth to add value through customizations and changes to identified priority reports. This addressed some long-pending demands of users and improved the adoption of the new system.

By seamlessly completing the migration On-Time, DataTerain ensured a smooth switch to IBM Cognos when the contract ended with Business Objects. This banking industry leader is now rapidly moving forward to utilizing the capabilities of IBM Cognos to further their business goals.

Hyperion BRIO to Oracle OBIEE 11g/12c for a leading private university on the West Coast of USA

The client, a private university on the west coast, which has been a model and pride of the United States, decided to move out of Hyperion BRIO after Oracle announced the end of support services and enhancement for the product in the future. Hyperion BRIO was used widely for several years across all departments in the University, and several thousand reports and dashboards had been added to the repository, making any migration project a voluminous and complex exercise.

The AS-IS reports and dashboards in Hyperion BRIO had been developed over several decades. They held the collective functional expertise, institutional knowledge, and experience that the University wanted to carry forward into the new system. Therefore, transporting all the existing functionalities and look and feel into the new system was deemed as a critical must-have to minimize training effort, gain greater acceptance, and accelerate the adoption of the new system.

OBIEE 11g / 12c was chosen by the client since Oracle ERP and database products were being used extensively in their environment for several years. OBIEE also provided an added advantage since the client had built a pool of technically sound IT team members well-versed in Oracle products. Business users of the University were familiar with Oracle. This was expected to simplify the change management effort.

Based on these, the client clearly articulated the following goals for the migration project –

• zero disruptions for University staff and student users due to the migration
• stringent adherence to the agreed six months’ timeline given since Hyperion BRIO was going out of support
• utmost focus on ensuring best of breed quality control

The project was kicked-off by constituting an empowered team of individuals from the University and DataTerrain, headed by a leader from the University. This team was tasked to coordinate between numerous internal groups of the University for the successful completion of this migration project. DataTerrain consultants in the team provided advisory support to help users evaluate the repository of reports and dashboards and classify them based on their criticality and other priority rankings. A prioritized list of reports and dashboards for migration was created based on business demand and detailed documentation of their needs. During this exercise, user familiarity with Hyperion BRIO reports developed over several years. Their design imperatives were weighed against the opportunity to make design upgrades and take advantage of the latest features of OBIEE. DataTerrain consultants shared their experience to empower the project team from the university and business users to make informed decisions on a case by case basis. A list of 550 reports and dashboards for migration to OBIEE and a granular plan was created for migrating each of them.

DataTerrain team leveraged its proprietary automation tool to accelerate the migration of reports from Hyperion BRIO to OBIEE. Automation also helped improve quality control throughout the process by allowing early identification of issues and expediting fixes. DataTerrain team brought its experts on board to address existing data and integration challenges faced by the client IT team with the OLTP setup. Besides, DataTerrain subject matter experts also resolved interface issues with 3rd party products seamlessly integrate with the new system – Oracle 11g/12c. These resulted in significant time savings that provided an opportunity for the project team to work on value-added activities that resulted in the following additional benefits –

1.) Early involvement and feedback of business users at critical stages and quality gates to

a. identify and fix issues and gaps
b. assure completeness and quality of reports enabling faster acceptance and approval across departments.
c. enhance the user-friendliness and maintainability of reports

2.) Adequate time to review adherence to the latest technology and best practices and involve users in balancing short term and long term imperatives to

a. make changes to existing reports
b. finetune and improve the performance of reports
c. create templates that can be reused for building future reports

3.) evaluate new security features in OBIEE 11g/12c and implement security best practices

DataTerrain’s early and continuous involvement of end-users ensured they were trained and aware of all critical aspects of the new system. Several users across all departments were trained during different phases of the project, which led to accelerated adoption and trouble-free rollout on time and within budget. Our consultants educated users on industry-leading practices to improve their awareness and make them self-sufficient after handover.

DataTerrain delivered on the customer goal of shifting out of an unsupported product on time with smooth acceptance by the user community. The usage of the new system has continued to grow across the University with the product now supported by the internal IT team.

Migration from Hyperion BRIO to OBIEE 11g / 12c for an Ivy League university on the East coast

An ivy league university on the east coast decided to migrate to OBIEE 11g/12c since Oracle announced the end of support for Hyperion BRIO. The University identified that 100 plus reports needed to be migrated from Hyperion BRIO to OBIEE 11g/12c during this process. The challenge before the University was to complete this migration in six months without overloading their internal teams, which had limited bandwidth during short windows to work on this critical project.

The client chose DataTerrain to run this migration project due to its in-depth knowledge of the Oracle platform and its extensive experience in successfully executing similar and larger migration projects. DataTerrain also offered the flexibility to ramp up and ramp down its team aligning with the availability of bandwidth from the university departmental teams based on the ebbs and flows of their workloads.

DataTerrain’s flexible and cost-optimized execution methodology
DataTerrain leveraged its adaptive planning and scheduling methodology to create a flexible plan that tracked to the university calendar and adjusted tasks and velocity of migration across departments based on the availability of their key team members. Emphasis was placed on completing independent tasks during the periods when university members were not available and ensuring that all tasks requiring their intervention were loaded on dates when they were available. Team members’ and SMEs’ (Subject Matter experts) availability from DataTerrain was planned to ensure individuals with all the requisite skills were available at the right time to perform the right tasks with the right quality. To optimize costs for the University, these team members from DataTerrain were planned to be reassigned and not loaded on this project during lean periods of the project.

While working with users from various departments to understand and prioritize the reports, DataTerrain consultants identified that automating report scheduling and eliminating resource conflicts was a major pain point that needed to be addressed. SMEs from DataTerrain architected and implemented a solution using the scheduling feature in OBIEE. Using the extensive capabilities of OBIEE, schedules to publish reports at various intervals – daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually, etc. and across multiple levels were automated. The approach removed user intervention and eliminated the chances of manual errors or misses. Bursting – a feature in OBIEE 11g/12c was also expertly configured by DataTerrain SMEs to broadcast sets of reports to pre-defined groups of users at scheduled intervals.

The proprietary automation tool of DataTerrain was leveraged to accelerate significant technical steps during the migration of reports from Hyperion BRIO to OBIEE 11g / 12c. Automation assured that the professional standards established based on best practices were consistently implemented for every report and across all users of all departments. Automated validation saved time and ensured the accuracy of data and formats being migrated. Pixel perfect reporting needs were extensive across departments, and DataTerrain’s automated tool-based methodology ensured that the migrated outputs were perfect to the last pixel. The value added by this was noticeable in areas like check printing, where high-accuracy and consistency were efficiently achieved with limited effort.

To accelerate adoption, DataTerrain involved users early and at every critical interim milestone of this migration project. Timely and specific feedback from users at every step helped to identify issues and new requirements quickly and implement them, resulting in increased adoption and user satisfaction. Regular interactions and hands-on sessions with multiple university teams across departments improved their comfort and understanding of the OBIEE product. They eased change management as reports were rolled out in production. Extensive user training on the features of OBIEE and customization options has also empowered the users to modify reports on demand.

The time saved due to automation was used to implement prioritized report enhancements to roll out new features and improve visual appeal based on user feedback. These quick-wins created a positive vibe amongst the user community that further helped the project team accelerate the adoption and rollout of the new product.

Our client has highlighted DataTerrain’s ability to ramp up and down its technical team to flex execution speeds to match the bandwidth of university teams as the critical success factor for completing this project on-time, within the agreed not-to-exceed budget, and with high end-user satisfaction.

For a business with operations spanning 50 global offices and 300+ channel partners, software upgrades are a serious endeavor. A global leader in telecommunications and fiber optic networks had complex enterprise reporting needs that were becoming increasingly difficult to service on legacy Oracle Brio/Hyperion interactive reporting. The structure of Hyperion IR reports with each having a separate data model limited the ability to share standard reports across users and division, leading to many reporting silos, redundancies, and proliferation of reports. Besides, with Hyperion Brio product support sunset on the horizon, it became essential to migrate the #1 business in Test and Measurement, Wireless and Avionics, Banknote authentication, and 3D sensing to a newer platform.

Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) 12C On-Premise was selected as the target platform to migrate from Hyperion/Brio due to its ability to serve complex business requirements. Built on an architecture that simplifies access to multiple data sources on a shareable enterprise data model, OBIEE 12C simplified enterprise-level reporting. It’s interactive dashboards, and an extensive range of options for charting provided rich visualizations. OLAP style interaction, combined with its actionable collaboration and innovative search capabilities, were required to transform the end-user experience. OBIEE 12C’s high availability, superior scalability, security features, lifecycle configuration, and management ability simplified the system management efforts and upgrade management.

The Technical Challenge
The biggest technical challenge during migration was anticipated to be dashboards and formatting reports. With a need to complete the migration in a tight timeline, the effort to convert the sections or views in the Hyperion BQY files to Answers, as well as query request models and reporting information in BQY files to business and presentation models for an OBIEE 12C RPD file (metadata), was deemed to be complicated and time-consuming.

DataTerrain was chosen to lead this complex migration effort due to its innovative automated conversion solution and proven track record for completing such complex migration projects on time and within budget.

DataTerrain’s automated conversion methodology

DataTerrain leveraged its structured methodology, developed and refined over numerous successful migrations. The significant phases and outcomes are summarized below:

1.)    Inventory: As a first step, subject matter experts(SMEs) from DataTerrain created a list of the current repository in Hyperion and mapped it to the business functional areas and their requirements. Standard reports across function areas and redundancies were identified during this exercise. The DataTerrain team also helped the clients to prioritize the 2000 reports across 40 functions based on their business criticality.

2.)    Rationalize: Using the enterprise data model capable of OBIEE 12C, the reports were structured as parent-child reports in OBIEE 12C, and the 2000 reports were rationalized down to 250 parent level reports.

3.)    Automate migration: The proprietary automated conversion utility of DataTerrain was configured to migrate from Hyperion to OBIEE 12C. This utility analyzed native functions and complex logic embedded in BRIO reports to generate their equivalents in the OBIEE 12C platform. The conversion preserved years of legacy effort to perfect report look and feel of critical reports while migrating them to OBIEE 12C. Some of the significant effort savings were in:

a.    Generation of OBIEE 12C physical layer – tables, columns, etc.
b.    Extending OBIEE 12C layer from accumulated BQY DM dimensions – stars and snowflakes
c.    Tuning schemas and performance tuning during migration
d.    Regeneration of BI repository supporting BQY reports
e.    Generation of OBIEE 12C EUI objects like pivots, charts, prompts, filters, and validating results

4.)    Testing and validation: The converted files and objects were tested using a combination of automated and manual testing by following the DataTerrain quality assurance process. This was followed by user validation and acceptance of the reports and dashboards.

5.)    Deployment: The process of approving, packaging, and promoting to production is simplified by the automated conversion tool to eliminate cutover risks.

The DataTerrain Difference

In addition to its unique methodology and proprietary automation utility, here are the critical differentiators brought by DataTerrain to ensure the success of this project:

1.)    Robust Project management:- Experienced project managers from DataTerrain ensured comprehensive planning and tight execution of this fast-paced project

2.)    Subject Matter Experts:- The team from DataTerrain brought its several hundred years of subject matter expertise to identify migration risks and issues early and address them seamlessly.

3.)    Global Delivery:- DataTerrain completed the entire project in a compressed schedule of 6 months by using a Follow the Sun approach. Members of the distributed team from DataTerrain worked across global centers, and activities were handed off and completed round the clock.

Client Benefits

The rationalization and reports and performance tuning during migration enabled and implemented by DataTerrain has provided the following additional benefits to the customer:

1.)    A scalable and secure enterprise-level BI solution expanding quickly with the organization
2.)    Standardization and lower effort for maintaining reports
3.)    Faster outputs and reports distribution with lower resource utilization
4.)    The existing reports look & feel was preserved for seamless user experience
5.)    Rich, interactive dashboards, and enhanced user self-service

A US-based leader of the consumer tax preparation services industry offering in-person and online support to customers saw its operations and complexity expand significantly. Its network of over 11000 company-owned and retail franchise offices was on a growth trajectory. These offices covered all 50 states of the US and also included 1600 offices in US military bases around the world, Canada, Australia, and India. Its strength of almost 80000 highly tax trained professionals including 18000 bilingual specialists needed robust tracking to ensure they were trained and ready with the latest tax information to effectively serve customers. The leadership team of this organization decided to migrate from Peoplesoft HRMS to Oracle HCM to support its fast-evolving business needs.One important benefit the customer expected was increased productivity expected from the following in Oracle HCM –
• Analytics and reports on visually intuitive dashboards
• Personalized user homepages, reports, and relevant visualizations
• Timely delivery of information to users across a range of devices to quickly progress transactions
• Predictive analytics to adopt next-gen HCM practices across all stages of the Hire to retire process
• Innovations for adaptive intelligence, machine learning, digital assistants, and blockchain integration
DataTerrain was chosen to lead this migration initiative as the customer wanted –
• an organization that had the experience and deep technical skills to handle such a complex migration.
• accelerated migration without reinventing the wheel during migration. DataTerrain’s pre-built Oracle HCM reports similar to PeopleSoft reports were noted.
• high-qualityzero-defect delivery of pixel-perfect reports at a rapid pace. DataTerrain’s automation tool and its successful track record over numerous migrations was identified as a key differentiator.
DataTerrain’s expedited migration framework
The proprietary framework of DataTerrain was followed for this migration project. The major phases and key outcomes are summarized below –
1.) Analysis and planning – DataTerrain’s automated utility examined the PeopleSoft landscape, listed all the elements, identified missing elements, and provided a detailed log that enabled pinpointed planning for potential report conversion issues. DataTerrain SMEs(Subject matter experts) reviewed these, proposed alternate solutions, and helped key users and customer technical team to evaluate options and make suitable decisions.Based on this, a detailed plan was created and signed-off by the appropriate stakeholders.
2.) Automated conversion and validation –In this phase, Peoplesoft reports were migrated to Oracle HCM using the automated utility from DataTerrain. Based on user preference and column availability in each reporting methodology, each report in the target HCM system was created in one of the following ways –
a. HCM extracts/excel outputs
b. BI Publisher reports – including templates and custom layouts
c. OTBI – analyses embedded in dashboards with the required prompts and fields for users to extract relevant information using its visually rich features. DataTerrain SMEs also configured some of these to enable self-service for users to create ad-hoc reports, alerts, and dashboards to aid decision making.
DataTerrain’s Pre-built reports in Oracle HCM were also used as accelerators during this migration process. When product issues on the Oracle platform became bottlenecks, DataTerrain front-ended the interface with Oracle, raised relevant SRs, and followed up for obtaining and installing suitable fixes and solutions from Oracle. The DataTerrain tool automated conversion of reports between Peoplesoft and Oracle HCM reports to expedite conversion and fixing. This saved significant time and effort during the migration of several contractual and statutory pixel-perfect reports. The DataTerrain team also created detailed documentation on the migrated reports and handed off to the customer team during this phase.
3.) Acceptance and rollout –The validated reports were migrated to pre-prod for final customer checks and acceptance. The reports were migrated to the Oracle HCM production environment after acceptance.

Value adds by DataTerrain
During discussions after the successful completion of this project on-time and within budget, the customer team highlighted the following as value-adds by DataTerrain –
• Oracle partnership – DataTerrain leveraged its partnership with Oracle to help the customer resolve defects and performance issues identified in the core Oracleinstallation and this saved significant time and effort for the customer.
• Pre-built reports – DataTerrain’s repository of pre-built reports in Oracle HCM jump started the migration effort and saved time by enabling quick customizations
• Global delivery model – This was key to accelerating delivery as DataTerrain team members continued to work on project activities round the clock.

DataTerrain has helped the customer set up a robust reporting system on Oracle HCM and proactively addressed previous issues. This has helped the customer quickly obtain payback on its investment made in the migration effort. The customer continues to expand its use of Oracle HCM to transform its HCM process globally.

A leading American technology company, one of the Top 10 semiconductor manufacturers in the world, embarked on a multi-year journey to transform its Human Capital Management (HCM). The rapid pace of industry changes across the globe drove an increased focus on managing its talent and necessitated proactive tracking of HR metrics to ensure they continued to attract, invest in, and retain the best talent available across its worldwide centers. With around 30,000 employees, the volume of personnel changes, and relevant data, was quite large. This required standardized reporting and dashboards that also needed to be localized and customized for specific areas.  With the proliferation of applications, multiple data sources needed to be integrated. The legacy PeopleSoft system had its limitations in keeping up with the agility the business required.

This industry leader selected cloud-based reporting using Oracle HCM and Taleo to provide the necessary functionality required. Improved HCM reporting was expected to align and manage resources better by integrating data across global HR, payroll, time and labor, compensation, and talent management. Improved compliance with local and international laws through the integration of business intelligence, social networking tools, and enhanced data access across devices was another key outcome.

The challenge – new technology and ongoing demand for internal IT time.

Short term external experts complimented their development and deployment goals. Clear time and cost goals were set towards achieving their goals. They recognized that they needed external experts with in-depth knowledge in multiple areas like Oracle HCM, Taleo, Oracle BICS(Business intelligence cloud service) and ODI(Oracle Data integrator) to produce the outputs required at the pace they wanted. Besides, domain knowledge was identified as the key to accelerating the creation of reports.

DataTerrain was selected for its expertise in developing and accelerating the delivery of HCM reports using its prebuilt repository. A further advantage was to leverage DataTerrain’s pool of experts with several years of collective experience in HCM reporting and BI integration on BICS and ODI. 

DataTerrain’s accelerated HCM reporting rollout

DataTerrain jump started the project, bringing its prebuilt repository of HCM reports. This set of about 300 reports covers the following areas:

• Payroll reports including timesheets, compensation, W2, statutory and tax filings, local/ county, state-specific and federal reporting, reconciliations, exec compensation
• Benefits reports including extensive reporting on 401k, healthcare, dependent care, commissions, profit sharing, ESPP, HSA contributions
• Tax reports including federal/state/local deductions, medicare, worksite level reports, summary reports, employee and organizational level aggregate reports
• Audit reports– FLSA reports, other reporting for compliance like EEOC, FT/PT, HRS178
• Compensation Reports – Reporting on eligibility, salary grades, incentives, compensation
• Security reports including reports on hiring, transfers, termination, role reassignments
• HR reports – Employee records, departmental details, aggregate reports

DataTerrain experts in HCM delighted business users by implementing fully-functioning reports within a few weeks and provided:

• Maintenance support for existing reports
• Enhancements to existing reports
• Customizations for reports from the prebuilt repository
• Development support for new reports

ODI resources from DataTerrain created and executed the necessary load plans for data integration. The execution was managed 24×7 by leveraging DataTerrain’s global delivery centers and following best practices.  The entire process was accelerated as DataTerrain SMEs (subject matter experts) on BICS also joined this team and issues were identified and resolved on the fly. Where required, the DataTerrain team coordinated with Oracle to resolve underlying issues or implement suitable fixes.

For Taleo, DataTerrain experts provided expertise to maintain, enhance and develop new reports for:

• Oracle Taleo Compensation Cloud Service
• Oracle Taleo Learn Cloud Service
• Oracle Taleo Onboarding Cloud Service
• Oracle Taleo Performance Management Cloud Service
• Oracle Taleo Recruiting Cloud Service

DataTerrain experts enabled automation for both conversion of existing reports and the creation of new Taleo webi reports to Oracle BI. This preserved a significant portion of the effort already invested and enabled conversions in minutes.

Customer Benefits and value-add by DataTerrain

The speed and agility of the DataTerrain team and its ability to deliver functioning reports in weeks led to enhanced user satisfaction. Associates mentioned the following as highlights of DataTerrain’s project execution –

• Prebuilt reports: These accelerated their time to value and the quick wins generated positive vibes and helped turn the tide rolling out the new HCM reporting system.
• Follow the sun: With global delivery centers of DataTerrain ensuring that project execution continued 24×7, faster progress was achieved due to lower turnaround times.
• Local coordination across units: DataTerrain project managers took the lead to coordinate locally with teams in the US and India respectively, to accelerate requirements gathering, clarifications, and decision making.
• Deep expertise across Oracle products: DataTerrain team consisted of experts in Oracle Taleo, Oracle HCM, ODI and BICS, enabling smooth integration and project execution. This solved a major gap when attempting to complete the project internally.
• Faster product fixes: DataTerrain used its knowledge base and partnership with Oracle to triage, follow-up and accelerate issue fixes.

Recognizing the value provided by DataTerrain, experts in the successful set up of HCM reporting, this industry leader has now onboarded DataTerrain to prepare their migration from BICS to OAC.

The importance of Business Intelligence spans industries and types of organizations. Having accurate, immediately available reporting makes the most of any type of organizational data, from customer/client information to supply chains and beyond. The need to manage complex information is universal.

DataTerrain recently had the opportunity to work with a major for-profit college, illustrating yet another industry utilizing modern BI technology. This American institution was using SAP Crystal Reports in the PeopleSoft application, and brought DataTerrain onboard to perform automated conversion to Oracle BI Publisher-based PeopleSoft reports. Over the course of the two-month project, several reports were successfully migrated to the new reporting system.

The DataTerrain team understood the critical nature of the reports, and initiated the project with a comprehensive approach to gathering requirements. After careful analysis of the client’s stated needs, DataTerrain recommended a method of upgradation, and went on to develop an end state architectural design, a keep/drop decisions matrix, a testing strategy, and a step-by-step plan for implementation of the PeopleSoft platform.

This detailed plan included the continuous involvement of the client’s IT team at every stage of the upgrade process, ensuring that all involved parties remained on the same page, that requirements were under constant consideration, and that the transfer of reports (and the surrounding knowledge) happened in an efficient, timely manner. DataTerrain also conducted early user previews during the development stages to avoid any requirement gaps that may have occurred in the initial exploratory and gathering phases.

Continuing this trend of close collaboration with the client, DataTerrain team members interacted with members of the client’s organization on a weekly basis, discussing any arising problems, new requirements, or difficulties navigating the upgraded BI and reporting platform. All reports were successfully migrated and converted to PeopleSoft via DataTerrain’s automation tools, allowing for on-time delivery and zero bugs reported by the client.

DataTerrain’s team of developers efficiently worked in PeopleSoft code (PeopleCode) to embed the new reports and dashboards to be integrated in the enterprise application. The team worked to understand the existing application coding standards and features before moving on to modify the code. Our team developed extensive documentation on the existing application code and changes being made for any future reference. All modifications to the code were done by the DataTerrain team so that the customer experienced a seamless transition experience. Our team conducted training sessions for the customer along the transition to the new reporting system, backed by continued hands-on support.

It is critical to note the look and feel of the reports were one of the conditions of this transition to the new system of reporting. The similar look and feel means that formats / buttons / filters / parameters are placed similarly to the legacy reports. DataTerrain has followed best practices and utilized the new features in the new reporting system keeping track of functionality of the legacy reports. The similarity in functionality saves the years of efforts in building the reports in the first place. All the reports have a specific goal to deliver and the team works to ensure that goal can be carried on in the new systems unless the customer requires any change. The continuity to the new systems with the familiar functionality reduces the training time taken to prepare the users to the new system and greatly enhances the usage of reports.

The DataTerrain team for this project consisted of experienced developers, testers and project managers. Each member of the team worked directly and diligently with client leaders and IT staff to understand specific needs, how the client has been using their existing reporting technology, and the advantages they aimed to receive through upgradation. DataTerrain team follows the customer change management process so that the teams from the customer side of the project are fully up to date on the progress. This clearly helps all the members of the project to be in sync as progress is made on many fronts such as PeopleCode, reports and dashboards.

The client, a fully accredited American college with undergraduate, graduate, and certificate programs, fully embraced the architecture and features proposed by DataTerrain. The close collaboration between the two organizations ultimately led to beyond satisfactory results for the college, and new development opportunities for the team implementing the upgraded Business Intelligence solution.

Working across industries can sometimes present challenges, but DataTerrain takes pride in seeing each of these opportunities as a way to deepen the team’s overall understanding of BI needs, and embraces the chance to create customized reporting solutions for clientele of all kinds.

To learn more about DataTerrain’s automation tools, and how state of the art Business Intelligence can benefit your organization, visit https://dataterrain.com/.

The latest in Business Intelligence Automation and over a decade of expertise were key factors in meeting an enormous pharmaceutical industry challenge. Beginning with the end in mind, DataTerrain swiftly executed several thousand BI reports conversion to Oracle’s Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition.

Many businesses and IT departments of various organizations face the same crucial decision-making situation: whether to keep the system internal to the company or outsource to cloud platforms. This question pertains not just to the BI (Business Intelligence) practices of the company, but also relates to all the IT departments of the organization. For the customer in concern, the business data was highly sensitive, and hence, the management arrived at the decision to continue with an On-Premises Business Intelligence environment.

The customer has offices across the globe and more than 5000 users actively engage the Business Intelligence systems on a daily basis. DataTerrain comprehended the innate need for multi-language support in reporting and analysis. Before the project commenced, a thorough discussion with the customer’s internal Information Technology (IT) team was held to understand, analyze, and document the unique and important needs of the project. It is essential to have a complete and deep understanding of the various distinctive requirements of the customer at the planning stages of the project to ensure its smooth execution and successful completion.

To begin with, DataTerrain formed a highly experienced and expert team with internal IT leaders and users to formulate a list of critical time zones, and based on that list, prioritized them to identify the reports currently being used. The approach was to begin with the consumers of the reports to identify their specific or local requirements. This included the changes they advised from the current system of reporting and the additional features/functionalities they preferred. As global localization was a key factor of this engagement, DataTerrain used the NLS features in this project extensively.

The customer’s IT team identified around 2000 reports and dashboards as the major reports that were being used. The next logical step in the project was the consolidation of reports for efficient management. DataTerrain extensively used an automation tool to upgrade the reports from Crystal reporting to OBIEE 11g/12c. Apart from manual testing cycles, a variety of automation tools were employed for testing to compare results from PDF or Excel formats. The automation at various levels in this upgrade saved huge costs and time. The time saved was used to develop many standardizations and best practices to ensure the robustness of the reporting system for the future.

Careful planning and execution ensured the successful completion of the project in 12 months, achieved as per the original plan, aided by the great collaboration of the customer’s internal IT team. The project included meetings carried out across different time zones and effective change management processes. The DataTerrain team worked diligently in the various phases of the project: planning, customer requirement gathering, standardization of process, execution, and finally, ensuring on time completion of deliverables.

DataTerrain detailed documentation of the project for the ease of understanding the process and future reference. Specific care was taken to ensure that users of different countries could follow the independent process and management of the reporting system. The user manual and maintenance document were provided to the customer to enable easy editing of reports. The detailed documentation provided for every report (a vital deliverable of the project) alleviated many bottlenecks experienced due to the varied time zones and languages. The extensive documentation of the project served the users of the system, who found it to address many of their requirements, and was widely appreciated.

The successful execution of the project, and the smooth transition to the new system, can be attributed to DataTerrain’s systematic approach to the process, the speed and accuracy of the upgrade, and effective interaction with the internal IT team and business users of the reports. This particular upgrade involved two different vendors (SAP Crystal report to Oracle OBIEE). Their distinct features had to be handled, and the issues that were raised due to their differences had to be resolved. DataTerrain’s deep understanding of both systems (and extensive research) helped them overcome the different challenges in the process and led to the successful completion of the project to the total satisfaction of the customer.

The upgradation project brought in more flexibility, scalability, and enhanced speed of report generation. The Data Visualization capability of OBIEE (Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition) offers users a rich and modern visualization tool that makes comprehending business data easier and more effective. The system harnesses the enhanced capability of technology to offer users new business insights and enables them to make faster, more informed business decisions with visual analytics and precise enterprise analytics. The accuracy and robustness of the system make it ideal for an organization that supports a very large number of users.

DataTerrain is available to meet your organization’s Business Intelligence challenges of all sizes at connect@dataterrain.com.

DataTerrain, a California-based provider of business Intelligence automation and a host of related, technology-driven services, recently provided crucial assistance to a Canadian provincial government with automated migration from SAP Crystal Reports to Jaspersoft. The automation tool is BI neutral. It can convert reports, dashboards, analytics, and metadata from a variety of BI products. In this specific project, it is a transition from SAP Crystal reports to Tibco Jaspersoft.

Canadian provincial government decided to use Tibco software’s Jaspersoft for its business reporting and analytics. Jaspersoft, an open architecture reporting software that allows users and developers to customize data sources and deployment methods. As a result of the decision, DataTerrain was approached to perform extensive presentation and proof of concepts to showcase the possibility of moving to a newer BI faster and seamless. There was a clear list of needs specified by the customer before the project. To preserve familiar Graphic User Interface (among other benefits) was one of priority one request, this allowed the client not to lose out on the design efforts that were spent for years to develop business-critical custom reports and analytics.

While all reporting data and Business Intelligence is sensitive, providing service to a governmental body was an opportunity to highlight the attention to security and accuracy. DataTerrain applied 2-factor authentication and RSA token authorization for users across the reporting platform. DataTerrain was able to preserve the security standards and provide enhancements.

Throughout the project, DataTerrain achieved pixel perfect, 1:1 conversion of reports through rigorous testing and state of the art automation. DataTerrain’s team consisted of 5 offshore developers, one offshore QA analyst, and one Canada-based project manager. This agile, offshore team was able to work across time zones, utilize immediate feedback from the collocated QA analyst to reduce development time, and implement automation to migrate and convert 14 highly complex reports from SAPCrystal Reports to Jaspersoft in 1 month per the customer timeline.

DataTerrain automation successfully converted complex reports, subreports, and charts from SAP Crystal Reports to Jaspersoft while maintaining existing reporting structure. Advanced HTML5 chart properties were implemented within Jaspersoft to create charts within the client’s reports. Broad user groups welcomed the rich visualization and simplicity in reporting and analysis. With successful migration, the provincial government can generate the necessary reports they’ve grown accustomed to, while also using the capabilities of Jaspersoft to improve in-report charting. The customizable nature of their new platform also creates future value, giving the organization options for new methods of the data assessment and reporting as needs arise.

Project management was critical for two reasons: time and security-sensitive nature of the projects. DataTerrain delivered all the reports on time with outstanding quality. Regular meetings were held with customers to exchange ideas and collect feedback. Details were implemented, and technical aspects of each report and dashboard discussed on a biweekly basis to ensure accuracy throughout the migration. All updated reports delivered with zero bugs identified by the client or DataTerrain teams. Bug tracking mechanisms and project tracking methods were shared with the client on-demand basis. All the teams were able to update the status and feedback at a central reporting system; thereby, multiple teams need not wait for the status checks on the meetings unless it is a particular case. This facilitated significant interaction between teams and fast-forwarded the project movement.

It was critical to have team members with in-depth knowledge of both technologies for making the equivalent choices when moving over and incorporating the new product’s best practices. This is an evolution between Tibco, the client, and the DataTerrain team. Weekly joint sessions capture the best possible options for the client-specific requirements. DataTerrain worked with great techniques in analytics and reporting and created logs for all the activities that can be used efficiently for many other projects. The team carries forward these experiences to the more substantial client base and provide knowledge transfer from extensive research during ongoing Jasper-focused webinars and presentations. Training sessions were conducted for the users and extensive documentation provided.

DataTerrain approached this project with the utmost care, understanding the immediate importance of governmental information, and the need for a fast, seamless migration away from a family of software that is nearing End of Life. Through customizable solutions and a workflow based on agility and communication, DataTerrain was able to meet and exceed client expectations well within the designated time frame, and more importantly, allow the Canadian province to continue serving its citizens without significant disruption. DataTerrain is grateful to the client and Tibco teams for working together as one team.

DataTerrain, a leader in Business Intelligence reporting solutions, has been selected by Creighton University to support their state-of-the-art Oracle HCM reporting and development strategy.

DataTerrain has over a decade of experience in planning, designing, development, tuning, and support of a variety of Business Intelligence tools. Specializing in reporting solutions, the DataTerrain team has in-depth, real-world expertise in Oracle HCM applications and reporting.

DataTerrain’s Teck Support Services include both creation of new reports and trouble-shooting of existing reports. Their primary services are:

• Designing and developing reports and dashboards
• Ad-hoc reports creation
• Enhancing and customizing existing reports
• Diagnosing and resolving report issues
• Ongoing BI support

Customers can engage in DataTerrain’s Teck Support Services under a Fixed-cost basis for any type or number of reports. DataTerrain is committed to be ahead of customer BI needs, delivering state-of-the-art solutions to increase business productivity while reducing costs. Organizations can utilize our Teck Support Services to achieve these goals.

Creighton University expressed how pleased they were with DataTerrain’s reports, Dashboard building efficiencies, knowledge base, and years of experience by issuing the following quote:
“Creighton University is pleased to partner with DataTerrain for HCM reporting, extracts, HDL and configuration assistance. DT’s approach of a dedicated resource billed at an attractive fixed monthly cost keeps us on budget. If we need something outside our assigned resource’s area of expertise, DataTerrain has a deep bench of in-house expertise upon which to draw. Highly recommended.”

Please contact connect@dataterrain.com for more information.

About DataTerrain

DataTerrain is a Silicon Valley-based company focused on automated Business Intelligence reports/metadata migration solutions and Oracle HCM reporting solutions. DataTerrain’s proprietary automated conversion solution helps customers convert reports across multiple BI technologies, preserving years of effort in designing the original reports. DataTerrain automated conversion service has been used by hundreds of customers across the globe. For more information visit https://www.dataterrain.com.

A leader in providing end-to-end Data Analytics, Business Intelligence reporting, automation, and more, DataTerrain recently assisted a US-based HR and payroll technology solutions provider with a large-scale overhaul in reporting and analytical needs. DataTerrain was approached by the client and asked to perform demonstrations plus proof of concept as an evaluation process.

The key and unique nature of the project is that it is the first time DataTerrain used a new conversion engine to transport the metadata layer and report feature, including security components via automation tool. The proof of concept is a simple process. Select randomly 3 to 5 reports that represent usage in the business units and provide clear goals for acceptance criteria. Once DataTerrain completes the task of converting the reports from Discoverer to OBIEE 11g/12C, business units are invited back for evaluation and feedback against the acceptance criteria. This final step will determine the success or failure of the proof of concept.

The client was previously using Discoverer for reporting solutions, but as that platform is facing End of Life, the business needed assistance migrating to Oracle, specifically OBIEE. Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE 11g / 12c) is an agile BI tool available as both an on-premise and cloud-based service (OAC). The robust database system allows users to separate the data extraction and reporting components of Business Intelligence, providing versatile options, including dashboards, scorecards, and flexible report layouts.

DataTerrain’s OBIEE migration services, as well as RPD restructuring and reporting quality analysis, provide value for technology-driven businesses facing End of Life for current BI solutions. The metadata layer (RPD) in OBIEE/OAC is a critical layer for the business to build analytics and dynamic reporting. DataTerrain has proven expertise in building many hundreds of RPD layers to enable businesses to have the business-friendly and swift analytics built on demand. These services also apply to companies struggling to create efficient reporting practices, and those looking to get the most out of their existing database.

DataTerrain’s successful migration of the client’s reports and dashboards was but a small portion of the services provided. In typical fashion, the DataTerrain goal was not just to migrate files from Discoverer to OBIEE to meet End of Life deadlines, but also to streamline and improve processes, reporting, and access to valuable information. The DataTerrain team worked on many customizations to adapt OBIEE 11g/12c for the client. This project was executed round the clock follow-the-sun development and support model to fulfill customer’s time constraints. DataTerrain employed developers, QA analysts, and a project manager to facilitate the process.

Using an automated conversion process, DataTerrain migrated more than a hundred reports from Discoverer to OBIEE over two months. The automation process is a proven, unique tool that is continually developed over the years to accommodate many business conditions in reporting and analytics. The consistency and quality of the tool deliver a massive workload of manual migration efforts eliminated. The internal IT teams who typically do these upgrades are relieved of porting legacy systems to the modern systems. Finding technology experts to understand the legacy world and the new world is challenging and expensive for the customer. The Automation tool with time tested perfection will prove to be the most effective of handling the challenges mentioned above. During this process, modifications were made to database infrastructure, reporting methods, EULs, and more to develop a better functioning final result for the HR and payroll technology provider.

DataTerrain’s primary accomplishments in this case included:

• Restructured RPD to comply with OBIEE 11g/12c best practices, without impacting existing business logistics and functionalities
• Used automation to migrate nine Discoverer EULs to OBIEE RPD file
• Analyzed and rationalized the existing reporting framework to avoid the conversion of similar and duplicate reports. In the typical legacy environment over the years, hundreds of reports are built to suit a specific demand at a given point in time. Over the years, those reports might not be used regularly, and some are entirely obsolete. It helps to understand such outdated or duplicate reports and remove them from the system. There are many advantages to doing the rationalization in the legacy environment, including security checkpoints.
• Merged multiple business layers to support cross-subject area reporting
• Created calculated objects within the RPD to reduce complications in building new reports

In addition to these areas of streamlining and database improvement, a shared team of Quality Analysts were able to provide immediate feedback throughout the project life cycle, drastically reducing time spent on development. DataTerrain used a standard bug tracking system that the client is very familiar with to list the problems and track the status/solutions of the issues. This systematic tracking and storage later became a vast knowledge base.

DataTerrain was able to use industry expertise and modern technological solutions to update the client’s database and Business Intelligence systems, while also maintaining the best practices and specific uses of the HR and payroll industry. For more information about DataTerrain services, and how we can help your business, please contact connect@dataterrain.com.

DataTerrain’s engagement with BIRT reporting and analytics solution is new, challenging, and creative – in addition to our automated report migration services. The client, who provides comprehensive terminal operating systems for marine and intermodal terminal operators around the world, required changing technology from Oracle Reports to BIRT (an open-source software).

DataTerrain’s first extensive open source engagement demanded an ability to modify and extend the existing reporting features to suit customer requirements. BIRT has an active user community, which is very helpful in providing inputs and techniques for any client that is planning to consider BIRT. The ease of modifying with Java code and adapting with the latest visual products are highlights of the project. The goal of BIRT/OPENTEXT reporting is to provide a technology platform for creating data visualizations and reports that can be embedded into applications of all kinds, especially those built with Java and J2EE. The client chose this platform specifically for its agility, and the open-source nature of the software proved invaluable throughout our project.

This project consisted of 4 phases and was completed over ten months per the client’s availability and requirements. DataTerrain’s team consisted of technically well-proven developers, QA Analysts, and a project manager, adhering to their usual delivery model of stringent project management and planning at the beginning of the project. All stakeholders were involved from various client teams to set the expectations, including expected delivery deadlines for each business unit. DataTerrain worked across time zones, ensuring efficient work and accessibility to our team throughout the process. Development time was also reduced by way of a collocated QA Analyst, who provided immediate feedback throughout the project lifecycle.

The primary accomplishments of working with this client aligned precisely with their goals from the outset of the project. Not only were 200 reports and dashboards migrated and converted from legacy Oracle Reports server to BIRT/OPENTEXT, but also pixel-perfect reports were created, consisting of multiple pages within each report. Size and overflow were adjusted related to HTML, PDF, and Excel formats, rendering each based on the output of the specific report. Achieving this pixel-perfect conversion hinged on the team’s ability to customize the query tool in the DataTerrain automation system to replicate a hierarchy identical to that of Oracle Reports, the platform the client’s team had been using. To further maintain this consistency (and easy accessibility for members of the client’s staff), the conversion tool was customized to meet the client’s specific visualization requirements, such as header, footer, font style, and so on.

Within these converted and migrated reports, the DataTerrain team handled filter expressions at the query level to improve performance, used JavaScript to aggregate essential information in stored procedure output columns, and created dynamic Session IDs for users per the client’s specific requirements.

Beyond the migration, conversion, and customization of these reports, the DataTerrain developers encountered some shortcomings of the chosen BIRT/OPENTEXT platform. Still, because of its open-source nature, the team was able to create multiple custom solutions to achieve the client’s desired results within their selected reporting platform. These custom solutions were both large and small and were essential to creating the pixel-perfect conversion across reporting systems.

These agile custom solutions include:

• A solution for nested crosstab fields, allowing lists or data items to be added outside the crosstab and giving each added list or item the appropriate master-detail (parent-child) relationship.
• A creative solution to substitute the legacy Oracle Reports Insert Statement function into BIRT/OPENTEXT / OpenText.
• Fine-tuning BIRT/OPENTEXT to support running aggregation systems found in legacy Oracle Reports
• A solution in BIRT/OPENTEXT for supporting horizontal tables (unavailable in the base software)

Open-source BIRT/OPENTEXT architecture and the deep pool of knowledge in the development team was used to adjust existing BIRT/OPENTEXT functionality to meet the needs of the client, and create a method of reporting that was both familiar to users and met all of the client’s specifications.

All of the custom solutions fit well for the client’s needs and follow best practices in the Business intelligence arena. The new reports and dashboards have been deployed in the live environment and used by daily business folks. This shows DataTerrain’s ability to take an open-source and customize it to a large business need.

This project required great attention to the unique needs of the marine and intermodal terminal industry, as well as the methodologies employed by this particular company. Working closely with the client’s leadership team allowed the project manager, QA Analysts, and developers to gain an in-depth understanding of report usage and visual elements. The insights gained helped to build functionalities that would allow the client to not only maintain their current level of Business Intelligence and data management but also to achieve new levels of consistency and success through an updated, customized reporting system.

Open Source comes with a challenging question of sustainable support availability. BIRT has an active user community, and DataTerrain has the skills, knowledge, and experience to create individualized reporting systems, Business Intelligence management systems, and beyond. DataTerrain can be reached for help with businesses large or small, at connect@dataterrain.com.

DataTerrain recently concluded a successful project, providing in-depth report conversion and development for the world’s largest electric power generation and distribution company based in Chicago, Illinois. The Chicago-based company needed a robust solution for HCM (Human Capital Management) and critical reporting. Oracle provided cloud-based HR product HCM. Dataterrain developed extensive analytical reports and dashboards.

DataTerrain reviewed many reports of the customer that existed in Peoplesoft HR application and provided a detailed report on the timeline and feasibility to transport the reports into Oracle’s latest HR product in cloud HCM. After the client review and feedback, the project commenced with step by the step project plan. Teams were identified with the clients who will be reviewing the endproduct as well as participate in the development process. DataTerrain with unique automation framework was able to transport many reports to Oracle HCM, while also developing a framework for other Oracle functions to create a specific and sophisticated method of reporting. These reports were converted to pixel perfect iterations that support Excel, text, and CSV exporting formats, and were integrated with Oracle Data Loader inputs for report creation. To further streamline, we created sequentially running HCM extracts, allowing a single extract to trigger a series of others. HCM extracts were very useful for long-running reports with huge data volume.

Beyond the conversion and creation of reports, a company of such a large size had unique needs across departments and particular methodologies (and customer preferences) for how the reports needed to function in the new HCM application. We interacted with Business Users regularly week to provide status updates and get feedback. We have provided extensive UAT support and used client requests to implement ongoing updates to their preferred reports. In building customized reports to meet different user specifications, we encountered several challenges with many features but we were able to resolve with the help of our technical team and Oracle HCM product development. In the process of working with Oracle, we have learned detailed insight into the new Oracle Cloud capabilities and features. We have done exclusive documentation of all interactions with Oracle via the Service request system for future use.

Our methodology and experience in developing several thousand reports in the Oracle BI products came very handy in the project and of immense use to our customers. The fact of choosing between OTBI or HCM extract or BI Publisher based reports or dashboard for a specific requirement is a matter of experience. That choice has a direct impact on two critical real-world usages namely functionality and performance. Our experience and knowledge base was constantly shared with our customer thereby they fully understand the technical decision makings in the project. The blend between OTBI / HCM extracts / BI Publisher in the reporting system provides full coverage of all the data access needed for HR reporting and auditing.

All the challenges were resolved systematically and newly created reports featuring the latest best practices were implemented. There are many modules in HCM from payroll to workers compensation to Auditing that necessitates a full understanding of HR requirements and business practices. Our team diligently worked with multi-user teams to bring knowledge to the practical world and daily usage. We worked as one team to make sure our client’s vision and needs are executed on time. The data sensitivity is of utmost criticality in this project. We had taken all the precautions and detailed client security requirements into account during the project. We had deployed layers of authentication and data access points to control who accesses the data and when they access the data.

The historical payroll, workers compensation, and other data are critical for access due to legal requirements thereby all the data are there in the main systems and not in any backup systems. The volume of data and retrieval speed play a key part in reporting here due to legal time sensitivity. We were able to fine-tune report performance across the board for reports and deliver huge time savings.

Because this project involved so much specific data collected for customization, including the necessary BI and reporting requirements across a range of PeopleSoft users, there was also an opportunity to provide valuable documentation and user training. With 100’s of unique reports across the organization, working directly with users provided important methodological information, and illustrated the many needs spread throughout the company. To further refine each role, and ensure consistently accurate reporting with the newly deployed system, we developed Business User Requirements to accompany the customized reports. This documentation continued into Oracle SR support and guidance for migrating reports to other Fusionenvironments.

This 10-month project included a US-based project management team, offshore-based development team, multiple client teams along with our Oracle development team racing against time for a preset cut off date. We worked diligently with all the teams to produce every report or dashboard to the exact business and legal requirements. We followed the world standard to take a highly customized legacy system from Peoplesoft and convert it into an agile system that functions across multiple Oracle platforms.

The entire process was an opportunity to explore creative solutions to extremely specific user needs, as well as a chance to uncover unique new ways of report building across the Oracle HCM ecosystem. We have great things knowledge and real-world experience to offer toour future customers. If you have any questions about how DataTerrain can help you with Business Intelligence and reporting needs, contact us today!