A Global Fortune 250 manufacturer and leader in construction, mining, energy, and transportation equipment is on a transformation journey to make the digital shift. Its strategy to build long-term customer relationships enabled by digital solutions throughout the product lifecycle renewed its focus on hiring, nurturing, and empowering the right talent across the globe. The company leadership invested in the Taleo platform to support key aspects of its talent management process. As the platform was rolled out to numerous global locations, there was an increased need for a scalable and robust reporting and BI(Business Intelligence) platform to support Taleo reporting in such diverse areas as recruitment, performance reviews, and time to hire. Since Oracle announced the end of support for Taleo reporting on SAP BO(Business Objects) the customer decided to migrate its Taleo reporting to OBIEE(Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition).
The customer chose DataTerrain to lead this migration based on its established track record in accelerating comparable migration projects and its status as an Oracle partner with access to better support and knowledge base. The customer gave the following guidelines to DataTerrain for this migration –
- Complete the migration to OBIEE before BO support ends
- Zero disruption to business users
- Suitable documentation to ease support and maintenance effort after the migration
DataTerrain SMEs(subject matter experts) deployed their best-practices-based migration methodology and adapted it to the unique needs of the customer. DataTerrain’s proprietary automation tool was also leveraged for this project which was executed in the following major phases -
- - DataTerrain kicked off this project with an initial analysis of the SAP BO reports repository using its automation tool. This analysis included information such as business purpose and key users, business SME and owner for each report, run times, frequency of usage, run schedules. It also identified unique BO features used in specific reports and complex queries/functions used. Besides, complex implementations for classes, joins(relationship definition) between classes and objects(measures and dimensions) were identified in the BO implementation for suitable handling during automated migration. Interventions were planned for potential migration issues identified as risks in specific reports. Standardization and improvement opportunities were identified and proactive issue fizzes were planned in discussion with users. The analysis report from the automated assessment was used to create a detailed activity plan with clearly identified dependencies if any on customer associates. Key stakeholders of the customer reviewed and signed off this plan. Calendars of customer associates were blocked in advance to ensure their availability.
- - DataTerrain SMEs configured the automation utility based on the agreed outcomes from the analysis phase. The BO Universe file and all elements in the source environment were transported to OBIEE RPD using DataTerrain’s automation tool. Individual elements and complex business logic across the reports layer of the BO Universe were translated during the automated conversion process. Metadata was transformed from BO Universe to the appropriate layers in RPD – physical layer, business model layer, and presentation layer by using OBIEE best practices and following zero-defect principles. Potential performance bottlenecks were also fixed by DataTerrain SMEs during the automated migration. As a next step, the converted reports and source reports were compared using the automated utility. This automated process covered both report formats and layouts and data presentation to ensure exact translation from source to target systems. This enabled to identify and fix issues early, saving significant effort for testing by customer associates in subsequent phases.
- - Key customer stakeholders validated the converted reports as a part of the acceptance process. There were no surprises or major issues identified during this phase since key users and stakeholders were involved throughout the preceding phases and participated in key decisions and interim milestone sign-offs. The accepted reports were subsequently promoted to production on time and while BO was still supported.
The customer noted the following as outstanding aspects of DataTerrain’s project execution –
- - DataTerrain’s SMEs used the automation tool judiciously to apply OBIEE guidelines to ensure the converted reports adhered to best-practice standards. The tool was also customized based on customer request to implement customer standards across reports. For example, a standardized structure to print parameter values in report headers was automatically applied by customizing DataTerrain’s utility.
- - DataTerrain ensured that the overall look and feel of reports was carried forward from BO to OBIEE as required by users. This ensured that years of knowledge and effort to shape the form and substance of the reports were migrated seamlessly. This also minimized user training efforts and accelerated adoption.
- - DataTerrain SMEs brought deep domain knowledge and an in-depth understanding of Taleo. This helped minimize customer effort and enabled them to proactively prevent potential migration issues.
- - DataTerrain deployed associates from its global delivery centers so that project activities followed the sun to ensure progress round the clock. This enabled accelerated project execution and successful migration before BO went out of support.
DataTerrain helped the customer to successfully migrate Taleo reporting from BO to OBIEE on time and within budget. The customer has benefited from the enhanced features provided by Oracle for this integrated stack while reducing the TCO on its global deployment.
https://dataterrain.com/hcm-taleo/
https://dataterrain.com/reports-conversion/
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://www.oracle.com/webfolder/technetwork/tutorials/obe/Taleo_Cloud/14B/cvn/cvn.htm
https://nerdsofobiee.wordpress.com/category/business-objects-to-obiee/