At a Glance

Industry	Insurance (operational, financial, and regulatory reporting across business units)
Organization	A major US-based insurance provider
Migration	SAP Crystal Reports 2016 and SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.2 Webi → IBM Cognos Analytics 11.1.7
Challenge	Consolidating two legacy BI tools and 150+ reports onto one governed platform without losing business logic
Scope	150+ Crystal Reports and Webi reports migrated over 12 months
Approach	Automation-led migration using the DataTerrain Automated Conversion Engine

A MAJOR US-BASED INSURANCE PROVIDER

Migrating Crystal Reports and Webi to Cognos for a Major US Insurance Provider

Customer Background

A Major US Insurer Reporting on Two Legacy BI Platforms

Our client, a major US-based insurance provider, built its reports over several years in SAP Crystal Reports and SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence (Webi) across its business units. It needed a business intelligence platform that was easy to govern, cost-effective, and scalable.

As licensing and maintenance costs grew and maintaining two separate platforms became harder to justify, the insurer's IT team chose to consolidate on IBM Cognos Analytics, a modern, governed enterprise BI platform. It partnered with DataTerrain to automate the migration of more than 150 reports from SAP Crystal Reports and SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence to IBM Cognos Analytics 11.1.7, with high accuracy and minimal manual effort. The result is a legacy BI modernization that consolidates insurance reporting on one platform.

Customer Storeis

The Challenge

Consolidating Two Legacy BI Tools Without Changing Business Results

Built over several years, the insurer's Crystal Reports and Webi environment had become a source of technical debt that was difficult to maintain and govern. Several issues stood out:

Two legacy BI tools

Reports split across Crystal Reports and Webi required separate skills, servers, and support models, making the reporting estate increasingly hard to maintain and update.

High licensing and maintenance costs

Keeping two legacy reporting platforms running carried significant licensing and support overhead.

Inconsistent reporting and governance

Reports built independently over the years varied in format and logic, making consistency and governance difficult across business units.

Complex report logic

Crystal formulas and subreports, along with Webi variables, queries, and multi-block layouts, had to be mapped accurately to avoid changes in business results.

Limited enterprise self-service

The legacy tools lacked the unified, governed self-service and centralized security that a modern enterprise BI platform provides.

Migration at scale

With 150+ reports in use across two platforms, rebuilding them manually from scratch would have been slow and risked losing years of business logic and formatting.

Our Approach

DataTerrain's Automated, Five-Phase Migration

DataTerrain used its proprietary automation engine to streamline the entire Crystal Reports and Webi-to-Cognos conversion, significantly reducing manual effort and accelerating delivery without compromising quality. The project ran over 12 months in five structured phases:

1

Discovery and Requirement Gathering

The team worked closely with the insurer's IT leadership to assess the existing Crystal Reports and Webi environment and define requirements, milestones, and governance standards.

2

Environment Provisioning and Automation Configuration

DataTerrain set up the source (SAP Crystal Reports 2016 and SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.2 Webi) and target (IBM Cognos Analytics 11.1.7) environments against a mirrored Oracle 19c database and configured the automated conversion engine.

3

Report Conversion and Enhancement

The DataTerrain engine converted the 150+ Crystal Reports and Webi reports in bulk, translating queries, formulas, prompts, and layouts into Cognos reports and applying consistent standards and naming conventions uniformly for easy identification and maintainability.

4

Testing and QA Validation

Validated every migrated report for data accuracy and visual consistency against its legacy Crystal Reports or Webi original.

5

Deployment to Production

The team deployed validated reports to the insurer's production instance with full version control, tracked milestones, and resolved issues in close collaboration with business and IT stakeholders.

Business Impact

Outcomes That Mattered to the Business

Platform Consolidation

Consolidated two legacy BI tools into one governed enterprise BI platform on IBM Cognos Analytics.

Automation at Scale

Automated Crystal Reports and Webi-to-Cognos conversion applied the same standards across 150+ reports, saving significant time compared with manual rebuilds and preserving years of business logic.

Consistency and Accuracy

We validated every report against its legacy original for data accuracy and visual consistency, delivering consistent reporting across business units on a single platform.

Lower Cost and Control

Retiring two legacy reporting platforms reduced licensing and support overhead, while centralized governance and security give the insurer complete control over its BI environment.

Bottom Line

Why Choose DataTerrain

Using its automated Crystal Reports-to-Cognos and Webi-to-Cognos migration approach, DataTerrain converted 150+ reports for a major US insurance provider in 12 months, with validated data accuracy, consistent layouts, and lower total cost of ownership, without rebuilding a single report from scratch.

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"DataTerrain brought deep expertise across both our legacy tools and IBM Cognos, with best-practice report design, optimized queries, and reusable components. Their structured migration approach and global delivery model kept development continuous, sped up report delivery, and made the transition to Cognos smooth. With Cognos now part of our reporting ecosystem, we have better reporting performance, a better user experience, greater scalability, and lower long-term maintenance and licensing costs." IT Director
Major US Insurance Provider