AUK-based European affiliate of a leading workplace solutions provider faced increasing complexity in servicing the global operations of its clients. The company had been expanding its portfolio through various products and services, from office supplies and computers to integrated office solutions and facility management. With 86,000 product lines stocked across 14+ countries in Europe, the organization needed to ensure seamless service delivery to its global clients. This expansion brought a challenge: how to manage the vast volume of data and the variety of key performance indicators (KPIs) required by each client.
The company had a long-standing strategy of providing localized account management for global clients under a single umbrella, allowing clients to reduce their total cost of ownership (TCO). To support this strategy, the company relied heavily on robust reporting and business intelligence (BI) to track and manage a variety of KPIs customized for each client. With its existing Crystal Reports platform approaching the end of its support life, the company needed to migrate to a modern, scalable, and customizable BI platform. After considering its options, the company chose Jaspersoft for its flexibility, scalability, and cost-effectiveness.
DataTerrain, a global leader in BI migrations, was chosen to lead the migration project. Known for its automated, fast-paced, and high-quality migrations, DataTerrain was tasked with overcoming the technical challenges involved in translating the company's unique Crystal Reports implementations to Jaspersoft while ensuring a seamless transition without disrupting ongoing operations.
As the company continued to grow and service an expanding number of clients, its customers required:
With these diverse reporting needs in mind, the company needed a BI solution that could handle complex reports while being customizable to client-specific KPIs. Jaspersoft was chosen to replace Crystal Reports because it offered a more scalable and modern architecture. The migration needed to be swift, as Crystal Reports was reaching the end of its support, which would create risks for the company if the transition wasn't completed on time.
Jaspersoft provided several key advantages over Crystal Reports, making it the ideal choice for this migration:
DataTerrain deployed its proprietary automation-led remote migration approach to handle this large-scale migration. The goal was zero disruption to the client while ensuring that the new reporting platform met all of the company's business needs. Below are the key phases of the project:
1. Current State Assessment and Planning
The migration journey began with a detailed assessment of the company's existing Crystal Reports environment. DataTerrain set up a dedicated environment on its servers for remote migration and imported the Crystal Report files received from the company. DataTerrain’s automated utilities were used to analyze the existing reports and provide insights into their complexity.
The assessment involved identifying key report components like tables, charts, pivot tables, stored procedures, and formulas. During this phase, DataTerrain also identified any Crystal Reports features that would require different implementations in Jaspersoft. A detailed project plan was developed based on this analysis, and all key stakeholders signed off before moving to the next phase.
2. Automated Migration and Validation
With a clear understanding of the existing environment, DataTerrain initiated the automated migration process using its Crystal-to-Jaspersoft converter. The following steps were crucial in this phase:
3. Customer Acceptance and Rollout
After the migration and validation were completed in DataTerrain’s environment, the migrated reports were transferred to the company's environment. The client’s technical team onboarded these reports, and key stakeholders conducted a final round of validation to ensure everything met the business requirements.
Since the customer was involved in every milestone and phase of the project, the acceptance phase was smooth and free of surprises. User training and support initiatives were put in place to ensure the seamless adoption of Jaspersoft across the organization.
DataTerrain’s migration helped the company reap numerous benefits:
Thanks to DataTerrain’s proprietary automated migration tools and deep technical expertise in both Crystal Reports and Jaspersoft, the company completed its migration on time and within budget. The move to Jaspersoft has positioned the organization to better serve its global clients, providing them with advanced reporting tools, improved operational KPIs, and the flexibility to scale with future business needs.
This case study highlights the power of strategic collaboration and the importance of choosing the right technology and partner to ensure a successful BI migration.
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