A Fortune 500 Energy Client achieves development of Productivity Reports Systems in Advanced Meter Projects
The Client
A Fortune 500 energy services company that combines deep industry expertise with rigorous risk management to deliver superior shareholder returns.
Overview
The client had been working on various versions of Business Objects environments such as SAP business Objects XIR2, SAP Business Objects 3.1 and SAP Business Objects 4.0. They wished to migrate to the latest version of Business Objects 4.0 as the previous versions provided services to different clients. This resulted in discrepancy of overall reporting.
The client sought Avant-Garde’s expertise for handling different versions. The client further needed to transfer the content, users, security, objects, etc. to the latest version of Business Objects while reducing the operations and reporting on the old versions gradually.
The client wanted to create a sturdy reporting solution on the “Advanced Meter – Productivity Reporting Systems” project along with the migration of older versions. The project is aimed at evaluating the Employee productivity and Work orders progress when they implement their new digital Advanced Meters in USA households.
Project Scope
The client wished to develop Web reports along with Xcelsius Dashboards for the overall Advanced Meter KPIs. This would allow the client to track the Meter Installations and retrofit changes per every warehouse all over the country, while having access to performance metrics in real time.
4.0
Challenge
As the client operated on three versions of Business Objects environment, the data generated was redundant. The reporting needs were divided among various environments instead of transferring to a new system completely. This method couldn’t overcome shortcomings like duplicates in user security mapping, content, inconsistent reporting, and handling all versions simultaneously.
Documentation on a daily basis was a tedious affair as huge amount of information was being requested. The challenge was to integrate the data migration into a single environment without major changes in the reporting system.
As the existing system created a lot of repetitive data and reports from various environments, another challenge was to control redundancy while simultaneously streamlining content, security, objects, folder structures, etc. Extensive analysis was performed and solutions were implemented thus optimizing union of redundant reports without making the system complex while keeping content appropriate for different users.
Solution
Employing a structural approach, we conducted an extensive data and requirement analysis and implemented the following to streamline the process:
- Designing Xcelsius Dashboards.
- Designing Universes for Productivity Reporting System, System Health, Call Center
- Designing Web Intelligence Reports for the Productivity Reporting Systems (PRS) project
- Using XML, BI Services, QAAWS data connectivity tools to design Dashboards
- Using Dashboard Design Tool to design Dashboards in Business Objects 4.0
- Administration of Business Objects XIR2, SAP Business Objects 3.1, SAP Business Objects 4.0 environments and servers
- Creating wrappers to host the Dashboards
- User Security & Folder Security Management, Production Support
- Designing SAP BW based reports
- Installing special packs and patches over the existing environments
- Testing the functionalities to make sure all existing functionalities are preserved
- Periodic migration of content from developer to QA and QA to productivity reporting system
- Using Information Design tool to create multi-source Universes in Business Objects 4.0 for PRS
- Providing overall security analysis and User Groups management
- Converting overall 73 Business Objects XIR2 universes to SAP Business Objects 4.0
- Creating audit reports for XIR2 and BOBJ 4.0 environments
In addition, we provided suggestions and recommendations on best practices to design Universes and reports. Our team also supported developers with software installations and security management and conducted user training on Web Intelligence.
Value Delivered
- Consistent migration of the data from various Business Objects Environment (content, users, security, folders)to the Business Objects 4.0 without duplication
- Delivery of a robust, integrated and optimally made reporting system developed with negligible interruption to business and user experience
- Development, providing assistance and delivery of reporting and dashboard solutions to several projects such as Advanced Meter Dashboards, Productivity Reporting Systems, Call Center Reporting, etc
- Business Objects XIR2 Servers to deliver reports without disruptions while decreasing the overhead costs
- Streamlining upcoming projects for implementation with the new environments, thus maintaining equilibrium between old and new projects