Helping Customers Trust Their Data Through Scalable Reporting

The Business Problem:

The Finance department needed to report sales and order data to executive management daily; reflecting the current state of sales and orders. The current process to accomplish this was manual with meticulous attention to detail to avoid errors; requiring a finance person to extract data and run multiple reports out of their Oracle ERP system and then copy and paste pieces of each report into Excel; perform number transformations by hand and combine the information in a meaningful way.

Solution: Refinement of the Extraction Process & Automated Error Checking

Tail Wind automated the process. Through data analysis, we determined where the specific data was located (tables) within the Oracle ERP system. We designed and built a reporting data warehouse in SQL Server 2017; then used SQL Server Integration Services to extract and load the data from Oracle. We performed the data transformations using a structured repeatable design and served up the information using data cubes built off of the data warehouse, using SQL Service Analysis Services and Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) to define custom calculations.

As often is the case; the timing of when and where to pull the data from an ERP system was critical to its accuracy; especially when data is time sensitive. Being able to dig into and understand the data; regardless of its source is key to a successful project; completed in a timely matter.

Furthermore, when the solution was originally automated, the data did not add up. We then worked hand in hand with the business to analyze the discrepancies which lead to a refinement of the extraction process so the cubes contained the most accurate data. Error checking often doesn’t occur in manual processes, so, automation can also help our clients trust their data.

Tools:

Results:

Finance can deliver the accurate reports each day in minutes by refreshing a spreadsheet each morning to bring in the latest numbers for the report. Future development will include creating the report in Power BI instead of Excel so it can be consumed by people on demand and in multiple formats, like on a phone.

We can help you streamline your reporting systems. Please contact us for a free consultation.