Conissaunce has provided expertise
to a wide range of organisations and individuals. Below is
a selection of recent projects. Click on any name for more
information.
UnumProvident
In 2004, UnumProvident embarked upon a sweeping review of
their operational management information with a view to replacing
the existing, largely Excel-based processes. A number of key
issues were found with the existing reporting process including:
- Report databases were copies of production systems so
the data was not structured for reporting.
- Since the operational systems kept only limited historical
data history was maintained in vast Excel spreadsheets .
- A large number of disparate, poorly understood data sources
were used. Some reports were generated solely to provide
data for manual input to further reports which might themselves
also serve as data sources, sometimes layered 4-5 deep.
- Reports were produced by a team who, although able to
communicate well with the business, did not have the technical
expertise to investigate the available data sources themselves
or effectively communicate their requirements to IT.
- The resulting, highly complex reporting cycle meant that
amending reports was unacceptably risky and new reporting
requirements could not easily be met.
A project was therefore initiated to determine the most appropriate
data sources and move report production to a more suitable
tool than Microsoft Excel. Cognos ReportNet was chosen as
the new reporting platform.
A tight year-end deadline was imposed on the project, so
an initial tactical solution was agreed to add missing history
to an existing interim data-store (still mostly structured
as per production) and implement Cognos based reporting to
that.
Conissaunce provided the analysis and development lead for this project.
As part of this work Kristiaana:
- Advised the project manager on all technical matters
- Reviewed and documented existing data sources
- Enhanced the data store to record critical sales history
- Acted as the technical liaison between MI team and IT
department
- Implemented ReportNet - Framework Manager and Report Studio
- Coached and provided documentation for the MI team
- Provided advice on future strategic datawarehousing
The solution went live in January 2005, just 3 months after
ReportNet was purchased.
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