Services

Application Development

Client: A major healthcare provider

Need: The client engaged CATCH Intelligence to assist in tracking scholarship and bonus repayments.

Solution Steps:
CATCH Intelligence designed the Incentive Management System (IMS), which helps manage nursing and other employee incentives that must be managed and accounted for within an organization.

The application integrates with HR ERP systems and accounting systems to automate the management of scholarships, bonuses, and incentives. These scholarships and bonuses are benefits that have been awarded to prospective employees and current employees as incentives to commit to employment for specified lengths of time. If leaving employment before the commitment time ends, an employee must repay the scholarships and/or bonuses paid out. Additionally, the management, oversight, and tracking of scholarships and bonus benefits are critical for tax obligations.

Accurate, end-of-year reporting on W-2 and 1099 tax forms was a critical part of this project’s success. The system’s tracking functionalities had to include:

• Employee monthly benefits
• Payout and payoff amounts
• Employee defaults

Reporting functionalities also included 11 different customizable ways to report on key areas. Some of them were:

• Invoice transactions
• Participant accounts past due
• Participant’s default tax transaction
• Participant deferment aging
• Participant estimated graduation date aging
• Participant grades, grade point average (GPA), school
• Participant repayment schedule

The client was pleased with the system and liked that Incentive Management System is easily scalable and customizable to meet other incentive needs. Consequently, IMS will work well to manage and track future incentive and bonus programs. This application is available to other healthcare provider organizations.

CATCH Intelligence created a generic version of this application to apply to other in-demand industries where bonuses and incentives are leveraged. These industries include engineering, GIS, Geospatial, Technology, and software development, to name a few.

Application Development

Client: A major healthcare system comprised of nine hospitals and 30 clinics.

Need: This client engaged CATCH Intelligence to develop a centralized hospital call center to track requests for scheduling patients’ diagnostic test services.

Required: Automation of patient diagnostic test scheduling processes. Existing labor-intensive processes needed streamlining to minimize effort duplication and reduce numerous potential entry points for error.

Solution: CATCH Intelligence worked with the client to determine what features and functionalities had to be incorporated in the new scheduling application. The existing process was labor-intensive and had numerous entry points that had the potential for errors. It duplicated effort and was time-intensive. Clinics would fax or phone requests, and then staff at call centers would file the fax or fill out new forms. Communication was done mainly by phone. If clinics called regarding a form, call center staff needed to find out who had the document.

CATCH Intelligence then developed the patient scheduling application, which integrated SharePoint, InfoPath, and Active Directory. The application automated the patient diagnostic test scheduling process and allowed the individual clinics to view the status of their requests.

The new patient scheduling application streamlines the process, removes unnecessary steps, and provides a real-time view of call center metrics. Required functionalities included:

• Web-enabled forms for the clinics
• Form tracking system and interface for the call centers
• Interface for clinics to view their forms and add comments

The client considered CATCH Intelligence’s solution an immediate success. The client also experienced a side benefit: Business processes were reevaluated and changed upon the usage of the application.

CATCH Intelligence mentored and trained the client’s designated staff throughout the application’s development and implementation.

Application Development

Client: A state government agency

PROJECT 1 – ASSESSMENT / STRATEGIC PLANS

Need: The client requested that CATCH Intelligence assess and develop a detailed, strategic plan to replace a core legacy system that had been in place for over 20 years. The legacy system failed to keep pace with the many changes in the organization. New employees disliked working with an antiquated system. Additionally, the training time for new employees took months and resulted in additional expense and turnover. New, younger employees became intolerant of the cumbersome, inefficient, and difficult-to-use applications.

Required: CATCH Intelligence team members assessed the existing system and facilitated interviews with key stakeholders to determine future business requirements and estimates that needed to be considered for the future system.

Solution: The CATCH Intelligence team outlined the anticipated business changes to help the organization with its business processes and systems. The team also provided estimates to help the client understand the costs associated with replacing the legacy system.

PROJECT 2 – ARCHITECTURE AND IMPLEMENTATION

Need: The client chose CATCH Intelligence to assist in upgrading the Business Objects system for both the development and production servers.

Required: The BOE environment was installed and upgraded. An Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) tool – Data Integrator (DI) was installed. A single sign-on security was implemented using the LDAP environment.

Deliverables: Client was provided with the following:

• Recommendations and best practices review
• Installation and upgrade of BusinessObjects 3.1 software for the client’s environment (Desktop Intelligence, Web Intelligence, Data Integrator, and Crystal Reports, Xcelsius)
• Mentoring of key staff in the use of Business Objects XI R3.1 (BOE administrators)
• Upgrade and testing (migration-to-test environment, security testing, universes, and reports)
• Best practice recommendations for disaster recovery–backup and maintenance

Training: CATCH Intelligence team members mentored the client’s staff on the following functionalities and tools:

• Central Management Console
• Life Cycle Manager (version control)
• Data Integrator
• Web Intelligence (WebI), an ad hoc query and analysis tool.
• Xcelsius dashboard

Assessment and Strategic Planning

The Client: This client is one of the largest medical-surgical supply businesses in the United States and Canada. Through strategic acquisitions of other medical-surgical distributors over the decades, they have positioned themselves as industry leaders. They aspire to be a world-class supply chain management solutions provider to selected healthcare industry segments.

Required: Assessment and implementation plan to upgrade and migrate current reports, identify reports and universes for consolidation, identify reports for enhancements/rework, and recommend a new server architecture and security structure, setting up server configuration for clustering and load balance.

Need: CATCH Intelligence provided an Enterprise Reporting and Business Intelligence assessment and identified specific software/hardware ROI for the client. The client needed to migrate the current 6.5 environments and upgrade a XIR2 environment. Business Objects are no longer supporting the 6.5 environments. CATCH Intelligence was also tasked with preparing a recommendation for server architecture incorporating virtual servers as well as updating the current security model. We also recommended that they move to securely-delivered, web-enabled reports across their enterprise for both internal and external clients. One of the most important and unique key requirements was a challenge by the client to show at least $25,000 in hardware or software savings over a period of five years. The client also challenged CATCH Intelligence to identify specific cost savings around:

• Licensing
• Hardware server and clustering
• Virtual servers

CATCH Intelligence undertook this assignment by bringing our many years of BusinessObjects expertise and experience to the table and offering “skin in the game.”

Solution: CATCH Intelligence consulted with the client and provided an assessment that outlined a plan that made sense to support their needs. The assessment focused on an analysis of the existing environments and the foreseeable requirements of the client’s future enterprise reporting systems. Future requirements also defined training needs of their internal and external clients’ training needs and report and universe consolidations.

CATCH Intelligence’s assessment process helped the client define their needs. The assessment solution recommended report consolidation, cleanup, and an upgrade to the most current BusinessObjects Enterprise version. The recommended solution outlined the benefits, the business case (ROI), architecture, and an implementation plan. First-year savings for hardware/software alone were identified at $578K. In addition, the ROI outlined a five-year anticipated savings of $1.1 million.

Other future cost savings not stipulated by the client were also identified for soft cost savings targeted at reducing resources by implementing the following items. (CATCH Intelligence did not identify dollar amounts):

• Upgraded server architecture – ensuring more stability and fewer outages
• New security platform – requiring fewer resources for maintenance work
• Consolidation of universes – reducing maintenance and resource costs
• Report consolidation and enhancements – reducing overall report proliferation and ultimately resource costs by 30% (at a minimum)

Other related soft cost savings were using the auditing tool to identify report and user utilization and version control for tracking document versions.

Assessment and Strategic Planning

Client: A growing software and services company

Need: The client’s explosive growth – combined with increasing customer demands for the company’s broad product offering – led the company to choose CATCH Intelligence to assist with redefining their Customer Relationship Management (CRM). The company wanted an organization-wide common vision for customer support. Also needed was the determination of the right people, processes, and technology to make the vision a reality. This client also wanted identification of benefits, costs, and timing related to implementing the new vision.

Solution Steps:
CATCH Intelligence assessed and evaluated the client’s current state. The two-week assessment process looked at:

• Existing technologies
• Interaction processes
• The company’s internal structure as it relates to servicing and supporting customers
• Diverse business areas such as the customer contact center, account management, and solution delivery
• Customer interactions with the company
• Interactions between departments

CATCH Intelligence team members outlined customer interaction best practices that went into the definition of the future model for customer service and support. The model covered such areas as:

• Data
• Contact center foundational components (ACD, IVR, multi-media blending)
• CRM software
• Workflow
• Web-enabled self-service
• Extranet
• Knowledge management

CATCH Intelligence team members also identified implementation options and created a list of vendor solutions for further consideration. Each component area within the customer service and support model had its own outline of benefits, measurements, priorities, and implementation options.

After defining the desired future model, CATCH Intelligence worked to provide business justification for the change. An extensive business case was created to support the migration plan. This provided the team with the information to work with senior-level sponsorship and gain buy-in for moving the initiative forward. Areas addressed included:

• Software
• Hardware
• Service
• Organization change
• Business process changes

CATCH Intelligence team members worked in a rapid 12-week process to help the client define a customer service and support strategy and continued to support the implementation initiative process.

Business Intelligence Competency Center

Client: Healthcare claims processing client

Need: Business Intelligence Competency Center (BICC) and development of a Business Intelligence (BI) Vision and Strategy.

Solution: This project involved the organization of a Business Intelligence Competency Center (BICC) and development of a Business Intelligence (BI) Vision and Strategy.

• The Business Intelligence Competency Center (BICC) is a system organized to support all aspects of BI for an enterprise. BICC serves as a collaboration and knowledge management system to support BI, where BI initiatives and tasks are prioritized, defined, directed, and implemented. This improves decision-making and sharing of best practices. Communication processes are improved to help eliminate duplication and report redundancy and provide consistency and uniformity in the report development process.
• The BICC’s contribution and overriding success of BI development is creating a BI Vision and Strategic Plan.

CATCH Intelligence formulated and helped implement a BICC in June 2006 as part of a BI assessment. CATCH Intelligence assisted in the development of a BI Vision and Strategy with an executive sponsor in place. A comprehensive, cross-functional business unit reporting assessment took place in January 2007. During the assessment, CATCH Intelligence assisted the client in prioritizing and identifying two business units based on potential revenue generation. A report development team comprised of 80 percent CATCH Intelligence team members (report and universe developers/designers, project manager/business analyst, and ETL developer) started the project in February 2007. The team developed over 100 Web Intelligence (WebI) and Crystal Reports, multiple dashboards, and 12 universes. The CATCH Intelligence team augmented several internal client projects. One such project was the upgrade of all client-facing Crystal Reports to a newer version. The project also involved changing all reports from an existing company logo to a new logo because the company had been sold during the middle of the project.

CATCH Intelligence designed templates for:

• Report development workflow (lifecycle of report)
• Report requirements documentation
• Technology issues tracking document
• Project Tracking document
• Universe PSPG (Policies, Standards, Procedures, and Guidelines)
• Quality Assurance Process Checklist
• Data Validation checklist
• Report Control guidelines
• Weekly Status report template (Executive sponsor)
• Iteration Review (Business & Executive sponsor)

Other processes developed using the BICC structures were:

• Report development workflow process
• Report change control process
• Universe change control process
• Quality event signoff process

Additional documentation to support the reporting project included:

• Metadata/glossary dictionary of current database systems
• Transition to Production Support Plan
• Report Development Decision Tree

Standard meetings were scheduled for:

• Report Team Status Update FLASH (twice per week) and designed to last 15 minutes or less
• Technology Issues (a weekly review) with the BOE Administrator, IT personnel, and Reporting Technical Lead
• Requirements Review (weekly) for Report Business Owner/User, Developer, Business Analyst to review report requirements and prototypes
• Universe Change Update (once per month)
• Iteration Review with key sponsors and stakeholders (quarterly)
• Project Team Lead Meeting (bi-monthly)

The CATCH Intelligence team also participated in report consolidation and requirements gathering. The team used SharePoint as the primary tool for the report requirements repository, where report development signoff was also captured.

The team also designed an Automated File Return Process (AFRP) system that automated the client’s incoming customer files and alerted the appropriate business unit when the files were completed and ready to be worked. This project was instrumental in supporting the client’s goal of addressing and identifying key revenue accounts.

The project was managed using an agile iterative approach with two-week deliverables. The Project Manager also assisted the client with quarterly project status reviews that were delivered to the executive management team.

The project reporting team also developed and implemented several dashboards for use by executives for forecasting and predictive analysis.

Training: CATCH Intelligence provided comprehensive training in WebI, Universe Design, and InfoView. CATCH Intelligence also developed two Computer Based Training (CBT) interactive training programs for the client’s remote locations. The CBT training programs were for InfoView (Parts I and II), and they included training manuals.

Engagement: CATCH Intelligence was engaged for a 16-month period as this client’s Reporting Team. The reporting team provided a two-month transition and mentoring plan before rolling off of this project.

Data Warehouse

Client: A business alliance of forty plus hospitals

Need: Improve and optimize report delivery between the forty-plus healthcare organizations. The client also asked CATCH Intelligence to migrate medical data reports to a new enterprise reporting toolset.

Solution: CATCH Intelligence reengineered the reporting business processes and systems. CATCH Intelligence also ensured that the future system was in compliance with the client’s HIPAA security and privacy requirements.

Solution Steps:

1. CATCH Intelligence team members assessed the client’s existing environment to determine a plan to meet the client’s needs. They found that a legacy data warehouse in use was slow and cumbersome. The reporting system was a homegrown set of web-based reports and a desktop client that required quarterly distribution of a CD to approximately 400 remote users.
2. CATCH Intelligence designed a new data warehouse that:
   1. Was enterprise-compliant
   2. Eliminated formerly orphaned data
   3. Imported history for the data
   4. Consolidated archive data into a single data mart
   5. Delivered expanded capabilities by calculating new metrics from existing data
3. An Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) procedure was utilized to move five years of legacy data to the new warehouse. The ETL tool used to migrate the legacy data is now used quarterly to move new data into the data warehouse.
4. Executive reports were migrated to Web Intelligence (WebI) and made available to users via InfoView, a Business Objects web portal. The executive reports were expanded during migration to allow additional metrics and flexibility in selection of patient population.
5. Ad hoc reporting capability was delivered to power users by means of Web Intelligence through InfoView.

Results:
Reporting response time significantly improved. Benchmark tests of three client-selected reports produced the following results:

• Report A runtime was reduced to two minutes from 35 minutes
• Report B runtime was reduced to six minutes from 27 hours
• Report C runtime was reduced to 13 minutes from about 21 hours

Improved Report Delivery

Client: A carrier for dental and oral healthcare and medical benefits

Need: An Insurance provider requested assistance in creating a data staging area on a system hosted by an outside vendor.

Required: The initial process was to bring five years of data down into a SQL repository. Also, financial and risk management universes were developed. The financial universe focused on the client’s Great Plains accounting system and addressed specific needs related to financial reporting.

Solution Steps:

1. Key business units for risk management and financials were identified and prioritized with the necessary data sets by the client. CATCH Intelligence team members then moved forward. Data was brought down a SQL staging area from the client’s AS 400 system.
2. The initial process step brought down five years of data (bulk load) into a SQL repository. CATCH Intelligence team members used an Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) process to accomplish this.
3. CATCH Intelligence also assisted in creating ETL jobs to update data in the repository on a daily basis.
4. Data was pre-loaded several times in the testing and validation phase to ensure accuracy.
5. CATCH Intelligence team members assisted in troubleshooting data issues with the 3rd party vendor.
6. CATCH Intelligence designed a Risk Management universe to facilitate reporting around various data elements and tables – such as membership, group, claims, provider, eligibility, billing, and brokers/agents – in the repository.
7. The CATCH Intelligence team also developed a financial universe around the client’s Great Plains accounting system. This addressed needs specific to financial reporting.

Training: The client’s staff’s training and mentoring was ongoing throughout the project.

Improved Report Delivery

Client: A Fortune 100 Insurance company

Need: The client was experiencing performance problems with numerous mission-critical reports. CATCH Intelligence was called on to prepare an assessment of the client’s Business Intelligence and Data Warehouse environment as well as evaluate the existing reporting applications and code used for the report delivery.

Solution: Discovery sessions were held with key business users and project stakeholders to identify, consolidate, and prioritize key requirements and critical success factors.

A review of the existing BI/DW environment was conducted to evaluate:

• Data sources
• Report repository
• Data models including:
• Table structures
• Aggregations
• Extract, transform, and load (ETL) approach and tools
• BI and reporting tools, including web delivery capabilities
• Business reporting processes
• Performance requirements, expectations, and issues
• Query challenges and unique requirements
• Data security
• Current IT organizational structure and skillsets to support BI/DW
• Current BI/DW tools and development methodologies

It was determined that the reports were designed and developed correctly, but the SQL statements and stored procedures were extremely inefficient. A short-term and long-term plan were devised to prioritize report optimization for mission critical reports and later phases for other reports. By optimizing the stored procedures, CATCH Intelligence was able to improve performance by 70% on average. The net result was improvement in reporting systems, applications, and network performance.

SharePoint

Client: A non-profit community-integrated behavioral healthcare organization

Need: The client engaged CATCH Intelligence to develop a case management system from candidate entry to candidate release.

Required: A management information system that would contain all necessary client, event, unit, outcomes, billing, and fiscal information for multiple points of decision support. The system would allow multiple stakeholder groups to secure access to information 24 hours a day, 365 days per year.

Solution: CATCH Intelligence designed and developed a web-based management information solution for the healthcare organization. Behavioral Health Management System (BHMS) contained all necessary client, event, unit, outcomes, billing, and fiscal information for multiple points of decision support. The system allowed multiple stakeholder groups secure access to information 24 hours a day, 365 days per year.

BHMS includes the following functionalities:

• Efficient caseload management and scheduling for caseworkers and supervisors
• Client history capture and retention for re-entry into system
• Clinic treatment plans
• Internal reports for healthcare coordinators and caseworkers
• Mandatory state and federal reports (Department of Health and Human Services, Medicaid, JCAHO)
• Automated reminders for staff and management
• Automation and pre-population of key forms
• Automated discharge forms and analysis that significantly improves productivity and effectiveness tracking
• Scalability to fit additional programs
• Support for remote access and PDAs so staff and management can assist customers from anywhere.
• Real-time program evaluation
• Outcome analysis
• Service level feedback from family members (measuring satisfaction levels)
• Billing capabilities
• System security integration with Active Directory
• Auditing to support HIPAA compliance
• Role-based security structure to support HIPAA compliance and protection of patient health information (PHI)

Solution growth:

1. The client accepted a business growth opportunity that required additional functionality from SharePoint. CATCH Intelligence Consultants assisted in the migration to MOSS 2007 and upgraded the BHMS application.
2. The client had yet another business application that needed similar client management. CATCH Intelligence consultants grew the BHMS application to encompass the client’s second business application.

Training: CATCH Intelligence developed a customized training manual that was delivered to users across the state via live internet training. The training manual can be used by the client for future training of new employees.

Web Based Solution

Client: A large insurance and federal government health care contracting firm

Need: Our client needed to deliver a new reporting framework to securely and reusably deliver a web-based reporting portal. This project centered on implementation of a self-service reporting extranet portal to empower healthcare agencies and users to serve themselves. The portal would allow members to access standard reports. It would be accessed by the clients’ members and customers, including over 300 users from various state departments.

Required: Reporting, ad hoc query and analysis for remote web self-service reporting. This project had a very tight implementation deadline. Secure access and authorization were critical because of HIPAA security and privacy requirements.

Solution: CATCH Intelligence helped define the reporting and data warehousing needs along with requirements. CATCH Intelligence designed and developed a reusable reporting framework to ensure that only the right people would have access to appropriate information. The solution that was delivered satisfied the complex data security and privacy requirements that the customer needed to meet. The application would allow users to perform ad hoc query and analysis reporting and provide portal functionality for external clients with self-service reporting capabilities. The CATCH Intelligence team built the application, tested it, and “went live” within a short timeframe. The client’s customers reported substantial performance improvement in accessing their reports.

CATCH Intelligence also helped this client upgrade to a higher-level application and migrate their reports to the new application. Following the upgrade and migration, CATCH Intelligence provided the client with a managed service agreement where the client had a bank of hours that would allow them to call on CATCH Intelligence technical support when issues developed. As for any client needing this type of on-call assistance, the managed service agreement was a strong additional solution for this client.

Next Steps: CATCH Intelligence is now working with the client to upgrade and migrate their sister organization to the same application. CATCH Intelligence reusable structure saves development time and resources. Our knowledge of our client’s data will facilitate rapid migration and report transformation with little effort on the client’s part.

Web-Based Solution

Client: A large insurance and federal government health care contracting firm

PROJECT 1

Need: The client needed to deliver a new reporting framework to securely deliver a web-based reporting portal. This project centered on implementation of a self-service reporting extranet portal to empower Health care agencies and users to serve themselves. The portal would allow members to access standard reports and would be accessed by the clients’ members and customers and included over 300 users from various state departments.

Required: Reporting, Ad hoc query, and analysis for remote web self-service reporting. This project had a very tight implementation deadline and secured access and authorization was critical because of their HIPAA security and privacy requirements.

Solution: CATCH Intelligence helped define the reporting and data warehousing needs and requirements. CATCH Intelligence designed and developed a re-usable reporting framework to ensure only the right people would have access to appropriate information. The solution that was delivered met the complex data security and privacy requirements that the customer needed to meet. The application would allow users to perform ad hoc query and analysis reporting and provide portal functionality for external clients with self-service reporting capabilities. The CATCH Intelligence team built the application, tested it, and “went live” within a short timeframe. The client’s customers reported substantial performance improvement in accessing their reports.

PROJECT 2

Need: A web-based environment that would be used by insurance companies and healthcare providers to optimize a subscription service that identified health information and records.

Required: Data handling had to comply with strict security requirements from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS), a federal agency.

Solution:

1. CATCH Intelligence developed a solution that involved placement of the data into a staging table.
2. The data is then passed to a data mart through an extraction, transformation, and load (ETL) process.

Results:

1. The data mart noticeably improved the data handling process and allowed secure web-based information access.
2. Medicaid agencies in Arizona and Utah presently use this system.

SAP Experience

Client: Manufacturing

Need: Client had an existing BusinessObjects 6.5 system that needed to be upgraded. The legacy system supported their Supply Chain and Demand Planning reporting. The customer used Manugistics and SAP as their transactional systems to meet their manufacturing, supply chain, and distribution requirements.

Required: The legacy reporting system was out of support and needed to be upgraded. The client also needed a strategy to integrate reporting into SAP, BW, and non SAP systems.

Solutions: Client went through a national bidding process to evaluate consulting companies to help them get their migration done. CATCH Intelligence was selected as the finalist because of our depth of experience in helping clients with migrations and also because of our depth of experience working with SAP and BW. CATCH Intelligence completed the DeskI report migration. The team worked with the Citrix server environment for this engagement. CATCH Intelligence completed training, mentoring, and knowledge transfer sessions to the appropriate client team members on the BOE administration team. Mentoring topics included auditing and disaster recovery best practices.

CATCH Intelligence also conducted a focused mini-assessment involving the Supply Chain and Demand Planning teams.

The following BI recommendations and a BI strategic plan were reviewed with the client:

• Consider migrating from DeskI to WebI
• Implement the CATCH Intelligence C3D portal application to support outside vendors/users/customers/buyers/merchants/management
• Server expansion and support to global locations in Asia, Latin America, and Europe
• Re-engineer reports that will provide drill-down and parameters
• Develop dashboard reports (Xcelsius) for executive team

SAP Experience

Client: An educational institution

Need: Client selected SAP® BusinessObjects as a BI standard for reporting out of SAP. The new SAP BusinessObjects system needed to be installed, configured and integrated into SAP, SAP BW, and SAP Portal. CATCH Intelligence was selected to help with both the new installation and integration activities and conducted an in-depth assessment to help them with defining their BI Strategic Plan.

Required: Client selected a new BI enterprise standard for reporting out of SAP data, and this system needed to be set up by experienced consultants. The client also wanted help defining their strategy to deliver this BI content and determining which SAP BusinessObjects tools would be used to support information delivery.

Solutions: Client engaged CATCH Intelligence to lead their SAP BusinessObjects implementation and integration with BusinessObjects with SAP, BW, and SAP Portal. CATCH Intelligence was selected as the finalist because of our depth of experience helping clients with upgrades and also because of our experience in working with SAP and BW. CATCH Intelligence completed the upgrade and also outlined BI recommendations, and created a BI strategic plan. CATCH Intelligence completed training, mentoring, and knowledge transfer sessions to the appropriate client team members. CATCH Intelligence was also engaged to support new report and content creation using Crystal Reports, SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence Reports, and Xcelsius Dashboard reports.

The following represents assessment evaluation tasks:

1. An evaluation and review of the existing BI/DW environment,
   • BI system integration requirements
   • BI portal and web delivery integration requirements
2. A customized solution and recommendations for:
   • Recommended BI Roadmap and architectural blueprint
   • People, Process, Practices, and Technology Recommendations
   • Final Training and Mentoring Plan
3. Identification, consolidation, and prioritization of key requirements and critical success factors.
4. Discovery sessions with designated IT personnel to identify BI/DW objectives, related projects, timeframes, available resources, budgets, and constraints.
   • Installation/Configuration/Testing BusinessObjects Enterprise.
   • Verify server setup and correct configuration.
   • System integration testing across client reporting systems.
   • Installation of SAP Integration Kit
5. Business intelligence and data warehouse technology and architecture, including:
   • High-level data warehouse recommendations
   • Front-end BI architectural recommendations and integration recommendations
   • Recommendations when using business-oriented metadata to simplify data access
   • Data security and data quality recommendations
   • Metadata management considerations and recommendations
   • Reporting tools and recommendations on which tools to use for various use cases
   • BI system integration recommendations
   • BI portal and web delivery integration recommendations
6. BI/DW (SAP and non-SAP systems) organization structure, process, staffing, and skill sets and training recommendations

The client further engaged CATCH Intelligence to provide services around:

• Universe design and mentoring
• Training in Universe Design and WebI
• Customization of InfoView, customization of BusinessObjects
• Development of a high-level future state BI/DW architecture diagram
• Development of a long-term implementation roadmap with supporting short-term strategic plan

Healthcare

The Client: A combined hospital system that serves approximately 25 percent of the Omaha area market. The client is a licensed, 685-bed medical/surgical facility that operates over 300 clinics and healthcare centers serving Omaha, Plattsmouth, and Auburn in Nebraska; and Council Bluffs and Shenandoah in Iowa.

PROJECT 1

Need: CATCH Intelligence first engagement with the client-focused on an Enterprise Reporting and Business Intelligence (BI) assessment. The client needed to combine systems and securely deliver web-enabled reports across their enterprise. Key requirements included the ability to address privacy and security issues with their technology application.

Solution: CATCH Intelligence consulted with the client and provided an assessment that presented a plan that made sense to support their needs. The assessment focused on analysis of the existing environment and the foreseeable requirements of the future enterprise reporting system. The future requirements defined needs of their mission-critical Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system and Hospital Information System (HIS). Other key requirements were the ability to address privacy and security issues with this technology.

CATCH Intelligence assessment process helped the client define their needs. The assessment solution defined how over 300 reports could be consolidated into 150 interactive reports that could be delivered securely over the web. The recommended solution outlined the benefits, the business case (ROI), architecture, and an implementation plan. The ROI outlined a six-month payback and an anticipated savings in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The assessment documentation served as the foundation for the project’s requirements gathering, thus showing CATCH Intelligence value-added process.

The healthcare system chose CATCH Intelligence to install, configure, mentor, train its staff, and help deliver the enterprise solution and project.

PROJECT 2

Need: A second project focus on the client’s need for a system upgrade from Crystal Reports 10 to Business Objects Enterprise.

Required: The upgrade involved migrating reports and setting up server configuration for clustering and load balance.

Solution: The CATCH Intelligence team created critical disaster recovery and restore process system, in addition to performing network troubleshooting and developing documentation.

Insurance

Client: A fortune 500 Insurance and Financial company that manages approximately eight major insurance and financial services companies across the United States.

Need: The client had invested hundreds of thousands of dollars and purchased two Business Intelligence (BI) solutions that failed to meet their enterprise needs. The client came to CATCH Intelligence and requested an Enterprise Reporting assessment to analyze their requirements and develop a proof of concept. This would help them select the right software solution for critical and complex reporting.

Solution: CATCH Intelligence completed an assessment and evaluated key requirements. This drove the selection of an Enterprise Management system that would meet the needs of the organization. We helped the customer put together a plan to consolidate over 200 reports into 80 interactive reports and deliver the reports to a secured web portal.

Business Objects and Crystal Enterprise / Crystal Reports were the company’s solutions of choice following the assessment, analysis, proof of concept, and recommendations. Key requirements leading to this selection were:

• Drill-down – The client needed to support three drill-down levels.
• Reusable reports – The client wanted to reuse common reports across multiple business units. Crystal allowed use of reusable, parameter-driven reports so that one report, such as an income statement, could be used consistently across the business by entering the business and unit parameter (company x, or consolidated parameters).
• Scheduled reports – The client needed reports to be scheduled to run at night and then delivered via a web portal during the day. This would minimize the reporting impact on the ERP system performance during the day. Many reports were financial reports that needed to be run on a regular schedule.
• Row-level security – The client needed reports that could be delivered via the web in a secure fashion. The client wanted to run one report and enable users to see only those report sections they were authorized to see. This allowed the client to generate fewer reports. It also allowed the client to control access by user or by user group.
• Presentation quality reports – The client wanted a solution that provided the best presentation quality for delivery via the web or printer. Most of these reports were financial reports. They needed to look the same whether the user was looking at the web report, a printed report, or a report placed into Excel. Crystal was a good fit because it delivers consistent, high-quality reports that present well in each format.
• Ease of use – The client wanted a solution that would be easy for their users to use and also be easy for their developers to create reports. Crystal’s ease of use meant a good fit here.
• Business user analysis – Business users needed access to information easily without having to understand the table and data complexities. Business Objects provided a platform for creation of a metadata layer or a business view of complex data. The metadata layer created an easy way to use the environment in order for the business users to analyze information while being insulated from the complexities of the data.

Following the assessment and proof of concept, CATCH Intelligence helped the client deliver their Enterprise Reporting project. CATCH Intelligence installed, configured, mentored, and trained the client’s staff and helped deliver the enterprise solution. The CATCH Intelligence team met the customer’s three-month window to produce these reports.

Financial Services

Client: A financial services holding company

Need: A deadline of two weeks was needed by a large financial institution to conduct a Business Intelligence (BI) migration assessment.

Solution Steps:

1. CATCH Intelligence conducted a comprehensive Business Intelligence (BI) and migration assessment for a large financial institution within a two-week time frame.
2. A collaborative approach was taken in the interview process. CATCH Intelligence interviewed over 24 employees who represented report developers, universe developers, and BO administrators within a three-state region. These interviewees – from two divisions – represented 14 departments and three branch locations. CATCH Intelligence was able to identify 7500 reports among the divisions.
3. CATCH Intelligence assessment formulated a server architecture plan for both divisions to adopt a shared services platform in a clustered, failover environment. CATCH Intelligence also provided recommendations to implement a Business Intelligence Competency Center (BICC), a report cleanup and migration plan, and staffing feedback. Also included:
   • Installation and configuration plan for software
   • Licensing recommendations
   • Software upgrade justifications
   • Business Objects security plan with Active Directory (AD) integration
   • Recommendation for Business Objects InfoView folder structure
   • Migration upgrade plan for existing reports
   • Training plan to educate report developers on new software tools
   • Project plan
   • ROI justification for consolidating shared systems

Engagement: CATCH Intelligence has been engaged to organize the project (project plan) and provide assistance with the client’s vision and strategy going forward.

Manufacturing

A Fortune 100 food company decided to put into place a new transportation, logistics, and warehouse management systems. This decision, in turn, created a requirement for information sharing throughout the company in a manner spanning numerous functional divisions, business applications, and databases. The company chose an outside software vendor to enable web delivery of critical information to the business areas.

CATCH Intelligence and the software vendor – both contracted by the company – worked together on the project to assess the enterprise reporting requirements and then define critical success factors. A key factor in this was to determine that the software architecture satisfied the client’s requirements.

The project’s initial phase keyed in on requirements definition, business needs analysis, and software architecture design. This phase also required creation of a high-level implementation plan. The project’s subsequent phase focused on configuration and installation of new production, application, and test environments for high availability and fail-over. CATCH Intelligence customized and integrated the tools for the environment.

CATCH Intelligence project role also included consulting and mentoring to ensure that the system became smoothly operational. We made sure that full knowledge transfer took place to the client’s key operations staff. They then became responsible for maintaining the new system.

Public Sector

The Client: The client is a state government agency that purchased and implemented Business Objects for its operational reporting. The agency consists of 155 employees who are spread out among various departments within the state government structure. The intent of deploying the Business Objects system was to provide standard, parameter, and historical reporting to its users. The client divided this project into three phases over a twelve-month period:

• Phase 1 – Initial Implementation – Standard, Parameter, & History Reports (Aug 09 – Oct 09)
• Phase 2 – Universe and WebI – for Power Users (Nov 09 – Feb 10)
• Phase 3 – Dashboards (Mar 10 – Jun 10)

Required: Assessment and implementation plan to upgrade and update current reports, identify reports and universes for future work, identify reports for enhancements/rework, and recommend server architecture and security structure.

Need: CATCH Intelligence provided an Enterprise Reporting and Business Intelligence assessment and installed the Business Objects Edge system. CATCH Intelligence also provided mentoring.

Solution: CATCH Intelligence consulted with the client and provided an assessment that outlined a plan that made sense to support their needs. The assessment focused on an analysis of the existing environment and the foreseeable requirements of the client’s future enterprise reporting needs. Future requirements also defined training needs of their internal and external clients’ training needs and report and universe recommendations.

Intelligence assessment process helped the client define their needs. The assessment solution recommended report development and rework incorporating parameters, adopting a reusable reporting framework, developing and deploying universes for ad hoc users to provide self-service reporting, and developing key metrics dashboarding reports. The recommended solution outlined the benefits, a training plan, an architecture structure plan, and an implementation plan.