Case Study: Using EDMCS to Solve Master Data Challenges
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Enterprise Data Management Cloud Service (EDMCS) is a relatively new but critically important addition to the EPM Cloud product landscape. As clients have discovered the challenges surrounding effective master data management do not go away just by moving to the cloud. If anything, the EPM Cloud transition has only further emphasized the importance of robust management of enterprise master data assets. Come to this session to hear about the practical benefits achieved by an EDMCS implementation project. This session will briefly highlight the key features and concepts of EDMCS (note, EDMCS really is not “DRM in the cloud!”). Then we will dive into a recent project involving an EDMCS implementation at a large mid-Atlantic health care insurer in support of an enterprise cost management/allocation initiative. Challenges, lessons learned, and benefits achieved will be highlighted, along with a look at the unique mix of products and technologies involved in the solution (PCMCS, Linux, and EPM Automate to name a few). We will also touch on the interesting challenges involving dimensionality, primary and alternate hierarchies, and data mappings as they relate to an EDMCS implementation for PCMCS.
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Case Study: Using EDMCS to Solve Master Data Challenges
- 2. Case Study: Using EDMCS to Solve Master Data Challenges June 26, 2019 Kevin Black – Product Manager, Master Data
- 3. AGENDA ➢Alithya & Speaker Overview ➢Project Overview ➢A (brief) DRM vs EDMCS Comparison ➢EDMCS Implementation & Challenges ➢Summary & Lessons Learned ➢Q&A & Wrap-Up
- 4. COMPANY HISTORY 4 2001 Hyperion Planning introduced to the market (1st Essbase embedded app) 2007 Enhanced Consolidation practice with world class capabilities 2009 HPCM introduced to the market – Ranzal design review 2010 Established Strategic Finance practice to complement our Planning expertise 2012 Exalytics & Performance Testing Lab Establish multi product focus & advisory Proven business analytics leader with a history of successful implementations and continuous growth 1996 Ranzal & Associates Founded 2004 Acquired by Edgewater 2016 Deepened geographic footprint and EPM Cloud expertise 2015 Developed Discovery & Modern Data Architecture Approach 2014 Introduced Hosting, Support & Managed Services Offerings 2018 Ranzal & Alithya join forces to form an EPM/ ERP Cloud Powerhouse
- 5. ALITHYA OVERVIEW – EPM & ANALYTICS 5 Comprehensive Business Solutions Our solutions drive improved business performance through better decision making, strong customer engagement, and optimized operations Deep Partnership Drives Customer Value Adaptable Deployment Models Diverse Client Portfolio & Industry Expertise RetailEnergy/ Utilities Team Highlights Multiple Oracle ACEs Seasoned delivery team with avg 8 years serving clients Experienced management team with avg 15 years in the company Certified Cloud Resources Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) Analytics Financial Services Technology CPG and Manufacturing Healthcare Outstanding Achievement in Big Data 100 Most Promising Big Data Solutions Providers 1,000+ Clients 2,000+ Projects20+ Years Advisory Services Implementation Services Technical Services Hosting & Support Training Services Intellectual Property
- 6. ABOUT THE SPEAKER – KEVIN BLACK ➢ Professional: ➢ 30 years experience (yes, I'm old) in multiple IT roles with technology companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Agilent Technologies, and First Data Corp ➢ Involved in EPM space since 2005 – first as a client, then as a consultant with Alithya since 2014 ➢ EPM career had been focused on DRM/DRG projects until…EDMCS was born! > Follow me at: ▪ Twitter: @kblackEPM ▪ Blog: https://ranzal.blog/author/kblackranzal/ ➢ Personal: ➢ Husband and proud father of an awesome daughter (and a goofball puppy) ➢ AZ native; recently moved back home after nearly 30 years away (most of it in beautiful CO) ➢ Big sports fan!
- 7. CAREFIRST BLUECROSS BLUESHIELD 7 • CareFirst is in it’s 82nd year of service as a not-for-profit, independent licensee of the BlueCross and BlueShield Association, operating in the Mid-Atlantic region covering the District of Columbia, all of Maryland and a large portion of Northern VA • The largest health insurer in our region, serving 3.3 million members • Serves more than 625,000 members in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) – one of the largest FEHBP enrollments in the nation
- 8. ABOUT CAREFIRST 8 Is the largest health care insurer in the Mid-Atlantic region, serving 3.2 million members. Employs approximately 5,000 associates and contractors in Maryland, Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia. Has launched the nation’s largest Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) program of its kind. Serves more than 625,000 members in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) – the largest FEP enrollment in the nation. Nationally recognized as a "Best in Blue" insurer for providing stellar customer service for 22 years for D.C. FEP members and 15 years for Maryland FEP members. Invested $33.2 million in 2017 to improve overall health, and increase the accessibility, affordability, safety and quality of health care throughout its market areas. Earned recognition in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 as one of the "World's Most Ethical Companies" from the Ethisphere Institute.
- 9. CAREFIRST BLUECROSS BLUESHIELD 9 Our reporting requirements are extensive as we must report to the following entities: • BlueCross BlueShield Association (BCBSA) • Insurance Commissioners for MD, DC & VA • Federal Employee Program Director’s Office • Office of Personnel Management (OPM) • Group Administrators • Medical Loss Ratio (MLR) as mandated by the 2010 Health Care Reform Act
- 10. PROJECT OVERVIEW – COST ALLOCATION INITIATIVE ➢ Current State ➢ Long time Hyperion customer ➢ Replaced Oracle Financial Analyzer with Hyperion Essbase in Jan 2010 ➢ Custom Essbase solution handled complex allocation algorithms, large amounts of data, multiple hierarchies, and provided user-friendly reporting with Smart View ➢ Mix of BSO and ASO cubes ➢ Future State ➢ New Enterprise Initiatives - Cost Management/Allocation Project and Ground to Cloud ➢ Looking to Simplify, Standardize, and Move to Cloud ➢ Big push towards Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) solutions that are user friendly, flexible, maintainable by the business, and require minimal IT support ➢ Realization that major pain points in master data management need to be addressed (did not have DRM or any other master data management solution)
- 11. PRODUCT/TECHNOLOGY MIX ➢Enterprise Data Management (EDMCS) ➢Profitability and Cost Management (PCMCS) ➢Oracle EBS ➢EPM Jump Box (Linux) ➢Integration Technologies ➢Linux shell scripts ➢Perl ➢EPM Automate
- 12. A (BRIEF) DRM VS EDMCS COMPARISON ➢EDMCS “DRM in the Cloud” ➢ EDMCS was not a “lift and shift” of DRM to the Cloud ➢ It's a new product with a new data model and philosophy ➢Granted, there are some similarities: ➢ Node Types ➢ Common Actions & Terminology (add/insert, remove/delete) ➢ Bulk update mechanism ➢ Data Governance Workflows ➢But there are many more differences…
- 13. A (BRIEF) DRM VS EDMCS COMPARISON CONSIDERATION DRM EDMCS Foundation & Philosophy • Versions and Hierarchies • Agnostic - EPM and non-EPM sources/targets • Applications and Dimensions • Purpose-built deployment applications w/ Packaged Adapters– PBCS, EPBCS, Fin Cloud GL • Custom Adapter for everything else Data Model & Functionality • Properties (node types, prop categories) • Versions, Hierarchies, Hier Groups • Node Access Groups • DRG - Workflow models/tasks, enrichment stages, conditional approvals • Properties, Data Chain objects • Views/Viewpoints, Default Views/Maintenance Views • Groups, Roles, Permissions at different levels within application, dimension, and data chain • Approval Policies only; no workflow forms or enrichment yet Legacy • “The workhorse” MDM product • Mature and robust • Multiple “levers to pull”; integrations, derived props, custom validations, etc. • Relative newcomer to EPM Cloud; released Jan 2018 • Does not have all DRM functionality (but gap closing) • Does some things better (compares, visualization of changes) • Requires mindset change; EDMCS will never equal DRM (and that’s intentional) - it’s a different product with different approach
- 14. SOLUTION OVERVIEW • 2 EDMCS Applications • Heavy use of maintenance views • Dimensions maintained via requests & subscriptions • Dimensions & Mappings are exported and dropped on jump box • Automated batch processes grab extract files, perform minor transformations, and load to target PCMCS applications
- 15. SOLUTION BY THE NUMBERS EDMCS Application EDMCS Adapter Target Application # Users # Dimensions* # Mapping Integrations # Members** LOB Custom 2 PCMCS - Cost Calc - Cost Rptg 8 5 - Account - Line of Business - Operation - Organization - Target Range 2 (for Cost Calc cube) - Organization-Target Range - Line of Business-Target Range Dimensions - ~15,800 Mappings - ~16,600 FEP Custom 1 PCMCS - FEP 10 4 - Account - Line of Business - Operation - Organization N/A Dimensions - ~9,400 Mappings – N/A * Some dimensions contain up to 18 alternate hierarchies ** Member counts includes alternate hierarchies and shared members; unique node count is ~5,300 nodes
- 16. CHALLENGE #1: FINDING THE RIGHT BALANCE ➢ Challenge ➢ How to balance purpose-built, deployment-specific applications while centralizing hierarchy maintenance and avoiding duplicative effort ➢ Solution ➢ Maintenance Views ➢ Created Maintenance Views for common dimensions (4) that span both EDMCS applications ➢ Utilize compares to identify & synchronize differences ➢ Subscriptions ➢ Created subscriptions on target viewpoints (FEP) to corresponding source viewpoints (LOB) ➢ Used visual tags in viewpoint names to identify subscribed viewpoints ➢ Provided Best of Both Worlds - 2 purpose-built EDMCS applications, along with centralized hierarchy maintenance via subscriptions, to support 3 PCMCS targets
- 17. CHALLENGE #2: MAINTAINING THE COST CENTER DIMENSION ➢ Challenge ➢ Primary Cost Center (aka Organization) hierarchy mastered in Oracle EBS ➢ Alternate hierarchies mastered in EDMCS ➢ How to effectively refresh a primary hierarchy from external system while maintaining alternate hierarchies in EDMCS ➢ Solution ➢ Generated a “request file” from EBS via custom SQL program ➢ Request file contained complete snapshot of Cost Center primary hierarchy ➢ Request File Loaded 2X ➢ 1 - To primary CC viewpoint (as a merge) ➢ 2 - To independent viewpoint with its own data chain to establish baseline (essentially an “import”) ➢ Utilized Maintenance Views and Compares to identify differences between baseline and primary viewpoint, followed by requests to resolve differences
- 18. CHALLENGE #2: MAINTAINING THE COST CENTER DIMENSION ➢ Alternate viewpoints created to enable hierarchy compares and subscriptions ➢ Primary and alternate hierarchies isolated in separate viewpoints as needed ➢ An independent EBS viewpoint (with its own data chain) utilized to represent the “baseline” to compare against ➢ Why not use an import?
- 19. CHALLENGE #3: MAPPINGS ➢ Challenge ➢ How to manage mappings (i.e. target range associations) in EDMCS and load to PCMCS ➢ How to generate a mapping “report” for offline review by the business ➢ Solution ➢ 1st attempt: associate target mappings in source hierarchies with a “UDA” like property ➢ Many issues: usability, maintenance, prop inheritance not available at the time, major ETL required to pivot 1:M mappings to 1:1 mappings ➢ 2nd attempt: Mapping View ➢ Similar concept to Maintenance View; essentially a 2-level hierarchy: child=source node; parent=target node ➢ Leverage side-by-side display, compare, and drag-n-drop to maintain mappings ➢ Mapping Export generates exact 1:1 parent-child relationships required for PCMCS ➢ Viewpoint Download ➢ Download to Excel, run pivot table wizard to generate mapping report format preferred by business users
- 20. MAPPING VIEW > Mapping View manages Target Range associations (mappings) in parent-child format > Child = source value > Parent = target value > Source and Target dimensions included in mapping view for comparison and drag-n-drop maintenance
- 21. MAPPING EXPORT > Mapping Export generated in parent- child CSV format (3rd column ignored) for easy consumption into PCMCS > This produces the Target Range Matrix required by PCMCS allocations by identifying valid intersections for the target ranges based on either Cost Center or Line of Business associations
- 22. MAPPING REPORT > Download to Excel allows easy generation of a pivot table > Pivot table output mimics previous mapping report format preferred by the business > Columns (target ranges) can be filtered to display only the mappings associated with those target ranges
- 23. SUMMARY > Project completed, including execution of multiple parallel tests ➢What’s Next? ➢ Explore new EDMCS functionality (workflows, top node filters, automation) ➢ EPBCS ➢ ARCS ➢ Cost Center Manager Approval Limits Initiative
- 24. LESSON LEARNED #1: EMBRACE THE DATA CHAIN ➢Most difficult part of EDMCS to grasp (and the most powerful) ➢Keep it lean and mean; in many cases you only need 1-2 node types and 1 hierarchy set per dimension/per application ➢ Note: multiple Node Sets required for alternate viewpoints ➢Viewpoint Copy – for archival/audit purposes ➢Beware the “but DRM did it this way” mindset!
- 25. LESSON LEARNED #2: THE CUSTOM ADAPTER > The Custom Adapter – it’s flexible but it ain’t easy! > Offers significant flexibility > Longer application setup time > Limited Validations (data storage property was a challenge!) > No direction integration to PCMCS > Mitigation Strategies > Clean, effective viewpoint design > Property templates > Request load file templates/examples > User education/knowledge transfer > Some form of Extract-Transform-Load Process likely required when Custom Adapter is used
- 26. LESSON LEARNED #3: DESIGN TO OPTIMIZE ➢Design your solution to leverage EDMCS strengths and best practices ➢ Purpose-built Deployment Applications ➢ Maintenance Views & Mapping Views ➢ Subscriptions ➢ Compares (Missing Nodes, Relationship Differences, Property Differences) ➢ Request Load Files (develop good templates/examples) ➢ Visual Highlighting of draft request changes and compare differences in EDMCS is excellent ➢ User Education and Knowledge Transfer for All the Above
- 28. 16 SPEAKER SESSIONS 28 Visit us at Booth # 113 Monday, 6/24: • 11:00am – 11:30am (202): Become a RESTful Iron Man with ARC (the Application, Not the Reactor) • 11:00am - 11:30am (204): Supplemental Data in the Cloud • 2:15pm - 3:15pm (205): Best Practices for Designing and Building Integrations • 3:45pm - 4:45pm (611): My Favorite Calc Code Tuesday, 6/25: • 8:50am - 9:50am (204): Keys to the Kingdom: Key Concepts to ARCS Application Design • 10:00am - 11:00am (211): Client Success Story - Oracle FDMEE is the Cloud Data Hub at Legg Mason • 11:45am - 12:45pm (611): I Can do WHAT with PCMCS? Features and Functions, Business Benefits, and Use Cases • 2:15pm - 3:15pm (211): EPM Cloud Integration at CareFirst • 2:15pm - 3:15pm (611): Empowering Users with Analytical MDX Wednesday, 6/26: • 10:15am - 11:15am (201): EPRCS: The reporting Swiss Army Knife • 10:15am - 11:15am (602): Connected Planning Using EPM Cloud at Opus Group • 11:45am - 12:45pm (211): Case Study: Using EDMCS to Solve Master Data Challenges • 11:45am - 12:45pm (201): EPM Data Integration Panel • 11:45am - 12:45pm (6A): Trend-Based Connected Planning at Vitamix • 3:30pm - 4:30pm (204): A 2020 Vision for EPM Project Management Thursday, 6/27: • 9:30am – 11:00am (609): Deep Dive: Financial Close: The Best of Both Worlds - Welcome to the Hybrid Close
- 29. FIND US 29 infosolutions@alithya.com You can email us questions: Read our blog for insight and find answers to your questions: ranzal.blog Visit our website to find the right solution and learn how we can help you: alithya.com/oracle
- 30. CONTACT INFORMATION 30 Alithya 1025 Westchester Avenue, Suite 108 White Plains, NY 10604 Tel (914) 253-6600 infosolutions@alithya.com 20 West Kinzie Street Suite 13046 Chicago, IL 60610 200 Harvard Mill Square Suite 320 Wakefield, MA 01880 Kevin Black Product Manager – Master Data Email: Kevin.Black@Alithya.com