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Atkins New PSR Reporting Solution Using Actuate e.Spreadsheet October 2007 October 2007 Atkins New PSR Reporting Solution Plan Design Enable Atkins is one of the world’s leading providers of professional, technology-based consultancy and support services with a turnover of £1.6bn and more than 16,800 professional staff. October 2007 Atkins New PSR Reporting Solution Our Work… is focused on the efficient operation of our clients capital programmes • We PLAN all aspects of our clients’ projects, conducting studies covering technical, logistical, legal, environmental and financial considerations. Planning, implementation and long term management of very large projects. • We DESIGN systems, processes, building and civil structures. We develop cutting edge solutions and combine them with tried and tested technologies to achieve an optimal result. • We ENABLE complex programmes, delivering one-off projects and managing ongoing processes to reduce timescales, cost and disruption, allowing our clients to focus on their core operations. • Atkins’ operations are based in some 130 offices throughout the UK, and a further 70 offices providing consultancy services in Continental Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific and the Americas. October 2007 Atkins New PSR Reporting Solution Atkins and Actuate Atkins have been using Actuate e.Reports for the last 4 years. Atkins “UK IS” provide Actuate Reporting functionality as a hosted service to the Atkins business community. We have an internal costing structure to charge the business for their usage of Actuate’s resources and hardware. The reporting functionality is used to meet both internal and external reporting requirements. There were about 1000 USERS in three different business units sharing the same Actuate report server in March 2007. October 2007 Atkins New PSR Reporting Solution The Business Challenge Project PREMIER Profit Rec Enhancement, Management Information & Exception Reporting 5 main objectives: 1. Improve current JDE entry of PSR re-forecasts 2. Tidy up the Profit Recognition and associated month-end processes making them quicker, more secure and more robust 3. Make project and enquiry information available in a data warehouse accessible from the portal environment 4. A suite of standard reports, exception reports and tools to produce ad- hoc intelligence reports, including electronic methods of distribution. 5. A platform for future potential improvement – beyond current scope Requirements driven by business demand, consistent with 5 year strategy October 2007 Atkins New PSR Reporting Solution Old Report Process • Reports Created By; • Extracting data from Oracle JDE database to an MS Access database • Processing data in MS Access and export to text file • Importing text file into MS Excel and processing again • Distributing locked spreadsheet to senior finance staff • Senior finance staff running macro in spreadsheet and distributing PSR to their PM’s • Problems with this Method • Too many points of failure • Too complicated • 2GB file size limit on an MS Excel file!! October 2007 Atkins New PSR Reporting Solution Requirements of New Solution • Simplify creation and distribution of Excel reports • Replace old architecture • Enable better support and allow for future enhancements • No change to appearance of the reports produced • Keep rich Excel output, ‘users do not want change’ • Easily accessed by project Managers and other finance staff • Secure Internet access • Common interface (single login into one system) October 2007 Atkins New PSR Reporting Solution Solution Actuate e.Spreadsheet • Infrastructure already in place and used in three business units • Very configurable web based solution • Deliver the right information in a full Excel experience • iServer Platform provides control • Existing Data Warehouse was extended with more data from the Finance Systems • A dedicated site was setup on our Group Portal, as the entry point into the system. This site included key training and communication for the relevant user community, and assisted in the final rollout. October 2007 Atkins New PSR Reporting Solution Benefits of e.Spreadsheet application • • • • • • • • • • • Much simpler report process • ETL stage from Oracle JDE database to data warehouse • Run driver e.Report overnight to pre-generate majority of e.Spreadsheets reports Less manual work for senior finance staff PSR data validated on input Project directors identified directly from Finance System Quicker month end close and access to management accounts Ends the reliance on temporary and vulnerable workarounds Automates report and PSR distribution Anomalies identified and addressed sooner Better analysis and understanding of results Easier access to high level project data Better intelligence reports: bid activity, work-in-hand with indicative phasing, revenue by client, early warning of provisions, etc. October 2007 Atkins New PSR Reporting Solution PSR Portal October 2007 Atkins New PSR Reporting Solution Active Portal Login October 2007 Atkins New PSR Reporting Solution Parameter Framework October 2007 Atkins New PSR Reporting Solution Example Reports October 2007 Atkins New PSR Reporting Solution Project Approach & Lessons Learnt • Project management approach based on Prince2 methodology, with Group Sponsorship & Governance • Live in April 2007, using a staged ramping up approach beginning in Feb 2007 - To ensure processes are robust and functionality is accurate - To ensure performance is monitored & capacity management is understood prior to a full rollout in April 2007 to 2500 staff. • Solution created in 5 months, but could have been shorter in hindsight • User feed back has been positive • Key Lesson Learnt: • A full lifecycle “Waterfall” project management methodology will not work in this type of solution development as it requires a high level of input from the user group, during the design and coding stages. It is therefore recommended that a RAD development approach is used for similar projects. Rapid Application Development (RAD) is an approach to software development on an iterative basis, and can be used within existing methodologies, for example a “waterfall” methodology. October 2007 Atkins New PSR Reporting Solution Next Steps Considering moving the application to a more robust server and an Actuate clustered environment that can offer some level of failover due to the critical nature of the Spreadsheet application to the business. Current hardware is old. Example 2 machine cluster