Case Studies

Integration Solution Drives Down Costs By Improving Process Efficiencies

Project at a Glance

RDA developed an integration solution for Elwyn that connects numerous systems, eliminating many of the costly and error-prone manual steps involved with duplicating data. It also creates a more efficient and cost-effective platform for bringing on new systems, allowing the company to take advantage of data in other places. The solution also lays the foundation for Elwyn's data warehouse, enabling a future enterprise view of producers, consumers, staff, financial and other potential data sources.

About Our Client

Elwyn is a human services organization that serves disabled and disadvantaged individuals. Founded in 1852, Elwyn has been providing services to people with special needs for over 150 years. Today, Elwyn is nationally recognized as a pioneer in developing groundbreaking programs for children and adults with disabilities and disadvantages.

Background

Elwyn desires to implement a data warehouse that will enable decision makers to view and analyze statistical information on consumers, staff and services. Elwyn will use this data to develop effective growth strategies, improve organizational efficiencies, and identify marketing opportunities. The fundamental sources for the data warehouse will be the operational systems currently in use at Elwyn. (As new operational systems are implemented, they will become potential sources for the data warehouse as well.)

RDA and Elwyn identified the following steps necessary to accomplish this objective:

• Implement a Microsoft BizTalk Server "Enterprise Service Bus" environment to enable application integration.
• Utilize the BizTalk ESB environment to integrate the operational systems with an Identity Server product known as Multivue (generically referred to as the "People Hub"). Multivue allows individual Elwyn consumers and staff to be positively identified across operational systems.
• Implement a data warehouse that utilizes staff and consumer data in Multivue to create a 360-degree view of staff and consumers.

Solution Detail

RDA first developed and deployed a Microsoft BizTalk 2006 R2 "Enterprise Service Bus" environment for Elwyn. This effort involved reviewing all Elwyn applications from both a business and data repository perspective. Integration points were identified, existing data analyzed and solution scenarios documented.

Next, in order to provide an accurate, maintainable list of consumers and staff that will function as key reporting dimensions for the data warehouse, RDA:

• Defined the domain of Elwyn consumers and staff that will be used for the purposes of the data warehouse.
• Developed a list of Elwyn consumers and a list of Elwyn staff that contains a single version of identifying information for each consumer or staff and identifies them across the operational systems.
• Implemented a system that maintains these lists on an ongoing basis.

The resulting system supports unique identification of an entity across the enterprise operational systems. To minimize and constantly clean redundant and inaccurate data, the tool enforces uniqueness of an entity across the enterprise, providing the "single version of truth" needed to enhance the accuracy and ease of reporting. This solution provides the foundation for Elwyn IT to support future reporting and compliance requirements.

Benefits

Elwyn is realizing the following benefits from this project:

• The solution enables a future enterprise view of producers, consumers, staff, financial and other potential data sources for reporting, billing, and compliance purposes.
• The BizTalk ESB provides a platform that connects numerous systems, eliminating many of the costly and error-prone manual steps involved with duplicating data.
• It also creates a more efficient and cost-effective platform for bringing on new systems, allowing the company to take advantage of data in other places.

New capabilities include:

• Centralized monitoring of integration processes
• High reliability integration platform that virtually guarantees that integration processes will run reliably

Technically Speaking

To address the requirements of the forthcoming data warehouse, the solution provides integration between the existing operational systems and a Registry Style Data Hub to store and maintain a consolidated list of Elwyn consumers and staff. This Data Hub is referred to as the Elwyn People Hub. Elwyn has implemented VisionWare's MultiVue Identification Server as the People Hub component. The People Hub monitors additions and updates to consumer and staff across the operational systems and contains a consolidated list of all Elwyn consumers and staff. Elwyn consumers and staff are stored in the People Hub with a unique ID along with links to the operational systems where the consumers and staff exist. The future data warehouse will leverage the consolidated list of consumers and staff provided by the People Hub to maintain the consumer and staff dimensions and build facts from the operational systems.

The People Hub required an initial load of consumers and staff from the operational systems before it could interact with the operational systems. Once loaded, the People Hub interacts with the operational systems to maintain its list of consumers and staff.

The following diagram illustrates the interactions between the People Hub, data warehouse and operational systems:

After the People Hub was initially loaded and placed into operation, the basic flow of interaction between the entities is as follows:

• System Operators browse and maintain consumer and/or staff data in the Operational Systems.
• The Operational Systems notify the People Hub of new and updated consumer and staff data.
• ETL processes retrieve the consumer and staff data from the People Hub.
• ETL processes retrieve fact data from the Operational Systems
• ETL processes maintain the consumer and staff dimensions of the Data Warehouse.
• ETL processes populate facts into the Data Warehouse
• The Data Steward browses and maintains Consumer and Staff data.
• The Data Steward browses and maintains Exceptions.
• The Data Steward resolves Exceptions with System Operators.

The following diagram illustrates the technical solution leveraging the Microsoft BizTalk Enterprise Service Bus Architecture: