Save Hundreds of Data Maintenance Hours Every Year
September 12, 2022
Save Time & Money while Efficiently Processing Data
Case Study – Not for Profit
Continue reading and learn how More4apps helped the company save hundreds of hours with its data maintenance.
The American Red Cross is a humanitarian group that provides disaster relief, lifesaving blood, international services, training, and certifications as well as assistance for military personnel. It is part of the world’s largest volunteer network and is found in 187 countries.
Oracle EBS Solutions
Product: Customer Wizard, Supplier Wizard, Item Wizard, and Price List Wizard
ERP Type: EBS Toolbox
The Customer
The American Red Cross has an ongoing need to integrate new lines of service into the Oracle E-Business Suite. This means a large number of data cleanup and conversions. There is also a need for post-go-live maintenance to help keep the different lines of services working productively with Oracle E-Business Suite.
In the past, there were many customizations to help facilitate the data requirements of the different lines of business. However, constraints on personnel meant that the end-users had to wait for long periods of time for the relevant data to be created or updated.
This was a real problem for the business. They needed a more efficient, time-saving way to help with data processing. Ideally, More4apps would remove many of the customizations and give control of the data back to the end-users rather than having it sit with IT personnel, who was already a stretched-thin resource.
Save Time & Money while Efficiently Processing Data
Annually Save Hundreds of Data Maintenance Hours
The volume of data changes required at the American Red Cross is immense. Refer to the table below to understand the scope of work.
| Price List | Customer | Supplier | Inventory | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Active | 1,919 Primary lists (avg. 142 items) 245 Secondary list (avg. 177 items) | 10,831 Customer 11,480 Sites 3,155 Accounts w/ Balances | 50,000 Suppliers 55,000 Sites | 18,000 Items |
| Monthly Charges | 4,215 New lines 4,733 Lines charged | 30 – 50 New customers 110 – 150 Updates | 620 New 3,500 Updates | 2 – 20 New 1,200+ Updates |
| Periodic Mass Changes | Collector DFF Terms Salesperson Deactivations due to inactivity | Pay groups Deactivations due to inactivity Record cleanup | Price & expense Assigning items APO items | |
| Processing Time (before solution) | 14 People with part-time responsibility | 145 Hours | 1,814 Hours | 36.5 Hours |
| Processing Time (after solution) | 2 Part-time people for coverage reasons only (50% more efficient) | 24 Hours | 596 Hours | 4.65 Hours |
Choosing a Solution
After searching for applications that met the American Red Cross’s requirements, they discovered the More4apps Oracle EBS Toolbox. The tools were the only full end-user solutions to meet the needs of the American Red Cross.
Key features:
- Quick implementation
- IT requirements were met
- Little IT effort to install tools
- Ease of use
- Low cost of investment
By using the More4apps solutions across a number of departments, the company simplified its data processing and successfully updated data into Oracle E-Business Suite.
Installation Process – Price List Wizard
The installation process was simple for More4apps and performed by DBA in less than a couple of hours. They provided a trial key and since it was an Excel spreadsheet on the front end, nothing extra needed to be installed for it to work.
Connecting the Price List Wizard to the test instance of Oracle EBS was simple. Since Oracle E-Business Suite used standard login, More4apps set up the URL and assigned users to the tool, which was completed within an Excel spreadsheet.
The end-users are not technical; however, they found that the tool was easy to use since the main skills required are standard Excel cutting and pasting.
Tying the Price List Wizard
The American Red Cross downloaded full price lists and partial price lists using the Price List Wizard feature to download only active lines. The upload functionality to amend the existing data and create new list lines as well as a whole new price list.
The spreadsheets are automatically configured to descriptive and advanced pricing qualifier Flexfield setup. Features like this work without additional setup. Once changes are indicated in the Excel spreadsheet, validation, and upload are quick and simple.
Price List Wizard Results
More4apps helped the American Red Cross achieve its goals with the Price List Wizard. This tool eliminated the custom price list program, which meant the American Red Cross could remove the budget for IT maintenance.
It also reduced the amount of manually processed changes and allowed the revenue billing division to take full control of the end-to-end price list process. With the Price List Wizard implemented, the revenue billing division went from 14 part-time employees to 2.
Installation & Customization of the Customer Wizard
The setup and installation for the Customer Wizard were the same as the Price List Wizard. Since the More4apps tools share connectivity, only one package needs to be installed on the database.
The Customer Wizard reduced the amount of manual data entry and customer changes. Therefore, updates were performed within hours rather than weeks. Yet again, the American Red Cross saved money by eliminating the IT team’s time and labor.
Supplier Wizard
The American Red Cross was faced with very similar issues when dealing with the supplier master data as customers. Again Oracle had provided a feature-rich user interface, but it was slow and difficult to navigate.
The Supplier Wizard proved to be another successful solution from More4apps. The American Red Cross saw another reduction in the amount of manually processed data. The table below shows the efficiencies achieved with the Supplier Wizard.
| Data Updated | of Records | Updated Method | Time per Item | Time to Update all |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sites De-Activated | 80,000 | Manual | 0.75 minute | 1,000 hours |
| Site Address Updates | 31,000 | Manual | 1 minute | 517 hours |
| Suppliers De-Activated | 18,000 | Manual | 0.5 minute | 150 hours |
| Suppliers Created | 3,520 | Manual | 2.5 minutes | 147 hours |
| Data Updated | # of Records | Update Method | Time per Record | Run Time | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sites De-Activated | 80,000 | Supplier Method | 0.25 minute | 333 hours | 667 hours |
| Site Address Updates | 31,000 | Supplier Method | 0.25 minute | 129 hours | 388 hours |
| Suppliers De-Activated | 18,000 | Supplier Method | 0.25 minute | 75 hours | 75 hours |
| Suppliers Created | 3,520 | Supplier Method | 1 minute | 88 hours | 88 hours |
Inventory Items
The More4apps Item Wizard again results in impressive efficiency gains. See the results below.
| Data Updated | # of Records | Update Method | Time per Item | Time to Update all |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price Updates | 260 | Manual | 1 minute | 4.5 hours |
| Item Assign | 958 | Manual | 1.25 minutes | 20 hours |
| Expense Account Updates | 566 | Manual | 1.25 minutes | 12 hours |
| Data Updated | # of Records | Update Method | Time per Record | Total Time | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price Updates | 260 | Item Wizard | 0.15 minutes | 0.65 hours | 3.85 hours |
| Item Assign | 958 | Item Wizard | 0.15 minutes | 2.5 hours | 17.5 hours |
| Expense Account Updates | 566 | Item Wizard | 0.15 minutes | 1.5 hours | 10.5 hours |
Conclusion
With the reduced work effort, the American Red Cross has been able to reassign its staff’s efforts to more productive, beneficial, and enjoyable work, which is a huge bonus for a non-profit. The support More4apps provided was second to none. The staff on board are experts who understand Oracle’s functionality and are available whenever and wherever needed.
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