Matt Rizai, the chairman and CEO of Workiva, puts it simply: “Better data drives better decisions.”
More than 2,800 organizations, including more than 70 percent of the Fortune 500, rely on Workiva’s Wdesk enterprise management and productivity software for better decision-making and data visibility in finance, compliance, reporting, risk management and other areas.
Now, in a new partnership with Boomi, Workiva is offering its Wdesk customers a cloud-based integration service that significantly expands the speed and scope of enterprise data connectivity.
Using the Boomi cloud-native integration platform, Workiva lets customers flexibly connect to enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems from Oracle, SAP, NetSuite, and Microsoft Dynamics, as well as other types of applications for sales and customer support.
“Expanding the amount of data that Wdesk users can directly access amplifies the power of Wdesk throughout our customers’ organizations,” Rizai said. “Our new integration framework helps our customers greatly improve the value of their ERP and other data.”
Fast, Flexible Enterprise Integration
Workiva offers customers a Boomi-based managed service to connect Wdesk to any cloud or on-premises application. That lets customers offload integration to Workiva’s managed service team rather than deploying internal IT personnel or consultants to custom-code connectivity.
“By partnering with Boomi, we help Workiva customers focus on using Wdesk to improve productivity and insights without having to worry about the technical details of integration,” said Levi Nichols, a senior product manager at Workiva.
Workiva developers use Boomi’s low-code integration platform as a service (iPaaS) to rapidly configure reusable integrations per specifications developed in collaboration with customers. They’re able to produce more integrations in less time than is possible with custom-coding or on-premise middleware.
“Our developers find Boomi very intuitive and easy to use, so they can very quickly connect to systems and build integrations,” Nichols said.
Software Vendors Boosting Business with Boomi
Workiva is among a growing number of independent software vendors (ISVs) that are joining with Boomi to make it easy for their customers to integrate with their other applications. By partnering with Boomi, ISVs can offer their customers self-service integration, managed service integration, or a choice between the two.
Built-in cloud integration that’s agile and scalable is essential to modern companies. By offering a robust and easy-to-use integration process, software makers can improve customer satisfaction, increase “stickiness” and drive additional revenue.
Workiva says that Boomi-based integration provides customers with enhanced automation, aggregation, governance and consistency in how data is managed.
Workiva evaluated several potential iPaaS partners to support its managed service before teaming up with Boomi.
“Boomi is certainly the leader in the iPaaS market, and we wanted a platform that we could scale with,” Nichols said. “Boomi’s agile cloud integration is a natural fit to meet our growing customer demand for seamless and reliable data integration.”
- Automation. Data integration eliminates the need to manually export data from enterprise business systems. With Wdesk linking, every change to the imported data is automatically updated in all instances, which makes it easier to locate and validate data.
- Aggregation. Users can connect Wdesk to one or multiple external systems to create records of data that can be used as sources for look-ups and aggregations.
- Governance. Like all data in Wdesk, data integrated from enterprise systems creates a comprehensive audit trail. Wdesk provides a detailed history of source systems, datasets, date and time of updates, and who imported or exported data.
- Consistency. Data from external systems can be leveraged across the Wdesk platform using formulas and links — creating a single, comprehensive source of trusted data.
A Catalyst for Continued Growth
The Boomi partnership is also a natural fit for Workiva’s strategic plans for continued rapid growth.
Founded in 2008, Workiva (NYSE:WK) was named to Deloitte’s 2016 Technology Fast 500 as one of North America’s fastest-growing technology companies, with revenue growth of more than 174 percent from 2012 to 2015. The Ames, Iowa-based company, with more than 1,200 employees, was also recently named a Leader in Gartner’s 2017 Financial Corporate Performance Magic Quadrant.
“Our primary focus is to help our customers get set up as quickly as possible and increase their productivity by using our service,” said George Hadjiyanis, Workiva senior director of Industry Marketing. “Boomi’s intuitive, low-code integration platform is a big part of that.”