By Tarakam Peddada
What you’ll learn:
- The many ways Boomi uses our platform internally
- Examples of cost-savings and business efficiencies
- How integration and automation touch every aspect of the organization
At Boomi, we preach the power of connectivity. We help approximately 20,000 global customers achieve measurable business outcomes by integrating digital systems to get the most value from data and benefit from automation-driven efficiencies.
But we’re not just a provider. We’re also a customer. In addition to making other organizations successful, we must run our business efficiently. As our business continues to grow at a rapid pace, Boomi technology is the foundation that powers everything we do.
Boomi on Boomi
In the tech industry, companies often talk about “drinking their own champagne” or “eating their own dog food.” We call our own technology usage “Boomi on Boomi” — built by Boomi, for Boomi.
Our integration and automation platform makes our business operations run smoothly – and helps us make sure we spend money wisely. The Boomi platform ensures synchronized and trusted data flows by integrating critical systems. It eliminates tedious manual processes that waste our employees’ valuable time, simplifies complex digital systems, and tames expensive application sprawl.
Boomi’s Chief Information Officer Neil Kole recently wrote about how Boomi technology was instrumental in our carveout from Dell Technologies in 2021. Our platform helped us save money and launch critical business functions like HR, Finance, and more, almost from scratch, in record time.
Today, we keep finding new ways to use Boomi technology to make our operations more efficient and our people more productive, giving them time to focus on creative projects that maximize their talents. The versatility and flexibility of the platform improve our productivity while also serving as a powerful, real-life case study for what other businesses can achieve with Boomi.
We’ve put together a list of just a few of the ways Boomi on Boomi benefits our entire organization — and we hope this gives you some ideas!
Golden Records: A Single Source of Truth
We used Boomi Master Data Hub to create a repository that receives information about employees from Workday and then makes it available to other company systems. The process is simple. Trusted data from Workday goes into Boomi Master Data Hub and is then disseminated wherever needed. The applications with APIs are automatically updated. For those without APIs, the administrators are alerted about changes so they can make the updates.
There are a multitude of benefits. Accuracy is improved because it eliminates manual, error-prone data entry. Security and compliance are greatly enhanced. Also, it provides great functionality for auditing purposes. For instance, whenever employees are offboarding, they immediately lose access to systems so that our internal operations are always secure, meet compliance standards, and the business saves money by ensuring all licenses are in use.
Employee Onboarding
Starting a new job isn’t just stressful for the employee. It’s also taxing for the company to get the new hire everything they need to be productive as quickly as possible. Boomi technology makes it simple. We created an employee onboarding tool that streamlines the process from the moment an offer is accepted, to Day One and beyond. It ensures communication and collaboration for all the parties involved – the new hire, the manager, HR, IT, etc.
Information from Workday is sent to an employee onboarding portal and then shared with the appropriate people and systems. For instance, integration with our Okta credential provisioning tool ensures that hires have immediate access to systems like Slack, email, etc.
This process automation also ensures that the proper equipment and orientation schedules – and anything else required – are prepared for the employee. Onboarding is much smoother, and new employees feel more prepared to hit the ground running.
Contingent Worker Onboarding
Our contingent worker onboarding application simplifies the often chaotic approval process of adding consultants and contractors. It guides the requestor, step by step, through the actions of identifying the need for a contingent worker, acquiring the required approvals, and getting information entered into Workday. It even creates a purchase order in NetSuite and informs IT so the necessary equipment is ready.
Quote-to-Cash
Connecting customer relationship management (CRM) systems with enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems is one of the most popular Boomi customer use cases. Internally, the Boomi platform manages all of our Salesforce to NetSuite integrations.
This gives us a seamless process, where bookings in Salesforce are automatically turned into sales orders and recorded revenue in NetSuite. Manual data entry is eliminated, reducing the risk of error as well as saving employees’ time, and we get a single, unified source of customer and revenue information.
Non-Disclosure Agreements
Previously, getting a basic NDA authorized — with all the appropriate legal language and coordinating the required signatures — was time-consuming. Once approved, the NDA would be filed away somewhere and would then take additional time to locate when needed for verification. Using Boomi Flow automation and Boomi Integration, we built an NDA tool that radically simplified the approval process.
Today, we can generate a standard or customized NDA for a vendor or a consultant. When they input the required information and signatures, it’s automatically filed in the proper systems. Everything happens in minutes instead of the previous string of emails that could take days or weeks to resolve.
Salesforce-Jira Connectivity
Sales and support teams depend on Salesforce. But engineers prefer Jira for agile project management. Engineers do, however, need Salesforce access to scope problems when support cases require escalation. And when a bug or possible product enhancement gets recorded, the support team typically has to use Jira. But not at Boomi.
Our Salesforce-Jira integration lets us automatically create a support ticket in Jira directly from Salesforce. This way, our employees can work in the systems where they feel comfortable, improving accuracy. Our people are more productive, and we save substantial money by reducing the licenses for both systems. Engineers don’t need licenses for Salesforce, and sales and support teams don’t require Jira licenses.
Employee Recognition
One way we strive to ensure our team members get due credit for their terrific work is with our High5 internal recognition program. It combines the functionality of a front-end application we built with Flow with employee information stored in Master Data Hub.
This makes it easy for any employee to acknowledge the great work of a colleague. They simply go to the portal, type in the name of their colleague and why they are giving recognition. An email automatically gets sent to the recipient’s manager, and maybe it can become a discussion point in a subsequent performance evaluation. Also, a Slack integration ensures that everyone in the company knows about the recognition.
NetSuite Delegation Control
The Boomi platform provides access to data through connectivity. But we also realize that the ability to control access is essential. One example is an application we built with Flow for delegation control within NetSuite.
The NetSuite ERP doesn’t inherently allow users to delegate access authority. But let’s say I’m out of the office, and someone else needs to approve purchase orders during my absence. We’ve created a process that enables someone I delegate to receive the orders and approve them while I’m away. Records of the exchange ensure we meet any audit, compliance, and regulatory requirements.
Supplier Portal
Vendor interactions are typically complicated for businesses. There’s a lot of back and forth as you exchange manual forms. To simplify this process, we’re building a self-service portal tied directly to NetSuite with real-time integration.
This self-service interface will allow vendors to securely access our systems and submit an invoice or check the status of existing purchase orders. It will walk them through the process so there aren’t questions about the required information. If changes are needed, they can be made quickly within the portal, saving us the cost of adding another NetSuite module.
Taming Complexity With Boomi
These are just a few examples of Boomi on Boomi. The platform’s flexibility means we’re constantly finding new ways to use the platform in our operations. That’s why the upcoming supplier portal is only one of many internal process improvements we’re ready to unveil.
The bottom line is we’re replacing complexity with simplicity wherever possible. Our employees work more efficiently and can focus more on value-add activities, and we also save money in the process.
And our customers can leverage our platform to do the same thing.
Download our guide, “The Four Pillars of Excellence for Technology Leaders,” to learn more about the challenges facing every technology leader and how Boomi can you help overcome them.