Enterprise

Integration Challenges

Enterprise is embarking on a journey to modernize their internal applications and infrastructure. A core component to their strategy is to leverage the Cloud so their IT resources are focused on enabling business processes—not managing IT infrastructure and servers. A critical decision early in this journey was to select an integration platform to support this vision and the migration. Key requirements included:

• Ability to support integrations between cloud-based applications and cloud to on-premises applications
• Flexibility and speed in developing new integrations with rapidly-changing business requirements
• Extensive abilities to manipulate (e.g. transform, cleanse, de-dup) data during integration
• Centralized, self-documenting tool for maintaining integrations
• Centralized operations management of deployed integrations

Rather than select an integration platform in the abstract, Enterprise started with a specific integration project to validate requirements and test a solution fit. This compliance project involved integrating financial data from an outside data collection vendor’s FTP server into PeopleSoft Financials and occupancy records into a custom compliance application, replacing time consuming manual processes of data collection and data entry staffed by costly temporary workers each quarter.

How Boomi Helped

Enterprise evaluated five integration platform providers. After putting all five through an evaluation, Boomi AtomSphere became the obvious choice. AtomSphere best matched Enterprise’s cloud vision, delivered better overall ease of use, and enabled centralized management of all deployed integrations.

Once selected, AtomSphere was quickly put to use on their compliance integration project. Financial reports and occupancy data for over 1600 housing projects now integrates seamlessly into PeopleSoft Financials and a custom compliance application. Sophisticated integration processes designed in AtomSphere identify each record type (financial statement or occupancy record), perform extensive data validation, and route validated data to the correct system: either PeopleSoft Financials or the compliance database. Problem data records are collected and automatically sent back to the external vendor for review and correction.

Results

• Rapid Implementation: Implementation of the entire compliance project happened in a few months—and integration was never a bottleneck. When the outside vendor had data format changes, the IT team changed the Boomi integration processes in minutes—or at most an hour.
• Quick Adaptability to Changing Requirements: Late in the project, business users learned occupancy data would be available in addition to the financial data. The IT team accommodated this significant scope expansion late in the project without impacting delivery schedule.
• Improved Data Quality: AtomSphere’s extensive data validation and manipulation ensures that only correctly formed data enters Enterprise’s production systems. Bad data gets automatically routed back to the vendor for correction, ensuring the accuracy and integrity of Enterprise’s financial data.
• Lower Maintenance Costs: Future integration changes will be easily and quickly handled. The integration processes are visually self-documented in a centralized tool, completely visible to developers and business users.
• Centralized Integration Management: Integration processes are easily monitored and managed in a centralized environment. Built-in auditing and alerting capabilities enable quick diagnosis and correction of integration problems.

Boomi AtomSphere has proven itself more than capable of supporting Enterprise’s long-term cloud vision and the many migration projects to reach that vision.