Data Integration: The Tip of the Iceberg for Supporting CPM Processes

During all my years designing and implementing integration solutions for EPM processes, one thing is clear to me: data integration is a vital part of the equation. After all, it is what brings together any CPM process such as Financial Consolidation and Planning & Budgeting.  As an integration solution architect, I believe that having someone that builds the bridge between all stakeholders is key for any CPM project. Indeed, one of our main responsibilities is to align source systems owners with finance teams.

The Importance of Solution Architecture Design

I must begin by saying that data integration should be considered equally alongside the other CPM processes. And that includes all phases of the project, such as Analysis, Design, Build, Test and Documentation. Integration solutions can range from simple to very complex depending on different factors such as the number of systems involved or complexity of the transformations. In any case, you need a design that meets all the requirements. That is the starting point for the road to success.

Any solution design should meet the following three criteria:

• Flexible and Scalable
  Companies change. They often acquire or merge with other companies, have structural changes or implement new source systems (ERP, HR, etc.). We should not design and build a static solution focusing only on the short-term. The solution should be ready for new requirements and make sure that they can fit without impacting the existing ones.
• High-Performance
  Most of the CPM processes are key in the operation of a company. A clear example is the financial consolidation carried out during the month-end close. Financial controllers are assigned many other tasks in addition to this, so it is very important that the process of extracting, transforming, and loading data from multiple source systems does not turn into a bottleneck.
• Easy to Maintain
  We should never forget that we are not building an integration for ourselves but for others. A solution that is not easily maintainable can be considered incomplete regardless of the other two pillars. There must be always a balance between scalability, performance and maintenance.

Aligning Teams

When I start on a project, one of the first things I like to do is to have both the functional consultants and the customer in a room with a whiteboard. When you have multiple CPM processes and different people implementing them, it is good to get together with the customer, understand what data requirements they have and discuss with them how you can meet their needs. This session is probably the one where the most interesting discussions come up. Based on my experience, customers love the data integration sessions! I feel very happy when I hear them say “Now it all makes sense.”

At the end of the session, the white board must show a high-level solution design where everyone can see how data integration will fit in their CPM processes. Of course, there can be some to-be-confirmed points, but the starting point must be clear, and everyone must be happy with it.

After this meeting, we will have more deep-dive meetings for specific parts of the high-level design. These meetings end with the detailed design which opens the door for implementation.

Don’t Forget Information Technology (IT)

While IT and Security teams would normally have been involved in any vendor selection processes, the move to the cloud means that the detail of integrating with on-premise systems is generally kept high level.  When working on the high-level design, it is nevertheless important that IT and Security teams are included to understand what options will be permitted and what the process is for getting IT changes applied. An example would be identifying whether a CPM cloud system can make a direct connection to a customer’s on-premise applications or whether data needs to be extracted and hosted on a file system.

How OneStream Supports the Key Pillars of Data Integration

In my opinion, having a unified CPM system simplifies the data integration solution, it’s as simple as that. OneStream’s unified platform provides powerful integration capabilities which support the key pillars described in the article.

• Flexible and Scalable
  When adding a new source system or a new company to a workflow hierarchy, the different integration objects can be easily reused, or new ones created without impacting the existing solution. For instance, if a we have a new company that extracts data from the same chart of accounts (CoA) as an existing one, we can simply share the connector and transformation tables between them. This is just one of the amazing capabilities of the transformation engine which makes the solution very flexible and scalable.
• High-Performance
  By leveraging the latest Microsoft technologies, OneStream provides the best experience for users and administrators.  For instance, we can extract and transform large data volumes in parallel thanks to OneStream using multi-threaded processes.
• Easy to Maintain
  Integration can be easily configured and maintained from the UI, either Web or Desktop application. Dashboards can be also used to extend the solution in order to meet any requirement. For instance, as financial users, we can export a transformation table, add new rules, and import them back without IT assistance.

What about Data Quality and Data Audit?

Different types of checks and validation rules can be added to the workflow to ensure data quality.  In addition to this, drill back is an amazing feature that allows us to navigate to source data in different ways without leaving the OneStream interface.

With these capabilities and others such as change log for audit trail, OneStream is the perfect base for our integration solution.

Learn More

Without a shadow of a doubt, data integration matters, and the design even more so. Contact Inlumi if you need help managing the steps that need to be followed for effective CPM integration.  And to learn more about OneStream’s data integration and data quality capabilities, check out this eBook.