Customers of ENMAX count on electricity access to be as simple as flipping a switch. Behind the scenes, the company¡¯s application support teams in charge of data integrations and app development wish their jobs were so easy. Fortunately, in recent years, they¡¯ve made a lot of headway in that direction with successful deployments of ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ Financial Management, ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ Human Capital Management (HCM), and ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ Adaptive Planning for enterprise planning.
From a business perspective, the seamless integrations we¡¯ve developed with ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ and various other systems has been very successful.
Director of Business Systems Process and Strategy
Now, with ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ Integration Cloud for integrations and ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ Extend for app development in their toolkit, teams are starting to gain more speed, flexibility, and agility in managing diverse data flows securely within the ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ environment, especially financials and accounting. Because ENMAX needed to share information seamlessly and securely between finance and HR functions, it chose to standardize on one data model in ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ that would also provide opportunities to optimize data and processes.
Streamlined logic.
According to Norm Lau, Director of Enterprise Solutions at ENMAX, his team¡¯s integration strategy is straightforward. ¡°We keep our middleware layer as thin as we can, putting the business logic in either our source or target systems,¡± he says. ¡°This way, we avoid having to build that logic elsewhere, which wouldn¡¯t make as much sense and would be complex to manage.¡±
When ENMAX went live with Financial Management, the company successfully integrated ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ with several workflows outside of ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ. ¡°We needed to integrate these data operations into ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ,¡± says Ray Alwani, Director of Business Systems Process and Strategy at ENMAX. ¡°We¡¯ve found ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ¡¯s business object model easy to work with, especially when it involves integrating ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ with multiple external systems.¡±
Short-circuit complexity and risk.
Alwani explains that the ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ Foundation Data Model (FDM) does a great job of seamlessly integrating inbound data regardless of how that data is represented in each source system. ¡°The ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ FDM provides a single, consistent target data model. All of the data we integrate from our different billing and work management systems flows into one ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ repository,¡± he says. ¡°This has many benefits, especially when integrating large amounts of external financial data into ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ and reporting on that data using a consistent data model. As an example, we invoice hundreds of thousands of customers using an external billing system, and we¡¯re able to send a unified aggregate journal entry into ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ each day.¡±
In addition to accounting journals, ENMAX integrates several other operational transactions into ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ, including customer invoices, supplier invoices, and ad hoc payments.? ¡°We like being able to originate a source transaction outside of ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ, integrate it in, and still trigger the ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ-delivered business process,¡± says Alwani. ¡°This gives our ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ users the ability to review and approve transactions within their familiar ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ digital workspaces, even when the transaction originated in an external system. That flexibility has been great and enables us to deliver a consistent end-user experience.¡±
Data synchronized across systems.
So far, ENMAX has used ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ to facilitate over 40 integrations. That¡¯s in addition to many internal business processes that Lau considers to function, in effect, as integrations. ¡°We drive a lot of data across our various systems, an even mix of inbound and outbound, so integrations are how we ensure the data stays synchronized across all of them,¡± he says. ¡°We often leverage ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ¡¯s point-to-point system integrations with a simple web-service call, which works well for us. It¡¯s easy and very secure.¡±
Leverage templates for speed.
To expedite the development, deployment, and management of new apps that run in ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ, ENMAX chose the ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ Extend platform and tools, backed by ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ Professional Services.
One of the company¡¯s most pressing needs during the pandemic¡¯s return-to-office phase was protocol attestation across its workforce. By adapting a delivered template within the ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ Extend app catalog, the company rolled out its protocol and return-to-office program, including all the required functionality and security, in a fraction of the time compared to a do-it-yourself approach. Lau says, ¡°For developing apps with sensitive data where ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ is the source of truth, ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ Extend is perfectly suited in helping us complete that development, while adhering to the data security model that the ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ FDM provides.¡±
By using Extend, we can be sure sensitive data stays secure in HCM and Financial apps developed for our ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ landscape.
Director of Enterprise Systems
ENMAX is also using ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ Extend to develop a customer invoice request app that will improve company cash flow. Alwani explains, ¡°We¡¯re tailoring all the input screens for exactly how our users want to see them and developing a custom business process with more efficient approval workflows. For some of our business lines, the cycle time to create and issue invoices used to take months, but our new app will enable us to lower that time dramatically.¡±
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