Issa Elkhoury sat down with Srinath Alamela, CEO at Triniti Corporation, to discuss the concept of Clean Data, and the issues surrounding it. Srinath has long been a proponent of clean data, and it is surprising that it is still a challenge in this day and age of high technology. Triniti is a pioneer of Application Data Management systems (ADM), and this is part of its product offerings and consulting services. This discussion will help users to understand the importance and necessity of ADM.
Why do applications need application data management systems? Isn’t this duplicated functionality which already exists in the business applications in use today?
Applications in general and ERP specifically were not designed to address the data cleanliness issue. They do validations for referential integrity alone. They assumed that data would be entered accurately which is a very poor assumption. In other words you could not enter a receipt of a purchase order if the purchase order did not exist but they paid no attention as to whether the purchase order used is the correct purchase order, or whether the purchase order itself is correct in the first place.
Complex user interfaces coupled with many choices, fields and buttons make it extremely easy for users to make errors during the data capture process. ERP systems were designed to support multiple diverse industries so, in general, an individual business is overwhelmed with functionality and data elements that it does not need. When Lucent decided to implement Oracle ERP, they found that the notion of Ownership, Accountability and Responsibility for data was missing in Oracle. Triniti took on the challenge to bridge this gap.
What does a company lose by not managing its application data? In other words, if I’m not managing the data that was in the application, what problems would I see?
At an abstract level there are two fundamental problems that you would see
What causes these problems?
These two problems or symptoms that we have talked about are caused mainly because the data capture process within the individual upstream systems is not robust. I will illustrate what I mean. Let us go back to our order capture process. If the requested date of the service or the product is incorrectly captured then your delivery is on the wrong date and will cause a customer service incident. This also has an impact on the reporting on the financial effect as to when the revenue will be recognized. If you tell me that any user can make an error entering a date, my response is that there are ways to minimize the chances of an error happening. With the correct user interface, assignment of roles, audit tracking, field level control for updates, you can prevent most errors.
How does application data management solve this problem?
Application data management solves this problem in three broad ways
How does Triniti application data management provide these features?
Triniti application data management is built on a platform that provides the governance and stewardship of application data. This is different from the workflow that you get from the ERP application itself. Triniti workflow is designed to assign accountability at the user level and not at the role level. Additionally, it also provides a framework to put in contextual validation that is only valid for that particular organization and for that particular business process and for that particular role or user. Usually, these business rules are often encapsulated not with the application but within a user document. With Triniti application data management now you can make it a part of the system. Finally it provides an easier UI so that the user makes fewer mistakes.
In summary, if you manage application data using Triniti application data management then your data is accurate and reliable in the database, which helps you have seamless downstream operations and instant and 100% reliable reporting for effective decision making.
Why do applications need application data management systems? Isn’t this duplicated functionality which already exists in the business applications in use today?Applications in general and ERP specifically were not designed to address the data cleanliness issue. They do validations for referential integrity alone. They assumed that data would be entered accurately which is a very poor assumption. In other words you could not enter a receipt of a purchase order if the purchase order did not exist but they paid no attention as to whether the purchase order used is the correct purchase order, or whether the purchase order itself is correct in the first place.Complex user interfaces coupled with many choices, fields and buttons make it extremely easy for users to make errors during the data capture process. ERP systems were designed to support multiple diverse industries so, in general, an individual business is overwhelmed with functionality and data elements that it does not need. When Lucent decided to implement Oracle ERP, they found that the notion of Ownership, Accountability and Responsibility for data was missing in Oracle. Triniti took on the challenge to bridge this gap.
What does a company lose by not managing its application data? In other words, if I’m not managing the data that was in the application, what problems would I see?At an abstract level there are two fundamental problems that you would see- Downstream operations will be severely impacted. For example, if the order capture process is not accurate then the shipping process would be impacted.
- Reporting would be a big chore and a common symptom that you would see is that there will be human report writers generating reports for decision-makers and executives to review. The manipulation and clean-up of the data needs additional costly manual effort and, in addition, there is a loss of confidence level in the data.
What causes these problems?These two problems or symptoms that we have talked about are caused mainly because the data capture process within the individual upstream systems is not robust. I will illustrate what I mean. Let us go back to our order capture process. If the requested date of the service or the product is incorrectly captured then your delivery is on the wrong date and will cause a customer service incident. This also has an impact on the reporting on the financial effect as to when the revenue will be recognized. If you tell me that any user can make an error entering a date, my response is that there are ways to minimize the chances of an error happening. With the correct user interface, assignment of roles, audit tracking, field level control for updates, you can prevent most errors.How does application data management solve this problem?Application data management solves this problem in three broad ways- It provides accountability and ownership for data elements. In MDM (Master Data Management) terms you can refer to this as “Governance”.
- It ensures that all data is captured in a structured form within the application. In other words there will be no unstructured data in the application that would be used for downstream consumption.
- It generates dashboards that demonstrate the accuracy of data. In MDM terms you can reference this as “Stewardship”.
How does Triniti application data management provide these features?Triniti application data management is built on a platform that provides the governance and stewardship of application data. This is different from the workflow that you get from the ERP application itself. Triniti workflow is designed to assign accountability at the user level and not at the role level. Additionally, it also provides a framework to put in contextual validation that is only valid for that particular organization and for that particular business process and for that particular role or user. Usually, these business rules are often encapsulated not with the application but within a user document. With Triniti application data management now you can make it a part of the system. Finally it provides an easier UI so that the user makes fewer mistakes.In summary, if you manage application data using Triniti application data management then your data is accurate and reliable in the database, which helps you have seamless downstream operations and instant and 100% reliable reporting for effective decision making.