Renaissance Capital (Renaissance Credit) (Microsoft Business Intelligence)

System implementation of the automated processing of reports on use of corporate mobile communication based on Microsoft Office SharePoint and the Microsoft SQL Server of Enterprise Edition allowed to reduce considerably the volume of routine transactions for the staff of the company and workers of accounting and also more accurately to build internal policy for telephone conversations.

Situation

Work of staff of IK Renaissance Capital assumes a large number of negotiations which are conducted including using mobile communication. At only one Moscow office the number of corporate subscribers of MTS is about 500 people. Within a month the staff of the company, using cell phones, make thousands of calls. At the end of the month each of employees is obliged to report for expenses on mobile calls. Calls from the mobile phone within business negotiations are paid by the company, and personal expenses are refunded by the employee. The procedure of the report for the calls made within a month for users of mobile phones was extremely labor-consuming because of a large number of routine transactions. Besides it represented notable inconvenience in terms of processing of accounts and statements.

Before project implementation of automation of the reporting under use of mobile communication the procedure of receiving and processing of accounts looked as follows. The statements of itemized accounts coming in electronic form from the cellular operator represented documents in different formats (Excel and so forth) with the list of records about calls. These accounts were loaded into Microsoft SQL Server base and then through a corporate portal by means of SQL Reporting Service it were provided to subscribers of cellular communication as unchangeable data. Each user of the corporate mobile number monthly needed to print the itemized account, to manually note the status of each call (working and personal), to count a total sum on each category of calls then to confirm the report at the head, to vise it at the budget controller and to transfer to financial department.

Considering that the average record count in the statement by each phone number makes about 2000, processing of accounts took away a lot of time from the staff of the company and was inconvenient for employees of financial department.

Elena Petrova, head of group on calculation: "Employees had to make reports, and to us to enter data into a financial system manually. It was very burdensome".

Solution

The Terralink company was attracted to permission of current situation at the end of July, 2008. Under the terms of the project by September 1 it was necessary to receive the first result: automate routine operations on processing of the itemized accounts which are monthly coming to the Moscow office of the company from the mobile operator of MTS and loaded into the Microsoft SQL Server database. The amount of works and the list of priority tasks which implementation had to come to the end to the specified date was determined.

At the first stage the TerraDocs.CellPhones Billing system including two subsystems – the administrative unit and the module providing an interactive mode of providing the reporting was created. The administrative unit allows to import using Microsoft Office SharePoint a one click of the button the detailed statement to a corporate portal through which each employee can then get access to the account using SharePoint Web Services.

The problem of implementation of an automated system of the reporting was facilitated significantly by that circumstance that by the time of start of the project in Renaissance Capital the corporate portal based on Microsoft Office application of SharePoint already functioned.

Eric Galstyan, head of sales department of Terralink company: "Automation of processing procedure of itemized accounts did not demand from us the large volume of programming. It is essentially important that all transactions are run by standard means Microsoft Office applications of SharePoint that considerably reduces the price also of support of a system".

Interactive reports are implemented in the form of the simple forms created using Microsoft Office InfoPath that provides convenience of work of users with them. Viewing forms of interactive reports is performed by means of InfoPath Form Services, and the completed reports remain in library of the SharePoint forms.

For establishment of compliance between the itemized account and the corporate address directory (the reference book with names of people, names of the organizations, phone numbers) specialists of Terralink used means of the Active Directory – the platform on which Microsoft SharePoint functions and with which a number of external systems, for example the automation system of personnel records and payroll calculation is integrated. Communication with external systems is implemented by means of services based on Windows Communication Foundation. The data accepted from external systems are stored in lists of SharePoint.

In addition to the general corporate reference book each employee can have also a personal reference book of corporate and personal contacts based on Microsoft SharePoint which it periodically fills up and updates.

For drawing up the report owners of corporate cellular numbers practically should not note now manually the statuses of calls, to specify names and names of the organizations. Each employee the only time states these data in the personal reference book, and then just supports in current status. That part of calls which the system of the automated processing cannot identify is small, and only the lack of contact in the address directory is the reason of non-performance of identification.

After conducting internal alpha testing a system was for the first time shown to the customer. On the basis of the received comments and wishes it was finished, started for beta testing and completely prepared for implementation. Some time a system functioned in a test environment then it was accepted in operation.

Elena Petrova, head of group on calculation: "At the beginning of work with the system of unidentified calls was quite a lot, but as employees filled up and updated the personal reference books, in each subsequent statement of not identified calls there was less".

Eric Galstyan, head of sales department of Terralink company: "The Renaissance Capital company uses a corporate portal on Microsoft SharePoint in all variety of opportunities which are given by this platform. Now the portal – not only interactive, well organized library of relevant information resources, but also a broad set of the services ensuring the automated functioning with these resources".

Advantages and perspectives

After TerraDocs.CellPhones Billing system implementation expense control of employees by corporate mobile phones considerably became simpler. Loading of files of detailing of calls happens in the automated mode. Statements can come in different formats, however all of them will be transformed to the uniform unified type and loaded into the single database Microsoft SQL Server.

There is no need every time when obtaining the account now to note the status of a call – enough it to make once in the address directory. On the basis of data of the corporate phonebook and personal phonebooks by employees a system automatically determines, the call is private or working. Maintaining reference books demands only accuracy from employees who are personally interested in the timely instruction or updating in the address directory of the status of this or that contact.

According to the results of filling of the statement of the account with the employee a system generates the interactive report in the form of the InfoPath form, convenient for viewing, and saves it in library of the SharePoint forms.

The discipline of the reporting for mobile communication became more strict, also the quality of reports significantly improved. The main convenience is that the history of creation of reports is visible.

The first phase of the project was completed in precisely specified time frames then specialists of Terralink started optimization of a system it could process a large number of records: in the company there are employees at whom the quantity of lines in detailing of telephone conversations in a month exceeds several thousands.

Now a system conducts calculation of all expenses on mobile communication of about 100 thousand calls a month. In addition to identification of the status of a call it automatically counts all expenses in the final Cover Sheet form on the basis of which all postings in a financial system are performed.

Further development of a system will go in the direction of integration with new mobile operators and replications on new platforms. In the company also closer integration of the solution with a financial system is planned. Process of automation will affect the procedure of confirmation of the report by the higher manager and budget controller. The request for vising will automatically form during creation of an electronic form of the report for telephone conversations, and the status of this document will be transparent for all who are related to its passing from the subscriber to financial department. The head can look at the report and for approval of this report only "Approve" then the document will be automatically transferred to the following instance will be to click enough.

It is important that all offices have access to the SharePoint portal. It opens ample opportunities for replication of a system with the smallest costs for other platforms and for subscribers of other telecom operators.

Eric Galstyan, head of sales department of Terralink company: "The automated system of accounting of mobile calls ensuring at the moment functioning of staff of the Moscow office of the company can be rather simply replicated for work at other offices of Renaissance Capital where itemized accounts will come not only from MTS, but also from other providers of mobile communication".