Efficiently deploying Business Intelligence and Azure Cloud

Keeping your IT manageable. That is what everybody wants. Organising your IT as efficiently as possible to increase quality and reduce costs. Humanitas is a national volunteer organisation that helps people to change their situation on their own. Also on-premise technology no longer met their needs and they were ready for a transition to the cloud. Humanitas asked TeamValue for advice on their then existing BI tooling. Humanitas discovered the advantages of a Power BI platform and started the 'Move to the Cloud' process with us. The result? A BI software factory fully equipped according to the principles of the Golden Path. Humanitas is now a leader in their industry and beyond with this new BI platform.

''Approachable, cost-effective, secure and scalable in the cloud. From valid data, systems that really talk to each other to One Button Deploy and real-time reporting. At Humanitas, we are only at the beginning of the possibilities with TeamValue being our technical support and back-up.''
- Team leader ICT Humanitas - Mark Hagen

The Value

Recognising the value of data. Collecting it the right way in order to be able to steer on it. We often find ourselves sitting on a gold mine of data, unnoticed. HRS supports the department managers, paid and voluntary coordinators and other volunteers and professionals of the districts and the National Office in their daily work and their mutual collaborations. Several separate internal and external data sources are made accessible and were previously located separately on a server. These were hosted by another party but had to be made accessible on their own platform, which was made possible by Power BI and Azure. All these data sources are hosted by different cloud suppliers. With this, the entire data warehouse also moved to the cloud.

Subsequently, we started to build reports that are now shown directly in the HRS. Accountview, the finance system, is also included in this. A concrete wish, which was not possible before, to have the reports and dashboards made transparent by the volunteers themselves from HRS can be fulfilled with Power BI. Humanitas, but also several customers, were in need of insight into financial data in order to have real-time insight in the future, to be able to make prognoses, but also to be able to make adjustments immediately. For the end users, in this case the volunteers, everything is now clearly accessible through the same portal.

''Xander knows our BI tooling perhaps better than we know ourselves by now and therefore has a good idea of our organization.... that can be called a nice compliment! After all, we're not just doing mathematical sums, but making solutions for colleagues, volunteers and suppliers. We understand each other!''
‍- Application manager Humanitas - Ruud Kuijpers

The Team

Humanitas and TeamValue have known each other since our foundation in 2014. Before we started the 'Move to the Cloud' project. In the first years we focussed on a central database and worked on Visionplanner, Pyramid and SQL. When Humanitas was ready, we held a Metaplan session with Business Controllers to look at a scalable IT infrastructure and specifically BI. During this period, we always managed the environment. This also makes Humanitas one of the longest-running clients of Bizure, a subsidiary of TeamValue. Dynamic management of your Business Critical Applications based on XLA.

Team members of TeamValue work together with the Humanitas team on site and remotely. We come up with solicited and sometimes unsolicited advice. By migrating to the cloud in 2019, the security level of the environment has also increased. Bizure monitors security, quality, cost management and resiliency. We call this Agile management and it is native to BI projects based on the cloud. Challenging each other is therefore part of the cooperation. The TeamValue team members are open in the way they communicate, straightforward, expert in their field and also have strong executive and advisory skills. They are always approachable.

In 2014, we started our cooperation from a trial and error method. It was intensive. As the process progressed our cooperation became more and more effective. TeamValue gained more and more knowledge about our organisation and we gained more and more knowledge about BI. Xander regularly came up with solicited and unsolicited advice or a golden tip! - Application Manager Humanitas - Ruud Kuijpers

The result:

1. Cost reduction by moving from Pyramid to the new Power BI platform and flexible, scalable and less costly IT by using Microsoft Azure. We have gone to the cloud at low cost and Humanitas is able to release what TeamValue has built.
2. BI workshops were held to present how the platform is set up and to translate this into practice and teach users how to create reports themselves.
3. The non-repudiation of data is secured and data is always traceable. Thus, TeamValue not only supports Humanitas but also other IT partners who connect to the platform.
4. Tooling such as Azure Functions, Azure Data Factory, Azure SQL Database and Power BI are standardised and centralised. All data sources are read into the database and released to the users via the central data factory in Power BI. Via Power BI Embedded, the dashboard is now shown directly within the Humanitas intranet.
5. On the basis of Agile management, we continuously monitor costs and benefits via an XLA so we can scale up and down.
6. The implementation according to the route of The Golden Path was done by TeamValue. One Button Deploy within the BI platform is now possible with zero down-time.
7. Information is only accessible to those who are entitled to it from the perspective of business value. All data is fully auditable. BI as a Service is from data governance perspectives mega important for Humanitas. Personal and financial data are always safe in the Azure Cloud.

Humanitas & TeamValue

The very first customer since the existence of TeamValue! During the 'Move to the Cloud' project we initially focused on redesigning the BI structure. Logically, we also looked at the business-critical applications. We are now at the point where everything is in place. Steering can be done based on valuable data insights and we are now looking at how the teams can take the platform and the Power BI reports to a higher level in the next phase. That requires a business transformation. Conclusion: a progressive BI platform and a great partnership to be proud of.

''We understand that we are a different kind of client from our nonprofit background. TeamValue is flexible, thoughtful and sets up a valuable way of working according to the Golden Path. We don't have our own technical capacity in our IT department. We consciously choose to leave that to an external party. One who understands IT, but also understands the process and people!"
‍ - Team leader ICT Humanitas - Mark Hagen

Interested?

Do you also want to go from data to insights? A custom-fit Power BI Dashboard? And work on your Business Intelligence issue? Click here.