 Training and Mentoring
PSC offers on-site training and mentoring to many our customers. This training can be in the form of formal on-site training, formal customized on-site training, class room training with one of our training partners, and one-on-one mentoring.
PSC provides infrastructure migration services and support services to over 20 small to medium sized companies.
These companies typically have one person or a handful of Information Technology employees to support their businesses. We have found that many times these employees need help from subject matter experts. The expertise that they often look for include the following: Server installation and configuration, server support, migration assistance, Microsoft support, desktop support, VPN support, wide areas networking support, local area networking support, internet connectivity, firewall installation and configuration, application development, Access development, web development, database support, and general systems training and mentoring.
Many of our consultants are certified in their areas of expertise, but most importantly, they have real world experience to go with their certifications. Our consultants provide outstanding training, mentoring, and consulting services for our customers.
Financial Services Messaging Infrastructure Migration
A Fortune 100 financial services company engaged PSC to guide the design of a new messaging system which spanned the company’s enterprise. The messaging system architecture had to support an infrastructure of over 6000 users and 50 server-distributed post office boxes. Messaging, by virtue of being critical to the company’s day-to-day operations, had to be reliable, available, and easy to service; it also had to be centralized and cost-effective. An added stipulation was that the migration had to be automated.
PSC team members worked with this client to quantify the messaging system requirements, design a system, and develop a plan to make operational the resulting new system. In doing so, PSC consultants also created a client automation process, server automation process, and messaging conversion automation process.
Two highly available clustered servers handling the now-centralized post office boxes became the core of the new messaging system. The manner in which migration to the new system occurred was also significant because of the reduction in implementation costs and the elimination of physical touches to swap out each client machine.
Infrastructure Support for a Farm Equipment Manufacturer
PSC helped a farm equipment manufacturer expedite a switch to a new information technology infrastructure based on Microsoft technologies. The manufacturer wanted assistance in migrating Windows 2000, Active Directory, .NET, and MS SQL Server.
PSC team members completed an assessment keyed around the conversion to Windows 2000. The client also requested and received from PSC architecture and design assistance. Additionally, PSC mentoring ensured that the manufacturer’s in-house support staff could provide adequate support for the manufacturer’s many projects.
Insurance and Financial Services Enterprise Reporting Assessment
and Implementation
The insurance and financial services
company is a Fortune 500 company that manages approximately
eight major insurance and financial services companies across
the United States. After this company invested hundreds
of thousands of dollars trying to implement JD Edward’s
Report Writer and later Business Objects, they made the
painful decision that these solutions would not meet their
enterprise needs. They asked PSC to complete an Enterprise
Reporting assessment and Proof of Concept to help them select
the right package for their needs.
The assessment focused on analyzing
requirements and completing a Proof of Concept that would
help them select the best enterprise reporting solution
to meet the critical and complex reporting requirements
around their JD Edwards Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
system. The package that was selected was Crystal Enterprise
and Crystal Reports. The key requirements that led to the
selection of Crystal Decisions include the following:
Drill-down – the customer had the need to support three levels
of drill-downs.
Reusable reports – the customer wanted to reuse common reports across multiple business units. Crystal allowed the use of reusable, parameter-driven reports so that "one" report, like an income statement, could be used consistently across business by entering the business unit parameter (company x, or consolidated parameters).
Scheduled reports – the customer needed reports to be scheduled to run at night and then delivered via a web portal during the day. This would minimize the reporting impact to the JD Edwards systems performance during the day. Many reports were financial reports that needed to be run on a schedule - daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annually.
Row level security – the customer needed reports that could be delivered via the web in a secure fashion. They wanted to run one report and enable users to only see sections of the report that they were authorized to see. This enabled the customer to generate fewer reports and to control access by user or by user group.
Presentation Quality Reports – the customer wanted a solution that would provide the best presentation quality for delivery via the web or via a printer. Most of these reports were financial reports and they needed to look the same whether the user was looking at the web report, a printed report, or a report that was downloaded into Excel. Crystal has lead the way in delivering consistent, high quality reports that look great in all these different formats.
Ease of use – the customer wanted a solution that would be easy to use for their users and easy to create reports for their developers. Ease of use has been Crystal’s key competitive advantage for years. Crystal was the clear fit here.
After the assessment and proof
of concept, the company selected PSC to help them deliver
their Enterprise Reporting project. PSC helped the customer
put together a plan to consolidate over 200 reports into
80 interactive reports and deliver them via a secured web
portal. PSC was selected to install, configure, mentor,
and train their staff and help them deliver the enterprise
solution. PSC provided a team to develop these reports to
meet the customer’s 3-month window to put these reports
into production.
Customer Service and Order
Entry Application
In swapping an antiquated order
entry system for a new responsive web-based order entry
and customer service system, a major wholesaler/retailer
also hoped to reduce personnel training time associated
with the system. The wholesaler/retailer retained PSC to
help.
PSC’s solution was development
of a web-based system that, as the client wanted, significantly
streamlined training while addressing customer service needs.
In shaving training time from an average of three months
to two weeks, the process also markedly reduced training
costs. The solution further meant that temporary employees
could quickly learn the system and become readily productive
during peak seasonal demand times. PSC’s solution also
provided an innate flexibility to the company because temporary
workers could be hired nearer to peak seasonal times instead
of being brought in much sooner solely because of training
lag times.
Insurance Company HIPAA Transactional
Reporting
PSC demonstrated ease in meshing
people, processes, and technology when called upon by a
large insurance company to define requirements supporting
the company’s HIPAA transactional system reporting
criteria. The transactions, which are electronic exchanges
of information between a health care provider and health
plan administrator, needed to be in place for the company
to be HIPPAA compliant.
PSC helped this client install
and configure the necessary software tools; set up the operating
environment; and then created reports to support the transactional
reporting requirements. PSC further ensured the new system’s
success by training and mentoring the client’s staff
so they would be able to address the company’s future
reporting needs.
Supply Chain and Integrated
Logistics Enterprise Reporting Assessment and Implementation
A Fortune 100 food company decided
to put into place new transportation, logistics, and warehouse
management systems. This decision, in turn, created a requirement
for information sharing throughout the company in a manner
spanning numerous functional divisions. The decision also
necessitated the ability to report off many varied data
sources. Consequently, Crystal Enterprise and Crystal Reports
became the food company’s selection for a software
tool that allowed very open connectivity to the assorted
differing databases and applications.
PSC and Crystal Decisions, both
contracted by the company, worked together on the project
to assess the enterprise reporting requirements and to define
critical success factors. A key factor in this was to ascertain
that the Crystal software architecture met the client’s
requirements.
The project’s initial phase
zeroed in on requirements definition, business needs analyses,
software architecture design, and creation of a high-level
implementation plan. The project’s subsequent phase
focused on configuration and installation of new production,
application, and test environments for high availability
and fail-over. PSC customized and integrated the tools for
the environment.
PSC’s project role also
included consulting and mentoring to ensure that the system
became smoothly operational. PSC made sure that knowledge
transfer took place to the key customer operations staff
who then became responsible for maintaining the new system.
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