Name: Taming the Data Chaos with Enterprise Data Management
Uploaded: 2025-09-17T19:03:14.132Z
Duration: 30 min 44 s
Description: Taming the Data Chaos with Enterprise Data Management

Transcript for "Taming the Data Chaos with Enterprise Data Management": Well, good afternoon. Good morning, everybody. We thank you for giving us thirty minutes of your day this Wednesday as we talk a bit about enterprise data management and taming what can be a bit of a chaotic journey as we try to manage our metadata across our enterprise reporting systems that, depend on one another, and it can often look like a circus act. A little bit of housekeeping before we jump into the topic today. We do have a q and a box. You're welcome to toss some questions in there. We'll have folks monitoring the chat, who can provide answers. They'll also let us know. We can answer them live as well. There is a closed caption box, so if you can't have your audio turned on and listening to us, you can turn the closed caption on and be reading reading that there. And, lastly, we will be providing resources to date to today's materials. So the documents that you see on the screen and today's recordings are gonna be presented to you through email after after we're done. So a quick introduction, my name is John Schopaska. I am, the director of our solutions team here in our EPM group at Argano. Been working in, the EPM space a little bit, less than a dozen years now. I'm a, accountant at heart, so I came from public accounting and, learned the products through the Hyperion space and really fell in love with it and been doing that, really ever since since my first implementation of what was HFM. I have had the pleasure of implementing EDM, I think three times now, but I'm lucky to be joined by a person even smarter than I am, which I am happy about. We've got an Oracle ace, brand new ace, Brian Dandenau, who, I've only known, I think, Brian, what, two months now, but I've it feels like we've known each other for a while. I consider Brian a friend. We've been working together very closely almost on a day to day basis for the last couple of months. And so he's gonna be joining us as we talk about how EDM can, help tame the chaos within your organization if you're not using it today. Brian, if you would give us a quick introduction about you and your story and and how you kind of came to be an ace, around the EDM product. Thanks, Sean. Way too time there. I don't know if I'm smarter than you. You definitely have a wide variety and and a wide skill set, that that I that I admire as well. Right? I've been in the Oracle landscape now for nineteen years. I actually started in industry in the financial services, realm, where I got introduced to, actually, at the time was Raza. I'm gonna date myself. Then became d r MDM, then DRM, and now we're happily in the cloud as EDA. So, becoming an ace, honestly, I probably been an ace a long time ago, John, but, had some peers, push me, to actually, get credit for the things that I do. I'd I love speaking at events. So that this year alone, I've done three different conferences, all about EDM or integration or or both together. So thanks, John. Yeah. Happy to have you guy have you here today. Hopefully, some of those peers were our folks here at, Argano, a little bit about Argano. We got a a close knit group here in our own practice, in the EPM practice. We've been around since 1997 implementing Oracle EPM, but we're much more than that. We do ERP, HCM, CX as well. Happy to help you in those areas. Area that we're super, super happy about is our net promoter score. What this tells you about us is how likely our customers are to come back to us. To give you a little a a little, number to compare against, the average industry, service provider's net promoter score is 40. Ours is 86. Other comparable brands that you might be familiar with are Lululemon, Starbucks. Brands like that are in the eighties. So if you're a Starbucks fanatic like I am, I've got mine right here. Went there this morning. Go there a couple days a week. They go people go there time and time again. Our customers are doing the same. So, we if you're not an Argano customer, we hope you will be in the future. And one of the reasons our customers come back to us is because of our success. So here's a image of, our our projects from this is the second quarter of this year, but this is a carry forward from January to really the end of the q two of twenty twenty six. Our projects were green across the board, from an Oracle's vantage point. So Oracle grades us in our projects and how we're doing. And so we're being very successful with Oracle, implementations. And and so, our net promoter score is showing that and, just like to highlight those key features. We would love to help you with your projects. So with that, enough about Argano. Let's jump into the key topic, enterprise data management. And so I've, you know, as I mentioned, I've been fortunate enough, you know, as an accountant and FP and A guy, in the beginning of my career. And when I got into the space, it was consolidations, it was planning, it was data integrations, then allocations. And I kinda got because I was well rounded on the finance side, I was working in multiple systems. And so the idea of managing the metadata across the different applications was always kind of a challenge if we didn't have a tool. Right? And so enterprise data management came in, when we moved into the cloud. I think my first, introduction to EDM was back in 02/2019, and we ended up using it for more than just mastering our metadata. For at that time, it was cloud planning and free form, but we used it to map our store system mappings from, you know, many to one many to one mappings and then feed that into data exchange or what was data management at the time so that our admins were managing both metadata changes and mapping changes. It it was really facilitating both. So, you know, we wanna talk about the value of of EDM, and it kinda broke it down into these three buckets, like, the enterprise wide. You got system changes, and those changes you wanna facilitate across all of the the bucket all of the applications. Right? Quality. How are we gonna know that it actually happened? You know, there's a new account that is requested. How do I know that it went from ERP to planning to, our S NOP application? Right? And an action, you know, actually doing it. So those three things are the main main main columns, if you would, to bring value to EDM that that we wanna attain. Right? What would you add to this, Brian? I mean, these three buckets are are are kind of like part of of EDM. Right? So we need the central place to maintenance all of our metadata, which would be EDM. We need the audit and traceability. I was actually working as as an admin. I was actually, kind of staffed on on that as a staff analog. And someone came to me and said, hey. Why did why did you pointing at me, physically and say, why did you change this structure? And I said, I did didn't touch anything. The audit capabilities helped me then actually tell them that, you know, it wasn't it was this person on this date at this time. Right? We won't call them out by name specifically, but, it was my manager that came to me and said, hey. Why did you change this? I didn't change it. I was able to prove that it didn't change it. Now that's just a personal case, but this becomes more robust when you have SOX compliance. So, one of the things I'd like to say about EDM audit is no one has access to delete the audit. K? It's there it's there forever. The alignment and visit visualization, is is amazing in EDM because if you're onboarding a a you know, you're going to an acquisition. Right? I I've I've been there. This was actually with the on prem DRM version, but it's the same concept in EDM, going through the merger of Wachovia and Wells Fargo back when the the bank crashed and having the visualization and the alignment, between groups is actually what helped that merger and acquisition Mhmm. Happen quickly. Same thing with the divestiture. Right? When the Kraft and Mondelez actually split apart, having something like EDM in play helped us take essentially copies of the structure, and and and each company went on their way and said, I want to do things my only. Right. So I when I've thought of EDM on the acquisition side, I feel like that's definitely more common, and it helps with the the mapping. Right? And I think most people think, you know, they're somewhat concerned of the node count. And is there an actual impact to bringing in a new chart of accounts and mapping that in EDM to what would be the preliminary Like a legacy legacy account to to a primary account. Correct. So legacy yeah. So legacy nodes actually do not count against your record count at all. Uh-huh. As long as they're as long as you have an implementer that does it properly and may use the legacy node type, in the EDM. I know that's very, very technical, but there's a setting essentially within EDM where we load that information in and that's considered legacy. And in fact, this, latest release, we can actually now finally download those mappings as well, to have a visual. So places like higher ed, right, which, when they go through every chart of account, remastering, right, reorg Mhmm. And they have legacy. It's it's massive. Right? And and to not be able to download that stuff. So now EDM is evolving, month after month. So having a partner alongside of you as well that knows those changes is pivotal to success within your EDM. Yeah. I think that's super important. And I've I've never really I don't think I expect got that until recently that if, you know, from a acquisition perspective, it it it could not impact our node count if we do it properly. And so that's a huge thing to consider from a business case perspective for EDM and its value that once you get this set up and you have your chart of accounts, if you use that legacy correctly and you're mapping to your chart of accounts, your note count's not gonna increase if you do it properly. Great. And then the divestiture side, so you're almost acting like a shared services for the divestitures saying, hey. Here's a copy of your master data. You guys can take this and go on your way. Do do with it what you what you will. But, here's here's a starting point. Yes. Exactly, John. Yeah. It's it's again, the the visualizations, the drag and drop features within EDM make it really easy to do some some pretty cool things with with an EDM. And there's some AI upset. We can't go without saying there's AI features coming for EDM too. I've heard a lot of cool stuff. It's on the road map. We we tend to take our time because EDM is the foundation, for for most companies that that implement it. Right? We're we're the rock that everyone kinda stands on. We have all the information. So we do lag behind in some cases and even when EDM was put out there onto the market, we were one of the last ones to go to market because we needed the foundation for this to be set up properly. And so we're we're seeing trend, continue even even with the AI features that will be coming out, hopefully, I'll say hopefully, within the next year. Right. So this story that I think we're gonna tell around EDM, I I found super interesting because it came to me indirectly through a meeting that we have in my in our solutions team here at Argano. Our human capital management solution architect was talking in one of our Friday calls and and mentioned your name, and how we were arch architecting a solution for a customer that was implementing HCM, and EDM had a role in it. And I I was hoping you could just kinda tell a story around around how EDM stretches outside of just ERP and EPM and can can implement for other products as well? Yeah. Absolutely, John. So, yeah, EDM can definitely go beyond Oracle products even. Right? So in this particular case, the client actually already had EDM, but just was came or found to the fact, oh, no one thought. You know, their implementer, their prior implementer never thought about, you know, really implementing some sort of solution for the HCM module that they had in place. So they came to Argano and said, hey. Here's our problem. Right? You you can see the challenge to us that was put in front of us. They had data data integrity issues, poor user experience because they couldn't figure out how to keep HCM in sync with the rest of their applications. Mhmm. So at the end of the day, I offered up the solution on the right hand side, which is, hey. Let's just create some new DFFs or properties within EDM, but on kind of the HCM side, it's called a DFF, so a flex field. Let's create a couple additional fields that EDM can just automatically populate. So once they create a department, that department would just, based on the user input, because the user could say that the department was people holding or non people holding, they could set one flag, that one flag would calculate two others, and then that would automatically flow over to the HCM application within EDM for approval. And then that would then flow out to the application. They thought that they were gonna have to tear down EDM Mhmm. Put something in between, but I said, no. Let's use the governance that you have already in place, and let's just bolt this on. EDM was built to be modular. We shouldn't be doing things that hide the information because because they're like, well, let's let's just use the structure within GL, and they're trying to make the structure within the GL application within EDM work for HCM. There's differences. Slightly different, but there are differences. So I said, you don't have to tear apart your GL and add things to your GL that you don't want there. Let's just bolt on HCM as a new application within EDM. That's what it's there for. That's how you should be using EDM. Yeah. And I and I think you just made your case to my first point of you being smarter than me. Because because I would have done, like, a a separate application in in EDM for HCM and shared it. And and this solution that you're talking about is just so much simpler. And all you gotta do is filter and then extract for HCM, and you're done. Well, actually, John, you no. You're smarter than what you think because that's actually what I said. We're bolting on a new application within EDM. Okay. Right? And but in the the filtering is gonna happen in the subscription that happens from our entry application into h c our ACM application. So you were almost there. Well, there's just a couple of different I'll take a look. Different steps that that you might wanna add in there. Every now and then, a blind squirrel finds a nut. That's right. So and this is kind of, like, the problem statement where without EDM, you've got a lot going on. Right? They've got conversations between individuals requesting new chart of accounts values. It can happen through somebody walking to a cubicle or an office saying, hey, Joe or Sally, you know, can we create a new department? They could send an email. They could do a Teams message. Somehow it's getting communicated. And then by some means, it's gotta go from ERP or sometimes multiple ERPs to closing consolidations, to budgeting, and it's all gotta have the same description. Maybe hit alternate hierarchies, and then roll into reports correctly. Right? So this kinda untamed chaos here leads into the value statement. So if if you wouldn't mind kinda talking about, if you wouldn't and maybe talk about both. Right? Yeah. So on the last slide, you've seen kinda at the very bottom where the automation person was in all different directions or the team, right, having to try to make sure that everyone and all the applications are updated properly. Right? On the next slide, you see much, yeah, much more of a condensed view. And, again, there's multiple architectures, and I tried to pick, one that's simple but not as simple. But, you know, at the end of the day, there's a person that now is protected from themselves as I like to say, because we have the validations in place so they don't have to remember all the rules that they have to put in a new account. It it's it's gonna be there for them. We have package adapters. We have workflows, subscriptions, and audit. And that's all within that computer monitor. That's what that is, John. I don't know if you can tell what that is. But, back in my day, that was a computer monitor. Right? So, this statement right here. Yes. And then now we should see our automation team as relaxing more on a profitable island because now they don't have to be in 50,000,000,000 different places managing all the systems and all the different things, all the governance that should just be managed within one system, which is EDL. Right? And we're gonna use pipeline, which is a relatively newish, I say newish, it's about a year old, right, integration tool to then just also centralize your automation. So, again, it it really kinda tames the chaos as you can see, by the graphic. Yeah. So the request comes in from this user who doesn't know the rules. The system knows them. And, they say, hey. I need a new account, not knowing that the accounts have a prefix. Right? Right. And so that request comes in. It gets funneled to a approver. And that approver is actually maybe over here in the automation team. It could be. Could be. Again, I I tried to tried to simplify it. This this if we wanna go to the next slide, I know we're we're right. It could be multiple approvers. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. In the next few slides, we kinda talk about the EDM governance. Right? That it has you you have the ability to submit. Yeah. It has the option to go through approvals. If you don't like governance for whatever reason and you don't want someone in the middle, you can have it auto submit for you all day long. Commit is always there. We have to commit things to EDM. Otherwise, the applications downstream don't see it, and then it closes the request altogether. So in each step, and the submitter can, like you said, submit something, but they can also recall it and say, just kidding. I'm not ready yet. The approver can then also, approve it or they can push it back or reject it. Reject just says, I don't like you anymore, John. I'm gonna reject it. It's it's done. We're we're not talking about this request anymore. Right? Where pushback is, John, I'm giving you another chance. This description is too long. Actually, that shouldn't make it. So I should have validation for that. But, that's just an example. And then once it gets to a commit stage, this could be automatic, or you could have a commit stage where you wanna look at Tollgate and say, hey. At the end of the day, I don't want this to commit. Right? Be fully within EDM until the end of the month. You can have a a group in there that are committers. And that person can also push back if they don't like what they're seeing, or reject it outright because they're mean, and then after that is closed. So that's kind of the workflow in in a nutshell, but it really empowers data stewards to have control over what's going on here. So the submit field, you'd have certain users come into, like, a portal and they'd have department field, account field for each, you know, each of the the segments that they wanna submit a request for. Once they submit that, there's a there's a workflow. Correct? Mhmm. And this approver would get a email or multiple approvers depending on what it is. And so this could kinda be, like, almost hands off. Right? That that approver would get do they get hyperlinks? Yep. Yeah. Yeah. In their email, they get a hyperlink. They just click on they don't have to be hovering over an EDM application every single minute. But if they do log in, there's actually a little fancy dashboard that says these are your actions that you need to take. But everything is through through email. So, yeah, they get an email with the with the hyperlink. That's great. So pretty much everything could be, you know, workflow related. Mhmm. Yep. So there's tons of different ways that we can set up these policies, and you probably look at all these and go, oh my word. Brian, you probably have to do all sorts of coding and stuff to make all this work. A lot of these are just check boxes, John. That's what's cool about EDM is literally, a few weeks before UAT, the client decides, you know what? I just want single approver, not a group. It's it's a couple clicks of a button. Now we don't recommend you change your approval process, like, right before UAT, but at the end of the day, these are all the options that you have. Have. You have all sorts of filters where we can say things go to one person versus another. We can actually do approvals based on a structure now as well. Right? That's fairly new new in EDM that didn't exist, last year. I think last year, maybe a year and a half ago. But like you said, number of approvers, total approvers required. I can have a group, and I need three groups to say they approve. I can do all those groups in parallel. And I can say I need one person from each one of those groups to say yes. There's even an out of office, John. I know you like going on vacation. If you went on vacation and you said, Brian, you're you're now you're now the guy. Right? You're gonna do all of my approvals. You can set your out of office and and now I'm I'm the one in charge. Out of office? Does do people do that anymore? I feel like I take my office with me. There's this phone thing that they make me carry around that, that, yep. So and I think what you mentioned, like, is in theme with what Oracle has been doing with the cloud EPM products. If you think about CEC compared to HFM, there was so much coding that HFM had back in the on premise day, same with planning. And, you know, a lot of it has been you know, we're we're turning on and we're configuring now rather than coding and customizing. And that theme rolls into the EDM products as well. Now there is still the ability to do some customization if you absolutely needed to, but we're trying to get away from that. But for the most part, let's configure the system properly, and that even goes back to using, you know, the proper fields for the legacy accounts properly. Right? So, you know, the important thing is making sure you have the right resources who know EDM who can help you implement this properly. It is a very, very powerful tool. I loved it the second that I implemented it. I know we have two minutes left to this. Brian, what, you know, what what what's been the coolest thing you've done in EDM so far? There's a, there's cross validation rules in ERP, and there's valid intersections in EPM. So those mappings that you were talking about earlier, we're able to essentially take those mappings and create, the cross validation rules in ERP, which then restrict what people can do in ERP and apply essentially that same set of rules via mapping to the valid intersections in EPM. So there was no miskeying to y'all, and there was no miskeying in ERP, sorry, EPM. Right? So Yeah. Really kept the budgeting, cycle on track. It kept the actuals locked down to where they needed to be. Again, it's a subset of information, but it was a very important subset of information for this particular, energy coin. I was gonna ask what industry was that was. I I would have guessed, health care, but energy. You could see that in in health care too. It was a very project driven, like, projects was their main structure that drove. Sure. So everything for them is a project. If they go check your utility pole, it's a project. So Yeah. And maintaining those valid intersections can become a time consuming task. And so I can see how you can automate that through EDM. That's awesome. That's a cool use case. And so great. So if anybody has a question, you know, feel feel free to reach out to me. Again, we'll be sending out this documentation. You've got my email address here. We're happy to follow-up with you and have additional conversations on EDM, any of the other products as well in the EPM stack. If you wanna reach out to anyone in our HCM, ERP, CX practice, I'm happy to, get you linked up with them. And then, we have had several other sessions in the past, so you'll be able to, you know, use this, URL link with your phone. You can see those previous sessions. And we have two two new sessions coming up, one on October 1 that'll be featuring featuring Carter Charter Communications. We recently did a on prem migration of the cloud with them, and it went, absolutely fantastic. And so they'll be singing, their praises because they actually partnered with us on this project. They they had a fantastic team who helped out a ton, and, we're gonna you know, they'll be telling us the things that went well, the things that didn't go well, and you'll be able to learn from them on October 1. And then following that up on the twenty second, sticking with our baseball theme, we're gonna do a little bit of a Stewart Scott, top five plays of the week with Metales, where they're gonna be showing us, the most valuable aspects of their EPM architecture. And they got FCC, they got planning, and they were ready to show it off. So a little bit more of a show and tell there. So we hope you join us for those two sessions, and then we're working on a few other ones. So thank you again for giving us the half hour of your day. You guys continue being all stars in what you do. Looking forward to connecting in the near future.