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The Partner
This project was based on our partnership with a global consulting and outsourcing firm.
The Client
The client was a large education institution, serving the educational needs of over 250,000 students.
The Challenge
The initial objective was to take data from two existing payroll/HR systems and populate five tables in the new system. The project was on a critical time schedule. The prior system had no way of processing benefits for the organization's 10,000 employees in the new benefits year, which was less than two months away. There was no flexibility in the implementation date.
Unfortunately the initial data analysis showed that the payroll system data was so inaccurate, it was totally unreliable. As a result the project was re-structured to obtain the needed data from the end-client's 19 insurance carriers. Emergency meetings were quickly structured with each of the 19 insurance carriers, data formats were obtained (essentially all different), and development commenced using Applaud to construct a comprehensive system to perform the data analysis and data consolidation from all of the data sources.
The Approach
Applaud's tools reacted quickly to the dynamic nature of the project. New data sources were obtained almost daily. The rules for the data migration were changed again, and again throughout the project. In the end, data was consolidated from 28 sources and migrated to the new system.
During the project over 70 reports were produced to analyze and validate the data. The analysis reports identified many important business-related problems including:
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Missing data – The data analysis quickly showed that much data was missing from several of the initial data sources. This resulted in the identification of additional sources of data to fill in the gaps. |
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Deduction but no coverage – The data analysis identified many individuals who were paying for coverages but the insurance carrier had no record of coverage. |
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Coverage but no deduction – Conversely, the analysis also identified many situations where the employees were receiving free coverages (the insurance carrier was providing coverage but the payroll system was not deducting the cost from the employees paycheck. |
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Employees with multiple coverages – The data analysis identified many cases of employees with multiple coverages (i.e., insured by two medical carriers). This resulted in a substantial cost savings – the employer was paying twice. |
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Invalid deduction amounts – The analysis identified a substantial number of instances where the payroll system was calculating deductions incorrectly. |
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Ineligible coverages – The analysis also found that many employees were receiving coverages for which they were not yet eligible. |
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