Australia’s Disability Trust picks Boomi integration platform
The non-profit organisation is using Boomi’s integration platform to integrate a mix of legacy and new systems to deliver real-time data updates and improve payroll processing, among other goals
Non-profit organisation The Disability Trust has adopted Boomi’s integration platform as a service to tie together a disparate range of legacy and modern applications.
The Trust is a National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) provider, and delivers various services including personal care, supported independent living, and short stay and respite accommodation to more than 4,000 people with disability.
Head of ICT Ian Treweek said the Trust was operating a mixture of legacy and new systems including Technology One Financials, Salesforce and a rostering and care management application.
“There were many moving parts and varying applications, he said, and consequently, “we couldn’t see a holistic picture of, say, a client”.
While the Trust is progressively adopting modern applications such as a new core system built on Salesforce, the integration task could not wait until that process was complete, in part because of the time and effort needed to transfer data between systems.
After surveying the market, Boomi was chosen as it met multiple requirements.
It has allowed the ICT team to deliver real-time data to various stakeholders, including management, and to automate a range of processes such as onboarding and offboarding users. That was of particular importance to the Trust because the casual nature of part of its workforce means there is usually between 20 and 90 on-boardings and off-boardings per month.
Rapid automation
With each person needing to use as many as 10 different applications, manual processing meant it could be two days before the process was complete. Now, new users are set up in one place and Boomi automates the rest of the process in a matter of minutes.
“That brings some huge efficiencies,” said Treweek, in addition to the benefits that come with having a single source of data.
“It wasn’t all smooth sailing,” he said. “Some of the legacy applications make it easy for Boomi to get data out, but feeding data into them was a challenge. While the ICT team was able to overcome that issue, “we’re actively moving away from those legacy apps”.
The team is relatively small, at just 13 people out of 2,000 employees. “That’s a challenge,” said Treweek, but the Trust wants to spend its money on participants rather than on overheads. Consequently, return on investment is a particularly important consideration.
Using Boomi to integrate the disparate systems has made operations much more efficient and improved data accuracy.
The Trust had previously implemented point-to-point integrations between certain applications, but it remained a time-consuming process for IT, finance and other staff. With Boomi, the entire processes have been automated, and staff only need to get involved when they get an alert that something hasn’t happened.
At the same time, the streamlining that has been achieved with Boomi is reflected in the ability to bring management attention in real-time to any issues that arise, further helping to deliver better care compared with the situation where data is transferred in batches.
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Boomi ANZ director Nathan Gower observed that syncing data between systems via point-to-point links is problematic, but the hub and spoke model used by Boomi “is far more elegant and simple”, thus reducing ongoing costs.
As the Trust continues to migrate to modern, cloud-based applications, Boomi will continue to provide the integration required, said Gower.
The Trust has also begun using Boomi’s Master Data Hub (MDH) capability to improve data quality. It imports data from sources including HR and finance systems, and when conflicts are detected, it knows which system is the most trustworthy source of particular types of data. It also generates alerts when a piece of data looks wrong.
The MDH thus becomes a trusted source of data about employees and participants (and its scope may be extended), significantly reducing manual re-entry.
Gower noted that MDH helps provide the Trust with a 360-degree view of their participants. That includes helping ensure that service delivery staff are paid correctly – one person may be covered by multiple awards according to the particular service they are providing, so payroll is particularly complex and relies on having accurate source data.
Treweek set a baseline before the Boomi implementation began, and will repeat the process when it is complete to determine the return on investment. But he’s confident that “it will save the organisation money, put better information in our hands, and let us provide better care”, as well as freeing his team to do more valuable work.
A particular focus over the next six to 18 months is to help Trust employees deliver the best care to participants. That could be as basic as assisting someone to play football with their friends that week, or as critical as ensuring medications are taken correctly.
