Transforming Trinity College Dublin’s Data Landscape

The Challenge

Trinity College Dublin embarked on a comprehensive Data Transformation initiative, aiming to leverage its data assets for cost reduction, research growth, and improved decision-making. As part of this initiative, the university launched an enterprise Data Hub, which serves as a central data repository for Business Intelligence and Integration Services. The goal was to implement a modern data platform, providing a single data pipeline for reporting, analytics, and application integration requirements.

They faced challenges in efficiently managing and leveraging their diverse data sources. The university required a solution that can pipeline both “full datasets” and “changes only datasets” to targets during the application data integration process. Additionally, there was a need to package data into high-fidelity products tailored for consumption by various stakeholders, including students, applicants, and staff. The client emphasised the importance of treating each data product as a valuable entity within the university, iterating over them in prints and assigning ownership.

The Solution

TEKenable proposed a comprehensive solution aligning with industry best practices and the specific needs of Trinity College Dublin. The solution involved validating the reference architecture, extending it to a solution design, and selecting appropriate products. The proposal included the implementation of a “Data as a Service” platform, pipelining data from source systems to the Enterprise CRM, with a focus on applicant data.

The Outcome

The implementation of the Data Hub has transformed Trinity College Dublin’s data landscape:

● Modernised Data Infrastructure: They now have a unified data architecture and centralised data warehouse.

● Strategic Enablement: The new data hub supports IT, communication, and engagement strategies with high-quality data.

● Scalable Platform: The solution meets current needs and is built for future expansion.

● Expert Implementation: TEKenable’s data expertise were crucial in achieving the transformation goals.

● Tailored Excellence: The project reflects a commitment to best practices and customised solutions for the university.

TEKenable’s solution has become a cornerstone of Trinity College Dublin’s IT and engagement strategy, showcasing their expertise and commitment to delivering tailored, future-ready data platforms.

Contact us to find out more about how we can help support your business transformation journey.

RelateCare’s Journey to Data Excellence

RelateCare’s Journey to Data Excellence with TEKenable | Customer Testimonial (Podcast)

RelateCare leverages its experience in healthcare and customer service, to provide top-notch contact center services. Based in Waterford, they serve both the healthcare sector in Ireland and the US, with around 1,000 agents in Ireland and a few hundred in the US, making them a significant player in the industry.

Listen to Tim O’Byrne’s (Group Chief Financial Officer, RelateCare) podcast, as he details their journey with TEKenable.

Choosing the Right Partner

After an extensive RFP process involving several parties from the US and Ireland, RelateCare selected TEKenable as its partner. The decision was driven by TEKenable’s client-focused approach, flexibility, and willingness to challenge and improve RelateCare’s thinking

TEKenable’s ability to listen to RelateCare’s needs and provide innovative solutions made them stand out from other contenders.

Tim appreciated that TEKenable challenged their way of thinking, rather than just accepting their requests without question. This approach demonstrated that they were a good partner, as they provided valuable insights and suggestions for alternative solutions.

RelateCare’s journey with TEKenable underscores the importance of recognising limitations and finding the right partner to support technical needs. By collaborating with TEKenable, RelateCare has successfully built a robust and efficient data management system, enhancing their service delivery and customer satisfaction. This partnership has not only addressed RelateCare’s current challenges but also positioned them for future growth and innovation

“My key message for you today is that we recognise our limitations. It’s okay for everyone to admit that if you’re not a tech expert, you need to seek support elsewhere. The most important thing is to find the right partner. We were fortunate to find TEKenable as the right partner for us,” – Tim O’Byrne, RelateCare

Improving RelateCare’s Data Management

The Challenge

RelateCare, a patient contact centre provider focused on customer voice and empathy, started their data journey independently. Despite making progress in understanding and aggregating their data, and gaining expertise in Microsoft Power BI, they faced significant challenges in making further progress. They needed a strategic plan that would meet their current needs and allow for a longer-term view of using data effectively. RelateCare sought a true partner who could listen to their needs, help drive forward their data capabilities, and provide a flexible and scalable solution.

Manual transformation of large datasets
Medium to high error rates in reporting
Delays in distributing data
Basic metrics that lacked depth

The Solution

TEKenable emerged as the ideal partner for RelateCare, as our client-focused approach stood out from other parties they had previously worked with. TEKenable listened to RelateCare’s problems and the driving challenges, and challenged their thinking in a valuable way. They were flexible and understood that RelateCare operates in a dynamic environment.

One of the key solutions we provided was Fabric, a game-changer for RelateCare. Fabric offered a single platform for data management, which was a significant improvement over their previous partner’s fragmented approach. It allowed everything to be under one roof, offering a flexible, scalable, and cost-effective model with real-time capabilities. This was crucial for presenting performance data in the contact center on a real-time basis.

The integration with the Microsoft Suite was also important for RelateCare. We implemented a comprehensive reporting system that allowed RelateCare to track and report on key performance indicators (KPIs) to their clients. This system provided real-time insights into their contact center’s performance, enabling RelateCare to meet their customers’ growing demand for real-time data. Additionally, Power BI seamlessly integrated with Fabric, allowing RelateCare to build and display data visualisations that leveraged the data stored within Fabric.

The Outcome

With TEKenable’s partnership, RelateCare experienced a significant enhancement in their data management capabilities. The single platform provided by Fabric allowed RelateCare to grow and add other layers of data into their systems seamlessly. The real-time capabilities deployed within their contact center enabled them to present performance data to customers on a real-time basis, enhancing customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.

TEKenable’s client-focused approach and understanding of RelateCare’s dynamic environment made them a true partner who helped drive forward not just the current problem but also in building out their data capabilities. The integration with the Microsoft Suite ensured that RelateCare’s data management was flexible, scalable, and cost-effective, meeting their needs now and in the future.

Contact us to find out more about how we can help support your digital transformation journey

Compliance Management Solution for ITC

In this video we delve into the transformative journey of our esteemed client, ITC (Independent Trustee Company), through the eyes of Eamonn King, their dedicated Head of IT. With over 7 years of collaboration, ITC has experienced remarkable success by migrating to the cloud and integrating Microsoft solutions, thanks to our expert guidance and support.

The Challenge

ITC’s legacy compliance management system relied on manual processes, including paper-based record-keeping and manual audits. This involved manually tracking compliance requirements, manually maintaining records, and conducting manual audits to ensure compliance with regulations. The system was prone to errors and inconsistencies and required a significant amount of maintenance and upgrades, leading to higher costs over time. Moreover, their existing system was not able to handle large amounts of data or support a growing number of users, making it difficult to scale compliance management efforts. It did not integrate well with other systems, making it difficult to share data and collaborate with other teams. Another drawback was the lack of automation capabilities, making it difficult to track and manage compliance activities, leading to the risk of errors and missed deadlines and hence additional management overhead to avoid this. It also lacked the ability to generate detailed reports, making it difficult to track compliance progress and identify areas for improvement.

The Solution

ITC approached TEKenable with the need for a solution that can help them manage and maintain compliance with various regulations and industry standards. They needed a solution which could ensure data security and privacy, meet audit and reporting requirements, and maintain compliance with laws and regulations such as GDPR. They were facing challenges in managing compliance, such as manual processes, lack of visibility into compliance status, or difficulty in keeping up with changing regulations. They needed a solution which helped them easily track and document compliance efforts and demonstrate compliance to auditors and regulators.

TEKenable provided ITC with a compliance management tool which plugs into the Dynamics 365 Customer Service baseline solution and serves as a process workflow, documentation and repository for the execution and tracking of compliance management. This tool provides real-time monitoring and reporting capabilities that keep ITC informed of any potential compliance issues. Moreover, it provides automated workflow and documentation management, making it easy to stay on top of compliance tasks and ensure that all necessary documentation is readily available.

Key Features

Automated monitoring and reporting: This solution provided ITC with the ability to automatically monitor compliance with regulatory requirements and generate reports to document compliance status.
Risk assessment and management: The solution includes tools for identifying and assessing compliance risks, as well as for managing and mitigating those risks.
Policy management: The solution provides a centralized location for storing and managing organizational policies and procedures data related to compliance.
Auditing and investigation: The solution has the capability to conduct audits and investigations to identify compliance violations and determine corrective actions.
Workflow and collaboration: The solution facilitates collaboration and workflow management among compliance teams and other stakeholders.
Data security: The solution includes robust data security features to protect sensitive compliance-related information.
Integrations: The solution is able to integrate with other systems and platforms, such as ERP, CRM, and HR systems, to ensure comprehensive compliance management.
Scalability: The solution is scalable and is able to accommodate the changing compliance requirements of ITC as it grows.

Moreover, this Compliance Management Solution manages the capture and tracking of:

Complaints
Potential Conflicts of Interest
GDPR Subject Access Requests
GDPR Data Breach
Errors made while processing financial transactions
Legal Proceedings
Higher Risk Product Transactions (additional diligence required)
Gifts and Hospitality
Fitness and Probity

The Outcome

The new solution helped ITC automate the compliance process, reducing the time and effort required to ensure compliance with various regulations. By automating compliance processes and providing real-time monitoring, this solution helped ITC identify and mitigate risks that could lead to non-compliance. The solution provides a centralised platform for compliance-related communication between different departments, making it easier for employees to stay informed about compliance requirements. Moreover, it provides ITC with detailed reporting on compliance status, allowing ITC to identify areas that need improvement and track progress over time.

HSE Covid-19 Contact Tracing System

On a Tuesday night, in March 2020 at 9pm, TEKenable received a call for help from the Health Service Executive (HSE) via Microsoft. The HSE asked if we could muster a multi-disciplinary IT team to support the Emergency Response Team in the delivery of COVID-19 related systems. The call went out to many reputable IT providers as the HSE realised that the unique situation could not be managed using existing IT systems and business processes.

TEKenable provided seven full-time staff into the HSE by 9 am, the day after the 9 pm request was received, some on-site with the Response team in Dr Steeven’s Hospital in Dublin and some working remotely. Over the coming days KPMG, EY and PwC also responded with small teams or individuals.

What was required of us was not known at this time.

THE CHALLENGE

The immediate need was to design, build and deploy a Contact Tracing System. The system was to be designed, developed, delivered and live in a week and a half. It was to be delivered to circa 1200 users spread over multiple locations who were drawn from different disciplines. The first team to use the system would be the Irish Army, who were busy turning the ground floor of the hospital into a contact tracing centre.

THE SOLUTION

Working long hours and weekends, TEKenable collaborated on the design with the HSE and the Army, built the Contact Tracing Application, deployed it to the call centre and clinicians using a Low Code platform, and went live within the one and a half weeks deadline.

The system receives laboratory test results from COVID testing centres, triggers the initial call to positive patients, gathers details of who they have been in contact with, contacts them, does a basic medical assessment of their condition, deals with special cases such as healthcare workers and other persons with a large number of potential contacts as well as family and friends contacts. The system is a key tool in the reduction of the rate of spread of the viral outbreak.

Contact Tracing is not the only project that we have delivered in this emergency. Others include data collection via mobile applications and portal interfaces that capture data points that are critical for effective crisis management and that are not captured in any current IT systems. We are currently in the process of delivering a temporary hospital management system that addresses bed allocation, patient tracking, equipment assignment and also working on building software that is optimising the testing of potential COVID patients in temporary test centres.

As can be seen from the image below, we have also been responsible for the delivery of many other projects.

The projects include:

National Ambulance Service Capacity Monitoring;
Fatality Tracking;
Hospital Bloodstock Level Management;
Offers of Assistance;
Lab Data Collection;
Mortuary Remains Tracking;
Data Governance Access Management and
Temporary Staff Recruitment.

Additionally, we have collaborated with other service providers in creating a Data Lake for information gathering and using data visualisation tools to deliver key data and trends to the crisis management team in near real-time.

We will remain engaged with the HSE as long as the requirement persists and we continue to bring value.

We have recently integrated the highly publicised Mobile App as a data source for the Contact Tracing system and at the time of writing (August 2020) have just been awarded a contract to implement a National PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) ordering and stock management system for the HSE. This will also be delivered using the Power Platform.

THE OUTCOME

The outcome is two words – Lives Saved.

We played a small, but key, part in helping to keep people who were exposed to the virus, but unaware of that, away from others, in enabling the Emergency Response Team to have the data that they need to make informed decisions and in ensuring the effective use of finite resources. We did all this in weeks compared to a “normal project” of this scope that would have required many months, if not years to deliver, and we did so while remaining compliant with GDPR and IT security considerations.

The author of this document has 35 years of bespoke software delivery experience ranging from safety-critical systems, financial services and healthcare and I have literally never seen systems designed and developed so fast and so successfully in the context of an evolving situation, in a very stressful environment and with many dispersed stakeholders. This can become a model of software delivery for the future.

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