Case Studies

Efficiently Updating Project Data in Mass

April 29, 2024

Engineering Smarter Decisions with Higher Quality Data

Case Study – Construction and Engineering

The More4apps ERP Cloud Toolbox empowered a leading engineering company to achieve the data accuracy required to meet critical deadlines and optimize project quality and spending.

Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications

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Check out the Projects Module from the More4apps ERP Cloud Toolbox.

About the Client

Our client delivers turnkey engineering and construction solutions for electric and gas utilities and telecommunications companies. They provide ideas, technology, experience, labor, and equipment to hundreds of companies across the United States.

A Struggle to Make Mass Updates on Projects

Our client’s project finance team frequently has to update thousands of items on hundreds of projects in their Oracle Cloud ERP system. This work includes assigning and changing resources, creating budgets, and updating task DFFs, costs, and more. Since FBDI and ADFdi do not include these fields, using these Oracle provided tools for these changes is not feasible.

At first, the company tried having offshore IT resources use APIs to complete these updates. However, multiple problems arose and added days to the process. For example, communicating with a team in a different time zone was hard.

Errors occurred regularly because the offshore team was unfamiliar with the data. In addition, the offshore team would only make changes when everyone was out of the system. This often pushed the job back and increased delays.

Discover the pros and cons of Oracle's tools and read the full case study and learn how the More4apps ERP Cloud Toolbox helps users speed up data management processes.

Oracle ADFdi and FBDI vs. More4apps

Our client also tried having their internal team use Oracle forms to make manual updates to projects one by one. However, that process was time-consuming, frustrating, and error-prone. With the number of changes needed, using Oracle forms was simply not practical.

In both cases, updating data took too long and involved too many mistakes. As a result, our customer’s ERP system had outdated, incorrect project data. The inaccuracies put the company at risk for missed deadlines, excess spending, monetary losses, and quality issues.

Managing Project Data with More4apps

To overcome these problems, the company needed a new way to manage project data. They required accurate, up-to-date information for reporting, decision-making, and financial processes, especially at month-end. Employees had to be able to make mass changes faster. They also wanted the people who knew the data to do the updates.

After researching options, they found the More4apps ERP Cloud Toolbox Projects Module. This software provided the exact functionality they desired. More4apps offers an intuitive Excel interface and many features that ADFdi and FBDI do not have. The choice was obvious.

With the More4apps Projects Module, team members can easily mass download existing projects and project data directly into a simple Excel spreadsheet. Right from that same spreadsheet, users can quickly make mass changes and upload new data for thousands of projects simultaneously. The Excel spreadsheet is flexible, so teams can customize it to meet business needs.

The ERP Cloud Toolbox Projects Module

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Supporting Growth with Efficient, Accurate Data

Using the More4apps Projects Module has allowed the project finance team to operate more efficiently. Critically, people who know the data are the ones working with it.

Using More4apps was especially valuable when the company restructured and moved projects from one division to another. Being able to download the projects that need changes, use the flexibility and functionality of Excel to modify the data, and then validate the new data before uploading was key to their success.

With the pre-validation and intuitive error messaging matched to exact data, confidence in data quality has skyrocketed. Our customer better manages budgets, quality, and timelines. Having reliable data means they can make more informed decisions for current and future projects.

With More4apps, the project data process runs smoothly. The company has cut data input time drastically and increased accuracies. Mass changes take minutes or hours versus days. The software also helps during month-end when the company needs to adjust many contracts quickly.

Additionally, More4apps allows them to reform the revenue process by adding new billing controls to hundreds of contracts simultaneously. For management, the efficiency gains and time savings exceeded expectations. The project finance team now has the right software and processes to support continued company growth.