Rectify OMS reporting deficiencies
- March 7, 2023
- Posted by: Barry Blumenfield
- Category: Case Study
Challenge
A client selling children’s educational materials as a subscription was unsatisfied with the custom-built reports they were receiving from the OMS platform. While the overall sales and revenue numbers seemed to be accurate, the more detailed reports used to track customer retention, payment approvals/declines, backorders and other details were either inaccurate or missing key pieces of data. They asked us to work with the vendor to resolve the issues.
Solution
We started by working with the client to ensure that the report definitions were 100% accurate and clearly stated. We found that even internally there were variances in the definitions and rules around many of the numbers, which likely contributed to misunderstandings on the vendor side. By working with upper management we were able to redefine the reports with significantly more clarity than had been provided to the vendor previously.
We then requested and received information from the vendor regarding the logic being used to determine some of the data values as well as their internal data layouts. We were able to identify some small errors (i.e. a commonly used formula testing for “greater than” should have been testing for “less than”), and inaccurate assumptions as to the definitions of specific data elements. We found that the timing of the report execution was allowing for data to be changed prior to or during report generation, leading to discrepancies. We also identified errors in the basic report definitions, attributed to unclear and/or conflicting specifications originally provided by the client.
We further recommended that additional data exports be provided which would allow the reports to be validated against external data, since many of the reports contained unique information which could not previously be validated outside of the report itself.
Results
The vendor was able to apply corrections and modified the programming logic based upon our findings and recommendations. They changed the reporting process to pull the raw data in a single batch and then generate the reports against the “frozen” saved data rather than running against real-time data which was in a constant state of change. The reports are now delivered on time and can be reconciled against prior reports as well as the externally provided validation data. The client is now satisfied that the reports are accurate and reliable and a major challenge in the client-vendor relationship has been eliminated.