Solutions used: APOS ADMINISTRATOR, APOS PUBLISHER
Product Components Used: InfoScheduler
Background:
NiSource’s natural gas transmission companies operate nearly 17,000 miles of strategically positioned interstate natural gas pipelines, integrated with one of the nation’s largest underground storage systems. From offshore Louisiana to the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, their system connects premium natural gas production areas with some of the nation’s largest energy markets. Columbia Gas Transmission transports an average of about 3 billion cubic feet (Bcf) per day of natural gas through a 12,750-mile pipeline network serving hundreds of communities in about a dozen states. Columbia Gas Transmission customers range from local gas distribution companies, to energy marketers, electric power generating facilities and hundreds of industrial and commercial end users.
Challenge:
Columbia Gas Transmission was facing a large outsourcing effort that involved accounting, finance, human resources and IT departments. In order to implement these changes effectively, there was a strategic push to get all departments on the same platform with synchronized business practices and processes. The pipeline companies needed a centralized data warehouse system for various financial tools that provided on demand budgeting data on a month to month basis. Brendan was responsible for the delivery of these reports to the various internal departments. He immediately looked to APOS to efficiently accomplish this task.
Solution:
Based on a freeware tool that Brendan had previously downloaded from the APOS web site, he was familiar with the APOS reputation as a well respected company with a variety of good quality tools. It wasn’t long after he started his research – he found the InfoScheduler tool. It provided Columbia Gas Transmission with the report scheduling functions that they were looking for. The InfoScheduler tool cut down on the time required to schedule 3000 monthly reports that needed to be rescheduled every month. "When we reviewed the APOS InfoScheduler tool, there was no question that we would achieve return on investment within a couple of months. It saves us about 16-20 hours a month," stated Brendan.
Columbia Gas Transmission uses InfoScheduler for internal tracking of capital and expenditure reports. It is used to distribute information within the NiSource pipeline companies. "Because we are still working through new processes – data issues crop up and we have to reschedule reports; InfoScheduler allows us to do this easily. It is improving productivity and providing a common access point for our monthly budget reporting," Brendan continued. "Implementation was a piece of cake and very straight forward." Brendan set up a database of report schedules that is placed into a spreadsheet; there are about 20 or 30 reports each with different parameters. InfoScheduler allows them to generate these reports very quickly. The main features of the InfoScheduler are time savings and cost effectiveness. "There were no disruptions to our business processes with the implementation and it solved the business issues we were trying to solve."
Why APOS?
When asked why APOS, Brendan quickly responded "Reputation and affordability were two big reasons for choosing APOS Systems."
APOS Systems Inc. is an SAP BusinessObjects software solution provider in the SAP PartnerEdge program. Named SAP BusinessObjects Technology Partner of the Year for the past three years, APOS has been a Crystal partner since 1996. APOS has acknowledged a key SAP BusinessObjects XI and Crystal Enterprise strength - its open architecture - and has designed and developed a variety of add-on solutions that offer customers additional capabilities within the SAP BusinessObjects XI infrastructure.
For more information:
Allan Pym, VP Sales and Chief Operating Officer
519.666.2020 or apym@apos.com