Decisive Data + Alteryx = T-Mobile’s Accounting Reports Automated
The Quick
T-Mobile embarked on a new journey- to automate their accounting reporting system as part of their on-going quest and success to be a data-driven enterprise.
Decisive Data’s experts created an intuitive and elegant solution to automate their reporting processes- while remaining compliant with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002(SOX). SOX protects shareholders and others from accounting errors and fraudulent practices.
Project Summary
T-Mobile has 72 million subscribers, generating $7.2 billion of quarterly sales, across 9,200 stores. With that much data flowing into any accounting department, financial reporting becomes daunting. T-Mobile analysts were spending hundreds of hours reconciling month and quarter-end reports.
Knowing their growing customer base will create higher demand for their accounting staff, T-Mobile engaged Decisive Data to automate their data preparation processes- while maintaining SOX compliance.
A Challenge Well-Suited For Alteryx
Selecting Alteryx, To Achieve“Self-Service, Data Analytics”
Alteryx was built to help groups become more self-sufficient, without relying on or waiting for others. T-Mobile’s accounting people understood the nuances of their data, much better than any centralized staff.
Decisive Data is an Alteryx, certified partner and Alteryx 2016 Connector Partner of the Year
Alteryx Server empowered them to connect and consolidate data sources, across their millions of rows and transactions. Then, prepare, analyze and share their findings, creating a collaborative habitat. Analysts download Alteryx Designer to their desktop to create automated workflows- visually. No coding skills required. This made it easy to create and hand off workflows to non-programming, end-users. Alteryx has a large and active, online user-community as an additional learning resource.
Decisive Data analyzed T-Mobile’s accounting processes to identify top candidate workflows to automate. This would spark T-Mobile to develop solutions on their own, after completing this phase of work.
Automate the repetitive
T-Mobile uses Excel workbooks extensively for their reporting processes. Decisive Data converted these workbooks into Alteryx, automated workflows. Then, configured those workflows to publish and share results at scheduled intervals. No human intervention required. Data now delivered to the right people- on time, every time, with better results. Executives and analysts now reclaim hundreds of hours each reporting cycle. No more tedious activities for: combining workbooks from various data sources; re-formatting them for a consistent look-and-feel, nor; merging cells to combine data elements.
Learn to fish
Working with T-Mobile’s accounting department, Decisive Data used and shared best practices to: 1) create workflows with Alteryx Designer; 2) set up and share those workflows using Alteryx Gallery and; 3) discover and reconcile discrepancies when reviewing processes with stakeholders.
This, plus Decisive Data’s on-going support, enables T-Mobile to leverage their new knowledge, skills and workflows. The pump is now primed for T-Mobile to grow, share and create additional Alteryx solutions.
Based on referrals from T-Mobile’s accounting department, Decisive Data is helping three other departments start their data automation projects.
T-Mobile’s Automation Vision. Realized.
Decisive Data experts delivered on T-Mobile’s plan to convert manual reporting processes to automated workflows. What once took 300+ man-hours- now takes 15- while keeping all reports compliant with SOX. More than just a static solution, T-Mobile now has in-house skills to automate other parts of their business. In fact, they hired a full-time team to keep the automation-flow going, using their new skills and best practices.
While Decisive Data worked themselves out of the job in 60 days, T-Mobile continues their vision as a data-driven, automated enterprise.
Project Results
95% less time to run their accounting reports
Several new automated accounting workflows to run at regularly scheduled intervals
Best practices to create and share Alteryx automations
Easy to test and share results with subject-matter experts
Know-how to review and automate remaining accounting processes
Use workflows with other departments to solve related problems
Learned new ways to discover and solve additional discrepancies when meeting with stakeholders
“I would recommend Decisive Data to anyone. They have brought tremendous value to the team by helping us implement Alteryx as a solution” - Karen Miller, Accounting Department Manger, T-Mobile
Decisive Data + Alteryx = T-Mobile’s Accounting Reports Automated
The Quick
Project Summary
A Challenge Well-Suited For Alteryx
Selecting Alteryx, To Achieve “Self-Service, Data Analytics”
Decisive Data is an Alteryx, certified partner and Alteryx 2016 Connector Partner of the Year
Automate the repetitive
Learn to fish
T-Mobile’s Automation Vision. Realized.
Project Results