Jitterbit Harmony brings stability and improved customer service to Esri UK

Jitterbit Harmony brings stability and improved customer service to Esri UK

Background

Esri is the global market leader in geographic information system (GIS) software, location intelligence and mapping, helping customers unlock the full potential of data to improve operational and business results. Founded in 1969, Esri software is deployed in more than 350,000 organizations including 90 of the Fortune 100 companies. Esri UK offers GIS solutions to a wide range of markets in both the public and private sector in the UK.

Challenge

In late 2016, Esri UK faced a data integration challenge. There was a specific use case the company needed to support, with multiple data sources that needed to be connected together to better manage and report on key business information.

According to Ted Wildsmith, IS Business Change Consultant at Esri UK: “We needed to pull down information on technical support cases, product utilization statistics and licensing, which was all in several different systems. Our existing software could not support the technical requirements of these integrations. We wanted to connect to multiple API web services using SOAP/XML with the ability to pass dynamic values in the header segment.”

Before:

• Unable to connect multiple data sources to uncover business insights
• Inability to report on key business information
• Existing software did not support integrations

After:

• Centralized systems and data provide one single source of information on key business insights
• Now able to uncover and report on consistent information
• Accurate data that is shared widely and is available to all relevant users

Journey

With just a small team and without the necessary software development skills to build the required solution in-house, Esri UK was not able to support such a deployment and needed to look elsewhere. “We needed a stable platform with minimal maintenance,” says Ted. “Something that could be configured and maintained by non-developers.”

Ted needed a solution to bring together the disparate datasets – a way to access and understand the data using one single platform – which he knew would bring benefits to the business. He was aware of Jitterbit Harmony and decided to get in touch with the team there to find out how they could help.

Solution

Esri UK went on to trial Jitterbit Harmony which came out “head and shoulders” above competing solutions according to Ted, with a high level of engagement from the Jitterbit team throughout the trial. Ted worked closely with the Jitterbit team before implementation, which he believes was “invaluable in showing that the platform did what we needed it to do technically, and get us up and running quickly”. He was also impressed with the onboarding and introductory videos that he says made the initial setup easy. “Having been through Jitterbit University, I had the skills to be able to build the integrations we needed,” he says.

Results

The project ran with very few issues and the time to implement was shorter than initially estimated. Esri UK has since extended its use of Harmony, adding in extra connections to benefit other areas of the business. Ted lists just some of the many benefits of Jitterbit Harmony as being:

• Automatic updates, no infrastructure to look after, and no upkeep
• A stable platform with no support from Jitterbit needed
• Reduced duplication of efforts and associated efficiencies such as improved reporting
• Centralized systems and data providing one single source of information on key business insights
• The ability to gain more consistent knowledge from disparate back-office data
• A new model and new ways of working, with accurate information that is shared widely and is available to all relevant users

“Jitterbit Harmony is a fantastic product backed by a fantastic company. We didn’t need any help with the install as the tool is built so well. Its stability and ease of use brings a number of benefits to us.”
– Ted Wildsmith, IS Business Change Consultant, Esri UK