The document presents a case study on implementing Enterprise Data Management Cloud Service (EDMCS) to address master data challenges faced by CareFirst, the largest health insurer in the mid-Atlantic region. It outlines the project's objectives, the comparison between Data Relationship Management (DRM) and EDMCS, as well as the implementation details and challenges encountered during the transition to cloud-based solutions. Key lessons learned include the importance of embracing the data chain, optimizing for EDMCS strengths, and effectively managing mappings.

2. Case Study: Using EDMCS to Solve Master
Data Challenges
June 26, 2019
Kevin Black – Product Manager, Master Data

3. AGENDA
➢Alithya & Speaker Overview
➢Project Overview
➢A (brief) DRM vs EDMCS Comparison
➢EDMCS Implementation & Challenges
➢Summary & Lessons Learned
➢Q&A & Wrap-Up

4. COMPANY HISTORY
4
2001
Hyperion
Planning
introduced
to the
market (1st
Essbase
embedded
app)
2007
Enhanced
Consolidation
practice with
world class
capabilities
2009
HPCM
introduced
to the
market –
Ranzal
design
review
2010
Established
Strategic
Finance
practice to
complement
our Planning
expertise
2012
Exalytics &
Performance
Testing Lab
Establish
multi
product
focus &
advisory
Proven business analytics leader with a
history of successful implementations
and continuous growth
1996
Ranzal &
Associates
Founded
2004
Acquired by
Edgewater
2016
Deepened
geographic
footprint
and EPM
Cloud
expertise
2015
Developed
Discovery &
Modern
Data
Architecture
Approach
2014
Introduced
Hosting,
Support &
Managed
Services
Offerings
2018
Ranzal &
Alithya join
forces to
form an EPM/
ERP Cloud
Powerhouse

5. ALITHYA OVERVIEW – EPM & ANALYTICS
5
Comprehensive Business Solutions
Our solutions drive improved business performance
through better decision making, strong customer
engagement, and optimized operations
Deep Partnership Drives Customer Value Adaptable Deployment Models
Diverse Client Portfolio & Industry Expertise
RetailEnergy/
Utilities
Team Highlights
Multiple Oracle
ACEs
Seasoned
delivery team
with avg 8 years
serving clients
Experienced
management team
with avg 15 years in
the company
Certified Cloud
Resources
Enterprise Performance
Management (EPM)
Analytics
Financial Services
Technology CPG and
Manufacturing
Healthcare
Outstanding
Achievement
in Big Data
100 Most Promising
Big Data Solutions
Providers
1,000+ Clients 2,000+ Projects20+ Years
Advisory
Services
Implementation
Services
Technical
Services
Hosting &
Support
Training
Services
Intellectual
Property

6. ABOUT THE SPEAKER – KEVIN BLACK
➢ Professional:
➢ 30 years experience (yes, I'm old) in multiple IT roles with technology companies such as
Hewlett-Packard, Agilent Technologies, and First Data Corp
➢ Involved in EPM space since 2005 – first as a client, then as a consultant with Alithya since
2014
➢ EPM career had been focused on DRM/DRG projects until…EDMCS was born!
> Follow me at:
▪ Twitter: @kblackEPM
▪ Blog: https://ranzal.blog/author/kblackranzal/
➢ Personal:
➢ Husband and proud father of an awesome daughter (and a goofball puppy)
➢ AZ native; recently moved back home after nearly 30 years away (most of it in beautiful
CO)
➢ Big sports fan!

7. CAREFIRST BLUECROSS BLUESHIELD
7
• CareFirst is in it’s 82nd year of service as a not-for-profit,
independent licensee of the BlueCross and BlueShield
Association, operating in the Mid-Atlantic region covering the
District of Columbia, all of Maryland and a large portion of
Northern VA
• The largest health insurer in our region, serving 3.3 million
members
• Serves more than 625,000 members in the Federal Employees
Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) – one of the largest FEHBP
enrollments in the nation

8. ABOUT CAREFIRST
8
Is the largest health care
insurer in the Mid-Atlantic
region, serving 3.2 million
members.
Employs approximately 5,000
associates and contractors in
Maryland, Washington, D.C.
and Northern Virginia.
Has launched the nation’s
largest Patient-Centered
Medical Home (PCMH)
program of its kind.
Serves more than 625,000
members in the Federal
Employees Health Benefits
Program (FEHBP) – the largest
FEP enrollment in the nation.
Nationally recognized as a
"Best in Blue" insurer for
providing stellar customer
service for 22 years for D.C.
FEP members and 15 years
for Maryland FEP members.
Invested $33.2 million in
2017 to improve overall
health, and increase the
accessibility, affordability,
safety and quality of health
care throughout its market
areas.
Earned recognition in 2013,
2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and
2018 as one of the "World's
Most Ethical
Companies" from the
Ethisphere Institute.

9. CAREFIRST BLUECROSS BLUESHIELD
9
Our reporting requirements are extensive as we must report to the
following entities:
• BlueCross BlueShield Association (BCBSA)
• Insurance Commissioners for MD, DC & VA
• Federal Employee Program Director’s Office
• Office of Personnel Management (OPM)
• Group Administrators
• Medical Loss Ratio (MLR) as mandated by the 2010 Health Care Reform
Act

10. PROJECT OVERVIEW – COST ALLOCATION INITIATIVE
➢ Current State
➢ Long time Hyperion customer
➢ Replaced Oracle Financial Analyzer with Hyperion Essbase in Jan 2010
➢ Custom Essbase solution handled complex allocation algorithms, large amounts of data,
multiple hierarchies, and provided user-friendly reporting with Smart View
➢ Mix of BSO and ASO cubes
➢ Future State
➢ New Enterprise Initiatives - Cost Management/Allocation Project and Ground to Cloud
➢ Looking to Simplify, Standardize, and Move to Cloud
➢ Big push towards Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) solutions that are user friendly,
flexible, maintainable by the business, and require minimal IT support
➢ Realization that major pain points in master data management need to be addressed (did
not have DRM or any other master data management solution)

11. PRODUCT/TECHNOLOGY MIX
➢Enterprise Data Management (EDMCS)
➢Profitability and Cost Management (PCMCS)
➢Oracle EBS
➢EPM Jump Box (Linux)
➢Integration Technologies
➢Linux shell scripts
➢Perl
➢EPM Automate

12. A (BRIEF) DRM VS EDMCS COMPARISON
➢EDMCS “DRM in the Cloud”
➢ EDMCS was not a “lift and shift” of DRM to the Cloud
➢ It's a new product with a new data model and philosophy
➢Granted, there are some similarities:
➢ Node Types
➢ Common Actions & Terminology (add/insert, remove/delete)
➢ Bulk update mechanism
➢ Data Governance Workflows
➢But there are many more differences…

13. A (BRIEF) DRM VS EDMCS COMPARISON
CONSIDERATION DRM EDMCS
Foundation &
Philosophy
• Versions and Hierarchies
• Agnostic - EPM and non-EPM
sources/targets
• Applications and Dimensions
• Purpose-built deployment applications w/ Packaged
Adapters– PBCS, EPBCS, Fin Cloud GL
• Custom Adapter for everything else
Data Model &
Functionality
• Properties (node types, prop categories)
• Versions, Hierarchies, Hier Groups
• Node Access Groups
• DRG - Workflow models/tasks,
enrichment stages, conditional approvals
• Properties, Data Chain objects
• Views/Viewpoints, Default Views/Maintenance Views
• Groups, Roles, Permissions at different levels within
application, dimension, and data chain
• Approval Policies only; no workflow forms or enrichment
yet
Legacy • “The workhorse” MDM product
• Mature and robust
• Multiple “levers to pull”; integrations,
derived props, custom validations, etc.
• Relative newcomer to EPM Cloud; released Jan 2018
• Does not have all DRM functionality (but gap closing)
• Does some things better (compares, visualization of
changes)
• Requires mindset change; EDMCS will never equal DRM
(and that’s intentional) - it’s a different product with
different approach

14. SOLUTION OVERVIEW
• 2 EDMCS Applications
• Heavy use of maintenance
views
• Dimensions maintained via
requests & subscriptions
• Dimensions & Mappings
are exported and dropped
on jump box
• Automated batch
processes grab extract
files, perform minor
transformations, and load
to target PCMCS
applications

15. SOLUTION BY THE NUMBERS
EDMCS
Application
EDMCS
Adapter
Target
Application
#
Users
# Dimensions* # Mapping Integrations # Members**
LOB Custom 2 PCMCS
- Cost Calc
- Cost Rptg
8 5
- Account
- Line of Business
- Operation
- Organization
- Target Range
2 (for Cost Calc cube)
- Organization-Target
Range
- Line of Business-Target
Range
Dimensions - ~15,800
Mappings - ~16,600
FEP Custom 1 PCMCS
- FEP
10 4
- Account
- Line of Business
- Operation
- Organization
N/A Dimensions - ~9,400
Mappings – N/A
* Some dimensions contain up to 18 alternate hierarchies
** Member counts includes alternate hierarchies and shared members; unique node count is ~5,300 nodes

16. CHALLENGE #1: FINDING THE RIGHT BALANCE
➢ Challenge
➢ How to balance purpose-built, deployment-specific applications while centralizing hierarchy
maintenance and avoiding duplicative effort
➢ Solution
➢ Maintenance Views
➢ Created Maintenance Views for common dimensions (4) that span both EDMCS applications
➢ Utilize compares to identify & synchronize differences
➢ Subscriptions
➢ Created subscriptions on target viewpoints (FEP) to corresponding source viewpoints (LOB)
➢ Used visual tags in viewpoint names to identify subscribed viewpoints
➢ Provided Best of Both Worlds - 2 purpose-built EDMCS applications, along with centralized
hierarchy maintenance via subscriptions, to support 3 PCMCS targets

17. CHALLENGE #2: MAINTAINING THE COST CENTER DIMENSION
➢ Challenge
➢ Primary Cost Center (aka Organization) hierarchy mastered in Oracle EBS
➢ Alternate hierarchies mastered in EDMCS
➢ How to effectively refresh a primary hierarchy from external system while maintaining
alternate hierarchies in EDMCS
➢ Solution
➢ Generated a “request file” from EBS via custom SQL program
➢ Request file contained complete snapshot of Cost Center primary hierarchy
➢ Request File Loaded 2X
➢ 1 - To primary CC viewpoint (as a merge)
➢ 2 - To independent viewpoint with its own data chain to establish baseline (essentially an “import”)
➢ Utilized Maintenance Views and Compares to identify differences between baseline and
primary viewpoint, followed by requests to resolve differences

18. CHALLENGE #2: MAINTAINING THE COST CENTER DIMENSION
➢ Alternate viewpoints
created to enable
hierarchy compares and
subscriptions
➢ Primary and alternate
hierarchies isolated in
separate viewpoints as
needed
➢ An independent EBS
viewpoint (with its own
data chain) utilized to
represent the “baseline”
to compare against
➢ Why not use an import?

19. CHALLENGE #3: MAPPINGS
➢ Challenge
➢ How to manage mappings (i.e. target range associations) in EDMCS and load to PCMCS
➢ How to generate a mapping “report” for offline review by the business
➢ Solution
➢ 1st attempt: associate target mappings in source hierarchies with a “UDA” like property
➢ Many issues: usability, maintenance, prop inheritance not available at the time, major ETL required to pivot 1:M
mappings to 1:1 mappings
➢ 2nd attempt: Mapping View
➢ Similar concept to Maintenance View; essentially a 2-level hierarchy: child=source node; parent=target node
➢ Leverage side-by-side display, compare, and drag-n-drop to maintain mappings
➢ Mapping Export generates exact 1:1 parent-child relationships required for PCMCS
➢ Viewpoint Download
➢ Download to Excel, run pivot table wizard to generate mapping report format preferred by business users

20. MAPPING VIEW
> Mapping View
manages Target
Range associations
(mappings) in
parent-child format
> Child = source value
> Parent = target
value
> Source and Target
dimensions included
in mapping view for
comparison and
drag-n-drop
maintenance

21. MAPPING EXPORT
> Mapping Export generated in parent-
child CSV format (3rd column ignored)
for easy consumption into PCMCS
> This produces the Target Range Matrix
required by PCMCS allocations by
identifying valid intersections for the
target ranges based on either Cost
Center or Line of Business associations

22. MAPPING REPORT
> Download to Excel
allows easy generation
of a pivot table
> Pivot table output
mimics previous
mapping report format
preferred by the
business
> Columns (target
ranges) can be filtered
to display only the
mappings associated
with those target
ranges

23. SUMMARY
> Project completed, including execution of multiple parallel tests
➢What’s Next?
➢ Explore new EDMCS functionality (workflows, top node filters, automation)
➢ EPBCS
➢ ARCS
➢ Cost Center Manager Approval Limits Initiative

24. LESSON LEARNED #1: EMBRACE THE DATA CHAIN
➢Most difficult part of EDMCS to grasp (and the most powerful)
➢Keep it lean and mean; in many cases you only need 1-2 node types
and 1 hierarchy set per dimension/per application
➢ Note: multiple Node Sets required for alternate viewpoints
➢Viewpoint Copy – for archival/audit purposes
➢Beware the “but DRM did it this way” mindset!

25. LESSON LEARNED #2: THE CUSTOM ADAPTER
> The Custom Adapter – it’s flexible but it ain’t easy!
> Offers significant flexibility
> Longer application setup time
> Limited Validations (data storage property was a challenge!)
> No direction integration to PCMCS
> Mitigation Strategies
> Clean, effective viewpoint design
> Property templates
> Request load file templates/examples
> User education/knowledge transfer
> Some form of Extract-Transform-Load Process likely required when Custom
Adapter is used

26. LESSON LEARNED #3: DESIGN TO OPTIMIZE
➢Design your solution to leverage EDMCS strengths and best practices
➢ Purpose-built Deployment Applications
➢ Maintenance Views & Mapping Views
➢ Subscriptions
➢ Compares (Missing Nodes, Relationship Differences, Property Differences)
➢ Request Load Files (develop good templates/examples)
➢ Visual Highlighting of draft request changes and compare differences in EDMCS is
excellent
➢ User Education and Knowledge Transfer for All the Above

27. Q&A
27
Questions?

28. 16 SPEAKER SESSIONS
28
Visit us at Booth # 113
Monday, 6/24:
• 11:00am – 11:30am (202): Become a RESTful Iron Man with ARC (the Application, Not the Reactor)
• 11:00am - 11:30am (204): Supplemental Data in the Cloud
• 2:15pm - 3:15pm (205): Best Practices for Designing and Building Integrations
• 3:45pm - 4:45pm (611): My Favorite Calc Code
Tuesday, 6/25:
• 8:50am - 9:50am (204): Keys to the Kingdom: Key Concepts to ARCS Application Design
• 10:00am - 11:00am (211): Client Success Story - Oracle FDMEE is the Cloud Data Hub at Legg Mason
• 11:45am - 12:45pm (611): I Can do WHAT with PCMCS? Features and Functions, Business Benefits, and Use Cases
• 2:15pm - 3:15pm (211): EPM Cloud Integration at CareFirst
• 2:15pm - 3:15pm (611): Empowering Users with Analytical MDX
Wednesday, 6/26:
• 10:15am - 11:15am (201): EPRCS: The reporting Swiss Army Knife
• 10:15am - 11:15am (602): Connected Planning Using EPM Cloud at Opus Group
• 11:45am - 12:45pm (211): Case Study: Using EDMCS to Solve Master Data Challenges
• 11:45am - 12:45pm (201): EPM Data Integration Panel
• 11:45am - 12:45pm (6A): Trend-Based Connected Planning at Vitamix
• 3:30pm - 4:30pm (204): A 2020 Vision for EPM Project Management
Thursday, 6/27:
• 9:30am – 11:00am (609): Deep Dive: Financial Close: The Best of Both Worlds - Welcome to the Hybrid Close

29. FIND US
29
infosolutions@alithya.com
You can email us questions:
Read our blog for insight and
find answers to your questions:
ranzal.blog
Visit our website to find the right
solution and learn how we can
help you:
alithya.com/oracle

30. CONTACT INFORMATION
30
Alithya
1025 Westchester Avenue, Suite 108
White Plains, NY 10604
Tel (914) 253-6600
infosolutions@alithya.com
20 West Kinzie Street
Suite 13046
Chicago, IL 60610
200 Harvard Mill Square
Suite 320
Wakefield, MA 01880
Kevin Black
Product Manager – Master Data
Email: Kevin.Black@Alithya.com