Presented by Brent Adonis, Senior Sales Engineer, Progress Software and Christoph Hagenbrock, CTO, Finanzchef24 You love MongoDB! We all love MongoDB! But does your third-party SQL application love MongoDB? Well it can without any compromises, including all the standards-based connectivity in the form of DataDirect ODBC and JDBC. In this session, you will learn how easy it is to connect any SQL application is to MongoDB – from a BI tool to a corporate application. Hear how Finanzchef24, a Munich-based innovative online broker for financial products targeting small- and mid-sized businesses, easily connects MongoDB with Excel for their reporting requirements.

1. Deutschlands führender Vergleich für
Gewerbeversicherungen
MongoDB Days 2015 - Munich, October 20th 2015
Christoph Hagenbrock, CTO
Dr. Benjamin Ruf, Business Intelligence Manager
Data lifecycle – Excel on steroids

2. 20.10.2015 2
Finanzchef24 – a Munich-based FinTech startup
www.finanzchef24.de
Some stats and figures
• Technology and sales
company
• Launch in 2013
• 70 employees
• > €10m in funding from
leading venture capital firms

3. 20.10.2015 3
Finanzchef24 – a Munich-based FinTech startup
www.finanzchef24.de
Some stats and figures
• Technology and sales
company
• Launch in 2013
• 70 employees
• > €10m in funding from
leading VCs
• Fastest growing digital
insurance broker for
businesses and
entrepreneurs in Germany
• B2B insurance comparison,
digital underwriting,
digitization of business
insurance market

4. 20.10.2015 4
Our culture, technology and people
www.finanzchef24.de
Our culture
• Hungry for success!
• Smart analytical, but also very critical
• A/B testing, not gut-feeling
• Continuous improvement
• Agile
• Data-driven decisions

5. 20.10.2015 5
Our culture, technology and people
www.finanzchef24.de
Our culture
• Hungry for success!
• Smart analytical, but also very critical
• A/B testing, not gut-feeling
• Continuous improvement
• Agile
• Data-driven decisions
• ...and we like to have fun as well

6. 20.10.2015 6
Our culture, technology and people
www.finanzchef24.de
Our culture
• Hungry for success!
• Smart analytical, but also very critical
• A/B testing, not gut-feeling
• Continuous improvement
• Agile
• Data-driven decisions
• ...and we like to have fun as well
Our people (and stakeholders)
Business
Marketing, sales, finance,
strategy
Tools: PowerPoint,
Google Analytics, Excel
Product / BI
Mathematics, statistics &
insurance know-how
Tools: Excel, SQL,
Atlassian
IT / Development
Backend, frontend,
DevOps, architecture

7. 20.10.2015 7
Our culture, technology and people
www.finanzchef24.de
Our culture
• Hungry for success!
• Smart analytical, but also very critical
• A/B testing, not gut-feeling
• Continuous improvement
• Agile
• Data-driven decisions
• ...and we like to have fun as well
Our people (and stakeholders)
Business
Marketing, sales, finance,
strategy
Tools: PowerPoint,
Google Analytics, Excel
Product / BI
Mathemathis, statistics &
insurance know-how
Tools: Excel, SQL,
Atlassian
IT / Development
Backend, frontend,
DevOps, architecture
Our technology
Scrum

8. 20.10.2015 8
Insurance products - pure data, no standards
…especially in business insurance
www.finanzchef24.de
Insurances:
Information arrives in heterogeneous often
unstructured formats
Product team:
Data structuring using Excel and subsequently
MySQL
Development:
Data transformation into high-performance
MongoDB collections
Insurance products
database
+

9. 20.10.2015 9
Insurance products - pure data, no standards
…especially in business insurance
www.finanzchef24.de
Replicaset
oplog listener - ala meteor.js
oplog listener

10. 20.10.2015 10
Our database structure
www.finanzchef24.de
Insurance products
Web-based
user data
Marketing
Campaigns
CRM
We aim for data-
driven decisions,
but how to make
sense of the data? I also want a
simple-to-use
frontend I am
already familiar
with.

11. 20.10.2015 11
Our database structure
www.finanzchef24.de
Insurance products
Web-based
user data
Marketing
Campaigns
CRM
“Single Source Truth”
Goal (for Business
Intelligence):
• Homogeneous data
base structure
• Strong data relation

12. 20.10.2015 12
Data handling during clean up
www.finanzchef24.de
Challenge:
• Analysis and reporting despite
heterogeneous data base
structures
I must not be data blind on my way
to the advanced BI solution (i.e.
data warehouse, BI Software,…)

13. 20.10.2015 13
Data handling during clean up
www.finanzchef24.de
Challenge:
• Analysis and reporting despite
heterogeneous data base
structures
Solution:
• Connection of data from different databases by Excel
• MongoDB ODBC Driver
 Fast and easy

I must not be data blind on my way
to the advanced BI solution (i.e.
data warehouse, BI Software,…)
Insurance
products
Web-based
user data
Marketing
Campaigns
CRM

14. Manufacturer Pro Con
Open Source • Free
• Premature status (beta
stage)
CDATA
• Beta stage
• Problems with VBA
implementation
Simba • VBA implementation possible
• No normalized views (only
flat)
Progress
• VBA implementation possible
• Normalized views (useful for
complex SQL queries)
• Very good support
20.10.2015 14www.finanzchef24.de
ODBC Driver under investigation

15. Manufacturer Pro Con
Open Source • Free
• Premature status (beta
stage)
CDATA
• Beta stage
• Problems with VBA
implementation
Simba • VBA implementation possible
• No normalized views (only
flat)
Progress
• VBA implementation possible
• Normalized views (useful for
complex SQL queries)
• Very good support
20.10.2015 15www.finanzchef24.de

ODBC Driver under investigation

16. 20.10.2015 16
Implementation:
• Excel AddIn
• Dialog box for SQL queries
• Additional features:
• Create own views
• Save and load SQL queries
• SQL queries automatically
saved in Custom XML Parts
UI of Excel implementation
www.finanzchef24.de

17. 20.10.2015 17
Implementation:
• Excel AddIn
• Dialog box for SQL queries
• Additional features:
• Create own views
• Save and load SQL queries
• SQL queries automatically
saved in Custom XML Parts
UI of Excel implementation
www.finanzchef24.de

18. 20.10.2015 18
Example:
• Marked net award per
employee, week and
payment method of
insurance contracts
• Next step:
• E.g. link with other
data from different
database
• Evaluation (e.g. Pivot)
Example of BI data query/import tool
www.finanzchef24.de

19. 20.10.2015 19
The Code behind
www.finanzchef24.de

20. 20.10.2015 20
1. Passing SQL Query to
subroutine
The Code behind
www.finanzchef24.de

21. 20.10.2015 21
1. Passing SQL Query to
subroutine
2. Connection to MongoDB
server with PROGRESS
ODBC Driver
The Code behind
www.finanzchef24.de

22. 20.10.2015 22
1. Passing SQL Query to
subroutine
2. Connection to MongoDB
server with PROGRESS
ODBC Driver
3. Save response in
ADODB Recordset
(ActiveX Data Objects
Library)
The Code behind
www.finanzchef24.de

23. 20.10.2015 23
Highly sophisticated Excel reports
www.finanzchef24.de
ActiveX
controls/Ribbons
Modular SQL
Queries
Dataset for Reports

24. 20.10.2015 24
Summary
www.finanzchef24.de
Development
Analytics
Product team
• Link data from different databases in Excel
• Application of PROGRESS ODBC Driver with Excel VBA
 Data import from MongoDB in Excel
• Data evaluation: Ideas for improvement
• Receives heterogeneous,
unstructured data from
insurance companies
• Data structuring
• Data transformation into high-
performance MongoDB
collections
• Hier fehlt noch was tolles

25. CONTACT DETAILS
Christoph Hagenbrock
CTO
christoph.hagenbrock@finanzchef24.de
github.com/agebrock
github.com/finanzchef24-gmbh
Dr. Benjamin Ruf
Business Intelligence Manager
benjamin.ruf@finanzchef24.de
Finanzchef24 is growing and always looking
for talented developers and data scientists
jobs@finanzchef24.de
…or email Christoph directly