City of Helsinki

Helsinki City's Economic Planning Division found an easily expandable data warehouse based reporting solution, which will serve the growing city for years to come.

Helsinki City's annual budget is four billion euro. Running a machine of this magnitude takes 37 departments and public utility companies, which all work together to create services for the residents and city itself in a businesslike manner. Every day, the city's near 40,000 strong personnel make sure that Helsinki provides a good environment for living, business, free-time and culture.

Helsinki's economic planning - including economic and operational planning, monitoring, reporting and development - is the responsibility of the Helsinki Economic Planning Centre's Economic Planning Division. The division's tasks include, for example, economic planning, strategy preparation and offering the city's divisions and departments with counsel on how to follow regulations as well as general guidelines for carrying out proper economic planning.

"The economic planning, management and development of a city requires up-to-date, dependable and versatile data that spans all the administrational municipalities. Information must be analysed, easy to use and readily available with a few clicks of a mouse. Accordingly, an effective reporting system is a necessity," says Tuula Saxholm, Helsinki City Budget Director.

"In addition to routine reports on the city level, the system must also be able to pull together data from various different sources so it can be applied to our specific needs. As an example, travel cost monitoring necessitates a system that can combine data concerning the amount of personnel we are employing and our travel expenditure."

"Previously, our different divisions and departments had their own reporting systems that varied in terms of quality. Some are still in use, but the number of users switching to the joint system is growing all the time. This also increases cost efficiency: we save both time and money when we do not need to maintain and develop numerous reporting solutions, go through different kinds of reports - or make calls to our various departments and divisions to follow up on their expenditure," Saxholm continues.

An expandable solution opens new paths for the future

The Economic Planning Division's needs were met with a data warehouse based reporting solution. At first, data was retrieved from the city's financial and HRM systems and from there on data has been added from various other sources as well. The solution enables a real-time comprehensive outlook of operations in addition to information analysis, reporting, foresight and budgeting.

The measured data makes follow-up and optimising much more simple in practise, and the solution that is currently being built for the City Management helps in both strategic and operational planning. The planning division's reporting is based on SAP's BusinessObjects, and the ETL tools are built upon Informatica's solution. Affecto is in charge of the system as an entity.

Strict bidding criteria

Affecto was chosen as the supplier of the system in a competitive bidding including several leading companies in its field. Helsinki City required - in addition to technical and functional specifications - that their supplier of choice have experience from similar ventures. The service itself and the competence of the supplier's personnel were under tight scrutiny in the bidding. In addition, Helsinki City required its supplier be able to offer user support and take part in developing and expanding the system.

"Affecto's solution was the most cost effective when all aspects were taken into consideration, and Affecto also met our requirements best. Our three-year contract has an additional option for us to continue the contract with two more years. In addition to building the data system and reporting solution, our contract covers maintenance, training and necessary software packages."

"Affecto has proven to be a flexible and fast moving partner that takes things forward. In an organization like Helsinki City, development work always takes its own time, because we are also working on building the city's information architecture - a substantial and considerable thing for us," Saxholm emphasizes.

The economic planning, management and development of Helsinki City requires up-to-date, dependable and versatile data that spans all the administrational municipalities. Information must be analysed, easy to use and readily available with a few clicks of a mouse. To meet these needs, Helsinki City chose Affecto's effective reporting system.

Solution

A data warehouse based reporting solution. The planning department's reporting is based on SAP's BusinessObjects. The ETL tools are based on Informatica's solution.

Benefits

The solution enables a real-time comprehensive outlook of operations in addition to data analysis, reporting, foresight and budgeting. It makes follow-up and optimising much more simple in practise - and the solution that is currently being built for the City Management will facilitate both strategic and operational planning.