Upskilled Saves Time, Reduces Expenses with ReadyMade ETL, Powered by Talend

Education innovator integrates Salesforce.com and MYOB to automate data transfer, eliminate redundant data entry.

When you’re a start-up with a staff of two people, the last thing you need is to spend two hours a day keying the exact same data into two different, unconnected applications. As soon as Upskilled found itself doing that, it researched integration tools and implemented the one that solved the problem completely and delivered the most value: WDCi’s ReadyMade ETL solution, Powered by Talend.

Unconnected Systems Require Re-keying Data

Very quickly after Upskilled began using Salesforce.com to gain visibility into its sales pipeline, the company co-founders realized they would have to key all the data on customers into both Salesforce and MYOB, the company’s accounting software. “When you’re limited on resources and busy making sales, you don’t have time to double-enter data,” says Varant Bomoushakian, co-founder, Upskilled. “We said, ‘If there’s a tool that can connect Salesforce and MYOB, it’s worth its weight in gold.’”

Bomoushakian timed the process of re-keying data and found it took an extra six minutes for each contact and each account. “When we were starting out,” he says, “we were making 20-odd sales a day, so we’d have to do this 20 or more times. That meant we were spending more than two hours a day on redundant work. If we had a complex customer scenario, the job took even more time. And there were errors - you can’t avoid human error when there’s a manual aspect to a job.”

To find a solution, Upskilled looked at available integration options. One from an Australian company didn’t meet all Upskilled’s requirements, had fewer features, and was several times more expensive than the solution Upskilled adopted - the ReadyMade ETL tool from WDCi.

Synchronizing Data Between Applications

Upskilled deployed the ReadyMade ETL tool that embeds Talend in May 2009 to integrate data between Salesforce.com and MYOB. Talend data integration technology in the tool automates the manual process of replicating a Salesforce sales order in MYOB, eliminating the need to re-key data between applications and preserving data quality.

WDCi Group helped Upskilled implement the ReadyMade ETL tool, a pre-built integration solution that WDCi developed through an OEM partnership with Talend. ReadyMade ETL solutions use Talend to deliver rapid, low-cost integration solutions for organizations of all sizes.

“WDCi was clear and concise in their instructions on how to get the system up and running, and fine-tuning it for our applications,” says Bomoushakian. “We didn’t have an IT person; it was just my business partner and I, and we don’t have IT backgrounds. The installation process was very quick, with WDCi doing the work via remote login.”

Bomoushakian says that MYOB has strict parameters on data such as field sizes, and the implementation process included learning about those limitations and building the proper validations into Salesforce to avoid errors. “Once we got the configurations down, the integration has worked brilliantly,” he says. “We’ve had no errors or problems with syncs.”

Scaling to Meet Transaction Volumes

Currently three Upskilled employees use the integrated systems. The ReadyMade tool operates in the background in an automated, seamless process to pass customer data from Salesforce to MYOB in order to create cards in the MYOB program and issue invoices. Information exchange is bi-directional, with reconciliation data flowing back into Salesforce, including invoice numbers, and account and card IDs, which prevents duplicate cards from being created in MYOB.

“Synchronizing contact and account information between the two applications and creating invoices is the key benefit we were looking for,” says Bomoushakian. “That alone delivers great value. A related benefit is that we didn’t have to hire new administrative staff to key data into two systems, and our existing staff uses that saved time to do other, more productive finance-related tasks.”

Bomoushakian adds that the ReadyMade tool has scaled to meet an increase in the number of users and transaction volume: “We’ve had 15 percent growth in number of transactions over the year and a half we’ve been using the tool, which adds up to more than 5,500 invoices generated, and it continues to operate flawlessly.”

Innovation in Education and Business Processes

According to Bomoushakian, deploying the ReadyMade connector fits well with Upskilled’s overall business approach. “Our tagline says ‘Innovation in Education,’ which, for us, means not only being innovative in the education we deliver, but also in our approach to business processes and the day-to-day running of the business,” he says. “We want to be as efficient as possible, because that ultimately leads to a successful business, and the tool helps us increase efficiency and run a very lean organization.”

In summing up his assessment of the tool’s value, Bomoushakian says that “even without doing ROI calculations, we know the ReadyMade ETL connector saves us time, saves us from adding resources when our workload goes up, and eliminates the human errors that happen when data has to be re-keyed. I don’t know that you can put a value on that - it’s priceless. That’s why our overall level of satisfaction with the product is a ten out of ten.”

About Upskilled

Upskilled (www.upskilled.edu.au) is a Registered Training Organization, providing nationally accredited certificates and diplomas in Business, IT, HR, Sales, Project Management and Management.  Delivering its training at over 72 locations across Australia and via online education, Upskilled has trained over 6,500 students throughout the country and via it’s online learning portal. The company also specializes in government-funded and incentivized training, where businesses can upskill their staff at minimal or no cost.

About WDCi Group

Founded in 2008, and based in Australia and Malaysia, WDCi Group (http://www.wdcigroup.net/index.html) specializes in connecting systems by providing end-to-end solutions for identity, integration, data transformation and SOA requirements, both on-premise and on-demand. With a focus on rapid deployment, WDCi uses their extensive experience to deliver right the first time. WDCi partnered with Talend to develop pre-built integration solutions. These ReadyMade ETL solutions use Talend's OEM program, Powered by Talend, to deliver prepackaged integrations for the SME market.