Rhineland-Palatinate's administrative body links existing correspondence system to the newly integrated SAP system
The Aufsichts- und Dienstleistungsdirektion (ADD) is a central administrative body in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. With head offices in Trier, the organization employs over 1,000 people and acts as an intermediary between the state government and the local government bodies in the state's municipalities, towns and counties. Within the educational system, the organization manages around 45,000 teachers and other staff members in around 1,700 schools throughout the state.
In order to control its monthly stream of over 10,000 documents, the ADD has already been using Aia Software's ITP solution since 2001 for automatic document and correspondence creation (both individual and mass mailings). ITP was a replacement for the OfficeVision/400 installation that the ADD had been using previously and for which the manufacturer had ceased to provide support.
“One of the reasons why we chose ITP back then was that we could more or less directly copy many of our existing templates from the OfficeVision application to the new system using a converter,” remembers Erich Scherf, head of the ADD's ICT department. “With a few minor modifications, we were also able to continue using the existing text interface program, which ran on the AS/400 platform. After first being implemented in the education department, ITP was gradually rolled out to the ADD's other departments. The application can access databases and compile documents at high speed, which makes it a really solid performer.”
Implementing an integrated, SAP-based system
In 2007, when the government of Rhineland-Palatinate decided that uniform personnel administration software would be implemented throughout the state, it became clear that the ADD was going to have to break away from its old software. The IPEMA® (Integrated Personnel Management System) project resulted in the decision to develop a solution based on the standard SAP ERP HCM software. Teacher personnel management at the ADD was one of three sub-projects involved.
This meant that document creation was put to the test once again, as it now had to be done using SAP data exclusively. Since the government had, in principle, opted for an integrated system, a phase-out of ITP was also originally on the cards. However, intensive testing showed that neither the Word interface nor the own word processing solution could meet requirements. Above all, the alternatives considered could not easily provide the high degree of automation in producing standard written communication, which needed to be maintained to relieve the burden on processes.
“Of course, when it comes to document creation, we had also been spoilt by many years of successfully using ITP,” explains Scherf. “Migration to a solution with less functionality and weaker performance would have been difficult to explain. Depending on the time of year, we need to produce over 10,000 documents every month, which would not be possible without a well-functioning system for automated standard written communications. On top of that, migration to a different system would have required considerable modification to the text templates and model documents, some of which are highly complex. This would have involved around 600 documents with comprehensive functionality. Understandably enough, we wanted to keep expenditure for this migration to an absolute minimum. Last but not least, when directly compared with server-based licenses, ITP proved to be extremely good value for money.”
These considerations ultimately led the ADD's project leaders to create a system that made sense from a technical point of view, which would enable integration and continued use of the existing ITP installation with the new standard software. IT service provider AETeam, which specializes in text and data integration, provided support. Together, they were able to show that a link to the SAP database can easily be made, enabling ITP to create documents at nearly the same level as the previous AS/400 application.
Swift connection, high performance
Fortunately, very little modification was required. A few macros were all that was needed to convert the several hundreds of document templates for use with SAP. “Staff responsible for the creation and administration of documents can work in exactly the same way with these new ‘SAP models’ as they did with the old ‘AS/400 models’,” explains Reinhold Kugel, the ADD employee responsible for the ITP project.
Aia Software’s solution therefore complements the SAP system perfectly and is connected through web services. In order to produce written documents, ADD clerks enter personnel data directly in SAP. Subsequently, the required ITP documents can be accessed from this input screen, combined automatically with application data, created and also post-processed before printing or dispatch if necessary. End users and clerks are quick and willing to accept the system, since the finished documents are in the familiar Word format. As well as creation of individual correspondence, ITP is used for central printing of bulk letters.
“We are very pleased with the solution,” summarizes Scherf. “The response time in merging the documents is outstanding. By continuing to use ITP we were ultimately able to secure our investments in templates and model documents.”
Now that the migration is complete, extensions have been planned with a view to improving performance even further. This includes a migration to the ITP/MDK Repository solution, which the ADD wants to use to bring the specialist departments even closer to being able to develop forms, reduce the amount of programming in the forms and therefore benefit from a further boost in productivity.