Integrating systems to eliminate manual data entry
Aegis Chemical Solutions is a Houston-based leader in production treating chemicals, water treatment technologies, water transfer services and completions and drilling products. After a failed implementation project, Aegis brought in Rand Group who successfully implemented Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Since the implementation, Rand Group has been partnering with Aegis to improve their business systems, including a successful integration project between Dynamics NAV and OpenTicket.
Client: Aegis Chemical Solutions
The Goal
Eliminate manual data entry, streamline order to cash processing, and decrease days sales outstanding to improve cash flow.
The Outcome
Complete elimination of manual data entry through integration of OpenTicket and Dynamics NAV, which reduced staff burden and improved cash flow.
We are always considering more automation because that has proven to give us increased efficiencies and that would absolutely include Rand Group.
The problem
Aegis Chemical’s ticketing software solution for the digital sign off on tickets, OpenTicket, did not integrate with its ERP system, Dynamics NAV. This required a need to manually enter data for field tickets twice—in both OpenTicket and Dynamics NAV. This process took on average 1 minute per ticket for 100 tickets per day. This slowed down ticketing and invoicing significantly, and caused frustration for employees tired of duplicate data entry. The bigger problem is that is also resulted in delays for Aegis Chemical’s receiving payment from its customers.
“Employees literally had to mark out time in their day to dedicate to this manual process—sometimes hundreds of tickets.”
Disconnected systems and manual entry of data
The solution
The solution was an integration that automates ticket flow and approval between OpenTicket and Dynamics NAV, with automatic matching of invoices to approved tickets. Rand Group built the integration using its RandOne custom integration platform.
Benefits of using RandOne:
- Ability to set up integrations between multiple systems
- Built-in task management and reconciliation functionality
- All changes are automatically tracked for users to gain visibility into the project
- Business users can handle data errors themselves
- Easily roll back updates and make adjustments
The result
A normal user activity in Dynamics NAV of shipping an order will automatically trigger ticket creation in OpenTicket, completely eliminating manual data entry. The process that previously took one minute per ticket, now takes no time and requires no team member work. This not only frees up time of Aegis staff to focus on more high-value tasks but it also streamlines the order to cash process and improves cash flow.
After implementing this integration for one customer, Aegis Chemicals has rolled out the integration to multiple customers and has the ability to onboard additional customers without any additional coding or assistance from Rand Group. There have been minor enhancements to the integration from Rand Group and the workflow continues to work as designed.
“We’ve since on boarded several customers to this process, each working just as well as the pilot customer. It’s great to be able to tell a prospective customer ‘yes’ if we would be willing to submit tickets for approval.”
After realizing the value of integrations with Dynamics NAV, Aegis is considering additional integration projects to boost efficiencies and offer a better customer experience. Aegis also receives ongoing support from Rand Group for minor customizations, training, and more.
Saved 435 hours per year of manual data entry
