As business needs and processes change, applications are often extended through business integration. Business Integration (BI) is implemented through a set of technologies that allow for the movement and exchange of information between different applications, business processes and people across your organization and beyond. BI enables organizations to become more efficient and productive while leveraging existing system investments.

Integration of business applications, processes, and data internally or with partners, suppliers and customers often prove to be a daunting task for enterprises of any size. TechFlow's deep knowledge and experience in application, business process, data, Web Services, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and XML integration provides great value in identifying, planning, designing, implementing and managing integration solutions.

TechFlow's BI approach incorporates best-of-breed technologies, tools and industry accepted best practices to ensure successful business integration solutions and maximum flexibility. Regardless of business size, type or particular business integration challenge, TechFlow has an appropriate business integration solution for any company's needs. Take a look at three of our recent success stories in the following case studies.

Case Study #1: eProcurement XML Integration Project for General Service Administration Federal Technology Service

Background:
The mission of GSA's Federal Technology Service (FTS) is to deliver best value and innovative acquisition solutions for Information Technology (IT), Network Services (telecommunications), and Professional Services to support government agency requirements worldwide. GSA FTS works with agency customers to understand their requirements and to help them develop acquisition strategies, conduct the acquisition, provide assistance throughout implementation, and manage the funding. GSA FTS services help agencies achieve best value solutions and avoid doing costly, time-consuming acquisitions, save taxpayer dollars, and enable them to devote more of their own staff directly to their agency missions and programs. GSA FTS works offers assisted acquisition services on a fee-for-service basis to government agencies.

Challenge:
GSA-FTS procures their client's orders and manages projects in a Lotus Notes web enabled eProcurement system and processes vendor invoices, client project budget, client bill and payment transactions in an Oracle relational database financial system. GSA FTS system procures about $6-billion of Information Technology (IT), Network Services (telecommunications), and Professional Services per year. GSA-FTS needed to integrate their eProcurement and financial systems data and business processes. They needed to transmit purchase orders and initial budget amounts to the financial system prior to purchase order being awarded in the procurement system. They also wanted to communicate vendor invoice, client billing and payment summaries that occurred in the financial system to the procurement system for customer service representatives to more efficiently process client's inquiries on vendor invoices, billings and payments. Additionally financial managers needed to approve, and could change, the client's project budget in the financial system and this needed to be reflected back to the procurement system before an order was awarded to the vendor.

Solution:
TechFlow implemented a solution for GSA-FTS that fulfilled their need for data integration between the procurement and financial system. The solution used XML Schemas to define the document type, data elements, data attributes, data types and child structure of the XML document. The XML schema provided a flexible, well-defined data interchange solution that was easily extendable for future integration requirements. XML messages were created by each system in an event driven model based agreed XML schema data structure and format. The solution validated each XML message and logged the details of each message to enable monitoring of the business process. The solution included business logic to initiate business processes when XML messages resulted in a changed state of a client's order.

TechFlow developed the software using IBM WebSphere® Application Server to create an integration solution that standardized on J2EE and XML technologies, is secure, scalable to handle future growth, and provides flexibility for future business process enhancements.

GSA-FTS satisfaction of the solution has resulted in continued assessment and new projects to further enhance the GSA-FTS business process to enable the organization to be more efficient and productive. TechFlow's broad business and technology experience can help to eliminate organizations IT complexities, drive efficiency and productivity across the enterprise.

Case Study #2: eProcurement XML Integration Project for Beaumont Foundation of America

Background:
Beaumont Foundation of America is a charity organization located in Beaumont, Texas with a mandate to distribute over $350 million in grants to disadvantaged and educational groups. The fund was the result of a remaining balance from a class action lawsuit brought against Toshiba. Thus, the grant awards are distributed as Toshiba hardware, such as laptops, desktops, and projectors. The foundation purchases this hardware from tier-1 vendors such as CDW who are also responsible for distributing and servicing the equipment. Unlike many charities, the foundation takes great efforts to insure that the hardware is used by the grantee by electronically tracking each item's usage remotely each month.

Challenge:
Beaumont Foundation needed to communicate their purchases with their tier-1 hardware vendor electronically via XML. They needed to transmit purchase orders during their twice-annual grant award phase and subsequently have the hardware shipped throughout the remaining six months with electronic updates as each item was shipped. They wanted to be able to receive invoices and credit memos electronically and reconcile the items shipped with the items in the original purchase order. They also needed to be able to handle defective hardware returns. An additional requirement was the foundation's need to track the computer hardware via serial numbers and special tracking software installed on each machine. These needed to be transmitted from CDW to Beaumont. A final requirement was having the option of using the solution with other tier-1 vendors in the future.

Solution:
TechFlow implemented a solution for the Beaumont Foundation that fulfilled their need for XML communication from their purchasing application to their tier-1 hardware vendor. It used the cXML specification designed by Ariba for e-Procurement to transmit purchase orders, status updates, credit memos, and invoices via XML. The solution also included business logic to insure all data, specifically pricing and money totals, transmitted to and from CDW were correct and valid. It provided easy to understand warning and data validation messages and included a detailed logging mechanism for tracking all communication between the foundation's servers and CDW's servers. These have become valuable tools for reconciling discrepancies in the purchase order data as it passes through CDW's internal system over the course of several months.

TechFlow developed the solution using a J2EE application server to create a solution that was able to adapt to evolving business requirements. The solution was further designed to be configurable and extensible so that as the Foundation refines and modifies their purchasing work processes the integration points with the cXML connector solution would be easy to maintain and extend. The solution insures that all data transmissions with CDW were secure by using SSL and cXML protocol level authentication credentials.

Based on the quality of the solution delivered and their high degree of satisfaction, the Beaumont foundation has sought out additional ways in which TechFlow can leverage our broad experience to eliminate their IT complexities.

Case Study #3: Domino and Web Services Integration Project for Semtech Corporation

Background:
Semtech Corporation is an industry leader in the design, manufacture, and supply of analog and mixed digital semiconductor components for virtually any computing and electronic equipment. Semtech was founded in 1960 and has demonstrated 40 years of excellence and performance in the semiconductor space.

Challenge:
Semtech Corporation sells their semiconductor products through both direct (OEM) and indirect (distribution) sales channels. They require the ability to track the end customer and location, regardless of the channel, in order to calculate the commission splits. Semtech has decided to outsource to Nsite the calculation of the split commissions. To accomplish the calculation of the split commissions, Nsite requires the ability to retrieve, via web service, several key data sets on a daily basis. Additionally, Semtech desires to enhance the method through which distributors register to use the system by allowing individual login accounts for vendors rather than group accounts.

Solution:
TechFlow designed several discretely componentized solutions for Semtech that will leverage IBM WebSphere® Application Server (WAS) to run Web Services and Web Service clients that will then communicate with another partner's (Nsite) application. Domino application integration came in the form of scheduled agents that directly call a java servlet residing on the IBM WebSphere® Application Server while data integration was achieved through updating Domino documents with values obtained from Nsite's Web Service application. Web Services were also developed to allow Nsite to query data from Semtech's databases and provides a secure (via SSL certificate), real-time mechanism platform for partner collaboration.

TechFlow's solution provided Semtech real-time access to remote core, business critical information. TechFlow's approach also gave Semtech platform and technology independent solutions that are easily modifiable, scalable and eliminate integration complexities.