Lehmann + Partner Informatik Turns Data Into Strategic Information

The company looks after large corporations from a wide variety of industries with the aim of gaining valuable information on the efficient organization of the HR systems and on process management through the combination of IT and specialist knowledge from the company's personal data.

Lehmann + Partner Informatik needed to respond to market demand for simplified reporting and analysis functions on top of its HR software. The company sought a BI application with a web-based user interface, attractive look and feel, and extensive visualization capabilities. The BI application needed to integrate smoothly with other HR sources such as time-tracking systems. And HR users without deep technical knowledge needed to be self-sufficient in using the reporting and analysis functions.

Through its work as the interface between IT and human resources, the company became aware of a need for HR-specific reporting functionalities for personnel applications such as Xpert.HRM from Soreco AG. It needed the ability to present abstract data of these systems in visual and tabular form, to serve as the basis for strategic business decisions. Instead of developing its own BI system, Lehmann + Partner Informatik decided to use a proven BI solution. Important criteria for the evaluation of various BI tools were for Lehmann + Partner Informatik included:

• Self-Service BI: Even users without computer science skills should be able to operate the tool easily and without the support of the IT department.
• Web-based user interface.
• Attractive look and feel with eye-catching diagrams for visual processing.
• High Integrity: The solution should not only provide an interface to Xpert.HRM but also easily interface with other HR systems, such as time recording applications or applicant systems.
• Attractive price.

BI4HR is Lehmann + Partner Informatik AG’s business intelligence tool that enables users of the specialist application Xpert.HRM from Soreco AG to provide simple, automated reporting, and to support knowledge management with regard to personal data. BI4HR stands for "Business Intelligence for Human Resources."

BI4HR is designed so that even users with limited IT skills can easily and quickly access personal data without the support of the IT department, and can even create reports and share them with other employees. The solution enables all HR employees to display HR data in clear tables or meaningful graphics. The simple systematic evaluation and visual presentation of personal data – such as wage types, payrolls, work entries and departures, fluctuation, demographic developments or absences – serves as a basis for targeted, strategic and efficient personnel decisions.

The Solution: Pentaho Business Analytics, Pentaho Data Integration

Lehmann + Partner Informatik AG uses Hitachi Vantara’s Pentaho Data Integration for its ETL tool and dashboards, and for reporting and analysis. Hitachi Vantara’s Pentaho Business Analytics is embedded into the new application, BI4HR. The company was able to quickly embed Hitachi Vantara’s software into BI4HR.

Thanks to the simple user interface and the prepared reports and HR tags, BI4HR users can learn quickly and without extensive training. The Lehmann + Partner Informatik AG team found the Pentaho solution easy to learn. With the flexibility of Pentaho, customer feedback flows continuously into the product, allowing functionalities to be continually expanded.

After an evaluation phase, Lehmann + Partner Informatik AG picked Hitachi Vantara’s Pentaho solutions to implement into their BI4HR product, as Pentaho best met the criteria.

• The product BI4HR HR Cockpit (dashboards): On comprehensive dashboards, all relevant HR key figures (sick leave, fluctuation, entries, departures) are displayed using different graph types. The most important HR key figures are prepared and can be integrated as fields in reports.
• Analyzes: HR employees can carry out their own personal data analysis (for example, drill down, salary analysis, cut-off period or day) without IT support.
• Lists: BI4HR makes it easy to create employee data lists.
• Extensions: BI4HR is currently only available as a business intelligence module for Xpert.HRM and supplementary HR source systems such as time recording or applicant systems. Upon customer request, further HR data can be integrated into the BI4HR reporting.
• Personal data is a critical issue, especially when it comes to data security. BI4HR takes this into account and was developed from the outset in compliance with general safety requirements and personal data security.
• BI4HR is 100% web-based and does not require any client installation. By combining S-Cloud server and Pentaho data integration, BI4HR can access a wide variety of relational and non-relational data sources wherever they may be.
• BI4HR is based on the following Pentaho components:
• Pentaho Data Integration - takeover, transformation and loading of data.
• Pentaho Business Analytics - for the creation of analyses and reports.

In the future, Lehmann + Partner Informatik AG intends to open BI4HR for other staff application systems beyond Xpert.HRM.

The Outcome: Data and Analytics Help With Trends and Prevent Problems

Lehmann + Partner can now integrate customer feedback into the product on an ongoing basis and continuously extend its functionality. The easy-to-use interface, prepared reports and integrated KPIs have made BI4HR simple to learn. BI4HR users have noticed significant improvements in the responsiveness of BI4HR, thanks to Hitachi Vantara’s Pentaho Data Integration. Additionally, data blending from time-tracking and other HR systems helps to identify trends, such as possible staffing shortages. HR employees can easily use BI4HR and share reports with colleagues. Thanks to the visualization, HR data is transformed into information that helps discover departmental variances and demographic trends, and is used to prevent problems.