customer portal integration with sap crb is tough! think again

A collaboration of:

Customer Portal Integration with SAP CRB is

Tough! Think Again! Obaid Khan

Puget Sound Energy

KK Ramamoorthy

Deloitte Consulting LLP

Presenting today..

Obaid Khan – Puget Sound Energy • 18 years of experience in leading teams to develop enterprise-wide

portal strategy, application road maps, and solution delivery

• Leads the Web Development, Enterprise Portal, Quality Assurance,

and EDW teams at Puget Sound Energy

KK Ramamoorthy – Deloitte Consulting • 15 years of experience in implementing SAP transformation projects

• SAP Mentor and active blogger/contributor to the SAP Community

Network

• Technical Lead for the CIS Project at Puget Sound Energy

• How we integrated a customer portal with SAP’s CRB

solution

• How we designed the customer portal for performance

• How we designed the solution for future upgrades

• Best Practices and Observations

• Key Take A Ways

In this session, we will cover..

About Puget Sound Energy (PSE)

• Headquartered in Bellevue, Washington

• 1.7 million customers

• 1,000,000 Electric customers

• 700,000 Natural Gas customers

• Strong residential base

• Regulated Utility

• Washington Utilities Commission

About Transformation

5

Technology Updates

Big “S” Program – 3 Critical Systems

GIS – Geospatial Information System

OMS – Outage Management System

CIS – Customer Information System

July 2011 - RFP for System Integrator

Sept 2011 - Official Project Kick-off

Go-Live Date - April 1, 2013 (19 month implementation)

CIS Solution Scope

SAP ECC 6.0; Enhancement Pack 5

SAP CRM 7.0, Enhancement Pack 1

SAP BW 7.1

SAP BOBJ 4.0

SAP PI 7.3

SAP Solution Manager

Document Presentment by OpenText

Microsoft SharePoint 2010

Where we started..

CLX - Mainframe

Biztalk

Customer Portal

Ext.

V

en

do

rs

Customer Portal was based

on .NET 1.1

Biztalk was used as the

services layer

Integration with external

vendors for payment

processing

We transformed it to..

SAP ECC SAP CRM

SAP PI

SAP BW / SAP BOBJ

Customer Portal Customer Portal is based on the

Microsoft SharePoint 2010

platform

SAP PI used as the enterprise

middleware

Web-services based integration

Integration with external vendors

for payment processing

OMS

Ext.

V

en

do

rs

Business Functions Implemented.. • Account Overview / Profile

Maintenance

• Move-in/Move-out

• Bill Presentment

• Report Outages

• Outage Status

• Installment Plans

• Land-Lord Start/Stop

• Billing History

• Payment History

• Payment setup through 3rd

parties

• Bill Analyser

• Use an Outside-in design approach; think like a customer

• Use responsive web design and drive Mobile First thinking

• Involve all the stake holders EARLY and OFTEN in the game; keep them

regularly updated throughout the program (Co-Locate if possible)

• Focus on smaller sprints (where possible) and leverage quick wins for

momentum, team spirit and continued buy-in

• Leverage the power of Social Media effectively to connect with customers

• Test performance, Test Performance, Test Performance…

Best Practices and Observations

• Web services can get quite hairy; cache data in the web application layer

where possible and avoid multiple calls for the same data

• Keep the middleware layer light; avoid extensive mapping and complex

business logic in the middleware

• Plan for site usage analytics

• Consider the nuances of SAP’s ISU data model; sometimes it may require

UI changes

Best Practices and Observations - cont’d..

• Address validations can be tricky; define a data validation strategy

and use appropriate add-on solutions

• If you are by-passing middleware layer, consider indirect access

license restrictions

• Keep the customer informed constantly; communicate,

communicate, communicate..

Best Practices and Observations - cont’d..

Performance Testing

• Plan for multiple cycles of performance testing

• Test with real-life volumes for a baseline and then add some more

• Test using specialized performance testing tools and stress the

system

• Perform end-to-end performance testing; involve all parties

involved

• Test in a production-like environment; infrastructure & data

Where are we going..

• Driving to deliver more self service capabilities

• Continue to have a Mobile First approach in design

• Think like a customer – I want to access information “When I want,

Where I want and on What device I want”

• Leverage the power behind SAP to deliver capabilities to our

customers

Key Take Away..

• Design Thinking – Think like a customer

• Keep it simple; customers want a functional website

• Performance takes priority over ‘cool’

• Think multiple form factors; focus on responsive design

• Business logic should stay in the backend; not in the UI; not

in the services layer

A collaboration of:

Obaid Khan Puget Sound Energy

Obaid.Khan@pse.com

KK Ramamoorthy Deloitte Consulting

kramamoorthy@deloitte.com