Master Data Management & Master Data Governance
Master Data Management (MDM) and BPM initiatives should go hand in hand, and together they can help organizations achieve business goals more efficiently and effectively – MDM needs organizational collaboration, as well as integrated process-oriented capabilities to break down information transaction silos and delay; contrarily, BPM projects cannot succeed in optimizing workflow or improving operational efficiency without accurate, complete and timely data flows.
As a centralized repository, Enterprise Process Center ® (EPC) offers a highly collaborative and interactive manner for MDM and BPM to work together throughout the whole master data lifecycle – by binding Master Data structure to human tasks, the EPC captures all critical data from every business process and activity, and creates a robust master data asset for your organization. Interfacing’s MDM solutions go beyond data quality and data governance, and offer the possibility to establish a joint value proposition with BPM and maximize the value of your existing resources. Let us leverage the power of your Master Data and guide your organization towards success!
The EPC toolkit provides organizations with:
Enterprise Data Catalogs
Full Text Search for Data Retrieval:
Finding the correct data that you need has never been that easy! Users are capable of performing full text search on all meta data (e.g. names, descriptions, custom properties, etc.) associated with all Master Data assets within the EPC. Besides, our unique TAG feature allows users to tag specific attributes for customized search and fast filtering purposes.
Automatic Meta Data Creation:
Interfacing’s MDM solution supports automatic Meta Data creation to reduce time when discovering and building out your data dictionary. Users can create, edit, delete, publish and move all Master Data objects (e.g. Master Data sets, Master Data folders, entities and attributes) within the system. Besides, our open APIs enable straight-forward integration with a wide variety of tools, so that you can import entities and attributes from external 3nd party systems.
Data Customization:
Within our user-friendly custom properties administration module, you can extend the definitions of your Master Data, pre-define values of attributes in drop-downs and multi-selects, enforce attribute completion by setting certain fields as mandatory for compliance and reporting purposes. These highly customizable pre-defined fields can also facilitate data navigation and data retrieval for your end-users.
Organize, List & Filter Data:
Interfacing helps you organize your Master Data in a systematic and structured way. Users can classify all data by category and system, view all attributes associated with an entity, view data type (e.g. string, integer, binary, boolean, etc.), also search and filter Master Data through a specific data field. Furthermore, the EPC supports user-friendly names and detailed definitions (e.g. AFK_DTE = Arrival Date) for easy data identification and discovery.
Data Governance & Control
Assign Ownership & Permissions:
Users are able to give data ownership using RASCI-VS (Responsible, Accountable, Supportive, Consulted, Informed, Verifier, Signatory) framework, as well as clarify data access permissions using CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) matrix. By following best practices and implementing such combined paradigm, users can identify all stakeholders associated with a specific Master Data item, hence control who can read, edit and approve your data in a standardized and secured manner.
Visualize Data Lineage & Interdependencies:
Used as a visual representation of upstream and downstream data flows to processes, tasks, systems and people, Impact Graphs show users how Master Data items are interrelated to one another in a high level view. Besides Impact Graphs, Hierarchical Graphs, with a top-down structure showing how each Master Data object fit within the organization, are also available in our system. Visualizing these associations can help management better understand the complexity of certain business activities, as well as the true effect of changes within the organization.
Application Database Entity Relationship Diagram:
Master Data is defined by a set of entities and attributes, which can be imported and displayed from tables and columns, as well as processed and analyzed under different views of the EPC, whether in granular database entity schema or in dynamic relationship diagram. By visualizing your database, you can view all Master Data touchpoints (a process-based end-to-end data flow) centrally across all processes and tasks, relate accurate data to any business process or activity in a more productive and efficient method.
Data-Process Alignment:
Within the Master Data module, users can clarify cardinalities between entities and attributes (e.g. 1:1), define WHERE data is used in which processes, WHO used the data and for what purpose (WHY), set different levels of security using CRUD and RASCI-VS, associate the business rules that govern the data, as well as capture in which systems, forms, screens and documents the data is created, updated or used. This central visibility of all data touchpoints will help users align business activities with associated entities and attributes.
Data Lifecycle Management
Master Reference:
The EPC has one centralized Master Data file, creating a common point of reference (Master Reference) for all users throughout your organization. Besides, our Master Data module is capable of importing all Master Data (entities & attributes) from external systems via CSV file. EPC also allows users to merge multiple Master Data objects and combine them into one to eliminate duplication or adjust data content when there is a corporate restructuring. This will greatly reduce data redundancy, reuse existing data, and enhance data quality and integrity.
Automatic Revisions & Approval Cycles:
Our MDM solution supports automatic change approval workflows (serial and parallel approvals) when you need to revise or update your data. When change happens, change notifications will be automatically and massively sent to all stakeholders. Meanwhile, our system allows in-line change tracking by highlighting all changes made, so that management can easily review, compare, approve or reject change request. EPC also supports change read confirmation sign-off for required stakeholders in order to ensure that information has been adequately transmitted.
Complete Audit Trail:
Our system preserves a history of all data changes (WHO did WHAT to WHICH data and WHEN) that have taken place throughout the lifecycle of your Master Data items. The full audit trail can be viewed within the system or exported into Excel file for reporting purpose.
Data Security & Compliance
Ensure Regulatory Compliance:
As new government regulations, such as GDPR and a variety of privacy acts, are now being mandated on organizations to know where all of their prospects’, customers’, and employees’ data reside to properly conform to these regulations, MDM is the key to corporate compliance. Users can capture type of personal data of Master Data, identify data sensitivity level, document which data applies to GDPR and other compliance regulations, search, filter and report by compliance attributes. In this way, users can leverage information provided by data catalogs and improve regulatory compliance.
Data Quality Rating:
Interfacing helps your determine whether your data is trustworthy by allowing you to rate the quality of your data stored in the EPC. Capturing level of accuracy and completeness can help management better identify credible data, and then prioritize data cleansing efforts, make sure that data is up-to-date and that all obsoleted data can be purged on a regular basis.
Reporting & Analytics:
Our MDM solution has all-inclusive reporting features embedded directly within the EPC system, from which users can report on all data touchpoints across processes and tasks, all data attributes (e.g. data security/criticality, definition, systems, permissions, relationships…), as well as data inventory by system. Then, by decrypting and analyzing the reports, users can improve their knowledge of processes, better manage their resources and talent pools, and achieve better ROIs for the organization.
Collaboration & Data Culture
Business-friendly Vocabulary:
In order to empower your employees to easily find and understand data, you need to present the data in a language that they recognize and understand. The business glossary within our MDM solution gives meaning to data by using vocabulary (e.g. names, descriptions, etc.) already established by the company. With thorough understanding of data, employees can easily judge whether it is the right data for the project at hand.
One-click Master Data Book Generation:
Similar to process book generation, you can access to your Master Data book through one-click within the Master Data module. This report lists all critical information (e.g. entities, attributes, systems, processes, tasks…) associated with your Master Data. Users also have the option to customize their own Master Data template to generate the book. This high level summary gives management a bird’s eye view of your Master Data.
Collaborative Master Data Management:
The EPC is a CMDM (Collaborative Master Data Management) tool that allows your employees to standardize, improve and discuss data through collaboration module in real time. That being said, you can resolve challenges, issues, limitations and inconsistencies of your data through organization-wide collaboration. In return, leveraging crowd source efforts and building one single trusted version of data will reduce re-learning time, lower data maintenance costs, promote best practices, and ultimately increase your bottom line.