Case RAY - Mobile Office and Funding Activities Database

Highlights

RAY personnel can now access essential operative system FAD with their mobile devices independent of their location
Mobile solution took 3 days to implement, with minimum investments
The productivity of RAY’s mobile personnel increased significantly

Background

Finland’s Slot Machine Association Raha-automaattiyhdistys (generally known as RAY) was established in 1938 to raise funds through gaming operations to support Finnish health and welfare organizations. RAY has an exclusive right in Finland to operate slot machines and casino table games, and to run a casino. RAY’s activities are based on four values: reliability, efficiency, customer-orientation, and respect for the individual. The annual support to different organizations through the Funding Activities Database (FAD) is approximately 400 M€, and over 6000 organizations benefit from RAY’s activities. The FAD is an essential information system to all RAY’s operations.

RAY’s mobile requirements

Due to the large number of RAY’s partners, mobility of the workforce is essential. RAY’s supervisors meet regularly with numerous health and welfare organizations and travel extensively. Hence, RAY had the following requirements for a mobile solution:

RAY’s mobile business people need to be able to access internal information systems while traveling and perform the following tasks:

search for information about partner organizations in RAY’s databases
search for information about different on-going assistance projects with the organizations
use RAY’s internal phonebook
read e-mails and manage their personal information (calendar, tasks, directories) on the road

Solution

RAY’s mobilization needs were met with Sofor’s Waplane. The essential Funding Activities Database was mobilized to serve the mobile supervisors.

The RAY personnel’s e-mail and Personal Information Management (PIM) solutions run on Lotus Domino, but the FAD system is an Oracle based solution. Hence the e-mail and PIM were mobilized with Waplane’s out-of-the-box solution and the FAD system was mobilized with the Waplane Query Edit tool. The information needed from the FAD system is retrieved with two SEARCH queries and this function is also utilized with the phonebook look-up. The RAY employees now have the following services right in their mobile device portal:

Search for organization
Search for project assistance
Search in the RAY Phonebook
Check and manage e-mail
Check and manage other PIM applications

Mobile functionalities

Search for organization
The mobile user enters the name of the organization in the mobile device and clicks on ‘search’. The information in the FAD database is returned, including contact person names, phone and cellular numbers, addresses and a unique id number for the organization. This id can then be used to search information about assisted projects the between RAY and the organization.

Search for project assistance
The mobile user can search for data about different projects in which RAY invests. The user enters either the name of the organization or the unique number of the organization into the mobile portal of the mobile device. The following information is displayed: project type, additional information about the project, the amount of money requested. If there are multiple on-going projects with the searched organization, they are all listed for the user to browse and select the appropriate one.

Search in the RAY Phonebook
This search function enables the mobile users to search for information about other RAY employees. The returned information includes phone numbers, cellular numbers, short numbers, etc. The information can then be used directly to call or send e-mail to the person selected.

E-mail and PIM:
RAY employees can also access all their PIM applications in their mobile devices, such as e-mail and calendar. The PIM function was provided “out-of-the-box” with Waplane.

The mobilization of the FAD solution took 3 days. Today, RAY personnel are able to mobilize their applications themselves by using the Waplane Query Edit tool provided by Sofor. The existing solution runs in-house at RAY’s premises, but the mobility service is hosted by Net Servant Oy, a subsidiary to Sofor Oy.

Benefits

RAY wanted to be a forerunner in using business applications with mobile devices. Thru this project RAY has also gained deeper information and know-how on how to mobilize enterprise solutions. In addition to this the real value of the solution was the following: earlier, the supervisor either needed to print a pile of paper to carry with them when visiting organizations, or they needed to call back to the head office for the information they needed. In the latter case two people were involved: the one who called and the one who was looking for the information back in the office. Now, with the help of Sofor’s Waplane, RAY’s traveling people get the information with their mobile devices regardless of their location or the time. In a case like this, the savings are 50%.

Technology

Net Servant, a subsidiary to Sofor Oy, hosts the mobile service. The FAD application runs in-house at RAY. The e-mail, PIM and phonebook are IBM Lotus Domino applications and the FAD application is a data warehouse built on Oracle.

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