About the company

Our client is an international company in the energy sector, which focuses on a new service concept by implementing smart energy networks. Innovative solutions improve the level of service utilization of its customers, the end-users of electricity.

The client’s baseline situation

The client is a long-term satisfied customer of IXTENT, to which it switched from another OpenText software provider. Its latest requirement was again directed towards IXTENT, which, thanks to previous implementations (e.g. consolidation of a document management system), had the greatest insight into the infrastructure of this energy giant.

With the entry into force of the new European Union regulation on electricity providers, the client approached IXTENT with a request to propose a technical solution for legal unbundling. Energy companies must have a separate business and distribution part in order not to put energy sellers at a disadvantage compared to producers. The client’s request was, therefore, aimed at dividing their document management system into separate units according to the relevant sections.

The scale of the new solution developed over time, IXTENT approached the client with proposals for where the process could be improved, the client accepted the proposals and extended its original request to include several other useful functionalities. The client wanted us to design the architecture of the new solution, select the optimal hardware and software to achieve it, create a test and subsequent production environment, and divide the data organization according to the legally required sections into the appropriate folder structures. At the same time, it wanted to optimize the existing processes, configure all of the available functionalities within the new software version to provide more effective processing of energy agendas, design an ideal data model, integrate the necessary integrations and improve the overall performance of the used platform.

The IXTENT solution

Enterprise Content Management (a process and technology composition system that manages the flow of data through the organization – from the extraction of information – through further processing – to archiving) was the ideal solution for the client’s requirements. It was possible to successfully separate various processes within a DMS (document management system) and business workspaces (individual work environments). At the same time, it was necessary to set different levels of authorization for individual departments or specific persons. Therefore, IXTENT divided the DMS into folders to which it assigned specific roles to specific users of the system.

Benefits of the IXTENT solution

The Legal Unbundling cluster of our client in the Czech Republic now meets the requirements of European law to separate the distribution network from the business, without the corresponding change in the IT infrastructure affecting business, but quite the contrary. The new solution has moved the sales department forward, electronically processing more tasks than ever before, from the original four process lines, the number has now increased to an incredible 40.

From the originally legislative project, IXTENT managed to create a solution to better utilize the system. For example, the client now:

  • scans contracts and requests from its customers automatically,
  • has a more effective solution for incoming communications for both the B2B and B2C sectors,
  • archives and manages communications in SAP, as well as the data it generates.

IXTENT made the required processes more effective, optimized the workflow in the company and divided the DMS into distribution and sales pursuant to European law. This project, completed in November 2019, did not mean the end of our cooperation with the client; other topics are on the table, such as moving to the cloud, upgrading their OpenText Content Server to version 16, archiving very high voltage documentation, meter records, analysis of the outputs of the telco department and many others.