REPORT AUTOMATION

TSE Imaging is a distributor in the Netherlands for professional photography and video equipment. They are the distributure for several major brands in the industry, serving the Benelux and extending to Germany.

Operational excellence through automated reporting

To improve the efficiency of the organization, Robbert Langezaal (COO) has created many custom reports in their ERP system SAP BusinessOne. With these reports they gather insights about customer order availability dates, supplier master data, warehouse inventory positions and much more. All of these reports were created on top of the Microsoft SQL Server backend. To remove the burden of spreading these reports, Robbert was looking for a way to automate them.

Enabling BusinessOne reports for automation in a few clicks

Both Robbert and his brother Dave, who is reponsible for IT within TSE, were really impressed how easy it was to setup AutoSQL. With the pre-installed ODBC drivers they directly connect to the database server. As the BusinessOne reports were already writting in SQL, they could easily be taken over in AutoSQL. Then they setup the required output and mail options and were ready to go. “The ability to have the results directly in the email body is great as well, this way people see the information directly and don’t have to open any attachments”.

Increased value and efficiency

Robbert explains the value of these automated reports: “Customers are now informed automatically when an expected delivery date is updated. Customers are happy they are kept informed and we both save time on the phone. Supplier are frequently asked to update master data files which are now sent automatically. It is really easy for them to update the master data we need, and because we can use Excel templates with AutoSQL, we can directly upload the data in SAP Business One. This improved master data quality and that helps many of our internal processes.”

Another example is the warehouse stock report that is providing their sales reps with the latest information on the availability of stock. This allows them to make promises to customers and to keep track of anything available in the vehicle of collegeaus or at customers. “This really helps to make sure we keep track of all our stock and nothing gets lost”.

Improved maintainability

Dave points out they have been struggling with automating reports on the SQL server. Previously they tied different solutions together with batch files. “The maintainability of our reporting has been improved drastically, as we now have all the automation within one solution, AutoSQL. This will make upgrades and other maintanace a lot easier in the future”.