No matter what kind of business your organisation conducts, in all likelihood, parts of your business spend at least one full working day each month pulling data together to produce reports.

E-blocks is currently working on an automated reporting solution for a client in the insurance industry. We are focusing on implementing the best possible technology to support their needs while transforming their existing processes into a flexible and robust solution.

What is report automation?

Report automation refers to the process of automatically creating reports using the software. Generally, the software is prompted to automatically fetch data from the various platforms and integrate this data into the system. This automated data collection has made it possible for organisations to readily request live data, and share this data with all the stakeholders concerned. 

How can you automate reports?

Firstly, you will need to choose a tool that will best suit your automation needs within the organisation. Here are a few things to consider about the type of reporting tool you choose to use: 

• What frequency are the reports required?
• Are different views of the reports necessary?
• Is design customisation a priority?
• How do you want to share reports?
• Who should have access to the reports or reporting system?
• What Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) do you want to track? 
• Data analytics dashboard toolsSelf-coded systems
• Business Intelligence (BI) tools
• Self-coded systems

‍Our team has worked on a project to automate a Conduct of Business Return (CBR) report for a client in the insurance industry. This was once an ad hoc report, which has now become a regulatory requirement that must be produced quarterly. In the client’s current process, the report takes a total of 9 weeks to produce manually (this includes data extraction, data manipulation, validation by the various business units and consolidation into a final report that is submitted to the Regulator).

The principle behind this report is relatively simple - it involves counting and adding different values to answer various questions about the insurance products that the company provides to its customers. However, there are multiple different data sources concerned, which all operate in different business units that have their own rules of working. 

Our team are working to develop a robust solution on premises that combines traditional ETL development with the flexibility to easily migrate to the cloud, should the client wish to do so in the future. Considerations have also been given in terms of user interface, allowing business users to easily view data relating to their environments for trend analysis, problem solving and decision making. 

By automating their reporting process, we will have reduced the need for manual intervention and increased the viability of the data produced while providing enough customisation to add value where it matters most.

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