Transition project to a new ERP in a record time

The demand for a new ERP was realized during June 2023 and the project was started in the beginning of September. The transition from the old Dynamics AX system to Business Central was completed in record time, lasting only three months. Due to professional project management and cost estimation based on over 20 years of experience, the costs remained below expected.

According to head architect Antti Kajala, the most significant challenges in these types of projects appear often with insufficient project management and in underestimating the number of unexpected incidents. The hours used for forming work estimates might seem unnecessary hours for the customer but build the base for a realistic time schedule. Hence, concentrating on the definition phase and carefully reviewing the existing logics and data models in the data environment is the most essential phase of a successful transition project.

In addition, Antti recommends that a comprehensive and accurate documentation of the new integrations and logics are produced early on the project while the complex logic nuances are still in fresh memory. This enables the customer transparently to assess the solutions and the proceeding of the project.

Project manager Ville Wasenius raises the significance of experienced experts executing the transition and close co-operation both with the customer and between the team, which was emphasized especially due to an ambitious time-schedule. Sharing the workloads when needed cannot be highlighted enough.

Finally, after a systematic testing phase in the development environment, the transition to the production environment needs to be made in close co-operation with other suppliers to ensure immediate reaction to unexpected situations.

WiseDigi Oy & Vakka-Suomen Voima A New Era of Data-Driven Leadership – Seamless ERP Transition and Modern Data Architecture

Client: Vakka-Suomen Voima Oy (VSV) | Partner: WiseDigi Oy | Technologies: Qlik Sense, Snowflake, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

Background

Vakka-Suomen Voima Oy is a southwestern Finnish energy group responsible for, among other things, the distribution of electricity and district heating across a wide geographic area. Changes in the industry, growing reporting requirements, and the need for more agile data-driven management drove VSV to comprehensively renew its information systems.

At the heart of the renewal was a transition to a new ERP system: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. An ERP change is always a critical project for any organization — and it places particular pressure on reporting and data architecture. VSV wanted to ensure that the availability and quality of business information would not suffer during the transition but improve.

An additional challenge is VSV's group structure: the group includes several companies, each with their own business processes, data needs, and reporting requirements. The data architecture and reporting needed to serve the entire group consistently, while also accommodating the specific needs of each company.

The Challenge

Replacing the ERP system meant that data structures, processes, and integrations were all significantly renewed at once. VSV had a clear need for:

• A unified data platform that aggregates data from multiple sources reliably and scalable
• Group-wide reporting that serves all group companies while accounting for their individual needs
• Real-time, visual reporting that supports management and operational staff in decision-making
• Strict access control — the right information to the right people, by company and role
• Seamless continuity in a situation where systems are changing but business must continue uninterrupted

The Solution

WiseDigi Oy acted as VSV's strategic partner throughout the entire renewal project. The collaboration covered three mutually supportive areas:

1. Building and Developing the Snowflake Data Platform

WiseDigi built a modern cloud-based data platform for VSV on top of Snowflake. The platform serves as a centralized data warehouse, integrating data from multiple sources — including the new Business Central ERP. Snowflake's architecture enables flexible scalability, efficient data processing, and a clear separation between raw data, refined data, and reporting data (the so-called medallion architecture).

During the Business Central rollout, WiseDigi ensured that data flowing from the ERP reached Snowflake in the correct format — accounting for both old and new data structures. This required close collaboration with VSV's experts and rapid responses as the project progressed.

The group structure is considered in the architecture from the outset: the data platform is built so that data from the different group companies is clearly separated, while a consolidated group-level view remains possible. A comprehensive access control model was also implemented, ensuring that each user sees only the data they are authorized to access — at the company, role, and individual level. Data security and confidentiality are critically important in the energy sector, and this requirement is met through the role-based access control features of Azure, Snowflake, and Qlik Sense.

2. Developing Qlik Sense Reporting

A comprehensive Qlik Sense reporting environment was built and developed on top of the data platform. WiseDigi was responsible for designing, implementing, and continuously developing reports and dashboards together with VSV's business teams.

Reporting covers areas including:

• Financial and cost monitoring from Business Central's financial management data
• Network usage and outage analytics for operational management
• Purchase invoice and procurement reports to support financial administration
• KPI dashboards for management as a basis for strategic decision-making

Qlik Sense's associative data model allows users to explore and combine data on their own without technical expertise — increasing reporting adoption and value across the entire organization.

3. Continuous Development and Partnership

WiseDigi has not been a one-off project vendor, but a long-term development partner. Even after the Business Central go-live, the collaboration has continued — new reports have been developed as needed, the data platform has been expanded and maintained, and integrations between systems have been fine-tuned as experience has grown.

Results

“WiseDigi has been an invaluable partner for us in this entire endeavor. They understand both the technical and business sides and can respond agilely even to the changes brought by the ERP project. Our data platform and reporting are now at a completely different level than before — and they continue to evolve to meet future challenges.” — Antti Jyväkorpi, Development Director, Vakka-Suomen Voima Oy

Concrete benefits:

• Faster decision-making — up-to-date information is available to everyone from a single source
• Reliable data foundation — data integrated and harmonized from multiple systems
• Smooth ERP transition — reporting continuity ensured throughout the entire change period
• Scalable architecture — the platform grows with the needs of the business
• Organizational self-sufficiency — end users can leverage data independently

Summary

The collaboration between WiseDigi Oy and Vakka-Suomen Voima demonstrates how a successful ERP transformation and modern data-driven leadership go hand in hand — when a partner has expertise in both data architecture and business understanding. Together with Business Central, Snowflake and Qlik Sense form a platform on which VSV can lead its energy business with data, now and in the future.

WiseDigi Oy | Expert in Data-Driven Leadership

The Teknos data platform needs to be flexible and grow with the company.

The continuous changing of business requires flexibility and deep expertise from partners. Teknos, a globally operating family business that manufactures paints and coatings, has chosen WiseDigi as its partner, which offers high-quality service from business process know-how to the implementation of data platform and analytics for end users.

Understanding business requirements is the basis of a well-functioning analytics solution. WiseDigi understands the requirements from many perspectives and comprehensively supports the development. With the help of suitable technological solutions, operations become more efficient, and the right information is brought to users to support decision-making.

Technology choices are an important part of building a successful solution - WiseDigi offers appropriate advanced technologies and the know-how and support needed to use them with years of experience. Key tools and methods in data platform development are Microsoft Azure, WhereScape, Qlik Sense and Data Vault 2.0.

"Cooperation with WiseDigi is effortless and flexible. We can trust that things will be done within the agreed budget and schedule and that the technical solution meets our needs," says Jyri Heinonen, ICT Director, Teknos Group.

Data warehouse and analytics environment audit.

Environment assesment was performed fot the city of Porvoo with following key areas reviewed:

• • Overview of the architecture and the implementation of the current data warehouse
• • Utilization of the WhereScape data warehouse automation tool
• • Environment monitoring principles
• • Areas and utilization of reporting and current Power BI implementation

The objective was to discover how the city of Porvoo utilizes data and reports on its operations, as well as how the processes of collecting and analysing information are functioning. The main areas audited were the implementation method of the data warehouse, the efficiency of utilizing WhereScape automation tool and the implementation and utilization of reporting. User experience was one of the crucial focus areas of the audit.

The audit was carried out using a workshop model by interviewing the experts, key users and senior management. In addition, the environment, current implementation, and documentation were independently explored in more detail and through this, key issues were brought to the workshops for more profound discussion.

Based on audit findings, a prioritized list of development tasks was created and analysed together with Porvoo. The benefits obtained through these development activities, or their disadvantages were described as accurately as possible.

Overall responsibility for Pohjolan Voima's data platform

A centralized and cost-efficient data platform brings important benefits to the energy sector business. Pohjolan Voima (PVO), responsible for approximately a fifth of Finland's energy production, e.g. for industrial needs, trusts WiseDigi's know-how and experience in the data platform maintenance and development. The co-operation with WiseDigi started in 2022 and has led to more agile and data-driven decision-making, which reflects positively in PVO's business.

PVO's data platform and data warehouse have been developed for more than a decade - the first projects were the rolling financial forecasting system and comprehensive improvement of financial reporting. Over the years, the utilization of the environment and technology and use of various tools has been maximized, by centralizing the integration interfaces between PVO's information systems, for instance.

PVO and WiseDigi constantly improve the cost-efficiency of the data platform, e.g., by enhancing processes and optimizing the utilization of selected tools. Business needs evolve rapidly, and platform development requires constant proactivity. The added value in development work is provided by a centralized data warehouse, which also ensures the storage and availability of historical data.

WiseDigi uses Power BI for reporting, WhereScape for data warehouse modelling and automation, Microsoft Azure for data integrations and data lake implementations, and Snowflake as a cloud-based data warehouse. DevOps is used for task management and Data Vault 2.0 for data warehouse modelling method.

Reporting raised to a new level with Qlik Cloud

Ikaalisten-Parkanon Puhelin Oy needed to renew its reporting and ended up replacing the previous QlikView reporting with the modern Qlik Sense SaaS solution.

The look and feel of the reports were completely renovated with the great visualizations of Qlik Sense. For example, map-based visualization is an effective and impressive way to display the desired information at a glance. The old reports are still available in the cloud service, if necessary, but at the same time maintenance and development work became more efficient.

In the future, the development of reporting will also be technically easier, because the cloud service scales according to needs, and you don't have to take care of servers and other infrastructure yourself.