Creating reports is essential for every company’s day-to-day business. In the banking industry in particular, the risk management report is part of the risk-benefit evaluation as an instrument to assess compliance with the risk management plan. The report is therefore the groundwork for decisions and the basis for defining new corporate goals.

USING MICROSOFT WORD TO CREATE RISK MANAGEMENT REPORTS

These kinds of reports are usually created using Microsoft Office. In addition to tables and graphics of current figures, explanations and comments are also included in text form, which, for example, substantiate situations or developments. Data concerning this is usually saved in data warehouse systems, such as SAP BW. Coping with large amounts of data is as much a requirement as guaranteeing high security standards.

THE CHALLENGE WHEN REPORTING WITH WORD

In Autumn 2014, a leading mortgage bank set us the challenge of simplifying the creation of their risk management reports. At that time, the quarterly creation of these reports took approximately 15 man-days. The risk management report was created from a 120-page Word template. This template has ensured that the reports have the same structure every quarter. The data was saved in SAP BW and transferred manually from the system into Word by two bank employees. The data was presented there with the help of tables and different diagrams, partially also within running text. Using new reporting software was out of the question. Corporate design elements regarding fonts, colours (particularly in diagrams and tables) and the previous reports’ format also had to be maintained.

IMPLEMENTATION WITH THE HELP OF BIANALYTICS OFFICE

To begin the connection to the SAP BW data source was established within the Word template with the biAnalytics Office Office add-on. Then the queries required for the report were selected. biAnalytics Office then established a connection between the Word template and the SAP BW data source.

The time-consuming part now was to connect each of the more than 100 diagrams and tables with the corresponding query. This took the bank approximately 4 man-days.

biAnalytics Office uses the native Microsoft Office charts for visualisations, which were already used in earlier reports that were created manually. All formats for this were already stored as Word templates (fonts, diagram series colours, etc.). biAnalytics Office automatically implements these specifications, which is why there are no visual differences between whether the diagram has been manually created or filled with data from a data warehouse.

Individual values from the database queries could be placed in running text thanks to a “text item” newly developed for this purpose (e.g. “Turnover amounted to € 2,124,000”, the amount came directly from the SAP system).

All visualisations, tables and text items are still linked with the source system via biAnalytics. The Word document could be saved and activated without having to carry out a database query. This means that colleagues that have not installed the add-on can see the values.

If an up-to-date risk management report is required in the next quarter, this can be done with one click of the update button in biAnalytics Office. All data linked with the source system is then updated automatically.

MASSIVE TIME SAVING IN CREATING RISK MANAGEMENT REPORTS

Even if creating the Word template with the link to the source reports was initially very time-consuming, the mortgage bank was delighted with the massive time saving thanks to biAnalytics.

The creation of the risk management report, which previously took 15 man-days per quarter, is now done in one click. Today, updating the 120-page report still requires a few hours due to the amount of data, however the system works independently during this time. Ultimately a huge time saving for the bank. By using biAnalytics, reports are also less prone to error as no data is copied and inserted manually.