Solve all your SAP test data & scrambling needs

The Insurance Industry Solution for SAP leverages Financial Services Collections and Disbursements (FSCD) and creates high data volumes due to the frequently changing customer data with new dunning runs, payments etc. It also integrates into Contract Accounting (FI-CA) making, for a myriad of data all flowing from a single Business Partner. When testing or troubleshooting, a complete history is required for test cases so that balances, credit checking etc is correct. This typically means companies rely on frequent system copies with large volumes of data.

Client Sync™ allows insurance organizations to build lean clients with a time-slice of posting documents and accounting documents, but all the master data and payment plan data for customers which is required for accurate testing. This reduces the volume in test and development clients, allowing more flexibility in the landscape, and also simplifies the refresh process for Basis teams, making the outcome much more predictable.

With Object Sync™, there are a number of Insurance specific objects and a Scenario object which allows selection by specific ‘Insurance Object’ keys and collects all related data – such as Business Partner, Contract Account, Payment Plans, Partner FS-CD data, FICA postings – so that the exact situation for that account can be set up in seconds in testing environments. This is invaluable for production support issues, as well as better unit testing in development systems, regression and integration testing in higher systems.

Sensitive customer information, names, addresses and bank details can be masked as part of both the Client Sync and Object Sync process. Alternatively, existing test systems can be masked as a stand-alone with Data Secure™, leveraging the same masking policies.

For most companies in the retail sector, the only thing that is constant is change. As the business strives to get ahead of the competition, with new promotions and pricing conditions, products need to hit the market on time. For predominantly B2C companies, the challenge can be heightened further by seasonal promotions which have to go live on time. Projects tend to roll through the landscape one after the other, but often overlapping, leaving very small windows to refresh test systems. This means that the latest data doesn’t make it back to development and test systems, ultimately reducing the quality of testing. In many cases there are a myriad of interfaces to external systems, CRM, PoS etc, making test refreshes particularly complex. And, of course, where there is B2C data in the systems, that data must be protected through masking and removal of sensitive data, without lowering the quality of the data for testing and training.

Reducing the window for test system refresh using a solution like Client Sync™ can enable more frequent test refreshes. It can also enable more landscape flexibility (for example, temporary clients for specific projects which can be disposed of when that project is complete).

Enabling analysts, DevOps and consultants to copy small sets of real data on demand to existing test clients can also relieve some of the pressure during key project phases. It also ensures that the tests carried out are realistic and more representative of what will happen when the project finally goes live. This can be achieved easily and in a repeatable, consistent manner with Object Sync™.

With both of these copy methods, it’s essential to have an intelligent data masking solution - like Data Secure™ - which can provide accurate-looking values for masking without traceable patterns in the data. It also has the capability to create address masking which will pass postal code checkers.

Healthcare organizations running the SAP industry solution have a dedicated data model for the industry, allowing them to manage the large volumes of detailed, sensitive customer data effectively. Testing patient data cases requires accurate replication of the full history of a patient’s data. A partial copy of this information would not be suitable for ensuring that processes are properly tested and verified prior to proceeding into production. For this reason, full copies of production are typically used, but this brings a massive data privacy risk into these test systems. Third-party support or development organizations cannot be granted access to these systems and so a large part of testing is done against unrealistic data. When testing case scenarios for patients, it’s important that you have a solution that allows you to copy patient data accurately and with their full history.

Client Sync™ allows a reduced client to be created with a subset of patients’ records, all masked before leaving the production system. Object Sync™ then allows existing records to be updated or new ones to be added to the test system, leveraging the same intelligent masking routines as Client Sync.

Higher education institutions, predominantly universities, have a growing need to quantify, qualify and analyse student data for business insights in order to remain competitive. This data set is often spread across multiple interfacing systems, applications and databases. SAP SLcM can bridge this gap with a unified platform as institutions seek a single view approach to consume a students’ academic journey. This holistic view of a student data set, although promising, can quickly grow into terabytes of data per year. To remain competitive, academic institutions have to interpret and understand student data flows from admissions, enrolment, course registration, examinations, student events, student finance, accommodation, grants and scholarships, and graduations, to mention a few. A visual representation of this student journey map and data footprint is best represented in the image below.

Source : https://blogs.sap.com/2016/06/28/students-demand-a-digital-experience-on-campus/

Universities now have this single platform to analyse student data, although they do face new challenges; for example, having only the right volume of data, and protecting the confidentiality of students Personally Identifiable Information (PII) on data to be analysed outside the production landscape.

EPI-USE Labs’ Data Sync Manager™(DSM) suite offers an all-in-one solution to copy a subset of a student’s data journey and create a lean system for data analysis and testing purposes. Our Data Secure™ data-masking solution provides a platform to scramble or anonymize student personal data (student master data, visa information and passport data) without compromising the quality of test data. This means the university can focus on what really matters most to them - finding patterns and remaining true to their research roots.