star*dataWarehouse   - Case Study

star*dataWarehouse Supports Rapid Firm Growth and Expansion
Fish & Richardson P.C.

Challenge
Fish & Richardson P.C. is a Boston-based firm with 320 attorneys located in 9 offices nationwide. Fish & Richardson specializes in Litigation, Corporate Law, and Intellectual Property law.

In 2001, the firm tasked Select* Associates with implementing star*dataWarehouse and its companion reporting suite in order to provide the necessary facts and figures to manage the firm’s rapid growth and expansion.

Request
Fish & Richardson had the following requests when they implemented star*dataWarehouse:

  • Provide a mainstream, commercially standard environment for report and inquiry development (i.e. SQL Server).
  • Transfer the processing load for running reports and inquiries onto a dedicated reporting (Warehouse) SQL Server.
  • Merge data from disparate databases into one consolidated Operational Data Store (ODS) under SQL Server. This includes Time Accounting & Billing, General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Payroll and Human Resources data.
  • Permit data access to their Financial System Data (LMS) from a set of structured databases on SQL server, including an Operational Data Store (ODS) and subject-specific data marts.
  • Provide firm-wide management reporting via Crystal Reports and the Internet to assist in measuring:
    • Firm Profitability
    • Timekeeper Productivity
    • Timekeeper Full Time Equivalence (FTE)
    • Averages Days to Bill & Collect
    • Other ad-hoc reports and web services as defined by F&R
  • Provide the infrastructure for the Fish & Richardson Intranet Portal, where selected users can view F&R data via a web browser.
  • Protect the investment in the reporting and inquiry systems so that they can be ported from one Financial Application system to another without a complete re-write.
  • Create an internal firm software development environment that is physically separate from their Financial Accounting System for use by their own software engineers.

Solution
Select* Associates provided the following Data Warehousing and Reporting services:

  • Data Extraction from Multiple Systems
    Retrieved data from financial accounting, payroll, and human resources systems
  • Data Scrubbing & Validation
    Validated data from the different On Line Transaction Processing (OLTP) systems
  • Data Consolidation
    Consolidated data into a SQL Server-based Operational Data Store (ODS)
  • Data Mart Creation
    Created subject-specific data marts for reporting
  • Management Report Support
    Provided custom programming with Crystal Reports and Active Server pages to support the firm’s management reports

Results
Fish & Richardson relies on star*dataWarehouse as the environment for running their mission-critical financial management reports in the areas of profitability, budgeting, time worked, and cash received.