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Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality integrates Technology Systems and Financial Systems with eTX Integrator

CHALLENGE

Facilitate near real-time data interchange between the Departments of Information Technology and Finance. Identify the transactions and the various scenarios for which these transactions need to be transformed and customized. Eliminate data discrepancies and preserve data integrity between the databases used in the departments.

SOLUTION

eTX Integrator is a comprehensive set of software component tools based on XML technology, that facilitates planning and implementation of system integration of various applications that run on relational databases such as SQL Server, Oracle, and DB2. The easy-to-use GUI and simple-to-set-up methods of configuration make it quick to implement and is flexible to customize for the needs of LDEQ.

ADVANTAGE/BENEFITS

Speeds up decision making and the entire business process by making up-to-date data available to both the departments. Eliminates the need for programming for each and every scenario. Saves the cost of planning, scheduling and maintaining programs currently used to update the databases in the two departments.

COMPANY BACKGROUND

LDEQ is a government organization whose mission is to provide service to the people of Louisiana through comprehensive environmental protection in order to promote and protect health, safety and welfare while considering sound policies regarding employment and economic development. One of the functions of LDEQ is to issue and grant Air, Water, UST (Underground Storage Tank) permits. The application for permits are assessed based on various rules and regulations and an annual fee may be involved if permits are granted. The Department of Information Technology handles information related to the permits’ assessments and grants while the Department of Finance is responsible for generating invoices, receiving payments, etc.

INTEGRATING DATABASES IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND FINANCE

LDEQ has two relational databases in the departments of Information Technology and Finance to manage the data related to the permits that the department processes and the financial data involved in the processing. Currently, the data is synchronized between the databases by means of scripts that run overnight. This process is run at a specific time which is usually much later than the data becomes actually ready to be moved. In some cases, temporary tables are created to store duplicate records which are then consolidated into a single record inserted in the target table. The proposed integration using eTX Integrator would eliminate the creation of temporary tables and also has the advantage of near-real-time synchronization and automation.

eTX Integrator is a ready-made solution for LDEQ’s needs. Once the various scenarios had been studied and the transactions identified, implementing the integration was very simple. The transactions are easily configurable using eTX Integrator and the transformations required to be performed could be set-up by mapping source fields to target fields and choosing from the number of options available to manipulate the data.

For those requirements that the built-in tools did not already provide solutions for, eTX Integrator presents various ways to customize. One example is a customized script that can make look ups in tables not involved in the transaction or any outside source which determines how the transaction needs to be further transformed before posting to the final destination.

eTX Integrator works non-stop with self-monitoring features which restarts the application whenever it is stopped, be it hardware failure or other interference. It picks up transactions almost as soon as they become ready to go. This almost real-time integration helped the departments access up-to-date data which in turn speeded up the business process, resulted in faster service and better customer satisfaction.

About eTransX

eTransX is a rapidly growing software and services company providing comprehensive solutions and professional services related to information technology for commercial and industrial enterprises as well as federal, state and local governments. eTransX specializes in enabling and facilitating Enterprise Application Integration (EAI), providing Health Level 7 (HL7) messaging solutions to Healthcare related enterprises, and integrated Business Intelligence (BI) executive dashboarding solutions.