Great-West Financial Speeds
Invoice Approvals with Mobile App
Lori Ahern
SR Manager at Great-West Financial
Session Code MOB104
SR Manager Great-West Financial
18 years of experience at Great-West Financial
3 years in Finance
15 years SAP Implementation Manager
Just recently returned to Finance
University of Colorado Boulder - Leeds School of Business
2
Agenda
About Great-West Financial
About Process Tracking System for Accounts Payable
Mobile Project Drivers for Great-West Financial
Great-West Financial Mobile Solution
Lessons Learned
3
Overview of Great-West Financial
Leader in financial services, offering retirement savings products and services, individual
annuities and life insurance, and business-owned life insurance products
Leading provider of employer-sponsored retirement savings plans and ranks as the nations
4
fourth-largest retirement plan record keeper
Great-West Financial @ a Glance
5
Agenda
About Great-West Financial
About Process Tracking System for Accounts Payable
Mobile Project Drivers for Great-West Financial
Great-West Financial Mobile Solution
Lessons Learned
6
Accounts Payables Challenges
Internal External
How can I Stakeholders Stakeholders
approve this
How can I control
invoice while in
spend?
the field? Why hasnt my
Approvers Procurement invoice been paid
yet?
How do I find SAP
I have to park this My team spends most of
the invoices
document their time handling
that I need to
somewhere until I exceptions & vendor
work on?
get the Goods inquiries
Receipt Vendors
How many
invoices are we My audit requests
processing each take too long.
day? Where do
we have
bottlenecks?
AP AP
Administrators Supervisor
7
Auditors
Benefits of Optimizing AP Processes
Lower Increase Improve Controls
Costs Efficiency
Streamlining and automating Standardizing processes
Optimizing processes
processes allows and tracking key metrics
improves cash flow by
organizations to scale to improves controls and
avoiding penalties and
support rapid growth and provides greater insight into
increasing discounts taken.
increased transaction operations.
volume.
8
Process Optimization Objectives
Leverage Innovative Functionality to Make AP Processes Better
Eliminate manual work that Speed invoice
Improve controls
doesnt add value cycle time
Improve information Analyze performance for
Improve
access for all stakeholders continuous improvement
bottom line
9
End-to-end Processing Solution
Intelligent
Invoice Capture
with 100% Configurable
Visibility Dashboards &
Reports
Self-Service
Vendor Portal
Simplified with Dynamic
Approvals & Discounting
10 Exception
Handling
10
PROCESSING
Solution
CAPTURE
Data
Documents
ANALYTICS
11
Agenda
About Great-West Financial
About Process Tracking System for Accounts Payable
Mobile Project Drivers for Great-West Financial
Great-West Financial Mobile Solution
Lessons Learned
12
Great-West Financials Accounts Payable Model
~4,000
invoices per month
1 AP Manager
90%
Non-PO invoices
3 AP 1 Sales and
Processors Use Tax 1,000
Reviewer Approvers
13
Approvers
1,000+ Approvers across Great-West Financials, located across the country.
GWF is growing rapidly and our associates are not always in the office, connected to SAP,
waiting to approve a document. Having the ability to approve documents via a secured,
mobile app will expedite the approval process and eliminate the need for last minute
workflow movements.
Our intent will be roll out Invoice approvals,
FI approvals, HR approvals and possibly
CD approvals.
We started with Invoice approvals because that
is our largest audience and is the biggest impact.
14
Mobile Approvals App Powered by Innovapptive
Non-PO Invoice Approvals roll out to 1000 users
15
Why Dolphin Mobile Approvals ?
Push Notifications
Native Mobile App provides a superior user experience & Badges
and performance.
Long term and scalable consolidated mobile approval
solution that aligns with corporate mobile strategy . Collective Approvals
A consolidated view of all SAP workflow approvals.
Integration with SAP and Dolphin PTS Solution.
Offline Approvals
Do more than approvals automate exception handling by
posting a goods receipt or service entry sheet.
Proven solution deployed to over 100,000 Users worldwide.
Attachments Retrieval
16 Toggle and execute approvals between personal and delegated inbox.
Great-West Financial PTS-AP Implementation Timeline
Jan May 2010 Jan April
2003 2016 2016
Implemented Implemented Mobile App Mobile App
SAP PTS-AP Project Go Live
Begins
Initial AP Project Going Mobile
Automate manual approvals of large volume Enable Mobile Invoice Approvals for 1000
of Non-PO invoices approvers
Improve reporting and visibility including Leverage a Native App platform to enable
accruals other approvals
17
Agenda
About Great-West Financial
About Process Tracking System for Accounts Payable
Mobile Project Drivers for Great-West Financial
Great-West Financial Mobile Solution
Lessons Learned
18
Solution Architecture
GCM
android.googleapis.com
SAP
Reverse SAP Mobile Netweaver
Platform Business
Internet
Internet Proxy Gateway
Suite
Mobile
gateway.push.apple.com
feedback.push.apple.com
APNS GWF Corporate Network
Corporate DMZ
19
Great-West Financial SAP mobile approval architecture
20
Project Scope Invoice Processing
Mobile Worklist (mWorklist)
o Approve/Reject PTS Non-PO Invoices
o Approve/Reject PTS PO Based invoices
o Approvers to be able to code invoices
o Line item Certification process
SAP ECC
SAP Netweaver Gateway 7.4
SAP Mobile Platform 3.0
Proxy Server
BYOD to be supported
iOS Devices iPhones & iPads, iOS 8 and above
Android Smartphones & Tablets 5.1 and above
Access from outside network through Proxy or VPN
3 Tier Landscape for POC
Airwatch
21 SSO AD Authentication
Rapid Deployment Solution - Methodology
22
Mobile App Rapid Deployment Solution Team Involvement
23
Great-West Financial Solution Demo
Open App
Review Open Invoices
View Invoice Document
Review Line Items
Approve Invoice
24
Great-West Financial Solution Live Demo
25
Project Roll Out Pilot Program and iOS Roll Out
Limited Pilot with 25 people
Originally started with 35 users on mixed devices 90% iOS devices, 10% Android.
Android users were removed from Pilot due to technical issues
During pilot it was noted that iPhone and iPad apps have slight differences in behavior, so separate testing was
required
iOS Solution Rolled Out to approximately 25 users/45 licenses.
Executives have multiple devices; therefore multiple licenses/user.
Executive Rollout had hands-on individual training
Job aids such as checklists and guidelines for independent troubleshooting were distributed to all
26
Training & Job Aids Help Users Be Self Sufficient
27
Project Roll Out Great-West Financial Responsibilities
GWLA Project Manager - Functional and commercial project management, overall
project controlling and communications with the steering committee
GWLA Infrastructure/Basis Staff - Administration of the development, testing and
productive landscapes. import of add-ons on SAP back-end applications
GWLA Networking Staff - Manage internal networking issues and connections
from the mobile infrastructure to the external internet, reverse proxy exposure to
internet
GWLA Mobile Infrastructure Staff - Set up and manage mobile infrastructure
GWLA SAP Technical Consultant (ABAP) - Attend knowledge transfer workshops
Testers for acceptance testing and delivery of end-user training
GWLA SAP Functional/Business Analysts/SMEs - Assist in test scripts creation
for Integration Testing, execute Integration Testing and provide SAP functional
support.
Business Owners/Super Users - Assist in test scripts creation for UAT, execute
28 UAT and provide sign off, prior to Go-Live
Project Roll Out Dolphin & Innovapptive Responsibilities
Dolphin Team
Dolphin Project Manager
Dolphin SME
Dolphin Technical Consultant
Innovapptive Team
Engagement Manager
Infrastructure Consultant
Mobile Architect
SAP Technical Consultant
UI/UX Consultant
29
30
Mobile Testing Tips
Regular users have the
production app only
The Mobile Support team has
3 separate apps for DEV, QA,
and PROD
Network connection settings are preconfigured for each app
Efficient for testing, troubleshooting, and evolving the solution
Be sure to test iPhone and iPad separately as they have slightly different behavior
31
Change Management Process
Changes to app functionality requires that users
delete and then re-install the app on their
devices
App User Group sends an email notifying the
users to download a new version of the app
from the store
32
Agenda
About Great-West Financial
About Process Tracking System for Accounts Payable
Mobile Project Drivers for Great-West Financial
Great-West Financial Mobile Solution
Lessons Learned
33
Mobile Approvals Lessons Learned
Implementation time line was longer than the 6-8 weeks because Infrastructure was not already in place
All tech areas aligned prior to the start of the project SAP Basis, ABAP, AUTH and BST , Networking, Mobile
team, RMO (Risk management Office), Dolphin and Innovapptive.
Mobile infrastructure in place before rolling this out took a lot of extra time to set up
Well positioned now to expand your technical roadmap with an AppStore, SalesForce, and more!
To save money, we chose to not have consultants come on site and we worked remotely, this proved to be
a challenge at times.
Training is essential to positive disposition toward solution demonstrations and troubleshooting tips the
users are independent
Identify device types ahead of time to ensure the app is compatible with the various devices
34
Q&A
Your feedback is appreciated!
Session Code: MOB104MORE INFORMATION
Lori Ahern
lori.ahern@greatwest.com
Phone: 303.737.4351
35
FOLLOW US
Thank you for your time
Follow us on at @ASUG365
36
