AIL SA is a multi-utility company that represents one of the most important distributors of water, gas and electricity for the Swiss canton of Ticino. Their products and services are utilized daily by over 110,000 private and business clients and are distributed in 56 municipalities. The quality of the service is oriented towards continuous improvement and is guaranteed by quality certifications. AIL SA promotes energy efficiency and clean energy by implementing projects that respect the environment and well-being of its clients.

The Challenge.

AIL SA strategically identified OpenText Content Server as the designated corporate information hub and platform on which to implement internal processes and applications. This decision drove the company to invest in creating a highly skilled and self-sufficient internal ECM team capable of carrying out all implementation, maintenance and support activities.

Due to the significant number and complexity of the processes to be implemented, identifying the optimal toolset for the team was critical in maximizing results while minimizing efforts related to creating and maintaining applications. The scenarios on the table included:

•   On-field construction project management and collaboration
•   HR management processes, tightly integrated with the corporate ERP
•   Content Server administration tools
•   Internal management and marketing communications processes

The Solution.

In early 2014 AIL SA decided to include Module Suite within the tools available to the ECM team. Since then, Module Suite quickly became the preferential solution when different options where available, and in many cases, the only viable choice to meet critical requirements.

In the last years, Module Suite has enabled AIL SA to independently develop high value solutions that met the expectations of both end-users and management approval while remaining easy to maintain over time.

Products:

• OpenText Content Server 10.5
• AnswerModules Module Suite

Key Features:

•   Heterogeneous requirements. AIL SA managed to successfully leverage Module Suite in a wide range of projects with very heterogeneous requirements, ranging from the implementation of complex Content Server workflows to the creation of custom REST API endpoints. In this scenario, Module Suite proved to be an all-round flexible toolkit capable of solving diverse implementation issues.
•   Reuse of existing developments and tools. With a rich collection of existing Content Server customizations and developments, the possibility of leveraging what had been done in the past turned out to be a great plus for AIL SA. For example, the Content Script extension for WebReports allowed AIL SA to programmatically execute existing WebReports within new Content Scripts, but also to use Content Script objects as a data source for WebReports or as a custom WebReports subtag.
•   Powerful automation. AIL SA intensively used Content Script to create administration tools and set up automated maintenance jobs on Content Server data, as well as to perform one-time massive updates (of category metadata, for example) and data import tasks.
•   Complex workflows. AIL SA was able to implement complex formbased project management processes marked by heavy concurrency requirements through a smart use of Content Script's ability of including custom business logic within the Beautiful WebForms lifecycle.
•   Smooth upgrade path. AIL SA found out that applications implemented with Module Suite required virtually no effort when moving through the Content Server upgrade path, both with minor and major upgrades. After the planned upgrade from Content Server 10.0 to 10.5, the Module Suite applications worked perfectly on the new environment.
•   ERP Integration. AIL SA intended to explore the possibilities of integration between Content Server and SAP ecosystems in order to implement various HR processes. The availability of the Module Suite SDK allowed AIL SA to quickly set up a SAP extension for Content Script, and easily invoke standard and custom RPCs within SAP. This allowed SAP data to be surfaced within Content Server forms and workflows.
•   Support for legacy third-party integrations. The ease of creating custom REST API endpoints proved to be extremely useful in overcoming a migration issue for a legacy client application that used Content Server as a backend repository, and that no longer worked with the Content Server 10.5 architecture, which includes a standalone OTDS (OpenText Directory Services) component.

The Results.

AIL SA has become a prime example of what organizations can achieve when they adopt and fully leverage Module Suite. Given the necessary tools, AIL SA's relatively small team has achieved results that are robust enough to be utilized even in an enterprise environment. As of today, AIL SA has securely safeguarded their investment in OTCS by truly enabling it as an application platform.