A recurring pattern over the last few years: in areas of high financial complexity, the sharing of knowledge is becoming more and more of a bottleneck in recurring processes. Also, existing documentation is usually outdated the moment it hits the desk, due to the high degree of flexibility of modern day CPM solutions such as CCH Tagetik. In this article, our two domain experts, Jurgen van Bergen on the Digital Adoption Platform (DAP) and Jeroen Beentjes on CCH Tagetik, talk about their thoughts on this recurring pattern.
How to improve the adoption of your (digital) solution?
At Finext we noticed a recurring pattern over the last few years. In areas of high financial complexity, the sharing of knowledge is becoming more and more of a bottleneck in recurring processes. New colleagues are either struggling to catch up with the required knowledge of the office of finance, or the organization is required to allocate key resources into the training of their peers. Pressuring their original responsibilities in an already thinned out process. Also, existing documentation is usually outdated the moment it hits the desk, due to the high degree of flexibility of modern day CPM solutions such as CCH Tagetik. Especially during the pandemic, people lacked the office time to enable their co-workers and sharing of knowledge was spread too thin. Luckily, as modern day CPM solutions evolves over time, knowledge sharing solutions are also picking up the pace.
Digital Adoption Platform
At Finext we have noticed a huge opportunity for adopting these solutions to levitate the organisation’s overall expertise in a domain of high financial complexity. Enter: The Digital Adoption Platform (DAP). In this article, our two domain experts, Jurgen van Bergen on DAP and Jeroen Beentjes on CCH Tagetik, talk about their thoughts on this recurring pattern and a possible solution.
Jeroen: “It’s funny that we talk about this topic today Jurgen, because I just had a request from one of my clients if I had a user manual on how to create an entity journal for one of their new colleagues. I was about to suggest him our paper manual, but this platform is actually a lot better, what do you think about this?”
Jurgen: “Yes, I agree. The benefit of a DAP is that an interactive manual layer is added to your existing application. This digitalization means that this new colleague sees where (s)he has to click, what (s)he needs to fill in and how (s)he submits the journal entry, all within the application itself.”
Jeroen: “Oh, so the DAP is a sort of digital layer with hints & tips on their application, just like good old Clippy from Word?”
Jurgen: “Yes! Because that colleague can see where they need to go and click and add information. They do not require someone to tell them how the process works and it also ensures a vast improvement of data quality in the system, enabling the finance users to go to a first time right situation. This not only improves the adoption of the solution by the new colleagues, but it also reduces the corrections that need to be made by their peers and therefore reduces the time recovering mistakes.
During your CCH Tagetik implementations, do you often encounter other web-based solution that are part of the processes within Tagetik?”
Jeroen: “Yes, all the time. As most financials know the general ledger systems have improved over time, and now the most common ledger systems have web based interfaces. So that covers the delivery- side. Also on the output side I see various BI systems being used through a web based interface.
Does using a Digital Adoption Platform mean that I can make an integrated user manual, covering the whole record to report process?”
Jurgen: “Yes, as long as there are web based interfaces involved, we can connect the newly formed interactive digital user manual to include all steps of the record to report (R2R) process. This way, people are enabled to have an end-to-end overview of the impact of their actions and take more ownership of the work that they do for the company”
Jeroen: “So does that mean, within CCH Tagetik, I can guide my peers not only through the journal entries, but also through the steps required for maintaining their IC cockpits?”
Jurgen: “You have to think bigger Jeroen. Due to CCH Tagetik’s completed migration to HTML5, every button, text string or piece of the interface can be connected to the Digital Adoption Platform. This allows for endless possibilities, with a very quick win adding value for the customer.”
Jeroen: “Okay, I can think of a few examples of frequently asked questions by my customers. When would be a good time to even start with such a process? I mean; is it by any means quick to implement?”
Jurgen: “The ideal moment could be already as soon as the User Acceptance Test (UAT). You can use the DAP to digitalize the required end-user training effort, using it as a proof of concept to allow the early adaptors to be guided through the process. New features within Digital Adoption Platforms even allow admins to track the amount of time spent on certain tasks to identify any bottlenecks in the process. The next best moment would be after a go-live. The platform can identify any changes to the system and therefore does not require a person to manually adjust the manual to stay up-to-date”
Jeroen: “Haha, I recognize that time consuming issue. About a year ago, Tagetik updated the icons of all the HTML5 tiles in the application, as I was making a paper manual, so I had to go and redo all of the screenshots, that wasn’t pleasant.”
Jurgen: “That would not have been the case if you had a DAP indeed. Welcome to the future man! Small changes to the interface are automatically picked up.”
Jeroen: “That makes a lot of sense. Can you show me some of the features?”
Jurgen: “I’ll one-up you on that: if you have a client where you recently implemented CCH Tagetik, I’ll show you what we can do in the DAP for that client.”
Want to see DAP in action?
With the DAP and CCH Tagetik, at Finext we think there is a huge chance for companies to enable new members of the office of finance to quickly become as knowledgeable as their peers. In the CCH Tagetik in Touch conference of 2022 in Lucca, Italy, Jurgen and Jeroen will show the Digital Adoption Platform, implemented at one of their clients, and show you what modern day tech can do in modern day CPM solutions. Sign up here!
