InformationWeek

"We would get the data in and generate reports and then send them out by E-mail," says Cloene Goldsborough-Davis, Sprint PCS's VP of application development and information resource management. "But as we grew, all these reports began to really clog the E-mail system. We decided, 'We need to get this on the intranet. This needs to be browser-based. How can we get there?'"

Sprint PCS began building a company portal late last year. Four months later, the company rolled it out to 400 senior executives at its Kansas City, Mo., headquarters and around the country, as well as to sales and marketing personnel and other staff.

Goldsborough-Davis wouldn't reveal the cost of the portal, but says it will save "a tremendous amount of money." She says the company couldn't sustain its rapid growth using its old ways of reporting.

Sprint PCS selected the E-Portal Suite from Viador Inc. for its speed of deployment, ability to integrate applications into the portal at the API level, and ability to manage reporting for wireless devices. "Going with Viador enabled us to put our portal into production in four months," she says. "Consultants for other companies said it would take a minimum of nine months."

The portal presents static daily, weekly, and monthly reports--some common to all user groups, but others tailored to job function, Goldsborough-Davis says. Analysts in different divisions use applications such as spreadsheets and report writers to build the reports and post them on the portal. Soon, she says, key applications will be integrated into the portal at the API level so the portal can build static reports. Executives will be able to create ad hoc reports that contain data from apps that weren't integrated before the portal linked them.

Jonathan Harding, Viador's executive VP and general manager, says the portal uses Viador-developed middleware to integrate information from Sprint's data warehouse, database applications, and back-office applications, as well as Excel spreadsheets, Word documents, and other Microsoft Office objects. "We've set up the portal so that senior executives can say, 'I want revenue reports by area. I want to see it on a daily basis, a weekly basis, or a monthly basis,'" Harding says.

The next step is to take the portal wireless. Viador's security architecture and its native support for the Wireless Markup Language and the Wireless Device Markup Language will let Sprint PCS transmit reports to wireless phones registered to groups of users or to individuals.

Return to main story, "Powerful Portals."