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