Connecting the ‘Blox' with OfficeConnect
One of the solutions the Infoblox team has come to rely on is Adaptive OfficeConnect. According to Hallman, the fi nance team uses OfficeConnect to automatically refresh presentation-quality monthly and quarterly reporting.
"We spend a lot less time creating reports and more time analyzing the data," he said. "We do full P/L reporting with a lot of detail, bring in all actuals from Oracle into Workday Adaptive Planning and combine this with our forecast going forward. And with OfficeConnect, it's a one-click refresh for executive and board reporting."
Accelerated Monthly Consolidation
Expanding its network control technology services to locations in 25 countries, each using local currencies, the company's finance team is tasked with consolidating those financial performance figures each month. By replacing the team's previous use of Excel spreadsheets with Workday Adaptive Planning and OfficeConnect, Hallman has created a more reliable and faster process for consolidating multi-currency plans and reports into a single view.
"Our financial consolidation process takes about 30 minutes with Workday Adaptive Planning, without IT intervention," Hallman said. "And when the finance and IT departments can each focus more time on value added projects, that's a huge benefit to the entire organization."
Intuitive Analytics for Everyone to Understand Performance
The Infoblox finance team today has a more intuitive view of performance metrics to share across departments, improving company-wide collaboration, and establishing a higher standard of data accountability. As a result, Infoblox executives gain quicker access to key performance indicators they trust to make better, data-driven decisions to guide the future of the business.
"The flexibility to perform all kinds of reporting and scenario modeling has benefited every department. During the quarterly forecasting process I see managers putting as much information as they can in Workday Adaptive Planning, and monitoring what they had originally planned to where they currently stand," Hallman explained. "There's a better understanding across the company when it comes to what impacts our bottom line. Our CFO knows we rely on Workday Adaptive Planning, and we're constantly looking at new opportunities to broaden our use cases."
At Infoblox, financial planning and budgeting is no longer only a finance department exercise. Department heads have taken more ownership over their own plans and budgets because it's easier to do so than ever before. That ownership has led to better overall communication across departments, with performance analytics as the main topic of discussion to ultimately make better decisions for the business.
