We are excited to announce the addition of four fantastic members to Team AST in the past month!
We welcome Daniel D. and Piyush M. to our Middleware Practice, and Nidhin P. and Paula L. to our ERP practice.
We are excited about the great things you’ll do as a part of our growing team. Welcome to the family!
Do you want to ensure that your organization is getting the most value from its data? Are you able to quickly and easily respond to changing regulations? Are you governing your data, or is your data governing you?
Join us on Tuesday, August 23, from 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM EDT at the Sheraton Pentagon City Hotel in Arlington, VA for this free, half-day event! The MDM-DQ Public Sector Summit offers a forum for DC-area public sector organizations to share information and learn more about Oracle’s MDM and DQ tools. These highly sophisticated solutions have been designed to be powerful, easy to use, and provide an ideal platform to solve common public sector data management challenges.
Register now, as space is limited. We look forward to seeing you there!
A travel and expense management (TEM) tool can reduce costs, automate the often monotonous expense process, and provide valuable insight into where your company’s expenses are going. The big question these days is whether to invest in a modern Software-as-a-Service solution with rich functionality, or if the traditional on-premise system is suitable for your organization.
In this article by Chris Pang, Gartner discusses the benefits of choosing a SaaS model for your expense management solution, and makes three strong arguments for going with the Cloud:
Read more about the benefits of a Cloud-based TEM system in Pang’s article, here.
Congratulations to Cindy H. for earning recognition as AST’s Employee of the Month for July 2016!
Cindy is being recognized for her fantastic team attitude and persistent hard work. Since beginning her current project, she has provided invaluable assistance to the client, as well as to her fellow AST team members. The client has expressed its gratitude for Cindy’s extended work hours on the weekend in support of their project.
Cindy consistently achieves on-time delivery of tasks and is the first to pitch in on other applications when help is needed. Her responsiveness when she is offsite is noteworthy and her documentation remarkable.
Cindy continues to be a great example to her teammates. Thank you, and keep up the fantastic work, Cindy!
The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), which serves Washington DC, Virginia, and Maryland, and is the second largest transit agency in the US, recently underwent an exciting and transformational project to improve its customer experience. AST had the pleasure of working closely with the Authority to successfully implement Oracle Service Cloud and Oracle Social Relationship Management Cloud Service (SRM). WMATA is now able to receive and respond to customer questions and comments via social media channels, and provide the valued responsive, two-way conversations that the public demands.
Jeremy Franklin, WMATA’s Director of Customer Service says of AST’s role as integration partner, “This has been one of the smoothest implementations that I have experienced within WMATA.” In just four months, AST deployed this modern system and brought WMATA into the modern realm of customer communication and management.
Read more about this exciting transformation for WMATA and how transit agencies across the country can benefit from this solution in this Forbes article.
Are you a web developer, engineer, architect, aspiring node/javascript/angularjs developer, Oracle Public Cloud customer, or Java developer? If so, do not miss this opportunity to explore cloud native web application development using Node.js and AngularJS, and get first-hand experience with Oracle Public Cloud!
If you already have basic programming skills, especially with Javascript, and knowledge of HTML and CSS, then join us on August 10 as we attend the Oracle Hackathon at the Dana Hotel and Spa in Chicago, IL and learn to “hack”! (Psst…there will be prizes…)
This all-day event will provide valuable hands-on experience as you learn to:
Space is limited, and we would love for you to join us, so register here, today!
Here we are in the dead of the summer heat in Illinois, and we know better than to let it pass by without some AST summer fun! Before we know it, we’ll be battling the snow and ice on our morning commute (Christmas is only five months away, by the way…)!
Last Saturday, AST held its annual summer company outing at Six Flags Great America! It was the perfect day for a company picnic at the park, enjoying water rides at Hurricane Harbor, and taking on unlimited thrills with our families, friends, and team-mates.
Oh, and what’s a hot Friday afternoon without an epic impromptu company water balloon fight?! The words, “Meet me out front in 10 minutes.” will be taken with caution from now on!
And we’re not done, yet! Today, we’re all getting together for an extended lunch break and some friendly competition in a corporate volleyball game in our back yard. The forecast is calling for record highs in the temperature, but we’re ready to take that on and take a break from the daily grind.
What are some of the best ways your company lets loose during the summer?
In a press release published this morning, we announced the completion of our transformational project with the City of Detroit, implementing Oracle Cloud for Finance.
This integrated enterprise cloud solution includes Oracle Financials Cloud, Oracle Procurement Cloud, Oracle Project Portfolio Management (PPM) Cloud, Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service, along with Oracle Fusion Middleware.
As a result of its fiscal distress and bankruptcy exit criteria, the City underwent a full functional transformation of its financial operations, including replacement of legacy financial management systems and restructuring of the City’s financial functions. The objective was to build a high-functioning financial foundation to support the City’s current and future goals and objectives. This implementation is a significant step towards the City’s goal of achieving financial transformation, which includes a major restructuring of Financial, IT, and HR operations.
“…This is a key initiative in reforming the City’s financial operations, which will help ensure better service to our citizens and employees,” said John W. Hill, Chief Financial Officer at the City of Detroit. “AST was very helpful and responsive throughout the project and did a great job of engaging and integrating with the City of Detroit’s project team,” added Hill. “Our staff’s knowledge of the system improves each day with continued support and assistance from AST.”
This has been an exciting and dynamic endeavor for AST, and we are proud of the success our team has had with the City.
Read the full press release here.
We are blown away by the achievements of our team members this month! The amount of certifications earned by our consultants since our last announcement is astonishing!
Here we go…
The ERP Practice has been busy the past month, achieving almost 30 certifications!
5 Oracle Applications Cloud Data 2016 Implementation Specialists: Gunter D., Vishal K., Joe L., Udaya R., and Arun S.
5 Oracle Applications Cloud Reporting 2016 Implementation Specialists: Gunter D., Vishal K., Joe L., Udaya R., and Anil T.
5 Oracle Applications Cloud Security 2016 Implementation Specialists: Gunter D., Rakesh K., Vishal K., Udaya R., and Anil T.
3 Oracle Applications Cloud User Experience 2016 Implementation Specialists: Vishal K., Arun S., and Anil T.
Gunther D. also completed his Oracle Business Intelligence Cloud Service Specialist exam, Vishal K. obtained his Oracle Fusion Applications 2014 Security Implementation Specialist certificate, and Rakesh K. is an Oracle Fusion Applications 2014 User Experience Specialist.
Praveen R. has two certifications to add to the ERP total: Oracle Financials Cloud 2016 Sales Specialist and Oracle Fusion Cloud Procurement 2016 PreSales Specialist.
Michelle T. cranked out 5 certifications: Oracle Unified Method Level 1 Overview and Awareness, Oracle Unified Method Level 2 Envision Focus Area Overview Assessment, Oracle Unified Method Level 2 Implement Focus Area Overview Assessment, Oracle Unified Method Level 2 Manage Focus Area Overview Assessment, and Oracle Unified Method Level 2 Use Case Overview Assessment.
Last, but certainly not least for ERP, Deepa V. passed the proctored exam and became an Oracle Taleo Recruiting Cloud Service 2013 Certified Implementation Specialist.
Thanks to Tammie A. and Uma N., our Hyperion Practice has 12 new certifications!
Tammie A. completed her Oracle Planning and Budgeting 2015 Cloud Service Specialist, Enterprise Performance Reporting 2016 Cloud Service Specialist, Oracle Hyperion Planning 11.1.2 PreSales and Sales Specialist, and Oracle Business Intelligence Cloud Service Specialist certifications.
Uma N. completed her Oracle Applications Cloud Reporting 2016 Implementation Specialist, Oracle Applications Cloud Data 2016 Implementation Specialist, Oracle Fusion Financials 2014 Reporting Implementation Specialist, Oracle Fusion Financials 2014 Data Implementation Specialist, Oracle Applications Cloud Security 2016 Implementation Specialist, Oracle Applications Cloud Operations 2016 Implementation Specialist, and Oracle Applications Cloud User Experience 2016 Implementation Specialist certifications.
Oh, and by the way…remember our Bootcampers we hired last month? They have all been certified as industry-specific specialists already!
Raja A. is a Professional Services – Business Services Industry Specialist; Manoj G. is an Oracle Media and Entertainment Industry Specialist; Srija G. is a Financial Services Industry Specialist; Duckenson J. is an Oracle High Technology Industry Specialist; Michael M. is a Professional Services – Consulting Services Industry Specialist; and Sahil P. is an Industrial Manufacturing Specialist.
Congratulations to everyone who has taken their Oracle knowledge to the next level!
