BC Housing Case Study

• 分析与建模 - 数据即服务
• 应用基础设施与中间件 - 数据交换与集成
• 应用基础设施与中间件 - 数据库管理和存储

• 城市与自治市

• 采购
• 质量保证

• 过程控制与优化

• 数据科学服务
• 系统集成

BC Housing, a provincial crown agency that develops, manages and administers a wide range of subsidized housing services throughout British Columbia (B.C.), was facing challenges in streamlining the integration of internal systems and improving data sharing with external organizations. The agency was also struggling with profiling, consolidating, and cleansing data throughout the agency for a single source of truth. The process of applying for financial assistance was not user-friendly for citizens, which was another challenge that BC Housing wanted to address. The agency was using the WebFOCUS business intelligence (BI) and analytics platform for years to determine the levels of support for housing providers and develop comparative benchmarks for monitoring financial compliance and performance. However, the agency wanted to expand its use of Information Builders technology by using iWay integration solutions to combine data from various types of internal systems into a common source and format, as well as to create direct links with external systems from BC Housing’s growing list of partners.

BC Housing is the provincial crown agency that develops, manages and administers a wide range of subsidized housing services throughout British Columbia (B.C.). The agency provides affordable housing for low-income individuals, seniors, and families. Each year, more than 100,000 B.C. households benefit from a range of provincial housing services. For example, the Rental Assistance Program provides approximately 100,00 low-income, working families with cash assistance to help with their monthly rent. Some citizens receive subsidies in the form of paper checks that are sent by mail, while others receive direct deposits in their bank accounts. BC Housing has been using the WebFOCUS business intelligence (BI) and analytics platform for years to determine the levels of support for housing providers and develop comparative benchmarks for monitoring financial compliance and performance.

BC Housing leveraged iWay to integrate internal ERP applications and facilitate post financial transaction collaborations with external banks. The team developed online applications that enabled citizens to apply for housing assistance. iWay Service Manager and DataMigrator were used to format the data and generate the files that specify rent subsidies for citizens. For citizens who preferred to receive their rent subsidy payments via direct deposits, iWay created a batch file that was uploaded via secure FTP directly to the bank. The information was formatted precisely, with details about each citizen and the correct dollar amounts, so that the bank could load it into its core banking system and post the transactions. BC Housing’s IT team also used iWay integration solutions to connect business processes from multiple enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. A new online form was developed to permit applicants to enter the data directly. Behind the scenes, iWay Service Manager captured the data and populated the correct fields in the database tables.

• More efficient sharing of information with external partners and among internal systems.
• Data easier to access and more dependable throughout the organization.
• Citizens receive better, faster, assistance.

• Automated mechanism for monitoring more than $100 million in subsidies each year.