Chess SLA reporting with Power BI & Power Apps

Background

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Walker Logistics, a renowned name in the global logistics industry, caters to an extensive array of customers across 16 countries, managing over 49,000 orders and 6.4 million pieces picked monthly. 

 

However, they faced a challenge with their Service Level Agreement (SLA) reporting process. The process was primarily driven by data entry into Excel from their centralised order tracking system, Chess. The SLA reports, combined this data with customer forecast information. This approach resulted in time-consuming and costly data collation and reporting processes. Seeking a proactive and efficient solution, Walker Logistics turned to MPowerUp.

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The Challenge

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Walker Logistics needed a systematic approach to SLA reporting and forecast data management that would reduce manual work, increase efficiency, create cost savings, and provide a greater level of transparency for their customers. It was critical that the solution could be automated and capable of handling the complex and dynamic nature of their logistics operations.

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The Solution

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MPowerUp deployed a comprehensive solution leveraging Power BI and Power Apps to automate and streamline Walker's SLA reporting and forecast data management processes. The team used Power BI to extract data from the Chess system and designed a Power App to import customer forecast data into Dataverse.

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This innovative solution allowed the automatic matching of orders to SLAs, determining if orders had met or failed their respective SLA criteria. The resultant data was presented in an easily comprehensible dashboard that could be filtered by customer, courier, or by year/month. Detailed drill-through pages and supplementary pages provided Walker with deeper insights into their customer's and couriers' data.

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Simultaneously, the Power Apps solution transformed the process of collecting and ingesting customer forecast data. Instead of manual data handling, Walker could now provide their customers with a simple Excel spreadsheet for uploading data using the app into a centralized Dataverse storage. The data could be centrally updated and amended as required, streamlining the forecast data collection process.  In addition, this data was then ingested into the reports and overlayed with the SLA data to provide data insights from multiple data sources.

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Walker have the option of exporting Power BI reports in PDF format and sending to customers when requested.

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The Results

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The solution delivered significant benefits to Walker Logistics:

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Daily Data Extraction: Data is automatically extracted on a daily basis from Chess, ensuring SLA data is up-to-date and accurate.

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Automation and Efficiency: The reporting solution automated previously manual processes, saving significant time, resources, and money.

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Enhanced Transparency: The export functionality offered a detailed report to customers, instilling confidence that Walker was proactively managing their SLA obligations.

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Streamlined Process: The forecast data collection process was made more efficient and easier for all parties involved.

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MPowerUp's solution allowed Walker Logistics to overcome their SLA reporting challenge, optimise their operations, save money and improve their customer service. By leveraging technology, they were able to gain a competitive edge, provide greater transparency to their customers, and streamline internal processes – a win-win for all.

Power BI, Data Gateway, Dataflows, Power Apps and Dataverse were used to deliver this solution.