Craegmoor is the UK's leading independent provider of specialist care, covering needs such as learning disabilities, mental health problems, physical disabilities, and nursing care for older people. They operate over 350 care homes, supported living units, specialist colleges and independent hospitals.

Following our previous engagement involving data integration with Cast Iron, we were approached in December 2005 to provide a reporting solution. We recommended the Microsoft platform using the newly released SQL Server 2005, with its revolutionary new Analysis Services OLAP system.

The brief required production of Management Accounts for individual homes and rolling up through areas and regions to present a National picture. Reports needed to be available on a monthly, quarterly and annual basis with comparisons against budget and prior period, filtered by Type of Care and with drill downs from summary level through the hierarchy of account categories. Security integrated with Active Directory was employed to ensure each user was automatically routed to data authorised for his or her role. Microsoft Reporting services was chosen to deliver the reports over the Intranet because of its facilities to control layout and format exactly as required and easily export the reports into Excel.

Following successful implementation of Accounts reports, further business areas were added, including HR, Absence, Agency Usage, Client Statements, and Clinical Governance. Mentoring to Client technical staff was provided, with the result that further development and enhancement is now largely accomplished in house, although we are consulted from time to time on more significant changes.

“Through our partnership with Ridgian, we now have a growing central repository of key business data, and a system to deliver the right information to the right people at the right time. Ridgian ensured we have control over the application and have the capacity to take it forward ourselves. It is a highly valuable tool in empowering financial decision-making throughout the organisation, including Home Managers, Analysts, and at Board level.”
Shane Gidman, Head of IT