A data warehouse and reporting solution that supports the valuable work and impact monitoring of the Blue Ribbon Foundation (suom. Sininauhasäätiö)
The Blue Ribbon Foundation works to support people experiencing homelessness and those in vulnerable situations. To fulfill its mission, the foundation needs tools to monitor the impact of its work and the rehabilitation progress of its clients. Epical developed a tailored data warehouse and reporting solution that strengthens the foundation’s operations and supports its continuous development.
Previously, the Blue Ribbon Foundation used a reporting solution that pulled financial, property, and client data directly from source systems. While this solution provided an initial foothold for data-driven management, it was difficult and expensive to develop further. Additionally, it lacked features such as historical data tracking. For these reasons, the foundation wanted to implement a dedicated data warehouse, one it could fully manage and control.
We wanted to improve our data-driven management tools and bring data from all our critical systems into our own data lakehouse. Our goal was to adopt modern, cost-efficient development tools built on Microsoft technology.
A flexible and cost-efficient solution
The Blue Ribbon Foundation selected Epical as their development partner for this project. The collaboration began with data modeling, after which Epical implemented a Lakehouse solution based on Microsoft and Databricks technologies, tailored to the foundation’s specific needs.
“The platform is well-suited for a variety of solution scales that previously required multiple tools. The data lake and data warehouse were built on the same platform, with a streamlined architecture. This simplifies development; it's smooth, efficient, and cost-effective when everything is done in one place,” says Oskari Tapionsalo, Lead Consultant at Epical.
The project went smoothly, and the Blue Ribbon Foundation was highly satisfied with the partnership.
“Epical brought deep expertise to the development of our solution and supported us very well throughout the process,” says Hevonoja.
Full value for operational development
The new data warehouse and reporting solution unlocks new possibilities for the Blue Ribbon Foundation, particularly in tracking the impact of its work. Initial results have already been observed, and the solution is scheduled for full deployment in the first quarter of 2025. Even at this stage, it is clear that performing analyses is easier, faster, and of higher quality than before.
“Next, we’ll review the reports and their development needs with different departments. For example, combining information from various systems used to be cumbersome, but now that process will be much easier. Sharing information across departments with management and other stakeholders will also be far more seamless. All of this will have a significant impact on our work,” Hevonoja emphasizes.
