Case Study Summary
When Db2 Web Query support was discontinued, Cat Pumps was left with more than 300 reports built up over 13 years. Their three-person IT team adopted m-Power and rebuilt the reports in-house. Read this case study to learn how Cat Pumps replaced 300+ Web Query reports and kept every capability their users relied on.
Results
Avoided an outsized enterprise BI license by replacing Web Query with m-Power on their terms.
Migrated 300+ reports with a small in-house team, no outside developers required.
Kept the workflow users were used to: scheduled reports, email delivery, and Excel export.
If you run into any type of issues, they're right there to hold your hand and get you through it. And if they don't know how to do it right now, they'll throw it at developers, and they'll come up with a solution to make it happen.
Full Case Study
Who is Cat Pumps
Cat Pumps designs and builds high-pressure pumps for industrial applications. The privately owned, 50-year-old company started in car wash equipment and now ships pumps into reverse osmosis systems, nuclear plants, NATO ships, food processing facilities, and more. If something has to move fluid under pressure, Cat Pumps probably has a pump for it.
What happened when Web Query went away
When Db2 Web Query support was discontinued, Cat Pumps had a problem that other Web Query customers will recognize.
The team had built up more than 300 reports over 13 years of using Web Query, feeding data to users across the business. With Web Query going away, all of that work would likely need to be rebuilt.
Before looking for a new solution, they first tried staying put.
Db2 Web Query had always been a slimmed-down version of a larger enterprise BI product. IBM bundled it at a lower price point through a partnership with the vendor who built it. When that partnership ended, the bundled version went with it. The only path forward was licensing the full enterprise product directly from the vendor.
They reached out to get a quote. The price came back outrageously high, and the offer was worse than they expected. The slimmed-down version wasn't on the table anymore. It was the full enterprise tier or nothing.
"We didn't need all that," said Steve Keller, IT Director at Cat Pumps. "The price tag was very expensive compared to what we were paying."
Why they chose m-Power
m-Power does everything that Web Query can, and more.
So, they began searching for a tool to rebuild their reports. Keller runs a small but self-reliant team. "We do a lot of our own development and build our own applications," he says. "We really don't use any third-party services unless we really have to, which is very few and far between."
While converting 300 reports was a daunting task, they decided to handle it internally. They just needed the right tool.
m-Power quickly made the short list because it could do what Web Query did for them, and comes from an IBM i background. It would pull data out of Db2, create reports, send them on a schedule, export into Excel, and email to users. That's how they were using Web Query, and that's what they needed in a new tool. m-Power's interface was straightforward and would let their small team build reports quickly.
"m-Power does everything that Web Query can, and more," says Keller.
Converting from Web Query to m-Power
After an m-Power training class, Anna Wojtowicz, their senior program analyst of 14 years, took on most of the conversion work herself.
The more comfortable Anna got with m-Power, the faster the work went. By the end, she had migrated the bulk of the 300+ reports on her own.
Of course, like with any new software tool, she hit a few road bumps during the project. But, those were quickly resolved by mrc's support team.
"There were some challenges along the way, but every time I called the helpline support, they were there to help me and push me in the right direction," Anna recalls. "They're very knowledgeable. They really know their product."
Support that goes above and beyond
If you run into any type of issues, they're right there to hold your hand and get you through it. And if they don't know how to do it right now, they'll throw it at developers, and they'll come up with a solution to make it happen.
During the project, Cat Pumps ran into a few things in m-Power that didn't work the way they needed. In those instances, mrc's support team stepped in and guided them to a solution. In a few instances where a solution wasn't possible within the tool, mrc even added features into m-Power itself to solve the problem.
"If you run into any type of issues, they're right there to hold your hand and get you through it," says Steve. "And if they don't know how to do it right now, they'll throw it at developers, and they'll come up with a solution to make it happen."
Steve has spent a long career working with software vendors. In his experience, he almost never finds a vendor that will change the product to solve a problem.
"That rarely happens," he says. "Or it takes a long time, and we have to wait a long time. So we usually give up on that idea and try to find a way around it, or come up with our own solution."
Where they are now
If you understand the database, you can build your own reports. The tool is intuitive enough and simple enough for the users.
Cat Pumps has converted all of their Web Query reports to m-Power, along with all of the capabilities they had before: scheduled reporting, email delivery, and Excel output. They provide the same workflow their users had with Web Query.
Additionally, a couple of power users have started building their own reports inside m-Power. "If you understand the database, you can build your own reports," Anna said. "The tool is intuitive enough and simple enough for the users."
All in all, this Web Query conversion project is a great example of what happens when you combine a capable team with a flexible tool, backed by a support team that cares about their customer's success.