Design and implement

Streamlined data architecture in DealCloud

Robert Cartledge Headshot

Author

Robert Cartledge

Director, Consultancy and CRM

Creating and future proofing a consistent firm wide view of all deal activities

In our global practice we recently completed a 14-month project with a leading US head quartered alternative asset management business with in excess of $500bn AUM. They asked us to design a solution to migrate over 1,000 users from their existing DealCloud site, which required the maintenance of multiple versions of pipelines in Excel, to a new and vastly more streamlined data architecture. This was a significant project that required numerous workstreams and working collaboratively, hand-in-hand with our partners at DealCloud and the client side team.

01.

Analysis

Leveraging the it|venture team’s technical skill set, full field usage data was extracted from DealCloud and a deep analysis performed to categorise every field based on its use, similarity to other fields and possibility of merge or deletion. This analysis formed the basis of the project recommendations and allowed a revised draft model to be presented to business users for feedback.

02.

Requirements gathering

We led this phase, meeting with hundreds of users from across the firm’s multinational office base to develop a single future-proof data structure that can support the firm’s needs, across a vast range of geographies and asset classes. Our team’s breadth of experience and deep understanding of the private capital markets was key to the success of this phase ensuring we could quickly understand the nuances of the individual business teams and determine where similarities could be found, and where bespoke requirements were a necessity to support users.

03.

Collaboration

As it became clear that a significant rebuild of the deal entry process would be required to meet the firm’s needs, the it|venture team worked closely with DealCloud and the client’s in-house team to agree a project plan and determine who would be responsible for what during the following phases.

04.

The clone

As large sections of the existing DealCloud site were fit for purpose and well adopted, the decision was made to “clone” the existing site and use this as the basis of the new build. This allowed a far faster build period, with the hundreds of reports, dashboards and views in use replicated, significantly reducing the costs and risks of a “from scratch” implementation. The it|venture team worked closely with DealCloud throughout the clone process to proactively identify and manage changes to the unique IDs associated with every record, ensuring a seamless transition.

05.

The build

Once the clone process was completed the it|venture team rebuilt the deal entry and deal pipeline processes based on the new data model and a significant reduction in the number of deal entry workflows. Users were actively engaged by the it|venture and client team during this process to carry out on-going user testing, refinements and obtain sign-off of the entry workflows and data points. Following this sign off the it|venture, DealCloud and client team focussed on remapping the existing reporting outputs from the old structure to the new, while replacing existing outputs with template based outputs wherever possible, to minimise customisation and ensure scalability.

06.

Data migration

As any platform downtime would be unacceptable, it|venture utilised an in-house built scripted migration tool which leverages the DealCloud API to perform seamless near real-time migrations between the existing and new site. This significantly de-risked the project as it allowed the migration to be run multiple times, with users able to actively test and verify their data in the new site over the course of several weeks, without the risks of a one-off data migration at go-live.

07.

Remapping integrations

At this stage we supported the client led remapping of all existing integrations between DealCloud and their other systems. 

08.

Data governance framework

We then designed and implemented a data governance framework and operating model to control all current and future platform developments. As well as feature roll outs.

09.

Go-live

Members of the it|venture team attended the client offices for the week prior to and following go-live to run user training sessions, carry out final testing and provide users with direct access to assistance in person. The switch over between old and new sites was performed over the course of a single weekend with users seamlessly transferring from the old to the new site (with the old site being retained as read only record).

What did we bring to the project?

Technical expertise

Our team of technical experts utilised a broad range of data analysis and migration techniques to solve countless challenges and ultimately deliver the project on time and in budget.

Solutions knowledge

As DealCloud’s most experienced implementation partner we were able to design and build solutions to meet the most complex project requirements within the DealCloud platform’s capabilities.

Intuitive understanding

Our ability to understand the needs of an incredibly complex organisation and design and deliver solutions that improve business performance.

The project outcome

Our client can now draw a consistent, firm-wide view of all deal activities, with a future-proof structure which allows new teams to be onboarded easily and new features to be rolled out on a consistent firm-wide basis.

Our final thoughts

This is a fantastic example of the ability of our team to understand the needs of an incredibly complex organisation, define a future state that solves their challenges, then deliver it. Key to the project's success was the close working relationship between it|venture and DealCloud and I look forward to continuing our work together in the future to deliver best in class solutions to our ever evolving client base.

Contact Us

Our team of experts is ready and waiting to discuss your unique needs.