flexible response
“Monarch has enabled our organisation to produce highly
consistent reports to meet all of the obligations placed on us
by our clients and management. Changing the templates
which generate the reports involves much less technical skill
than writing Excel macros would ever have done.”
The design philosophy behind Monarch has
been explored in The Informed Executive in an
earlier edition. The approach is that, by work-
ing with ‘published’ reports rather than inter-
nal data files, Monarch effectively isolates it-
self from changes in the structure of the data
used to create those reports and streamlines
the process of aggregation.
Neil Davies outlined the practicalities of
producing highly targeted reports for his cli-
ents. “Many different packages were tried
which claimed to improve the data conver-
sion, but the results were inconsistent –
largely due to the problems experienced with
PDFs. reducing dependency on having skilled pro-
“Software which produces unpredictable re- gramming resources available all the time.”
sults does little to achieve the goals for which
the shared service was established.”
Short-term ‘quick fix’ solution?
Overcomes standardisation issues
It would be easy to see Monarch as some-
thing of an operational sticking plaster; a tool
Monarch appears to have overcome the lack which only has a purpose when third party
of PDF standardisation by first rendering the software products cannot produce consistent
PDF output from each application and gener- output, Would it follow that, as those vendors
ating ‘clean’ Excel files from each of them. It ‘sharpen’ their products, the need for Monarch
is a straightforward matter to ‘cut and paste’ will eventually disappear?
this information electronically into Integra. Certainly that would appear to be the case
Does this reduction to Excel tie the Service with the ESR payroll system; the early imple-
too closely into another proprietary ‘standard’ mentations of which did not always generate
which might constrain its operations in the Excel-based output, and data had to be ex-
future? Davies took a view: “So long as any tracted directly from its reports.
software we might take on board will export to As Mr Davies observed, “Now that Excel is
CSV files or even XML as the lowest common supported, we no longer need Monarch for that
denominator, our investment is safe. particular task. But the nature of the applica-
“Some public bodies have opted for tions environment is always changing, and we
OpenOffice instead of Excel to distance their need to be able to react quickly to requests for
operations from a single vendor’s solutions, new reports.
but I am satisfied that the route we have taken “Monarch gives us the flexibility to respond
gives us that flexibility. without involving specialist software devel-
“Monarch has enabled our organisation to opment teams. It is therefore a cost-effective
produce highly consistent reports to meet all route to systems development and one which
of the obligations placed on us by our clients provides our clients with precisely the infor-
and management. mation they need.
“The nature of that system is such that “At a time when the NHS generally has to
changing the templates which generate the keep its budgets focused on patient care, the
reports involves much less technical skill than ability to control costs and increase effective-
writing Excel macros would ever have done. ness of back-office services is probably the
What that means in practice is that we are best business case for Monarch.” §
60
The Informed Executive
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