We launched cost transparency in Apptio prior to the introduction of the ATUM model.  We would like to migrate to the ATUM model to take advantage of the standard reports in the application.  I was wondering if anybody has gone through the same transition and could give me an idea of how long it took, how you approached the migration, and were there any hidden pain points.

Yes, I went through this transition back around March of this year.  All-in-all, it probably took me about 80 man-hours or so to transition all of my cost pools/sub-pools and towers/sub-towers to the ATUM taxonomy.  I didn't do much of anything in terms of changing my model or moving toward OOTB reports (most of my reports are pretty customized).  If you want to do that, you'll definitely need to plan more time.

I felt it was actually a relatively painless process.  Not pain-free, but when compared to other transitions in the IT world, it was definitely on the "easier" side of the scale.  A lot of the cost pool and IT tower assignments in my model are made by way of mapping tables, so updating the mapping tables got me 90% of the way there.  And actually, going through this process was very beneficial, because it forced us to take a detailed look at the assignments again... something we really hadn't done since the initial stages of our implementation.  So we had the twofold benefit of cleaning up our data in addition to moving to ATUM.

Before you do anything, you'll want to go through all of your tables, transforms, metrics, models, and reports, and make a detailed list of anywhere where you have hard-coded a formula or filter based on the cost pools and towers.  This can be a daunting task, but it will save you a ton of time in the end because you will know every place that needs to be changed, for example, from Cost Pool="Contract Labor" to Cost Pool="External Labor".  And when you do start making changes, it's helpful to use tags, just in case you need to go back and undo something in the Audit Log.

Thanks for the advice on preparation.  I think we'll move in phases where first we'll tackle the cost pools and resource towers.  It sounds like it's worth it to at least complete this phase.

If anybody else has had experience migrating their model to take advantage of the standard reports, please let me know how it went.

It is highly unlikely that we at State of WA will ever be able to get to where we are a 'standard' client or configuration. We operate in a federated environment where each agency has control over their own chart of accounts, allocation methodology, etc. and so, in our instance we have 17 agency-specific service costing projects, another project that has 28 agencies in a barebones standardized allocation methodology only so that they can be included in the enterprise reporting (which is accomplished by yet another project into which data from the other 18 is aggregated).

We also started with Apptio before ATUM - and before 'components'. And we also want to hew as closely as possible to ATUM as well as be able to use all of the improvements of the newer releases (whether platform or content) - but because we are so non-standard, it will continue to be a battle.

What we have done:

We started with the taxonomy Apptio initially provided (2012), and evolved it (slightly) to meet our own needs. Then ATUM came along, and earlier this spring we held numerous cross-agency conversations to come to agreement on which towers/subtowers and cost pools we would implement/migrate to. We made significant progress but there are still areas of major disagreement (e.g. we did not move to sub cost pools, nor did we go to a combined Network tower choosing instead to keep Voice and Data Networks separate). We hope to make additional progress toward alignment in the next review cycle, but given that ATUM is subject to ongoing change and largely driven by private sector conversation at present, we may never make it to 100%.

We also created an IT Resource Tower Master List that is pushed out to all the agency projects (from the template they were created from). This FY will be our first attempt at using it, and at the new (revised to be closer to ATUM) taxonomy and we think it will simplify our life a bit. It will likely vary considerably based on the TBMA skillset/experience level in a particular agency as well as the complexity of their chosen allocation methodology as to the time it takes them to change over.

What we're currently trying to figure out:

How we can best gain the benefit of the Content upgrades (and the OOTB reports that are enabled by use of specific Components) while remaining mostly customized. Suggestions on that are more than welcome. .

Yes, we’ve been through the same transition. Our objective was to align to the ATUM taxonomy and utilise the OOTB reports as much as possible moving away from custom reports. As part of this we were also upgrading the software version we were using (from memory I think it was 11.3.) to the latest at the time which was 11.6.2. This allows us to keep up with the releases easily and make the most of the evolving OOTB reports.

Given all the data, information and understanding we had at the time we have decided to also rebuild our model allowing us to start with a clean slate. There’s loads of documentation available about best practices and our Apptio contacts shared this information with us in advance. Using the best practices and Apptio’s guidance we’ve rebuilt our entire model which delivered our initial ambition.

We had a slightly different approach to James’. From the Service Costing project we only carried forward the raw data and some of the allocation rules. Everything else was ‘forgotten’ to allow us to simplify the new model and have a consistent approach throughout.

We spent about 3 weeks to rebuild the cost and budget model to the ITRT adopting the ATUM taxonomy. This involved loading all raw datasets, creating transforms, adding formulas, creating allocations. We also had 1 year worth of historical data to replicate.

It has taken a further week to drive the costs through the rest of the model all the way to the business services object.

After that with the help of Apptio we’ve reviewed the entire model looking to reduce calculation times wherever possible. I would say this has taken approx. a week as well inclusive of applying the efficiencies identified.

The remaining 2 weeks we spent reviewing the OOTB reports and making small changes to it, such as hiding components where we didn’t have the relevant information to light the report up.

I agree with James that it was a relatively painless process. As we chosen to start again rather than unpick what we already had in Service Costing some of the painful work was immediately taken away. We didn’t need to make a note of any metrics, formulas, rules and we were able to utilise most of the predifined keys that were available as part of the upgrade.

The Cost Transparency project now gives us tonnes of benefits. Loading datasets for us is no longer a time consuming activity, the month end cycle is reduced to a couple of hours and promoting data to PROD takes third of the time than it did before. The system is an absolute joy to work with and it allows us to focus more on reporting and getting the content out to the business.

One final point that may be worth mentioning is that we had some Apptio guidance to ensure we are adhering to best practices and that the system operates as efficiently as possible. However, the model has been built by us whilst Apptio oversaw our progress. For anybody who wants to become self-sufficient in using the system this is the perfect opportunity to do so as terrifying as it may seem initially.

Hi Nancy,

I think it will vary quite a bit from instance to instance.  If you have good data to map in from your GL and other systems it can be a cake walk.  If you have lots of little GL transactions that are all coded as a single giant pool of IT Cost...you may have a bit of a challenge on your hands when it comes to tower/sub-tower mapping.

In our particular case, we utilized a bunch of project cost accounting codes in our GL that made process fairly simple.  The challenge for us has been getting management (and other stakeholders) on board with a new Taxonomy for cost of IT.  We've implement a mixture of custom and OOTB reports to help ease the transition.