Overview
Eliminating manual setup of user groups with Python and Selenium-based automation brings significant time and cost savings for an Oil & Gas multinational.
For manufacturing and industrial businesses, the partner network plays a crucial role in their operating model, ranging from distribution to revenue growth. In these industries, partner networks are often extensive, and OEMs must provide resilient capabilities to drive success for their partners.
Our client, a multinational corporation with operations spread across 500 locations in six continents, wanted to modernize and enhance their partner relationship management workflows. The company supplies equipment and components for Oil and Gas (O&G) drilling operations and production, oilfield services, and supply chain integration services for upstream players.
The client engaged us to automate the creation of user groups for over 350 partners in the CPQ application to provide access to their quotes. Birlasoft devised an automation solution using Python and Selenium to accelerate the project and achieved over 80% reduction in implementation time along with significant cost savings. Read the details of the engagement below.
The Challenge
1. Manual and cumbersome process to create user groups in the CPQ application
Oracle CPQ does not provide an API to create user groups in the Oracle CPQ application. It also doesn’t offer a bulk-upload feature for setting up user groups within the application environment. This makes the process cumbersome, especially in scenarios where the number of user groups to be created is enormous. As a result, developers have to create user groups manually across all customer instances.
2. High number of user groups to be created to support privacy
Our client needed to create three types of user groups for 350+ partner organizations. These groups enable access for viewing and editing quotes specific to each partner organization – in the absence of which, partners would be able to view quotes from other organizations.
Developers were required to create over 4000 groups individually across Development, Testing, and Production instances. This labor-intensive process would take north of multiple weeks to complete.
3. Error-prone processes with significant security risks
Because the user groups were created manually, the risk of human error was high, mainly because of the repetitive nature of the task. Moreover, a single error in setting up a user group could pose significant data security issues that could jeopardize the client’s operations.
All these factors would have significantly delayed the partner management modernization project, leading the client to look for an alternative solution.
The Solution
To mitigate the manual effort involved in the current user group creation workflow, the partner engaged Birlasoft in search of an automation solution. Birlasoft proposed an automation solution based on Python and implemented it on time and on budget to address the above challenges.
Below are the key aspects of this solution.
1. Python and Selenium-based automation script to automate user group creation in CPQ
This automation approach reduced the time needed to complete the task to just 20 hours across all instances. The Python and Selenium-based script is a nimble and effective solution for the above application scenario.
This automation approach reduced the time needed to complete the task across all instances to just 20 hours. Moreover, the automation solution eliminated the risks associated with manual setup and guaranteed 100% accurate outcomes.
2. Resilient error-handling mechanisms to provide a closed-loop experience to developers
The automation solution also leveraged error handling mechanisms to ensure robust handling of exceptions and errors during the user group creation process. This is essential for responsive execution and explainability of errors when they do occur.
This enhanced the robustness of the solution and offered developers a reliable approach to set up user groups with zero exceptions.
3. Execution of automation solution, followed by validation to ensure consistent outcomes
Lastly, we performed a one-time execution of the automation script for Development, Test, UAT, and Production instances. This enabled the accurate creation of all user groups across customer instances.
After executing the automation, we validated the setup to confirm the correct configuration and consistent functionality. Secure access controls were applied, and the validation eliminated the need for manual corrections or future intervention.
The Impact
The automation solution brought significant cost and time savings for the client. In automation projects, the intended outcomes can prove challenging due to erroneous assumptions made early in the solutioning process. By developing a thorough understanding of the client’s application environment and the desired use case, we offered accurate and targeted results with our solution.
Below are the key outcomes we enabled for the client with our automation solution:
1. Reduced implementation timelines
The automation solution enabled the error-free creation of a high volume of user groups in the Oracle CPQ environment. This reduced the time required to complete the task from multiple weeks to under 20 hours. With an 80% reduction in time, the automation solution significantly accelerated the client’s partner management modernization project.
2. Improved security and privacy
Our automation solution guarantees precise and secure user group setup. This safeguards partner data and enables strict access control in the client’s organization. In addition to eliminating the risks associated with human errors (like potential data breaches), our solution also delivers nearly 100% execution accuracy.
3. Enhanced tactical focus
With the automation of user group setup, the client’s developer teams were able to save hundreds of hours of repetitive work. Therefore, the solution enabled the development teams to redirect their focus to more tactical and strategic tasks.
4. Improved team productivity
Lastly, the solution enabled sizable cost and resource savings for our client. With the automation, the client could save nearly a week’s effort for their development teams while achieving additional cost savings. Moreover, the automation enabled the developers to undertake high-priority tasks, boosting productivity by over 30%.
