For Mailer’s Choice, Inc., There Was no choice: Find an integration answer to meet client’s need.
June, 2006

Executive Summary
Mailer’s Choice, Inc. helps clients meet their direct mail, fulfillment, and customized laser-printing needs. Their success depends upon their ability to build and maintain client relationships, and their ability to leverage leading-edge technology to help solve client problems. When a major client needed to move its legacy data, flat files, and other unstructured data into a structured database, Mailer’s Choice looked for the best option to get the job done correctly, with quick turnaround, and at a lower cost. Using the Pervasive Data Integration and Data Profiling solution, Mailer’s Choice met its objectives and accomplished the project with high success. Now, Mailer’s Choice believes Pervasive Software has helped them open the door to other market opportunities without adding significant overhead.

Situation
Mailer’s Choice, Inc. was asked to improve the pre-sort process for a major client, a publishing house that issues hundreds of thousands of books each year. The client wanted to reduce costs, including those for bulk-mail, and improve its accountability and tracking abilities. The first phase of the project was to extract the client’s unstructured data into a structured format, including legacy data and flat files containing invoices, credit memos, and other statements. The next phase will be to automate the identification and removal of duplicate data with Pervasive Data Profiler.

Key Challenges

• The data processing manager, Gary McCullough, found the volume of records daunting. There were thousands of invoices, credit memos, and statements that his team had to move into a structured database that would be associated with the client, and he needed help.
• He needed data connectors that would successfully transfer data from a wide range of legacy data formats and flat files.
• The solution had to be robust and easy to use. Plus, it had to be reusable for other projects.
• Time pressures dictated the need for a solution that was quick hitting and highly accurate.

Solution

• Pervasive assigned an account lead to Mailer’s Choice, Inc. who quickly worked to get an understanding of Mailer’s Choice needs and requests.
• Because Mailer’s Choice would be tapping so many types of old and hard-to-reach data, the native connectivity offered in the Pervasive Integration Solution was recommended.
• With more than 150 different types of data sources and targets, Mailer’s Choice could meet the objectives of the project cost-effectively and without project delays.

Results

• Flexibility: According to McCullough, “we could extract from any file format — Access, Dbase, delimited files, space delimited files — and I really appreciated the breadth of Pervasive’s connectors, including unstructured data in e-mail format. We moved the invoices, credit memos and statements from differing data sources and targets easily into a structured database.”
• Speed: “Pervasive provides native connectors that allow me to rapidly extract and cleanse data from any file format and without the risks and time inherent with manual processing,” he added.
• Scalability: “We can process up to 20 thousand more records per month and our customers get cleaner data faster, helping both of us become more profitable.”
• Usability: McCullough, who describes himself as “Power Excel User”, initially wondered whether he could successfully use the Pervasive software. McCullough found he could. And when he did encounter an issue or concern, “Pervasive worked hard to resolve them.”

During the migration, Pervasive Map Designer proved invaluable. Features in Map Designer were indispensable to McCullough, such as the drag-and-drop graphical user interface, name and address parsing and scrubbing, and the ability to interactively test and debug transformation rules.

The Extract Schema Designer allowed McCullough to parse and define unstructured data into a reusable data format; Structured Schema Designer allowed him to save and reuse record layouts. “Pervasive offered me the power I wanted,and gave me the ability to make the software work for me. I’m a big fan of RiFL, and Pervasive has it.”

Conclusion
The success of one data extraction project has proven to have a larger payoff. Mailer’s Choice, Inc. created a better record tracking and entry control system for its client – that has resulted in new form development, the ability to use group posting to create one record to better track hundreds of item records, and increased records throughput. Mailer’s Choice, Inc. reduced the costs of presorting data and gave the client greater record flexibility, and a better view of purchase histories.

Mailer’s Choice not only met the demands of an existing client, but now sees an opportunity to bring a structured database solution to other companies in the same situation. “Without Pervasive, we would have had to tell the client we could not do the work for them. Now we see market opportunities and a chance to take on new projects.”

The reusability of Pervasive components is another reason Mailer’s Choice is optimistic; ROI should only compound into the future. Plus, the ability to cross-train personnel on Pervasive software is important too.

Best Practices

• Mailer’s Choice, Inc. has found a data infrastructure partner to bring clients better results.
• A successful data migration project has led to new options on how to take advantage of Pervasive products. For instance, Mailer’s Choice is moving much closer to automating its data download procedures, to further improve productivity and efficiencies.
• Pervasive Data Profiler removes the time and cost of manually checking data; it is expected to play a significant role in this process transition.
• The comprehensive Pervasive solution will translate into increased opportunities and market share for Mailer’s Choice, while the reusable and easy-to-use components are projected to help reduce operating costs without adding significant overhead costs for customers.