The Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) have chosen the DocBuilder solution to optimize document management.
Swiss Federal Railways offers a marketoriented range of transport services. Divided into the four departments, Passenger Transport, Cargo, Real Estate and Infrastructure, SBB employs a total of 33,000 people, making one of the largest employers in Switzerland.
The IT Division, based in Bern-Wankdorf, is the internal supplier for all IT services and employs around 840 people. SAP business software solutions are among the strategic IT applications and are an important tool for mapping corporate processes.
SBB relies on SAP software to manage the most important business processes. TeamWork’s TWDocBuilder has been used for document creation and management in the areas of occupational health management and personnel administration for several years. Thanks to the high level of satisfaction with the TWDocBuilder, it was internally recommended to the SBB’s property management department. The first prototype was launched at the end of 2017 and a standard real estate version was defined together with TeamWork. Today, the TWDocBuilder optimally covers the needs of the industry.
With TWDocBuilder, SBB relies on a document creation tool that proves itself daily with several customers in the real estate industry and enormously simplifies document creation, administration and dispatch.
Challenges
SBB Real Estate manages around 800 railway stations, 3,500 buildings and 3,600 properties, making it one of the largest real estate managers in Switzerland. An enormous number of documents are generated for communication with prospective tenants, tenants and partners.
The aim of implementing TWDocBuilder was to achieve a high level of automation and simplification in document creation, administration and dispatch. In addition, all documents had to be integrated into the existing DMS filing system.
“I was already involved in previousTWDocBuilder projects at SBB and have been enthusiastic about this solution for years. Especially in the area of real estate, there are very complex requirements in the form environment and there was a certain risk before the start of the project. However, TeamWork was able to cover all requirements as promised and implemented a suitable solution.“
Joern Joerns
SAP Senior Consultant SBB
Solution
Today, the business department uses TWDocBuilder to create form templates in MS Word without any developer knowledge. The template creation is similar to a serial letter and the data from SAP RE-FX is accessed directly. All relevant fields and organisational data are available. The finished template is stored as a form in SAP and it is specified whether it is to be created as a Word, PDF or PDF-A document.
The actual printing process from SAP runs fully automatically. For example, all parameters of the rental contracts are read automatically and in combination with the SAP Business Partner data and the SBB individual fields, the rental contract is generated without manual intervention. Any missing master data is recognised and reported before the documents are generated. The documents are usually sent by e-mail, which is generated on the basis of the stored SAP Business Partner data and the texts and parameters stored in TWDocBuilder then supplemented with the document attachment. The barcode stored on the document guarantees that the document signed by the tenant is automatically filed in the correct location in the DMS after scanning.
“TWDocBuilder is an innovation in document creation, management and dispatch for SBB Real Estate. Together with TeamWork, we were able to improve and simplify the efficiency of the entire process. A really successful project!“
Roman Wildenauer
Solution Manager Real Estate
Results
With TWDocBuilder, SBB today has a convenient and efficient solution for communicating with prospective tenants, tenants and partners. The complete integration in SAP RE-FX makes daily work much easier. Templates can be maintained via modern web interfaces and correspondence can be set up. The standard MS Word tool enables key users in the business department to create
or change form templates without any developer know-how and store them in the right place in SAP RE-FX. With the automatic e-mail dispatch, the correspondence quickly reaches the addressee and can be signed or adapted by him. Thanks to the barcode integration, the documents are automatically transferred back to the DMS and are available at any time.
SBB is considering the integration of digital signatures as a further possible expansion and optimization step. TeamWork offers an SAP integration of the signature solution provider Skribble for this purpose.
Advantages for SBB
- Complete integration in SAP RE-FX
- High degree of automation
- Simple creation of templates via MS Word
- Output as Word, pdf or pdf-A depending on the specification
- Automated email dispatch
- Connection to document storage system (DMS)
- Multilingual German, English, French, Italian
“I have been assisting SBB in the area of TWDocBuilder since 2013. The high level of satisfaction of SBB employees with the solution has made it possible to steadily implement TWDocBuilder in other departments and areas. With TWDocBuilder RE-FX, we have jointly set another milestone. The solution offers enormous potential and is very interesting for all SAP RE-FX customers.”
Mathieu Ortelli
SAP Senior Consultant TeamWork
