By Roy Urrico
Accessing data often requires financial institutions, like Simplicity Credit Union in Wisconsin, to break through data siloes to retrieve information inside legacy infrastructure. NXTsoft’s OmniData provides expedited connectivity and enables FIs to access data quickly and securely through any situation requiring the transfer of data.
“OmniData enables you to access your data quickly and securely with accuracy that you can trust when your financial institution is involved in a core conversion, legacy data migration or other event,” said Christopher W. Parks, senior vice president of implementation at the Birmingham, Ala.-based NXTsoft. He added, “Convert data easily and quickly with minimal staff involvement at a lower cost than doing it yourself.”
How OmniData Works
Parks explained NXTsoft’s OmniData solution can assist credit unions and other financial institutions that have legacy image data stored on systems no longer supported, are being told that they are not in compliance because they are running on non-supported hardware and software, or going through a merger or acquisition.
The components of the OmniData platform include OmniPort, a proprietary conversion tool, the MongoDB database, and OmniView, a browser-based research tool.
OmniData offers three customizable solutions for legacy or acquired data:
· Full conversion of data from system to system.
· Data availability through NXTsoft’s flagship OmniView browser for researching without the need for a full conversion.
· A hybrid approach that combines the two. Data not needed or data rarely needed to convert to production systems gets loaded into a single archive, allowing users easy access utilizing the OmniView browser when needed.
Parks told Finopotamus, “OmniData’s proprietary conversion tool OmniPort is installed on customer provided hardware or a virtual server, along with a MongoDB database.” Then via a connection to the financial institution’s legacy database (or legacy index files), OmniData extracts check images, image statements, COLD reports, and document index and image data from the legacy system.
“Index info is stored in MongoDB and image files are referenced where the reside, or can be copied to a new location outside of the storage for the legacy system,” said Parks.
Simplicity Credit Union Needed A Simple Data Solution
The $440 million Marshfield, Wis.-based Simplicity Credit Union relationship with the NXTsoft’s stable of products actually started with CCMC, Inc., a data integration company the Alabama firm acquired in 2019. “Our initial contract with (CCMC) was in 2017. Our initial product was simply one of their bridge products to tie our mortgage product into our core banking product,” said Richard Szabo, vice president of IT for Simplicity Credit Union and its CUSO (credit union service organization) Exclamation Services.
Szabo pointed out NXTsoft was a pioneer in working with core providers such as Jack Henry and Fiserv when many third-party vendors did not have access to primary banking systems. “It was very hard to get data back and forth, whether you were a bank or a credit union, It did not matter. They were the first ones, I remember, who actually did this work.”
Now Simplicity re-engaged with NXTsoft OmniData on what Szabo defines as a “humongous project. Well humongous for a $440 million credit union.” Szabo, noted the credit union currently runs a Fiserv DNA core, which includes the facility for digital document storage (DDS).
However, at the end of 2021 Simplicity began doing due diligence on a new DDS system, something that provided data in a more standard non-proprietary format. Knowing they had a limited budget and unsure whether they were sticking with a Fiserv core in the future, Simplicity looked around to find vendor agnostic storage for its documents.
The credit union settled on New Haven, Conn.-based Square 9 Softworks’ GlobalSearch Enterprise Content Management (ECM), which organizes and stores documents in one searchable, permission-based data repository.
One big problem needed addressing, Szabo admitted to Finopotamus. “Fiserv has a proprietary data type setup. GlobalSearch (ECM) did not provide the service to get the stuff out of (Fiserv’s) DDS and into their product. So, I needed somebody in between. I called up NXTsoft and I talked to Bob (Bob Roberts, senior sales executive, NXTsoft Omni Solutions) and said, ‘We have this huge project. In fact, it is ongoing right now. Can you guys help me?’ And they said, ‘Sure.’”
Every Bit of Data
Szabo explained that NXTsoft using its OmniData platform is “taking every bit of data out of our DDS, converting it, (and) sending it over to GlobalSearch for us. And then GlobalSearch is ingesting it; I cannot even tell you how many terabytes of documents, signatures, forms, you name it. Everything that we save document wise, they are converting from Fiserv speak into GlobalSearch, which is a more universal platform.”
This successful transfer of data puts Simplicity Credit Union in control. Szabo said, “I am so glad we were partners with (NXTsoft). They have done such a good job on it. It is amazing. We are not sure we are staying with Fiserv. In fact, we are entertaining (core accounting) bids in a couple months. If I need to do any type of data movement, I am going to use NXTsoft. It has been so efficient and surprisingly for this scope, how much data we are moving, the pricing was not bad. It was a deal.”
Now GlobalSearch ECM houses the credit union’s data. “We should be going live in November. GlobalSearch is Simplicity’s system of record for all documents,” said Szabo. “And that's everything, statements, signatures, loan docs, everything we produce or need, is all going into that.” Some of the credit union’s inactive or rarely used data sits in COLD storage on a storage area network (SAN), Szabo added. “I just put them away and now I've got them in a standard format.”
Szabo, who lives in Maine but runs IT for both Simplicity and its CUSO Exclamation remotely, believes in the credit union movement. “I was in banking for a long time. I have recently come over to what bankers call the dark side into credit unions. I just find that there is so much more of helping and that type of relationship on this side of financial world. I wanna be at a credit union for the rest of my career. I cannot tell you how different it is working here. The people who work with credit unions, it is so different as it, it is so refreshing. Keeps an old guy like me want keep coming back to work to every day.”
In addition, Szabo said, “We're good in the community. I try and time my visit so I can do a community project when I am there, whether it is delivering food or doing something at the animal shelter or a benefit. And they live it every day. That is what makes this type of work wonderful.”
OmniData Integrating Credit Unions
Parks said that following extraction, the OmniData platform either exports or reformats the index and image data for import into various credit union’s image platforms. “In addition to converting/exporting the data to a specific format, the data can be researched in place using the OmniView browser-based research application.”
Parks further added, “Data can be exported into any format that is needed for a core system or ancillary products. The focus is on check images, statements, COLD reports, and document images. During the conversion process, OmniData can ‘map’ old legacy values in the data to new values being utilized in the go forward system or core.
“OmniData can also convert data in a secure in-house environment in Birmingham (NXTsoft’s headquarters),” noted Parks.
NXTsoft has implemented and managed data connectivity events for over 2,000 financial institutions covering thousands of terabytes of converted data. Currently the OmniData platform is installed on-premise on customer provided hardware.