About AdvanaLeaders at the Department of Defense (DoD) face increasingly advanced threats from global adversaries. To make faster and smarter decisions to combat these challenges, they had to ensure ready access to data and analytics in a highly complex enterprise environment. In 2019, the Department and Booz Allen completed design and deployment of Advana—a common platform designed for mission owners, analysts, and data scientists to simplify more than 3,000 business systems. From finance and contracts, to logistics and readiness, this system drives informed decision making across the organization through common data models, natural language discovery, and self-service analytics.The Challenge ~ DoD has the largest operating budget in the world to support its sensitive and global mission. Given its operational complexity, the Department faced a decades-long challenge to conduct an accurate and comprehensive financial audit across thousands of accounting and business systems. Auditors had to manually pull data from different systems, and leadership relied on disparate methods of analytics and reporting from pockets of the organization. It was clear that a unified program was necessary to bring together data from across the enterprise. This would result not only in the ability to assess the financial health and compliance across DoD—it would also empower the Department to transform data for the purpose of decision analytics to impact business, operational, and mission performance.Booz Allen Hamilton Inc.BAH_053e768a-0c67-11ec-9a3e-f1b1fd82ea00Graham EvansGraham Evans brings digital and analytics capabilities to Booz Allen clients, with more than a decade of experience supporting the Department of Defense (DoD) and other U.S. federal agencies. His background includes working to advance enterprise architecture, agile software development, DevOps, and data science. In leading the delivery of analytic domains, Graham's wide area of expertise spans health, military readiness, finance, and logistics. In his current role, Graham leads Booz Allen's work supporting data platforms and enterprise analytics within the DoD's highest decision-making bodies. Graham established the firm’s relationship with numerous cutting-edge commercial data services, setting the strategy and bilateral engagement to bring next-generation capabilities to the Federal Government. Beyond his work to drive data transformation for clients, Graham is also the technical lead for investments in modern data platforms, data engineering, data cataloging, and the development of an integrated data experience—seeking to seamlessly link tools and discoverable data to accelerate the return on investment of analytics projects for public sector clients. Graham studied engineering in both undergraduate and graduate programs at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.DoD AuditorsDoD Mission OwnersDoD AnalystsDoD Data ScientistsFaster, smarter decisions_053e77f2-0c67-11ec-9a3e-f1b1fd82ea00To simplify DoD financial, medical, HR, logistics, and other business systems_053e796e-0c67-11ec-9a3e-f1b1fd82ea00IntegrationWith thousands of business systems to integrate, there were non-standard interfaces, duplications, legacy technologies, and a culture of different units pulling their own data for decision making.DiscoverabilityTogether, Booz Allen and DoD developed Advana—a unified platform that makes data discoverable, understandable, and useful for advanced analytics to meet critical mission and business challenges across all levels of the department.CategorizationTo overcome the challenge of disparate, raw data across the organization, from spreadsheets to data warehouses, Advana aligns data sets to the right category (e.g., “logistics” or “medical”), and then converts them to a common data model in a staging environment.Data QualityThe system puts that quality data into workspaces where users can run their own analytics.FlexibilityToday, this managed data service supports more than 7,000 users across the Army, Navy, and Air Force, and takes in data from more than 120 DoD systems—providing a flexible and automated framework for data acquisition, data engineering, and governance.Risk ManagementIt allows Department analysts to identify high-risk funds, automates the process for reviewing quarterly obligations at the Pentagon, and makes it possible to manage business and financial information like a commercial enterprise.ScalabilityWhile Advana is a web-based tool that doesn’t requires users to download anything to use the platform, the next generation will involve a move to a cloud environment to allow for greater scale, more powerful analytics, and more advanced automation. AnalysisAutomationData OrganizationOrganize data_053e7a0e-0c67-11ec-9a3e-f1b1fd82ea00DoD Business SystemsDoD Financial SystemsDoD Medical SystemsDoD HR SystemsDoD Logistics SystemsThe Approach ~ In partnership with Booz Allen, DoD set out to build a platform that would organize data from across financial, medical, HR, logistics, and other parts of the organization—to drive decisions and advanced analytics. The goals of the system included the following: CFOTransform the CFO function from scorekeeper to business partner_053e7aa4-0c67-11ec-9a3e-f1b1fd82ea001DoD CFOCan we explain our business story in numbers and deliver actionable business and mission insights?AnalyticsDemocratize analytics for a wide spectrum of users and use cases_053e7b44-0c67-11ec-9a3e-f1b1fd82ea002From dashboards and simple analysis to complex queries, is the platform accessible and scalable?AccuracyImprove financial management and data accuracy_053e7be4-0c67-11ec-9a3e-f1b1fd82ea003Are our general ledger postings correct or do we have abnormal balances? Are we compliant with financial management data standards?Compliance, Control & RiskStrengthen compliance, control, risk management_053e7c7a-0c67-11ec-9a3e-f1b1fd82ea004Can we support audit analytics and reporting with databases, custom web applications, and easy-access tools?PerformanceProvide decision analytics on financial performance_053e7d1a-0c67-11ec-9a3e-f1b1fd82ea005Are we paying personnel and vendors accurately and on time? Are we posting receivables and disbursements on time?2021-09-02https://www.boozallen.com/d/insight/thought-leadership/advanced-enterprise-analytics-at-the-defense-department.htmlOwenAmburOwen.Ambur@verizon.net