>> Narrator: Live from Orlando, Florida, it's the cube. Covering Pentaho World 2017. Brought to you by Hitachi Ventara >> Welcome back to The Cube's live coverage of Pentaho World brought to you by Hitachi Ventara. I'm your host Rebecca Knight. Along with my co-host Dave Vellante. We have two guests today from the Universal Service Administrative company. First Sachin Batra who is the Senior Manager, Information Architecture and Tom Nesbitt, Senior Manager, Systems and Data Analytics. Welcome, thanks so much for coming on The Cube. >> Thanks. >> Thank you. >> So, first tell our viewers a little bit what the Universal Service Administrative Company is and what it does. >> Sure USAC, Universal Service Administrative Company, was created as a result of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 so that act deregulated the telecommunications industry and opened it up for competition. Along with that, the United States Federal Government passed legislation to create the Universal Service Fund. This fund, basically, supports four programs. High costs, we have a low income program, we have rural healthcare program, we also have our E-Rate or schools and libraries program. >> Okay, so, what are you doing here are Pentaho? It's a relatively new company. How do you use Pentaho? >> We're going to share our experience and our journey to become a data driven organization and how Pentaho has helped us to achieve this mission. >> When you talk about data driven organization, that means a lot of different things, to a lot of different people. What does it meant to you guys and how does it fit into your mission? >> For me, I think the first thing is the availability of data. So, historically, a lot of business people have had a hard time getting to the data. So, Pentaho has really freed the data and made it available. For me, step one is freeing the data. From there, it's then becoming more sophisticated in terms of analyzing the data, using the data to manage your day to day operations. >> So, can you describe the before and after? Maybe, the Pentaho journey? What was life like before and how did that change? >> Sasha: Oh, you want to go ahead? >> No, I can go. So, typically, I'll just say ten years ago. You would typically have to put in a request to get data or to get a report. You want a report on the state of Texas and you would have to open up a ticket, get in a line, and wait for someone to fulfill that. Now with Pentaho, we've built self-service models. So, the user can go in themselves and just create the report on the fly. So, we're talking weeks down to minutes. >> Dave: Oh, okay. >> Just to add on to that, we also have now enterprise data warehouse available so now we can do enterprise level reporting and analytics. Rather than just doing a program level reports. >> Can you give our viewers an example of what kind of a report someone would need and what could be implemented after that reports gotten? >> Sure, a lot of our reporting is about funding. We cover products and services for telecommunications. We'll do a lot of report at the national level but we may run state reports, as well. Maybe we have an inquiry, someone wants to know how's our funding in Iowa, how many applications have we completed, what type of products and services are we covered, which schools and libraries have we funded. >> How would you describe the way in which you measure the success of the mission, and how are you doing? >> The focus is a lot about ensuring we provide the right funding to the right schools and libraries and hopefully do it quickly. It's accuracy, and it's also speed. Those are, probably, the two elements. Then, of course, it's the connectivity in the classroom. Ultimately, we're trying to ensure that our products and services lead to connectivity in the classroom as well as libraries. >> How does it work? Is it like winning the lottery? You just say, "hey good news" then somebody knocks at your door or how do you inform folks, how do you collaborate with them, what's the prerequisite on their end, or requisite, things that they have to do? Is there a give and a get? >> There's applications people have to fill out. So, each year, there's a series of applications that have to be completed. We do have a special application window for funding. It's, typically, about 75 days. All the schools and libraries across the country will go ahead and fill out their applications and it's their request of what they would like to receive funding for. So, it's a special time. (chuckles) >> So, we're hearing a lot about the social innovation piece of Pentaho and how that is really one of the real approaches that it takes to business. This double bottom-line and your organization really fulfills that principle that it's trying to make good on. How does working with Hitachi Ventara and the Pentaho product, what's that relationship like there? >> I would say with the Pentaho product, it has really helped us a lot to achieve our mission. We can do a lot more reporting, enterprise level reporting, analytics. Users have the data available at their hands. They can just quickly drag and drop and create their own reports and analytics. >> How does this change employees lives? As you've said, it used to take weeks, months, now it's minutes. >> I think if you've got an operational issue or problem you get a report, maybe there's a problem with data point, or maybe there's a certain set of applications that aren't getting processed quickly enough. We can more quickly identify that problem and respond. So, it's again, identification, and then the magnitude. Is it a small problem or a big problem? Again, by freeing the data and giving it to the managers, they can better manage their operations. And we can hopefully provide better funding, faster funding to schools and libraries across the country. >> Can you take us inside your data journey? What are the sources of data? How have those sources multiplied over time, and how you're dealing with that. >> Sure, when we started we only were thinking about the four programs. So, we wanted to start with Pentaho with the four different programs. We have extracted the data from the four different transactional db's, the four programs. Like, low-income, schools and libraries, RHC, high cost areas, and then we extract this with the help of PDI and load it into our program data marks. And on the top of that, we are making Pentaho sit and then we can report and analyze based on that. >> Maybe, talk a little bit about data quality. You have to trust the data. As the data grows, it's got to be harder and harder to maintain data quality and governance and those sort of boring but important things. >> Yeah, that's been a challenge. We obtain data from other sources. So, a lot of our data is driven by what our applicants put into our forms. So, through Pentaho and other tools, we can mine that data and find out, oh, maybe the person put down the wrong county that they live in, believe it or not. We need to correct that. We do get a lot of outside data brought in and we have to make sure it's, we can use cleaning devices to make sure it's accurate. >> So, you're kind of living the data world. You talk about data driven mission. Today you hear all this buzz about AI, and machine learning, and deep learning, and all these fancy buzzwords. Do they have meaning for you, are you thinking about applying them to your organization, and if so, why? What are the outcomes that you're hoping for? >> Sure, not that much AI but I think we are planning to go more toward the predicted analytics. So, we are going to look at that very soon. We want to be proactive rather than reactive. So we want to respond to the problem proactively. >> So, that means what? Identify areas that are in need before they inform you or anticipating other problems? Describe what problems you'd be solving. >> With our application review process we receive a large number of applications. A lot of them are very similar. So, we can hopefully, put the similar ones that are within our control points and push those through more quickly. Whereas, if we have some outliers we can then, maybe, scrutinize that a little bit more. So, some type of predictive analysis to say, hey this is within a range, it's okay, let's fund it. No, this one needs a lot more scrutiny. >> Okay, so, ensuring better outcomes really? >> Tom: Yes. >> Aligning with those is really the objective, right? Okay. Great. >> So, here at Pentaho World, there's many practitioners who are sharing best practices, learning from each other. Here's how we're using the product. What are you hearing, what are you learning, are there things that as a government agency, part of the FCC, that you are going to be able to take back home and implement? >> I think what I have seen in the last couple of presentations we can do a lot more with the Pentaho version 7.0 and 8.0. You can actually visualize the data right from, when you're extracting the data. Which, I really liked it. I'm pretty sure we're going to apply that and then make the data available in the hands of business much much early rather than later. >> And, I'd also say dashboards. There's nothing better than a slick dashboard with all the metrics right there, clean display, clear indications if your meeting your goals or not. So, I think that's a scenario we have a lot of opportunity for growth. >> Where do you expect to get the viz? Is that something that comes out of Pentaho or are you going to have to bring in other third party tools? >> I think we can do it in Pentaho with custom dashboards. >> Sure, we can do custom dashboards and we are also doing some GIS analytics that we can actually embed into Pentaho portal or even any other open-data portal. >> What did you think of this morning... Did you see the keynote this morning? >> Tom: Yep. >> How did that, I don't know if you're one of the hands that went up when they said who does business with Hitachi, probably no, most people were no. So, you have this big conglomerate, great company, known name, but not really sure exactly what it is they do. As a customer, what was your sense of the keynote, the messaging, does it matter to you, are you indifferent to that or is it meaningful? >> For me, it opened up my eyes about what the possibilities are. And the key is also to be proactive, right? You don't want to be, even though we're a government agency, we act on behalf of the government. We'd like to think we can stay at the forefront and leverage these greats tools and stay current. Because we're all dealing with so much more data and everyone's asked to do everything faster, even though there's more data. >> So what's your key take-away from this conference? >> Better use Pentaho product. (Rebecca laughs) Which we are actually using but the new versions. Apply those, the concepts, and get some more out of it. >> So, I got to ask you, When you think about the governments use of data. There's nobody more sophisticated. Of course, the guys who really use that data in sophisticated ways nobody knows what they do. You can't talk to them, I'm sure they don't expose you to their secrets. But, the government is so enormous, so, as they say, sophisticated. I mean, I'm sure there's a bell curve. But, are there ways to share best practice with non-confidential or classified information? Are you learning from your colleagues? Is there some kind of pipeline to share best practice? Or are you kind of on your own? >> We're actually sharing our practices. We collaborate with FCC and see what they are doing. Where are they in the technology and we share what our experience also. Over here there are some other common institutions, which are here at conference and we are talking to them and how they're leveraging the data, how they're leveraging the product, and how they're better using this product. >> From an enterprise grade level, you think of things like security, and compliance, and things like that. I presume that's important in your world. >> Sachin: Definitely. Absolutely. >> I would imagine that some of those can seep through different agencies and organizations. But, does the system allow for that? I guess is the question or is it just everybody's so busy kind of doing their own thing. >> Sachin: Want to take that? >> We've been getting more mandates from the government to publish our data. That's a big initiative in Washington. To make it available and it's available to the public. It's available to researchers. It's available to state agencies. So, I think there's definitely a lot of sharing of best practices in that space. >> And those are largely unfunded mandates, right? Figured out how you're going to do this and reallocate capital or is it... >> No, I think that if they give us a directive to do that they'll fund that. >> Dave: They usually provide resources to do that. >> Yeah. >> So, you're not having to rob from your mission to, alright great. >> One of the other things that we've been hearing at this conference is the enormous culture shifts that are involved in digital transformation. How would you describe the culture within your organization? Is there an understanding, that data needs to be front and center? Because there is this mission element as well. But, is it hard to bring other people along with you? >> We've been trying to do that with training. Training people how to use Pentaho, how to use data. I will say that it seems like there are some staff that, I don't know if resistance is the right word but, they're a little scared of it. I find some of the younger staff will just dive in there and start analyzing. For me, I try to do a lot of one on one sessions with people and try to individually change their approach and attitude toward data. It can be a little overwhelming. >> Great, great. Well, Tom, Sachin, thank you so much for coming on The Cube. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Thanks, you guys. >> I'm Rebecca Knight for Dave Vellante. We will have more from Pentaho World just after this. (tech music)