As part of its strategic goal of being a leader in environmental evidence and knowledge, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sought expert advice to enhance access to its vast data collection through the development of PowerBI reports and dashboards.
Having extended their PowerBI licenses, making it available to all teams, the EPA awarded Codec with the contract to help them deliver their PowerBI Pathfinder project.
Responsible for protecting and improving the environment as a valuable asset for the people of Ireland, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) encompasses a wide range of environmental services, including being the environmental regulator of Uisce Éireann (formerly Irish Water), managing the national air quality monitoring network and monitoring radiation in the environment.
Protecting the environment comes with significant responsibilities, and the EPA works with several organisations to carry out specific environmental functions. As such, there are huge volumes of data associated with these roles and it is imperative that the EPA can easily collate and analyse the data en masse to build an accurate picture of environmental matters.
To deliver against this objective, the EPA took the decision to expand its PowerBI licenses to cover all internal teams, but quickly recognised that they needed expert advice and guidance to support their teams with project implementation, as well as ongoing support to keep their PowerBI projects running.
“Our involvement in data projects like the one with the EPA is all about driving insight projects. Insights from data enable informed decision-making. Actionable intelligence is key; it’s about extracting useful information from data to guide decisions.”
In recent years, the EPA has been investing in better systems for collecting data and moving away from archaic, separate spreadsheets to a proper managed-data approach. Overall, the aim was to increase accuracy and access to information by moving from manual to automated data visualisation processes so data could be easily analysed.
The objective of the PowerBI Pathfinder project was to accelerate the delivery and roll-out of PowerBI to avoid teams working in silos which impacted both their efficiency and the collation of the data for analysis. To achieve this, the EPA turned to Codec.
The project was broken down into three distinct workstreams.
Integrating an external resource into the team allowed the EPA to adopt a more agile approach. Instead of internal staff needing to draft detailed specifications and manage the rollout alongside their existing duties, drawing on the expertise and knowledge of Codec made a significant impact.
Codec prides itself on delivering projects on time and within budget, and the collaboration with the EPA was no exception. The project parameters set at the outset were closely followed, resulting in the timely and complete delivery of the project.
“The Environmental Protection Agency aims to be a leader in environmental evidence and knowledge. Our partnership with Codec has helped us make crucial information readily accessible for users to derive insights," said Fiona O’Rourke, Project Lead at the EPA.
“It’s been a really positive experience working with Codec. In critical organisations like the EPA, having accurate data is vital, but insights from that data are what drive focus and change. PowerBI has enhanced our ability to gain these insights and guide our efforts effectively.”
Project Lead at the EPA