In mid-July 2020, during the peak of the holiday season, Primend was approached by its good client, medicine lab SYNLAB Estonia. There was a problem that had to be addressed quickly: in order to ensure the successful organisation of the World Rally Championship (WRC) hosted by Estonia, SYNLAB needed a simple and efficient solution that would help report the positive coronavirus tests of people connected to the rally, while ensuring a safe environment for their sensitive personal data. Everyone who underwent testing, received their results promptly on their phones. What’s more, all the team leaders and the rally’s medical manager could obtain the results in real time. Such a swift movement of data allowed the organisers to implement immediate self-isolation in the case of confirmed cases and, if necessary, teams could swiftly reorganise their work.
As part of the project, Primend helped to build the Microsoft Power BI environment on SYNLAB Estonia’s existing data warehouse platform. This allowed SYNLAB to manage its own user rights and made it easier for them to determine which groups had access to which information in terms of reporting. Thanks to this visualisation environment, coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 PCR test results could be shared with the external contacts of SYNLAB Estonia. For example, the different WRC teams could only view the results of their team members, and not others’. For the safe organisation of the event in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, it was important for the organisation committee to get the full picture of all the relevant actors; thus, they needed access to all the results in a single database, which was protected by specific access rights. Since the environment operated with sensitive personal data, the safety of the system was of utmost importance. The configured Microsoft Power BI platform enabled thorough auditing and viewing of all user activities, thus providing the necessary security. Such an efficient yet secure system greatly contributed to the success of the event.
Head of IT in SYNLAB Estonia Signe Jancis: "In its essence, there was a need for large-scale and complex IT project where each element played an important role. This success was ensured by the on-time preparedness of systems to provide the necessary data, presence of the visualisation application and the interface between the systems involved. The Power BI solution that was built in a short timeframe by Primend was convenient, easy, and safe to use for WRC rally organizers and teams. Thanks to the smooth cooperation and Primend brisk and professional action, we completed the final platform in a timely manner."
Primend only had a few days to make it all work; the prototype was ready in only 3-4 days. Throughout the event, Primend also provided ongoing user support and help desk services considering the versatile background of rally participants: this included people from different countries and with different user experiences.
In addition, Primend offered help with licencing to keep the costs of the project as reasonable as possible. The goal was to minimise the associated licencing costs while still providing a platform with sufficient security and functionality.
WRC Rally Estonia, which was held in the exceptional circumstances in September 2020, was also the first international championship event with such a large audience organised in COVID-19 conditions that ended with no infections. The success of the event can be attributed to the mutual effort and thoughtful acts of both the organisers and the audience.
The solution that Primend created for SYNLAB Estonia turned out to be so successful that SYNLAB plans to use it in the organisation of future events – for instance, during an upcoming Ironman Tallinn competition (Sept 2020), Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (Nov 2020), European Basketball Championships in bubble (Nov 2020) and when displaying reports for its major customers.
Primend is a certified partner of Microsoft Power Platform, Azure Data Platform and Application Development. The company has won the Microsoft Country Partner of the Year award on five occasions.
SYNLAB Eesti is the largest medical laboratory in Estonia and has been operating since 1995. Their main area of activity is the provision of laboratory services to family doctors and medical specialists, hospitals, occupational health care centres and other institutions connected to the medical industry. Private customers can also have their health checked at SYNLAB 20 laboratories and blood sample collection points all over Estonia. SYNLAB Estonia is part of the European biggest lab chain SYNLAB Group, which is presented in 40 countries, more than 500 labs and 20 000 people. More information synlab.ee.