ValueEdge: Value Stream Management
Align corporate investments with business strategy
Continuous quality from requirements to delivery
Scale enterprise SCCM with security and compliance
Resilient AI-powered functional test automation
Enterprise-level requirements management
Deliver continuous application performance testing
Plan, track, orchestrate, and release applications
Govern quality and implement auditable processes
Automate deployments for continuous delivery
Build business applications using new tools & platforms
The leading solution for COBOL application modernization
Modernize mainframe applications for the Cloud
Modernize host application access
Discover the future of CORBA
Modern mainframe application delivery for IBM Z
Secure, zero-footprint access to host applications
Access host data and automate processes with RPA
Multi-factor Authentication for IBM z/OS endpoints
Build secure software fast
Augment human intelligence
Discover, analyze, and protect sensitive data
Drive IT ecosystem with identity-centric expertise
Deliver simplified, secure access to users
Scale to billions of identities with IGA platform
Gain control of privileged user activities
Track changes and activities in managed services
Get fast, accurate detection of threats
Analytics for text, audio, video, and image data
Reduce risk, cost, and maintenance, and T2M
AI and machine learning for data analysis
Enterprise backup/disaster recovery
Unified traditional and mobile device management
Meet regulatory & privacy retention requirements
Email, IM, and chat-based collaboration
Mobile workforce communication & collaboration
Secure critical file storage and print services
Manage IT & non-IT services with automation and AI
Discover, monitor, and remediate with AIOps
Monitor and optimize complex networks
Discover, manage, and map configurations & assets
Accelerate provisioning with governance in place
Automate and orchestrate processes end to end
Manage IT & software assets for better compliance
Automate server provisioning, patching, and compliance
Automate screen-based human actions with robots
All Micro Focus learning in one place
Build the skills to succeed
Streamline software delivery for faster value
ValueEdge: Value Stream Management
Align corporate investments with business strategy
Continuous quality from requirements to delivery
Scale enterprise SCCM with security and compliance
Resilient AI-powered functional test automation
Enterprise-level requirements management
Deliver continuous application performance testing
Plan, track, orchestrate, and release applications
Govern quality and implement auditable processes
Automate deployments for continuous delivery
Access all products in application delivery management
Modernize Core Business Systems to Drive Business Transformation
Build business applications using new tools & platforms
The leading solution for COBOL application modernization
Modernize mainframe applications for the Cloud
Modernize host application access
Discover the future of CORBA
Modern mainframe application delivery for IBM Z
Secure, zero-footprint access to host applications
Access host data and automate processes with RPA
Multi-factor Authentication for IBM z/OS endpoints
Access all products in Application Modernization & Connectivity
Security at the core to everything you do; Operations, Applications, Identity and Data
Build secure software fast
Augment human intelligence
Discover, analyze, and protect sensitive data
Drive IT ecosystem with identity-centric expertise
Deliver simplified, secure access to users
Scale to billions of identities with IGA platform
Gain control of privileged user activities
Track changes and activities in managed services
Get fast, accurate detection of threats
Access all products in CyberRes
Trusted, proven legal, compliance and privacy solutions
Analytics for text, audio, video, and image data
Reduce risk, cost, and maintenance, and T2M
AI and machine learning for data analysis
Enterprise backup/disaster recovery
Unified traditional and mobile device management
Meet regulatory & privacy retention requirements
Email, IM, and chat-based collaboration
Mobile workforce communication & collaboration
Secure critical file storage and print services
Access all products in Information Management and Governance
Simplify Your IT Transformation
Manage IT & non-IT services with automation and AI
Discover, monitor, and remediate with AIOps
Monitor and optimize complex networks
Discover, manage, and map configurations & assets
Accelerate provisioning with governance in place
Automate and orchestrate processes end to end
Manage IT & software assets for better compliance
Automate server provisioning, patching, and compliance
Automate screen-based human actions with robots
Access all products in IT Operations Management
Give your team the power to make your business perform to its fullest
Up to 5x faster batch processing – tens of thousands of claims processed in less than an hour
Increasing application functionality requirements and the need to simplify complex policy processing screens
New Era Life’s claim processing solution was acquired in 2005 from Central States Health and Life of Omaha (CSO). CSO’s application was developed and deployed in a mainframe environment in the mid-1980s. The difficulty in finding and retaining developers trained in the proprietary CA-IDEAL language and CA-Datacom database was a key reason for moving the solution to a Windows environment with Micro Focus Net Express, leveraging Micro Focus COBOL. CSO already maintained many other COBOL applications and had in-house development skills it wanted to use.
Today, the claims processing solution manages three to four million claims each year, amounting to over $300 million. Doug Nelson, Senior Systems Analyst at New Era Life, comments on the evolution of the system: “The solution is constantly under revision and we add new functionality all the time. Some of our programs have grown extremely large; up to 50,000 LOC (Lines of Code) and we’ve enhanced the system to take full advantage of the many features Micro Focus COBOL has to offer. Although we were very happy with Net Express, we are conscious that we need to future-proof a business-critical solution such as this, and align to current platforms and technologies. Micro Focus Visual COBOL looked like it might give us some additional advantages, and we were happy to support the move from Net Express to Visual COBOL.”
New Era also hoped to resolve a restriction in the number of fields per screen. In the mainframe environment this was very limiting, causing staff to switch between many screens to process a claim which was time-consuming and unproductive. Although this was vastly improved with Net Express, user requirements were becoming more sophisticated, and Nelson and his team looked to Visual COBOL to provide further enhancements in this area.
New Era Life provides affordable insurance solutions that help customers take control of their financial and healthcare future. Quality products are backed by a commitment to keeping insurance premiums stable and as low as possible. New Era Life is devoted to superior customer service.
Doug Nelson – SENIOR SYSTEMS ANALYST
New Era Life
New Era Life worked closely with Micro Focus through the Enhancement Request Qualification Form process. This is designed to take on-board specific customer requirements, assess the engineering effort involved, and review this with Product Management. Factors such as development cost and strategic fit determine the next steps. New Era Life were then involved in beta-testing the Visual COBOL version that included their enhancement. Nelson comments: “We were delighted that there are no field limits at all with Visual COBOL, a total game changer for us. A single screen can be more than four times larger than in our mainframe environment. Our users really like having so much information on a single screen. It’s easier for them to navigate through a claim and allows them to do their work so much quicker.”
Having fewer screens also simplifies the development effort so New Era Life can deliver key enhancements faster, without having to rearrange fields or shorten them to make room for additional fields. Nelson and the team enjoy the object-oriented Visual COBOL features to invoke external programs such as Word and Excel, creating documents and workbooks seamlessly within the claims processing solution.
New Era Life developers like the developer interface, as Nelson explains: “We had not appreciated the difference in user interface, but our developers love the new environment. Code debugging and editing is so much easier for them. In fact, a recent hire in our development team came from a traditional mainframe environment. When I showed him the Visual Studio interface he could immediately see that maintaining and developing programs was going to be a lot easier. Even our very large programs are compiled in seconds.”
New Era Life also saw significant performance improvements. Though Visual COBOL plays a role in this, the fact that New Era Life upgraded their entire technology stack makes it hard to attribute better performance to any one action. Rather than analyzing the root-cause, Nelson enjoys the effects: “Some of our processes run up to five times faster than before and we have batch programs that now load tens of thousands of claims in less than an hour.”
Doug Nelson – SENIOR SYSTEMS ANALYST
New Era Life
Nelson has been happy to collaborate with Micro Focus: “I’ve worked with many vendors and can honestly say that nobody even comes close to the support given by Micro Focus. Support engineers go the extra mile to recreate the exact situation we’re seeing, and then work with their development colleagues to get a fix installed. Our support contacts are all responsive and extremely knowledgeable.”
He concludes: “With Visual COBOL, we have given our 30-year old solution a new lease of life. The mixed language support means that we can integrate with other key applications, according to our roadmap.”
