How VIVISOL Saves 30+ Hours a Month and Reduces IT Bottlenecks with Self-Service Analytics

The Challenge: Scaling Data Insight Without Disruption

VIVISOL is a leading homecare provider that specializes in respiratory care. The company has over 700,000 patients across Europe and 3,800 employees. 

IT Manager Jasper Hoekstra and his team own application management, innovation, data analytics, and infrastructure — supporting all of VIVISOL Netherlands and corporate IT Innovations. Working daily to achieve the goals behind these areas of the business, Jasper’s team needed a solution to support innovation while protecting service continuity and ensuring patients still get the critical care they need to manage their symptoms.

The Solution: An Intuitive Data Analytics Platform 

VIVISOL initially implemented KNIME Analytics Platform for basic reporting, operational activity lists, and data validation, and soon started using it for many more use cases. 

The key benefits of using KNIME, in addition to easy integration and access to data, were:

• Makes it easier to build solutions that serve teams beyond data and IT teams
• Auditability, traceability and, version control features
• Ease of upskilling and ability to quickly see value
• Ability to quickly take prototypes to productionBusiness analysts can work with data through intuitive data apps
• Self-service analytics helped reduce time-to-market for new innovations

What began with a few KNIME workflows expanded rapidly to over 50 in production within the first year of adoption. As more people across the business saw the value of being able to work with data directly, they quickly needed to scale and offer self-service analytics enterprise wide. 

Solution #2: Scaling Data Insight Further with KNIME Business Hub

VIVISOL’s IT team scaled in two ways: First using KNIME Community Hub to create reusable blueprints and share workflows. Then by using KNIME Business Hub for version control, automation, and enterprise governance features — managing their growth and the demand for scalable, self-service tools.

“We set it up as a deployment pipeline [for development, tests and deployment] which helps keep activities separate and secure.”Jasper Hoekstra, IT Manager, VIVISOL

KNIME Business Hub’s cloud-based environment improved deployment efficiency and stability. It also enabled broader adoption of KNIME Data Apps. Through these self-service data apps, the IT team developed user-facing applications that reduced dependency on IT, lowered ticket volumes, and improved delivery speed. End users could upload files, re-run workflows, and interact with the data themselves — all governed by IT.

Cross-Department Use Cases: “There’s An Application for Everything”

Below are three examples of how VIVISOL is using KNIME across departments and use cases. 

#1. Sales: Streamlining Budget Versioning

The sales budgeting process previously involved multiple conflicting versions of Excel files. A KNIME data app was developed, connecting Salesforce and Snowflake to allow direct input and budget adjustments. This new approach allowed for interaction with the data, real-time updates, and version control — improving internal alignment and coordination with services and finance teams.

“Previously, we had to print out a PDF and send it by mail. But we made an interactive dashboard for [Sales] where they can look at the data themselves — which is very easy for us to maintain. We can just add new data, new customers through our CRM system, and we have no manual activities to perform. We save time, but basically, we put that time into building more fancy toys and [work]flows. And there’s no more quest in finding what the latest budget version is.”Jasper Hoekstra, IT Manager, VIVISOL

Additionally, VIVISOL was able to prototype and productionize another custom data app in two days that would have taken eight months prior to KNIME. Jasper goes into more detail about this positional therapy use case during their talk at KNIME DataHop in London. This data app was built during a two-day hackathon event. Internally, it fulfilled all mandatory business requirements and assisted in secure knowledge sharing across teams. The solution's end result allowed hospitals to start prescribing therapy to more and more patients, confidently. 

“Eight months? With KNIME, my team can do it in two days.” - Jasper on a Friday afternoon to his executive director.

#2. Services: Delivery Route Optimization and Transparency

Field operations lacked a consolidated view of up-to-date operator activity. VIVISOL used KNIME to create an interactive dashboard visualizing routes, stops, hours, and travel time using data from Salesforce and other systems.

Planners now rely on reliable data rather than assumptions to assess resource utilization and optimize routes. Manual comparison no longer needs to happen, increasing the quality and timeliness of routing efforts and capacity management.

#3. Finance: Automating Invoice Validation

VIVISOL's finance team previously spent a lot of time manually validating end-of-month operational activities in their CRM. KNIME automated the generation of task lists to prepare for month-end closing and general invoicing. This greatly reduced manual overhead and saved the team over 30 hours every month validating EoM results and the equivalent to 0.5 FTE per month checking invoices.

Additionally, vendor invoices (often in PDF format) are now parsed and validated against Salesforce data, saving the equivalent of half a full-time employee per month in manual checks.

Improved Data Literacy Across the Company 

Approximately 40% of KNIME workflows at VIVISOL are now developed by business users, reducing the burden on the IT analytics team. This adoption was supported by training, mentorship, and collaboration between technical and non-technical staff, and the ability for IT to still govern all KNIME workflows in production via KNIME Business Hub.

“If you start just by removing one manual activity, [users] are onboarded very quickly and it’s snowball effect.”Jasper Hoekstra, IT Manager, VIVISOL

With ten advanced KNIME users in IT and dozens of business contributors, VIVISOL has built a sustainable, collaborative analytics culture. They continue to expand their use of KNIME across Europe and onboard more business units and automate more, integrate ML models and external APIs, and improve how user friendly their data apps and services are.

VIVISOL’s experience demonstrates how empowering users with robust, flexible tools like KNIME can enable sustainable, efficient operations — even in complex, regulated environments.

Learn more about how KNIME can support you or schedule a demo with our Customer Care Team.