Case Study: German Statutory Accident Insurance
A Case Study in Replacing VBA-Era Test-Data Tools with Model-Driven, Automated Generation in Public-Sector Healthcare Data Exchange
Public-sector institutions cannot modernize by ripping out what works, and they cannot keep what no longer scales. A body in German statutory accident insurance faced exactly that: test-data generators built in VBA, driving EDIFACT-based healthcare data-exchange tests, plus a second procedure run from an Excel-and-XML tool, none of it fit for CI/CD or test automation. Through a competitive public tender, won and now in its fourth year, DATAMIMIC replaced these legacy tools with model-driven generation that plugs into modern CI/CD and the client’s test automation, turning a manual, siloed process into an automated one.
Customer
Confidential public-sector body in German statutory accident insurance
Industry
Public Sector / Statutory Insurance / Healthcare Data Exchange
Techstack
DATAMIMIC, EDIFACT (German healthcare data exchange), legacy VBA generators, Excel- and XML-driven tooling, CI/CD, test automation
Service
Public-tender engagement, Legacy migration, Modernization, CI/CD integration, Test automation, Enablement
Challenge
The institution ran critical test processes on tooling that could no longer keep up:
- Test-data generators built in VBA: hard to maintain and impossible to integrate into modern pipelines.
- One procedure required testing EDIFACT-based data exchange used in German healthcare. The existing generators could not keep these formats current or make them CI/CD-ready.
- A second procedure relied on an older VBA tool integrated with Excel that executed operations from XML files, entirely outside any automated pipeline.
The goal was clear: modernize these formats and generators, make the test data CI/CD-capable, and combine it with the client’s test automation, toward full automation of the processes.
Solution
Legacy migration
Built migration processes in DATAMIMIC to retire the legacy VBA test-data generators while preserving each procedure’s logic.
Excel replaced
Replaced the older Excel- and XML-driven tool that ran operations by hand, moving its logic into maintainable models.
EDIFACT modeling
Modeled the German healthcare EDIFACT data-exchange formats as DATAMIMIC models, kept current in one place instead of hand-coded.
CI/CD integration
Integrated generation into the CI/CD pipeline, so test data is produced as part of the build, not by hand.
Test automation
Combined generation with the client’s existing test automation, removing manual steps toward full process automation.
Platform partnership
A multi-year platform partnership: DATAMIMIC co-builds the models and enables the client’s team to run and extend them independently.
Result
- Legacy retired: VBA-based generators and an Excel/XML-driven tool replaced by maintainable DATAMIMIC models.
- EDIFACT modernized: the German healthcare data-exchange formats modeled once and kept current, instead of hand-coded generators.
- CI/CD-ready: test data generated inside the automated pipeline, not by hand.
Integrated automation: generation combined with the client’s test automation, moving toward full process automation. - Platform partnership: a multi-year, deep collaboration; DATAMIMIC co-builds, the client’s team owns and extends the models. Enablement over lock-in.
Massive Efficiency Gains:
Tooling
Pipeline fit
Test data now produced as part of the automated pipeline.
Maintainability
EDIFACT formats kept current in one model, not scattered scripts.
Enhanced Operational Excellence:
- Two legacy test-data tools retired: VBA-based generators and an Excel/XML-driven tool.
- EDIFACT German healthcare formats modeled in DATAMIMIC and kept current in one place.
- Manual test-data steps moved into CI/CD and the client’s test automation.
Bulletproof Compliance & Risk Mitigation:
- Regulated public-sector data: test data generated without exposing protected information, aligned with the sector’s data-protection obligations.
- Reproducible and auditable: deterministic generation, every run logged, suitable for regulated audit.
- Self-sufficiency: the client’s team owns and extends the models, no vendor dependence.