BI On Demand - What's new in the lot?

Technological Innovations started happening a few decades back itself in the field of business management. The intervention started in order to boost the business by tracking and getting reports from the business data. The process, termed as Business Intelligence, is nothing but giving analysis of business through dashboards and alike reporting methods. The advantage is easy monitoring of various business scenarios towards taking right business decisions to boost the ROI's.

BI services are a lot, but the solutions remained much expensive for small and medium level industies. Need for a better and affordable bi solution was prevailing since.

On Demand BI - Latest Offerings

On demand solutions made simpler and affordable in case of business intelligence. Nividh, a bi dashboarding service provided with an aim to make innovative bi technologies popular within SME's who may find getting bi solutions 'NA' to them due to the huge expenses incurred when going for common brands.

On Demand Dashboards

Nividh an on demand bi service providing dashboarding and bi analytics solutions for SMES in a simple faster and affordable way. Nividh can deliver dashboards meeting the specific business KPI's in 40 percent lesser time than similar ultra expensive services.

The bi dashboards being created using flex, the data visualization abilities are immense in Nividh dashboards. What you will get in nividh dashboards is a set of  custom data visualization components which can help analyse the data more concise. All the traditional components available in regular bi dashboards are included.

Dashboard Samples

Feel like having a look on the sample dashboards. Can be done from the bi dashboards page of Nividh itself.
The categories enlisted are:-

• Sales Dashboards
• Logistics/Supplychain Dashboards
• Educational Dashboards
• HR Dashboards or HCM Dashboards

Enabled with most of the dashboards component features, a full fledged dashboard can be viewed from Learn More page of nividh. Just click the dashboard preview in this learn more page.

Such an elaborate custom data visualization options, in such an attractive price package within a timelimit lesser than all the similar bi services, is provided in Nividh only.

The dashboard galleries and feature sets keeps on adding, in addition to the ever growing flex component library. Taking a free trial by providing a sample data set in nividh will prove you Nividh is such an awesome bi solution for business particularly SME's.

Dashboards for Business Data Visualizaton

Decision-makers in today's business world face challenges placed upon them because of advancements in technology and globalization. Executives must now sift through data presented in different formats, stored in different places, and created by multiple people. Managers often work with staff dispersed not only in multiple offices, but often across the country and the world. Smart business decisions are based on "all the facts" but pulling those pieces together is a daunting task. 

How do BI dashboards help decision makers overcome those challenges? 

Today's smart business leaders look to business dashboards to help them meet those challenges. Why? Because dashboard solutions pull the data together into one at-your-fingertips place. And they enable users, no matter where they are or what their technical know-how, to contribute to and use the data. 

A well-planned dashboard is easy to use. It clarifies the relationship between data for better decision making. It allows decision makers to spot opportunities and trends which enables many positive outcomes such as cost reduction and optimal use of resources. Since dashboards quickly sort through data, they help promote informed and responsive decisions. The user can see results and understand what drives the numbers. 

The benefit of a dashboard is it draws together the data AND the people. Companies that use a dashboard to allow automatic access to corporate data (accounting, inventory, customers, etc.) and with this gathered data they can automatically produce and distribute reports to people in the organization. 

Some reporting tools deliver automated reports to users on a pre-defined schedule. Users can set whatever schedule they choose, ie. daily, weekly, monthly, or on an as-needed basis. People in the organization can customize reports by inputting parameters like date ranges. 

Excel dashboard software is an example of a bi solution that allows everyone in an organization to get the most out of business resources they already understand. Excel is a tool that most business people are accustomed to using on a day- to-day basis. They know how to use the basic features, already have it on their computer, and can easily share files between one another. One of the challenges of Excel is manually creating visually complex dashboards. Reporting tools enable everyone on staff to use automated Excel dashboards. 

Executive dashboards lead to informed decision-making and collaboration 

In summary, dashboards enable decision-makers to look at the whole picture. They enhance a company's ability to share and update data across boundaries of time and space. This data is then available in one consolidated place in a familiar format like Excel that makes access simple, useful, and universal.

Author: John Kyle
http://www.apesoft.us
http://www.articlecity.com/articles/computers_and_internet/article_5720.shtml

RIA Through Flex - BI Apps Development Made Easy

The Internet has evolved dramatically over the years to match up to the rising expectations of the users. The web developers have added to the attractiveness of the Internet based applications by implementing Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) that have the typical characteristics of traditional desktop resident software. An RIA can be built using Flex development tools and technologies. A Flex application offers high user experience as the RIA works on a “no-refresh” concept that processes query and generates the view without reloading the whole webpage. More than this Flex application development provides business intelligence through data analysis features that are inbuilt to the Flex SDK. The Flex developer utilizes the charting component of the Flex development kit to utilize the rich class library that provides a tremendous user interface with superior functionality too. It has rich set of the standard controls which helps flex developer to create out of the box flex application for the customer’s business requirement. 

It is always easy to read, understand, and work with pictorial and graphical data rather than just the numbers’ game. Business intelligence would be enhanced if the analysis engine would offer a graphical way to represent and organize the historical business data. This enables the managers and stakeholders to quickly make crucial business development decisions to not only survive but also thrive in this cut throat competitive market. Flex development makes this possible as the business information is elegantly presented to the user with added attractive user interface and powerful data and multimedia playback capability controls. It also helps flex developer to create a highly customized design based on the CSS using the Adobe Flex Builder. 

Flash Builder or the Flex Builder version 4 is a commercial IDE which has been developed by Adobe on the basis of the popular open source Eclipse IDE for Flex development. This tool is aimed to bridge the gap between the designer and the developer, and it is successfully doing so. Enterprise applications being large and very hard to manage can be full of dead codes and bugs. Flash Builder helps the developer to neatly organize the code for better understanding with auto complete features and semi-automated testing and debugging facilities. The designer module implements Flash components to enrich the RIA with engaging graphics, animations, and multimedia playback features and functionalities. 

Benefits of flex application are: 

1)Cross browser, platform and device compatibility. 

2)Ability to create custom component. 

3)It is open source technology hence it is inexpensive. 

4)Rich user interface with enhanced data controls. 

5)User interactive application with “no refresh” 

6)Create complex online business application with great UI 

7)Easily add feature or module according to business need hence it is scalable. 

8)Rapid application development with less coding. 

9)No need of high end server to deploy it. 

10)Support various technologies like .Net, PHP, Java, Perl, ColdFusion, Ruby. 

11)Used to provide real-time updates to most current data. 

Flex application development adapted in various market segments like trading application, ecommerce website, business intelligence application, Customer relationship management (CRM), foreign exchange application and many more. Many big organizations are migrating from their existing old fashion application to web based flex application.

Author:Marry Simpton
http://www.iflexweb.us
http://www.articlecity.com/articles/web_design_and_development/article_2312.shtml

BI Solutions-Best solutions often comes from collaboration

The best solutions often come from collaboration. When your organization uses business intelligence Excel reporting, you give everyone the opportunity to participate in the decision-making process from their unique perspective within the business. 

The beauty of a shared business intelligence/reporting solution is that your associates can access multiple systems simultaneously. Everyone sees the same data and can participate in the decision-making process using various perspectives based on their areas of responsibility. 

Since most businesses already use Excel, enterprise reporting tools with Excel functionality make reporting much easier. You can distribute business intelligence to your employees, business partners, and customers in a format they already know and understand. Reporting software that uses Excel automation creates a full range of reports, from detailed, operational reports for department heads to visually rich dashboard solutions for executives and decision-makers. These Excel reports and dashboards provide the crucial details your company needs to react quickly in any situation. 

Dashboard software also allows scheduling to generate and distribute reports and alerts via email or Internet. Dashboard reports are a daily snapshot of the most important business metrics and performance indicators, and are sent out every morning. Automated alerts provide up-to-the-minute, parameter-based reporting about urgent issues for quick resolution. They are generated and distributed when the particular data hit a pre-defined threshold. 

Five benefits that business intelligence Excel reports offer your organization: 

1. Personalized report and dashboard distribution by email: users can either schedule reports for automatic delivery or create on-demand reports, compiled and targeted to various departments and specific individuals. 

2. Scheduled, automatically generated reports: reporting can be set up daily, weekly, or monthly—whenever decision-makers need the information. 

3. Automatic alerting: data monitoring helps you stay ahead of trends by automatically notifying executives about critical situations. 

4. Simple and familiar interface: your users already know and use Excel, so there’s little need for training. 

5. Unlimited licensing: your company needs only Excel: no add-ins or plug-ins and no license costs per end user.

About The Author

John Kyle is the president of ApeSoft North America. 

http://www.articlecity.com/articles/business_and_finance/article_14185.shtml