Archive for the ‘Reports’ category

Typical Report Launch Requirement Q and A

February 23rd, 2011

Question: Is it possible to limit the report list view of a user in Report Launch? For example, if I decide to integrate Report Launch with an application for project A, we’d like to give the user access to projects reports only (and make the other reports the user has access to invisible).

Yes: You can set the Report Launch list to show a root folder so that the list only shows reports below that folder even if they have access to other folders.

We also have a category security model that allows your application administrators to control security on their folder of reports without giving access to the CMC

BI Tool Selection

February 6th, 2010

When a company thinks that a BI system will benefit their ability to access and analyze data, a great door of opportunity is opened. Through that door will come many vendors and products that may or may not be a match for your company’s needs and abilities. From the beginning, the success of a system is establishing the needs or requirements and the proposed benefits to the company. Without these, every product can be made to look like it fits and is “just what you are looking for.”

One thing to keep in mind is that these requirements are going to change throughout the life cycle of the design process as requirement-gathering processes uncover additional application issues. Benefits can be directly related to monetary issues (such as cost savings though eliminating unsuccessful spending) as well as non- monetary benefits (such as reducing the time it takes to analyze the last month’s sales trends).

How then does a company choose which product is right-one that will match the current needs and also support the requirements of future applications? There are some simple processes that can help in this decision. The first is to break the requirements into their separate entities. These entities will separate the kinds of questions that need to be asked of the products you are considering and identify your expectations of the application.

The primary classifications are simply by data related issues and by application functionality. While other factors exist (such as corporate relationships as well as vendor characteristics) and are influential, these should be viewed as external forces on the decision process. Other external forces, such as staffing requirements, should also be considered.

This topic will be continued…..

SOA and BI

October 22nd, 2009

While the SOA model is good for BI ETL, there more areas that it can pertain to including reporting, dashboards, performance management that have a much greater inpact.

Every application needs one of the above areas of BI interfaces in addition to its own ETL or data input interfaces. We have been focusing on implementing the whole BI interface as a reusable framework at reportlaunch.com.

This creates a huge ROI when the same functionality is not build over and over again throughout an enterprises various applications. Not to mention that it would provide consistent information utilizing MDM, DW and ETL in the way described.

Last but not least by leveraging the whole BI stack in your SOBI architecture you actually leverage the investment you have already made in not just ETL but in your enterprise BI tools.

Cheers, Kevin McManus, mcmanussoft.com

Reminders on what we focus on

April 7th, 2009

This lat week I was reading some of my favorite blogs and some new ones as well. I ran across some great posts that serve as reminders to those of us working in the BI world. This may be clear cut stuff, but it is always nice to get some reminders.

1. Why we report in the first place:

This is a nice post on the purpose of BI- In Business Intelligence is for making Business Decisions the folks over at Intelligence Matrix give us a great example and reminder.

2. A great post over at Beye Network about a new Journal and the definition of Business Intelligence. This is a great new resource and one fantastic post.

3. This is a wonderful post on the right way to look at BOE and publishing reports. Crystal Reports version control is interesting.

4. And this one is just funny. I guess SAP is restricting the porn access for Crystal Reports??? What, well read more here: Ken Hamady say no more porn

Until next time, enjoy these reads.

SAP AG staying on top of Crystal and BOBJ

March 28th, 2009

Check out this press release from SAP Business Objects and McManus Software + Consulting. Looks like they have released the Crystal Developer Advantage license to help ISV’s like McManus. They have a suite called Launch Applications and they are pretty cool. Everything from extending reporting to web applications to real time auditing of your BOBJ environment.

Here is the press release:

http://www.b-eye-network.com/channels/1543/view/9950

Oh, and about this blog. We will scour the blogosphere for anyhting and everything that is news int he Crystal Reports and Web Intelligence world.

Have fun!