23 posts from: Business Intelligence Applications
Is your Excel Dashboard compromising Data governance?
(Indexed 2010-06-28):
In general, most organizations have proliferated Excel use. When looking at business intelligence, many people use Excel to manage information and to analyze data. The issue arises when people use Excel as the key entry point of information access...
Create your first Excel Dashboard
(Indexed 2010-06-23):
Lot of the online tutorials and Dashboard e-books teach you to build dashboard in Excel file. They provide you with templates, you fill in the information and build the dashboard using Excel charting techniques.
Can a dashboard really save your Job?
(Indexed 2009-12-23):
My Friend Mathew (changed name for privacy) works as Business Intelligence consultant and he does free-lancing. With all the down-sizing and budget cuts, his job was on the line to get chopped up since consultants and un-necessary expenses are first to go. When such things happen...
Why Build a Dashboard in Excel?
(Indexed 2009-11-02):
Never build a Dashboard in Excel. Its a bold statement,agreed. But this is a strong argument against using Excel for reporting or dashboarding.
Excel Dashboard
(Indexed 2009-10-14):
Excel is a powerful tool, a "swiss army knife" but I have seen the misuses and over uses of this application. Here is a typical situation"I need to extract data from multiple systems and export to Excel. The data comes from our Maximo (help desk software), Kintana logs (migration app), Data warehouse and Projects (Microsoft Access). I then spend linking the files,worksheets,merging cells, formulas, macros, summarize the information. Finally the numbers are fed to another s
SQL Documentation Tool - Review
(Indexed 2009-01-12):
Now there are lots of Database Documentation tools for SQL Server. Recently one of my DBA friend sent me a dashboard that he built with using InfoCaptor (our Dashboard Softare )It was not a dashboard for executives but a DBA Dashboard built by a DBA. Within the dashboard he had assembled meta-data queries and created nice drill through structure. So effectively he had created a data and object browser using a dashboard tool. Pretty neat!But along w
How should independent consultants, attorneys, CPAs track their metrics?
(Indexed 2008-05-15):
If you fall in any of the above categories then there is very high chance that you may be using atleast an Excel spreadsheet to track your business activities. If you are little more organized and understand the value of productivity and tracking then using an accounting or mini erp package like Quickbooks is the right way to go.But just entering the information into an Excel sheet or Quickbooks is just the basic step. Why did you start your own business? If you are into business then g
Dashboards - Can you create Dashboards on top of Quickbooks?
(Indexed 2008-03-13):
Quickbooks is a very popular "micro ERP" application and dominates the Small Business Market. One of the benefits of using Quickbooks for my own business is the simplicity and ease of use. You can run a report and from the report you can drill down straight to the transactions. I learnt a lot of things using quickbooks just by running reports, finding the reported amount in the wrong account, I would then drill down straight to the t
Dashboard Purpose and Benefits
(Indexed 2008-03-13):
Dashboards, in the most simplest terms is a collection of different reports, all in one page or view. Now let us tune this statement. These reports in the dashboard contain high ...
Is it hard to create a Dashboard?
(Indexed 2008-01-15):
Dashboard Prototype - Is there a better way?
(Indexed 2007-09-19):
In order to prototype dashboards, you need some sample data and the dashboard tool available that you can report against.Now where do you get the sample data from? Remember, you just need to create a prototype so you can instantly (within couple of hours) go back to the user and show the dashboard output.Usually, users can provide the sample or Mock-up data in a flat file or Excel format. Excel is convenient in lot of mock-up activity for following reasonsIf you
InfoCaptor as Anti Dashboard
(Indexed 2007-06-04):
Let us follow some comparison and arguments to determine if InfoCaptor is really an Anti Dashboarding tool. For this comparision we will refer to the Dashboards from the big vendors as big-guy-dashboards.Big-guy-dashboards are huge in all respect- InfoCaptor is agile in all respectsAll the big-guy-dashboard tools need some kind of server and seperate resources - InfoCaptor is like a "Monk", runs on bare minimum requirements, ca
Documenting Discoverer Meta-Data and Dashboards
(Indexed 2007-04-05):
If you have few minutes, please glance at the PDF and HTML documents below(HTML) http://www.infocaptor.com/sqlexport/eul_report_index.html(PDF) http://www.infocaptor.com/sqlexport/eul_report.pdfThe PDF and HTML documents represent a complete snapshot of your Discoverer objects such as Business Areas, Folders, Items, Workbooks, dependencies. Along with that
My Startup story
(Indexed 2007-02-11):
Some time ago I mentioned quitting my job and now have started my own software business. I haven't revealed much details on the making of this software and whats going on until now.Some 3 yrs ago I was working on a data-warehousing project. Now during that period I was developing shareware games for the Palm Pilot as hobby. I was making good pocket money out of it and always
Handy SQL to search for Discoverer folders and items
(Indexed 2007-02-08):
In a previous post, we covered the trick on how to find a column in database, now we will do similar stuff with Discoverer.Sometimes it becomes cumbersome to look for a certain item in the Discoverer EUL. Most of the APPS EUL have huge folders and lots of items. Some of the items appear across multiple folders and multiple business areas. So if you are assigned to develop a report or asked to modify a Disco
Database SQL export to excel
(Indexed 2007-01-30):
In this article we will see how to get formatted results from a SQL query into Excel. This is accomplished using this ad-hoc dashboard toolLets consider the following queryselect employee_id, first_name, last_name, email, salary from h
Simple trick to find a column in the database
(Indexed 2007-01-23):
Probably you are aware of the trick that I am about to tell you but usage and context of it is interesting and would be quite useful. So here it goes...Once, at a client site I was asked to do a drill through report from Purchasing to Fixed Assets. I don't remember the exact details but it had something to do with Purchase orders. I knew little bit about Oracle Purchasing but had not worked enough on Fixed Assets. So I thought maybe I should start reading the FA user guides and the FA technica
Install Dashboard Designer
(Indexed 2007-01-17):
This series will focus on steps required to design, build and deploy dashboards using InfoCaptorWe will start from the very ground up, build a simple dashboard and then enhance the functionality of our dashboard gradually.If you have already installed and configured InfoCaptor then you may skip the below sectionHow to installDownload the setup file from this lo
Beta testing for Dashboard Designer: Infocaptor
(Indexed 2007-01-15):
Although we have the current release of InfoCaptor out, the product is constantly being enhanced. There are lots of new features in pipeline. I am asking for your valuable time to help us beta-test the product. If you think the product might be useful to you or at your work place and you can spare some of your time testing the product then please consider joining the on-going beta program.In return for your inputs/bug findings/suggestions we will give you one Designer license free of
How to clean Oracle GL Hierarchies
(Indexed 2007-01-11):
In GL Chart of accounts, each segment can have its own hierarchy. Although in GL there is no validations done if one child is reporting to more than one parent, the onus lies on the financial users who do reporting off FSGs and other means to ensure that the hierarchy remains clean. If this is not ensured then you will definitely see some double counting of balances in this type of situation.In products like (DBI)Daily business intelligence and (EPB)Enterprise planning and budgeting,
How do you Monitor and document Oracle Discoverer objects and activities?
(Indexed 2007-01-09):
The job of a Disco Administrator is to maintain the End User Layer(EUL), update Business Areas, cleanup folders,tune the overall performance by constanlty monitoring the folder joins and the impact on workbooks. Apart fromthis, the main component of the administration is monitoring the reports(workbooks). There are couple of options for the Disco admin person, one is to use the Discoverer administration edition along with the EUL monitoring workbooks that Oracle provides with th
My new Venture : Dashboard Designer
(Indexed 2006-11-23):
Since quitting Oracle, I have been doing lots of presentations on my product InfoCaptorI got this great opportunity to present InfoCaptor at Australia OUG conference held on 3rd November in Melbourne. I was representing my company RudraSoft. It was a total new and different experience, met quite a few entrepreneurs and got great opportunity
How to consolidate GL Actuals in EPB through EPF interface
(Indexed 2006-10-24):
When it comes to bringing actuals data into EPF and EPB there is a typical process. The problem with this approach is when you try to view the report in EPB, you cannot see the consolidated balances in one shot.