Business Performance Management

Finally, Information Builders also released a new BI tool midmonth. This one, WebFOCUS InfoAssist is designed to make query, reporting, and analysis simpler for business users. Its front end is a familiar, Microsoft Office-like interface, but it can pull information from a range of multidimensional databases, including SAP Business Information Warehouse, Oracle Hyperion Essbase, and Microsoft Analysis Services.

The Business Objects BI platform was also remade early this month. BusinessObjects XI 3.1 now integrates data from a range of possible source systems, including applications and databases from HP, Microsoft, Netezza, and Oracle. This means that query, reporting, and analysis activities in BusinessObjects are more likely to be able to pull in all relevant data from across a complex enterprise. This version of BusinessObjects also includes OLAP data-visualization tool BusinessObjects Voyager, which is enhanced (from the original version released last year as part of a “productivity pack”) with new options for graphically representing business information. Finally, BusinessObjects XI 3.1 offers increased speed and scalability through a new native support for 64-bit architecture.

Then, in early October, IBM upgraded its performance management portfolio with IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence v4. This new version of the company’s BI platform includes many enhancements, all intended to give business users more control and confidence in their decision-making. One new module is a collaborative business modeling solution, IBM Cognos 8 Business Viewpoint, which gives managers the ability to define hierarchies of dimensions. Through Viewpoint business users can make decisions to improve reporting and planning, while IT can make decisions about speed and efficiency.

In addition, IBM Cognos 8 Financial Performance Analytics offers configurable reporting, an adaptable data warehouse, and information consolidation capabilities via three integrated modules for accounts receivable, accounts payable, and general ledger. This application enables line-of-business managers to view immediate, up-to-date information and perform cross-functional analyses for more consistent reporting. Armed with operational transparency, adaptable and customized views of data, and drag and drop reporting, the analytics application helps managers mitigate risk and drive performance.

Also this month, IBM released an enhanced IBM Cognos 8 Go! portfolio. In IBM Cognos 8 Go! Dashboard, new drag-and-drop functionality, Flash graphics, and a capability to reuse trusted content make building personalized dashboards easier than ever before. IBM Cognos 8 Go! Search — a tool for searching reports, scorecards, and other content created in IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence – also got a makeover. The new version digs deeper than document titles, into terms and data within reports, to find exact matches. And finally, IBM Cognos 8 Go! Mobile now includes built-in GPS capabilities, so it can save time and effort in report generation by automatically detecting users’ location.

Oracle partner excel4apps just launched Budget Wand, a tool that works with Excel to enable flexible user-defined layouts that combine actuals, budgets, periods, and books.

This month was big for business intelligence (BI) vendors. First came Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition Plus 10.1.3.4. A major goal of this release was to introduce tighter integration among the products that make up Oracle’s Enterprise Performance Management Suite. The integration of Oracle EPM Workspace enables users to access both Oracle BI data and Oracle EPM data within one Web interface. This release also integrates Oracle EPM data with Microsoft Office applications through the Oracle Hyperion Smart View for office. And its Oracle Smart Space enables users to track Oracle BI content through personalized desktop widgets. This version of the BI suite also includes enhancements to the reporting tool Oracle BI Publisher.

eXpresso Corp. has updated its Excel Offline add-in tool and now includes the ability to use the full complement of native Excel features and capabilities; access to the user’s personal macros, shortcut keys, and other self-defined toolsets; and the option to temporarily “check out” a file for use when traveling or when online access in not readily available.

All ODBO-enabled Windows clients as well as XMLA based web service consumers can now retrieve Palo data via an ODBO/XMLA driver for the Palo OLAP Server developed by Jedox. The driver’s query language MDX functionality enables communication between Palo and Excel Pivot Tables.

Following the June release of Adaptive Planning 5.0 is this month’s release of Express Edition version 5. This is a free, entry-level version of the company’s budgeting, forecasting, and reporting solution, and can be deployed on-site as an open source application or through a hosted, on-demand service. Enhancements include modeled sheets, allocation modeling, and global sheets – all intended to ease set up, maintenance, and collaboration. Adaptive Planning has just launched a Recession Survival Kit with “what-if” modeling and the ability to create multiple top-down planning scenarios in an effort to help users see how changes in key drivers could impact their company.

In an effort to help users break free from spreadsheet performance restrictions, Quantrix has released Quantrix 64, a business modeling and analytics software solution with 64-bit processing capability. Using desktop computers, customers can create models with up to 500 million data points, and the software features an API that can be integrated with Ajax-based tools such as Google Web Toolkit. Other features include Vocabulary Manager for international customers and DataPush, which allows information to be “pushed” into data warehouses and business applications. An example of Quantrix 64 modeling is www.ElectionTaxes.com.

ClearMomentum Inc. has released ClearFinancials 6.0, with new drag and drop report writing functionality, the ability to query and aggregate data from disparate sources, charting and sub-reporting options, and the ability to view public reports through shared folders.