10 Reasons to use XLCubed for Managed Self-Service Business Intelligence

Size: px
Start display at page:

Download "10 Reasons to use XLCubed for Managed Self-Service Business Intelligence"

Transcription

1 10 Reasons to use XLCubed for Managed Self-Service Business Intelligence Introduction Excel at the centre of the solution If you handle reports and dashboards you already know Microsoft Excel, like 750 million other users. The amount of data produced and available has increased exponentially through social networks, controllers, management systems, results of surveys, etc. Everything has become measurable. Long reserved for the IT department, Business Intelligence has now proved its worth for many organisations. BI has long required complex and expensive tools, but recent years have seen the arrival of new tools combining both simplicity and power. Today, demand for Business Intelligence is exploding caused both by the needs and demands of users and the democratisation of tools that serve them. XLCubed is unique as it transforms the most popular data analysis tool of all, Microsoft Excel, into a rich front-end BI tool for the analysis and visualisation of data, operational reporting and dashboards. EXCEL & XLCubed Whitepaper page 1

2 Managed Self-Service BI The search for Agile BI, or Managed Self-Service BI, is an organisational response to the increasing demands of users. It is also a recognition that queries are best answered, and indeed best asked, directly by the users themselves. However, to maximise the efficiency and value created from the solution, we believe that the autonomy of the users is best supervised and supported by the IT Department, or for more mature organisations a Centre of Expertise for BI (CEBI). Identify needs Identify solutions Confirm the existence of the required components Imagination -> Support CEBI Creation -> Self-Service User Creation Iteration until the final result Dashboards & Reports Technical validation of the solution Implementation of security Move to production User communication Dissemination / Sharing -> Support CEBI Figure 1 Managed Self-Service BI process Coaching: Coaching will normally be at two levels, upstream to identify solutions to meet a need (data, processes, tools) but also downstream of the work done by the user at the point of making the data available more widely in the rest of the organization. With XLCubed, this problem is solved by the introduction of a simple and effective process whereby Excel developed reports and dashboards can be quickly and easily published to the web server. Support: Support through the provision to users of high performing, complete and reliable data sources. Most often, these data sources take the form of data stores (Data Marts), with a significant semantic layer. The exploitation of these data sources is made possible by tools such XLCubed, which offer an intuitive and powerful interface and require a minimum of training to get started and become proficient. EXCEL & XLCubed Whitepaper page 2

3 Reason #1 No matter how good your BI tools, users will want the data in Excel It s a recurring message whether working with Business Analysts, Financial Controllers, Category Managers or Sales Managers: Excel is their productivity tool, period. XLCubed gives users data in the Excel environment they want, but with hugely improved query, analysis and data visualisation possibilities. Sophisticated analysis, report books and pixel-perfect dashboards can all be designed using XLCubed in Excel. For example: I need to conduct sales analysis on a list of 500 clients I ve been provided with, with sales figures of 200 products classified into 20 subcategories and 5 years of monthly history, and a sales budget for comparison. In this kind of situation, the use of an OLAP cube will render data instantaneously. XLCubed can link the cube to Excel ranges and you can add your own data to the model. In the case of Budgeting or Planning, it is also very easy to provide a data entry system to adjust these figures over the period. Vital data remains centralised but ad-hoc analysis remains local and I don't have to involve the IT Department for this type of requirement. I can publish my analysis on to the intranet with a mouse click. Reason #2 Overcome the Restrictions of Pivot Tables Pivot tables are fine for the basic requirements of a simple data-pull, but they have many limitations which can make them cumbersome and time consuming in many business situations. XLCubed Grids are designed from the ground up with multi-dimensional analysis in mind. They provide advanced selections, embedded visualisations, simple user calculations and full interactivity. Flexibility in selecting members and sets of members from the hierarchies are key in multivariate analysis. XLCubed gives powerful but intuitive ways to filter the selection as needed, define Pareto Analysis and select the customers or products which meet the criteria of your business problem Data can be visualised directly in the grid using a rich in-cell chart library, with the charts based directly on the cube data and fully dynamic. User calculations are added using standard Excel formulae, but become an embedded part of the grid and available for further slice and dice analysis. Interactivity: All XLCubed components can be controlled by slicers, or by Excel cells and ranges, opening up the full scope and flexibility of Excel to the XLCubed BI tool. EXCEL & XLCubed Whitepaper page 3

4 Reason #3 Visualisation leads to understanding Excel allows simple graphics from series of numbers. XLCubed provides three additional resources to help you visually present analysis. Small multiples are a way to compare items across either one or two categories in a matrix of charts where the scales on the individual charts are consistent. Separating into different charts is often easier than trying to compare on one chart. The charts can be drilled to additional detail, or used as a selector for other parts of the report. TreeMaps: The TreeMap can represent a dimension (products, customers) graphically as a rectangle, the first dimension defines the area of the rectangle, and the second the colour. This type of visualisation allows the comparison of two uncorrelated dimensions, and the quick identification of the important elements and exceptions. EXCEL & XLCubed Whitepaper page 4

5 Geospatial maps: XLCubed provides point and shape based interactive mapping through the Google Maps API. Data can be represented either by a point, where the size and colour can depict two values, or by colour shading surface areas of a region. The region can be a standard geographic boundary, or potentially customer-specific areas of managed sales regions. Maps can be drilled and panned as with a regular Google Map, and map components can easily be linked to any other components of XLCubed reports. Reason #4 Freedom of Formula Reporting Formula reporting provides a perfect solution for Financial and Management Controllers. XLCubed provides formulae to retrieve values and hierarchy members from the cube. The formula approach gives total control over layout and formatting, and the formula are easy to understand with simple user dialogs. You have control at the cell level and the report can be built cell by cell, typically referencing the column and row headers. Formula are most often used in dashboards and formal financial reports where the layout is key. The simplest approach to create a formula report is to create a grid and then convert to formula. Formula can connect to multidimensional cubes or Tabular models. EXCEL & XLCubed Whitepaper page 5

6 Reason #5 - 'Look and Feel' Formatting reports and dashboards is more complicated than it seems. First of all Excel, by nature, requires no framework but provides a free canvas, unlike most other reporting tools. Each element can not only be formatted properly, even dynamically with conditional formatting but each of these components transfer seamlessly to XLCubed Web Edition when the report is published. Maximum freedom, pixel perfect Reason #6 Dynamic publishing A few clicks and it s published! The XLCubed Web server allows you to view and interact with XLCubed solutions directly from a browser. The reports are dynamic, secure, and always connected to their data source. The server also provides a platform for ad-hoc analysis, for report automation and scheduling, and for integration to SharePoint and other custom portals. Reason #7 Mobility Mobile access is provided through Apple, Android and Windows Phone 8 applications. Any report or dashboard developed in the Excel client can be available on tablets and mobile devices within minutes. It provides a pragmatic and quick to deliver mobile capability. Whatever you build in Excel, can be available on your tablet in a few minutes. Once published to XLCubed Web, reports are immediately available through the mobile apps. EXCEL & XLCubed Whitepaper page 6

7 Reason #8 - Office 2007 to 2016 x64, SQL 2000 to 2016 If you have not yet moved to Office 2016, don't panic. XLCubed is compatible with all versions of Excel from 2007 to bit, and for SQL server Analysis Services 2000 to 2016 including tabular models (DAX) and relational sources. For Excel 2010 and 2016, XLCubed can also use PowerPivot and Power BI as a data source. Reason #9 Learning Curve Users already know Excel, and this is a big advantage when it comes to learning XLCubed as they are already comfortable in the environment. 80% of the functionality of XLCubed can be learnt in a single day of training. Video training is available to explain, step by step, all facets of the product. Reason #10 - Price XLCubed is highly competitive in comparison with its competitors, while offering more value. Why? XLCubed relies on existing solutions: no need to reinvent a table or multidimensional engine, it uses Microsoft SQL Server BI. No need to completely reinvent a user interface. XLCubed is in Excel. The price takes this into account, but also maximises the investment already made in the implementation of the Microsoft technology platform. On the other hand, the licensing model is extremely simple. XLCubed Excel Edition is by named user and XLCubed Web Edition is based on the maximum number of concurrent users required. EXCEL & XLCubed Whitepaper page 7

8 XLCubed fits perfectly in a 'Managed' self-service model, with an Excel component for creation and XLCubed Web Edition for distribution. XLCubed is compatible with all versions of Excel from Office 2007 to Office 2016, and SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2016, multidimensional and tabular. XLCubed provides additional business effective visualisations such as in-cell charting, small multiples, treemaps, and geospatial mapping. XLCubed offers two primary reporting modes: Grids to quickly create reports and dynamic dashboards and Formulae which offer total flexibility of layout and formatting. XLCubed can span and link different cubes, tabular models and relational data sources, in a single report or dashboard. EXCEL & XLCubed Whitepaper page 8