In meeting with organizations who are new to SAP BusinessObjects or who are legacy Crystal Reports users, we are often asked the question “Why should I use a Business Objects Universe?”. To organizations who have worked with universes for a period of time, the advantages and value proposition are clear. But for organizations who are [...]
Continue reading...Wednesday, September 22, 2010
We’re about to embark upon a new project to conduct a large-scale health check on one of our client’s primary reporting environments, so I thought it may be beneficial to write about the process we use. Hopefully it will give you some insight into how to conduct a health check, and the benefits your organization [...]
Continue reading...Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Back in March I posted “Five Reasons Why Ad Hoc Reporting Won’t Work In Some Organizations“. In that post, I listed some of the major concerns that I hear from potential clients when the subject of ad hoc reporting is broached. We’ve already addressed “Our people aren’t smart enough to create their own reports”, “We [...]
Continue reading...Thursday, July 15, 2010
One of the other reasons I hear is that managers don't want to train end-users to create reports, since they have folks in IT that already tasked with that. Some report authoring will always need to be handled by IT, due to it's complexity, lack of data availability, etc... But I argue that the lion's share of the development can be handled within each department instead, freeing IT developers to take on other projects critical to the organization.
Continue reading...Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Data security is typically a really a big deal for organizations, and it SHOULD be. Thankfully, SAP BusinessObjects offers a number of ways to provide security around functionality, content and data. With some careful planning and a well-designed SAP BusinessObjects implementation, you can rest assured knowing that users will have access to only the information that they are supposed to see.
Continue reading...Monday, April 5, 2010
I recently posted an article titled "Five Reasons Why Ad Hoc Reporting Won't Work In Some Organizations". In that article, I listed some of the major concerns that I hear from potential clients when the subject of ad hoc reporting is broached. As promised, I will be addressing each of those concerns and showing how they can be overcome. Today, we begin with the first one: "Our people aren’t smart enough to create their own reports"
Continue reading...Monday, March 22, 2010
When we implement a new business intelligence solution for a client, there is always that period where people try to "return to the ship". For a time, most things will be easier to do the old way until that learning curve is crested and it's tempting to retreat to comfort when difficulties arise. To avoid turning around and abandoning your goals, you must make going forward more compelling then going back.
Continue reading...Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Over the past ten years, I've been a part of literally hundreds of SAP BusinessObjects client demos. I'm always struck, however, when we reach the ad hoc portion of the demo and begin talking about WebIntelligence. While the end-users in the room get excited about having the ability to create their own reports and analysis without waiting on the IT department, we usually get a lot of push-back from the managers and executives in the room.
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Monday, September 27, 2010
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