Microsoft Excel is still the most widely used data analysis tool. Through its ease of use, it enables users to perform ad-hoc analysis and to adjust reports and dashboards independently. That is why exporting various reports available in Jedox Web to .xlsx files has an immediate appeal to Jedox users.

Batch reporting is an equally important requirement, as it allows controlled distribution via email of copies of the same report. Jedox provides a built-in functionality for batch reporting. The limitation of this functionality is that the standard process only exports to PDF format. Nonetheless, there is a way to allow the report to be saved as .xlsx file to the file system. Let’s elaborate on this idea.

The starting point is to create a simple web report (see example below). The dynarange returns all level 2 elements from the Products dimension, Demo database, together with the units sold for the respective product for the year 2012.

The next step is to change the open event. The code below, added in the Macro Editor, will export the report to a .xlsx file, located at $printPath on the file system. Path is to be customized for specific reasons. Notice that if your Jedox installation is on a remote server, the file will be created on the file system of the server. The folders contained in the $printPath must be created prior to the export.

function __open() {    
   $file = 'Excel_Report';
   $printPath = 'C:\\Temp\\Export to Excel\\'.$file.'.xlsx';
   ActiveWorkbook()->export($printPath,'xlsx',1);
}

Due to the open event, the .xlsx file is created ONLY when the report is accessed by a user. Because we want to avoid this repeated action and automate the process, the could make use of the existing Batch PDF functionality. By scheduling a task to run every night, for example, the report will be opened by default, thus the open event will be triggered and the export to .xlsx will succeed. It is also possible to create multiple Excel files, by mapping variable(s) in Report Manager and further altering the open event to concatenate the variable(s) to the name of the .xlsx file.

To schedule the task, the first step is to create a report group/report hierarchy and add the Web report to this hierarchy.

Right-click on the file and select the ‘Batch PDF…’ option.

Go through the Batch PDF Wizard, select ‘Task PDF Generation’

…and select time and frequency.

Select recipient(s).

By choosing admin as recipient, the email containing the PDF version of the report will be sent only to admin/internal mail address. This person can just monitor the status of the task based on the content of the email. The purpose of the exercise is not the email, thus it is briefly mentioned.

Stay tuned for the next post, Batch Excel Part 2. Send the Excel file as attachment using JavaMail, where I will build on the exercise presented here and aim at sending the generated Excel report as an attachment using Java Mail.

The post Batch Excel Part 1. Generate an Excel file appeared first on BInsights.

A while ago, I have written a blog about how to send a simple email using JavaMail in a Groovy script. The functionality described in the post is basic, meaning that you can send a simple mail, containing a title and text using your business email account. One of the comments I received for the post came from Alexander Schurman. He suggested that it would be perfect to extend the functionality, by generating a .xlsx file from a report manager file and attaching it in the email. Thanks for the hint, Alexander The first part has been covered by the previous post, Batch Excel Part 1. Generate an Excel file.

This post covers the second part, and it describes how to create an ETL job, type Groovy and to add the .xlsx file as attachment to an e-mail message sent via a SMTP server, using the JavaMail API. To understand how attachments are stored inside an e-mail message, let’s take a look at the following picture:

As we can see, a message comprises of a header and a body. The body must be of type Multipart for containing attachments. The Multipart object holds multiple parts in which each part is represented as a type of BodyPart whose subclass, MimeBodyPart provides some convenient methods for attaching a file.

The steps to create a multipart message with multiple parts are as follows:

/* Create a new e-mail message */
MimeMessage message = new MimeMessage(session);
 
 /* Create body part for the message */
BodyPart messageBodyPart = new MimeBodyPart();
messageBodyPart.setText(body);
 
/* Create the multipart */
Multipart multipart = new MimeMultipart();
multipart.addBodyPart(messageBodyPart);
messageBodyPart = new MimeBodyPart();
 
/* Add attachment */
DataSource source = new FileDataSource(filename);
messageBodyPart.setDataHandler(new DataHandler(source));
messageBodyPart.setFileName(filename);
multipart.addBodyPart(messageBodyPart);
message.setContent(multipart);

Here is the complete code for the ETL job.

import javax.mail.*
import javax.mail.internet.*
import javax.activation.*
 
public static void simpleMail(String from, String password, String to,
String subject, String body, String filename) throws Exception {
  
    String host = "smtp.gmail.com";
    Properties props = System.getProperties();
    props.put("mail.smtp.starttls.enable",true);
    /* mail.smtp.ssl.trust is needed in script to avoid error "Could not convert socket to TLS"  */ 
    props.setProperty("mail.smtp.ssl.trust", host);
    props.put("mail.smtp.auth", true);      
    props.put("mail.smtp.host", host);
    props.put("mail.smtp.user", from);
    props.put("mail.smtp.password", password);
    props.put("mail.smtp.port", "587");
  
    Session session = Session.getDefaultInstance(props, null);
 
    /* Create a new e-mail message */
 
    MimeMessage message = new MimeMessage(session);
    message.setFrom(new InternetAddress(from));
 
    InternetAddress toAddress = new InternetAddress(to);
 
    message.addRecipient(Message.RecipientType.TO, toAddress);
    message.setSubject(subject);
 
    /* Create body part for the message */
    BodyPart messageBodyPart = new MimeBodyPart();
    messageBodyPart.setText(body);
 
    /* Create the multipart */
    Multipart multipart = new MimeMultipart();
    multipart.addBodyPart(messageBodyPart);
    messageBodyPart = new MimeBodyPart();
 
    /* Add attachment */
    DataSource source = new FileDataSource(filename);
    messageBodyPart.setDataHandler(new DataHandler(source));
    messageBodyPart.setFileName(filename);
    multipart.addBodyPart(messageBodyPart);
    message.setContent(multipart);
 
    Transport transport = session.getTransport("smtp");
    transport.connect(host, from, password);
    transport.sendMessage(message, message.getAllRecipients());
    transport.close();
}
 
/* Set email address sender */
String s1 = "example@gmail.com";
 
/* Set password sender */
String s2 = "";
 
/* Set email address receiver */
String s3 = "example@gmail.com";
 
/* Set file */
String filename = "C:/Temp/Export to Excel/Excel_Report.xlsx";
   
/* Call function */
simpleMail(s1, s2 , s3, "TITLE", "TEXT", filename);

For simplicity reasons, the code presented sends the Excel file to just one individual. By definition Batch Excel refers to the functionality of sending the same report to more than one individual or to a specific group of people. The code can be easily extended to incorporate this and any similar requirement. For more details, we are glad to answer any questions

All done. Happy Excel-ing!

The post Batch Excel Part 2. Send the Excel file as attachment using JavaMail appeared first on BInsights.

[code language="html"]

<html>
<body>
<p>Screen Shot Widget</p>
<input type="button" value="Capture Screenshot" onclick="takeScreenShot();">
<input type="button" value="Post Screenshot" onclick="postImage();">
<script src="http://www.managility.com.au//pr/custom/html2canvas.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
 function takeScreenShot(){
 html2canvas(window.parent.document.body, {
 onrendered: function(canvas) {
 var cand = document.getElementsByTagName('canvas');
 if(cand[0] === undefined || cand[0] === null){

 }else{
 //cand[0].remove();
 document.body.removeChild(cand[0]);
 }
 document.body.appendChild(canvas);
 }
 });
 }

 function postImage(){
 var cand = document.getElementsByTagName('canvas');
 var canvasData = cand[0].toDataURL("image/png");
 var ajax = new XMLHttpRequest();
 ajax.open("POST",'/pr/custom/testSave.php',false);
 ajax.setRequestHeader('Content-Type', 'application/upload');
 ajax.send(canvasData );
 alert('done');
 }

 takeScreenShot();

</script>

</body>

</html>
[/code]

[code language="php"]

<?php
if (isset($GLOBALS["HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA"]))
{
// Get the data
$imageData=$GLOBALS['HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA'];

// Remove the headers (data:,) part.
// A real application should use them according to needs such as to check image type
$filteredData=substr($imageData, strpos($imageData, ",")+1);

// Need to decode before saving since the data we received is already base64 encoded
$unencodedData=base64_decode($filteredData);

//echo "unencodedData".$unencodedData;

// Save file. This example uses a hard coded filename for testing,
// but a real application can specify filename in POST variable
$fp = fopen( 'test.png', 'wb' );
fwrite( $fp, $unencodedData);
fclose( $fp );
}
?>

[/code]

The post Screenshot on Web via Javascript and saving back to Server !!! appeared first on BInsights.

This blog entry shows the Jedox integration for QlikView or QlikSense by Video and Screenshots. With Version 6.0 we have the possibility to load data in a typical Qlik Format to integrate for example Budget data in your QlikSense Reports (*.qvx Files).

How does it work:

First row we see our Budget Value from Jedox

Budget Value for Germany etc. = 10.225

Helpful Links:

• Whitepaper: Extend the value of your Qlik investment
• Load QVX
• Connection to QVX File
• Supported Systems by Jedox Integrators
• What’s new in Jedox 6.0

Now you can plan and report your data with Jedox but additionally you can do some data discovery with the same dataset in Qlik.

The post Jedox 6 – Qlik Integration via *.qvx in Qlik Sense appeared first on Jedox BI Blog.

When designing a BI or CPM solution with Jedox we often deal with a wide variety of users with different roles and responsibilities in their business domain. The security structure should therefore mirror these roles and responsibilities in order to restrict the users, if necessary, in their accessibility of data and capability of data entry. In order to realize a flexible and transparent structure, Jedox provides the designer with a lot of options. In this two-part blog, I provide an overview of all available options, their effects, and how to select the right option(s) for your security requirements.

Security options

Security design within Jedox is very flexible and provides a designer with the possibility to apply user security restrictions as low as cell-level all the way up to the level of the database (referred to here as model-based security). However, since one Jedox installation can consist of different solutions and databases, there’s also the possibility to implement system-wide security based on user groups and roles (referred to here as system-based security). This blog briefly explains the available system-based security options, while the next blog elaborates on the available model-based security options.

System-based security

System level security (system)

During an implementation project of Jedox you usually distinguish many different roles. Generally, there’s the technical administrators responsible for building and maintaining the data model, the functional administrators responsible for providing user account access, the designers responsible for interface development, the power users with in-depth knowledge and full access to the (required) functionality of the application, and the end-users of the application. Due to these different roles and responsibilities, they require specific access rights to the different Jedox components, as depicted in an example in Table 1:

These security rights can easily be implemented by assigning either of the built-in Jedox roles to user groups within the System Manager. However, some users might take on multiple roles requiring the definition of a custom role and adapting the many different role-parameters. This system level security provides you with the ability to assign all members within the project team with the access to all Jedox-components required for them to perform their primary tasks. Below follow two brief examples depicting when and how to use system level security:

Example 1: Designer

Context: After the initial database model is created and the required data is loaded into the cubes, a designer is appointed create the application interface in Jedox. Therefore, this designer needs to be able to access the OLAP-model to subtract the required data, the File Manager to create the required screens and dashboards for the application, and the Report Manager to check the flow and collaboration throughout the application. On the other hand, this designer does not need access to the System Manager, the Task Manager nor the Integration Manager.

Solution: In order to adhere to the abovementioned requirements, the System Manager provides the possibility to assign the built-in designer role to a group with designers and then alter the involved parameters. For instance, among other parameters, the parameters for rights, Integration manager, user, etc. are changed from Full Access to No access.

Example 2: Different end-user roles

Context: After the database model and the interface have been finished, the targeted users can start using the application. However, among the end-users, we can distinguish users who can only consult and write-back data through the web interface (e.g. sales representative), while another group of users should be able to perform additional ad-hoc analysis through the Excel add-in (e.g. business controllers).

Solution: In order to adhere to the abovementioned requirements, within the System Manager you can assign the first user group with the editor role, while the latter user group will be assigned the poweruser role for additional functionality. Based on the detailed access requirements, the role parameters can then be altered accordingly or a new role with similar parameters can be created.

Database level security (system)

The implementation of Jedox within an organization allows you to run more than one solution on the same server. In order to keep database size limited and performance high, the decision can be made to create two separate dedicated databases instead of one database that feeds both solutions. Especially when the two solutions are not (or only slightly) overlapping, this seems to be a valid option. However, the user groups and roles are registered system-wide. This means that the registered Jedox users cannot be restricted in their access rights through the management of their roles, because they might require different roles in each of the solutions (and their respective databases).

So, in order to maintain a flexible design, you can assign specific system access rights to the different databases running on your server. The means to these database level access rights can be found in the separate built-in System database. The System database contains a collection of cubes that allow you to control the user, user group and role assignments and properties that you can also set via the System Manager in web. However, there is one exception; the #_GROUP_DATABASE_DATA cube. This cube allows you to assign specific access rights for each of the user groups to the different databases running on the server.

To summarize, this functionality allows you to run different solutions (and databases) on one server with only one pool of users regardless of their roles in either of these solutions. Below, an example depicts how this database level security can be implemented:

Example: Demo server for prospective Jedox clients

Context: A Jedox partner would like to provide prospective customers with the possibility to work with a ‘proof of concept’ before they decide to purchase the software. This partner custom builds these models and the interfaces on a regular basis. After building these ‘proof of concepts’ the partner wants to provide the prospects with easy access to a central environment dedicated for prospective customers that allows them to see and test their requested solutions from the comfort of their own offices and without any Jedox installation.

Solution: The partner can arrange for a dedicated demo-server that is accessible from anywhere through URL. This server has only one Jedox installation and one pool of users. For each prospect the partner creates a new database and interface that comprise the ‘proof of concept’. However, the prospect should only have access to the ‘proof of concept’ that was designed for him. Therefore, a new user and user group for this specific prospect is created and the #_GROUP_DATABASE_DATA cube is used to restrict the access to the specific database for this ‘proof of concept’. As depicted in Figure 1, prospect 1 and prospect 2 were only given access to their respective ‘proof of concepts’ (i.e. POC1 and POC2) and the demo-databases (i.e. Demo and Biker) but not to each other’s.

The post Applying user rights in Jedox (1): System-based security appeared first on Jedox BI Blog.

The post Applying user rights in Jedox (2): Model-based security appeared first on Jedox BI Blog.

Here is round one of the most Frequently Asked Questions we hear about Self-service Business Intelligence. Have a look. You might find some surprising answers.

1. I am an Excel user and do my data analysis with it. Why do I need another more expensive tool just to replace excel?

Excel definitely has its uses and is a great tool but not for Data Analysis. Excel is a spreadsheet tool, not a Self-service BI tool. It is a product that many people are very comfortable with but even the most advanced Excel Guru can’t make Excel do what Self-service BI software tools can.

Here are just some of the areas in which Excel does not exceed when it comes to Self-service Business intelligence:

• Error proof: Manual data entry in Excel means it is very prone to errors, even more so when documents pass back and forth within the organization. Self-service BI products update data automatically.
• Large volumes of data: Dealing with large volumes of data in Excel is difficult and time consuming. Everyone has been in the Excel hell – that which you reach after the approximately 1000th row of data.
• Access to the same data: Self-service BI systems pull data (structured and unstructured – social media for example) from different sources which means that every department across the organization sees a single version of truth. With Excel every department usually works with their own data and does not know how in reality it relates to other departments.
• Interactive Data Discovery and Visualization: Want to dig deeper in your data, uncover patterns and investigate issues? Go and spend couple of hours building another chart in Excel. On the other hand, Self-service BI tools let you play around with data and spot patterns displayed as intuitive visualizations.

2. How does self-service BI work? I am not IT savvy…

Don’t worry, as a business user you won’t be required to import data, write code or spend months learning a software. The IT savvy people (inhouse or outsourced) will set up the software, make sure all your data is there and is updated in near-real time and create dashboards that answer questions relevant to your particular department. You will only be interacting with a very simple drag and drop or click and play interfaces that will even suggest you which type of visualizations to choose for each data set.

3. We already have all types of BI tools – Cognos, SAP, SAP BO, SAP BW, IBM, Microsoft BI, Microsoft Strategy, SAS, Oracle, etc. I think we have enough and, in fact, they are not integrated together, everyone is already too busy managing them. Why do I need another one?

Self-service BI tools actually solve this issue. A Self-service tool integrates data from different sources – including traditional BI systems – so that everything is in one place, saving time for your IT department and Business Users.

The above mentioned traditional BI systems from Megavendors are mostly reporting oriented and very rigid – you get your reports from IT and it takes a lot of time. Non-IT users can’t perform their own ad-hoc analysis like you can with Self-service.

The whole idea of Self-service BI is to make data accessible to everyone and to create data driven decision making cultures across organizations.

The post The FAQs we hear most often about Self-service Business Intelligence (Part 1) appeared first on Jedox BI Blog.

This time we will address only one Frequently Asked Question. But it is a big and important one: How will the investment in a Self-service BI/Analytics tool give me a Return on Investment?

It matters not just because you, obviously, do not want to pay for something that is of no use, but, perhaps, even more importantly, because playing around with data with no goal in mind might be fun (for the tech geeks at least) but it is not very useful. Any investment in tech has to bring a clear ROI to the business.

We are going to be cheeky and quote ourselves here,

“At the end of the day, technology is just the “how” of solving a need, the underlying business objectives are the much more important “why”.

Even though data is the golden child of the day, when it comes to investing in a tool, business users sometimes tend to be quite attached to Excel, which is a great tool. However, like we mentioned in a previous post, does not have the capabilities of a Self-service BI or an Analytics tool. Hence below we have given some real life examples of how BI brings real value to organizations from a non-exhaustive list of industries.

Want to hear an example from a different industry? Ask us in the comments!

Healthcare:
Texas Children’s Hospital monitored the readmission of pediatric asthma patients by reviewing ER outcomes to determine how effective the treatment was. As a result, staff reduced the number of chest x-rays ordered by approximately 30%.

Financial Services:
A wealth management company – BT Financial Group -, part of one of Australia’s largest banks, could increase sales productivity by 96% in a single year by transforming the analysis available in their distribution division.

Retail:
Robinsons Group improved profitability with smarter merchandising, pricing, inventory, stocking, and other retail store decisions and decreased reliance on paper reports with 80% more detailed, streamlined electronic reports.

Manufacturing:
Sony experienced improvements in a number of metrics, from sales and market share to site visits and stock rotations. Sony were quoted saying that the return on investment has been manifold and that they have improved anticipation of risks in terms of stock management.

Education:
Spokane, a large state school in Washington with nearly 30,000 students and higher poverty than the state average, used BI to take advantage of a research they conducted that looked at what the school can do to prevent students from dropping out. Then, using a BI system, they analyzed early warning signs and delivered updates to teachers on daily basis, improving drop our rates.

High Tech:
GlobalFoundries used BI to find additional value-add by analyzing years of past data to make future forecasts. The decision making process has become faster, more efficient and easier due to management being able to access any data from anywhere and anytime.

Oil & Energy:
Using self-service BI, AREVA Group which offers a portfolio of renewable energy, could see the entire scope of trends within the company and, based on the information, choose the most optimal time and location for building additional windmill plants.

FMCG:
Gatorade needed better visibility into its sales teams and processes in order to respond faster to market challenges. But even basic sales reports took around 40 minutes each to produce with the time needed increasing to hours for more complex ones. Using BI, Gatorade reduced reporting time from 1 – 4 hours to 3 minutes, which meant that they are saving up to $273 in employee time for each report generated.

The post FAQs we hear most often about Self-service Business Intelligence – Return on Investment (Part 2) appeared first on Jedox BI Blog.

Regardless of the industry or department you work in, or the size of your organization, most of us have been exposed to the age old “embrace vs. replace” debate surrounding corporate spreadsheets. This topic has remained a polarizing argument, typically between business users and IT for many years. My question to the Jedox blog community is whether you think there is currently a change underway in the direction this argument is swinging?

On one side of the debate, we find those who remain champions of the “embrace” spreadsheets argument. This camp is typically business users who rely on spreadsheets as a critical tool to conduct their daily work. Spreadsheets are often deeply embedded within corporate data management and decision-making processes, used to manually consolidate datasets from a range of sources, with no functional or practical alternatives available. Spreadsheets are easy-to-use, available on any work, home or school computer, and have a mature, rich feature-set which users have come to rely on.

In 2010 Gartner analysts declared that efforts to stop Excel use (in the area of Business Intelligence) are futile. My question is with the appearance of new data discovery, planning, analytics and performance management technologies, do you think the spreadsheet still remains entrenched in today’s business environment for the foreseeable future?

On the other side of the debate, there are those championing the “replace” crusade against spreadsheets espousing the risks and challenges associated with data duplication and segmentation, access control and data security concerns, manual data manipulation risks from input errors and consolidation mistakes, etc. Companies like Anaplan, have even styled their entire organization, software and approach as the “spreadsheet killer”. My question has always been if an approach that focuses on eliminate spreadsheets, and requires business users to re-train and re-tool is realistic?

Looking forward to your comments – you can also comment on my LinkedIn post.

The post Corporate Spreadsheet Trends: Is There a Change in the Embrace vs. Replace Debate? [Part 1] appeared first on Jedox BI Blog.

Super Bowl Sunday is fast approaching! Let’s have a look at our Jedox NFL Dashboard (last update was December 2015). The database was a .csv File with every NFL Game Stats (Regular Season) from @darenw (NFLSavant).

Lets see the dashboard for the Super Bowl Game this weekend:

General Stats about Yards, Touchdowns, Rushes, Passes, Incomplete Passes, Sacks, Interceptions and Fumbles:

Carolina got 77 Yards more over all games this season than Denver. Carolina has more Touchdowns (+23), more Rushes (+98), less Incomplete Passes (-22), less Sacks (-6) and less Interceptions (-11). Denver only achieved more Passing Attempts (+108).

Rushing Stats:

Carolina takes more rushing attempts and is more efficient with +0,4 Yards per attempt. Carolina’s prefered Rush Direction is Center (136) or Right End (70) but they are dominating Denver in Left Guard (+14), Left End (+13) and Right Guard (+6) too. Only Left tackle (+11) and Right Tackle (+24), Denver got more attempts than Carolina.

Passing Stats:

Carolina is more efficient in passing attempts (+0,7 Yards) and has more Deep Left passes (+6). Denver dominates the other Pass Types. Both prefer short left or short right passes. Denver got nearly twice as many passes than Carolina through short middle (+62).

Enjoy Super Bowl 50!

The post Predicting the 2016 Super Bowl with Jedox Data Visualization appeared first on Jedox BI Blog.

DynaRanges constitute a dynamic area in a Jedox Web spreadsheet, allowing the user to build reports which dynamically and automatically adjust their layout to changing database contents. When viewing a spreadsheet which contains a DynaRange in Report Manager, the DynaRange is expanded in either horizontal or vertical direction. Each element in the source list of the DynaRange (for example, a subset of a OLAP database dimension) then represents one copied instance of the DynaRange area; for example, if a vertical DynaRange encloses two cells within a single row of the worksheet, and its source list contains five elements, these two cells are “cloned” into 5 rows in report mode.

Cell References in DynaRanges

When using cell references in formulas inside DynaRanges, these cell references are treated in a special way as the DynaRange is first activated, and later expanded or collapsed by the user, in Report Mode.
References to other cells within the DynaRange are dynamically modified, regardless of which type of cell reference (absolute i.e. with $ characters, or relative) is used. A reference to cell $C$5 (with $C$5 being a cell inside the DynaRange) is rewritten to $C$6 in row 6, $C$7 in row 7 etc. This is of course very helpful, for example, if you want to use PALO.DATA() formulas in the DynaRange, as it allows you to dynamically get the data for each referenced element of the DynaRange.
On the other hand, cell references to cells outside of the DynaRange are not re-written, but instead copied as-is in all rows/columns of the activated DynaRange. This in turn allows you to reference static content, such as a cell with connection/database information, or the OLAP cube name. The following screenshot shows the effect in the designer preview of a worksheet:

The simple cell references =$C$5 in column D are dynamically rewritten, each then pointing to cell in column C within their “own” row: =$C$6, =$C$7 etc. Meanwhile, the cell references in column E, pointing (relatively) to A5, are not rewritten. Each cell in column E continues to fetch the value from A5.

Conditional Formatting in DynaRanges

If a Conditional Formatting rule is defined on cell inside of a DynaRange, the rule is also adapted when the DynaRange expands. The way in which the rule is handled depends on the “Applies to” range defined for the rule.
If the “Applies to” range covers all rows of a vertically defined DynaRange, or all columns of a horizontally defined DynaRange, then for this rule, only the “Applies to” range is modified (enlarged or reduced); the rule formula itself, including cell references in it, is not modified. If the rule uses cell references which should adapt automatically to the expanding DynaRange, then the references must be defined as (fully or partially) relative.

In the following example a rule is defined with the “Applies to” range =$D$5:$E$5. The rule should trigger (change the cell background color to green), if the left-most cell of the DynaRange (C5 in Designer Mode) contains the value “2013”: =$C5=”2013″.
Note that the reference is partially relative, with regards to the row:

As the DynaRange – based on a standard “Years” dimension in a Jedox OLAP database – is activated, the “Applies to” range of the rule is automatically adjusted, now covering all rows of the activated DynaRange. Because the row in the cell reference (5) is relative, the lookup is not always done to row 5, but instead row 5, 6, 7 etc.; and because the column reference ($C) is absolute, cells in all columns of the DynaRange lookup the value in column C:

If the cell reference had been fully absolute, $C$5, all cells in the DR would have indeed checked the value of C5, and thus, the Conditional Format would not have been triggered on any cell.
Note that the relativeness of the cell reference comes into play in this scenario regardless of whether the referenced cell is located inside or outside of the DynaRange. In the following example, the CF rule (relatively) references cell A1. As the Apply-Range of the rule is modified during DynaRange activation, each cell in the DynaRange doesn’t check the value in A1; instead, they all check the value of the cell four rows above, and three columns to the left of their own position:

Cloning of Conditional Formatting rules

If the CF rule inside the DynaRange does not cover all rows or columns, this modification of the “Applies to” is not performed. Instead, the rule is cloned for each copied instance of the first row. In following screenshot, the DynaRange from the previous example was modified to now cover two rows:

If the DynaRange is activated, the Conditional Formatting rule is “cloned”, meaning that copies of the rule are created. The cell references inside the rule now are automatically adjusted, similar to references in cells:

The cell references are adjusted during the cloning regardless of whether they are (fully or partially) relative. However, it is still recommended to define relativeness in a proper way in this scenario.
If the cell reference would now point to a cell outside of the DynaRange, it would not have been adjusted during the cloning process, regardless of whether it is relative or absolute. This behavior is also similar to references in cells, as shown in the first screenshot.

In previous versions of Jedox, the “cloning” of Conditional Formatting rules was always applied on DynaRanges, regardless of the “Applies to” range of the rule. This could lead to hundreds of inefficient rules being created on larger DynaRanges, resulting in decreased performance, and high memory usage. The modification of the Apply-range was introduced in Jedox 6.0 SR2. However, it implies that the type of cell references in rules must be handled with greater care, where in previous versions, a reference within the DynaRange that was (incorrectly) defined as fully absolute would still be modified during the cloning process of the rule.

The post DynaRanges, cell references and conditional formatting appeared first on Jedox BI Blog.

Every year, manufacturing companies struggle with the same challenge: planning sales volumes and prices at the same time as production volumes and costs. It’s a chicken-and-the-egg issue between the Marketing and Product Management teams handling the customer side, and the Engineering and Cost Management teams, working on the product side.

When searching for a solution online, one might come to the conclusion that software is the end-all-be-all solution. The truth of the matter is: the value is in the process.

How A Global Toy Company increased visibility and iteration cycles

We recently worked with a toy manufacturer based in Europe. Their Marketing, Product Management, Design, Engineering, and Cost Management departments work together to define the specific product lines and offerings in time for Christmas. From March to August, they define which products will be manufactured and which won’t; what the sales prices will be in various countries and for each box set; and what margins will be made for each set and total overall.

By experience, the key to success in this scenario is not just meeting the targets, but the number of iteration cycles between all the players. Alta Via helped this global company setup two distinct planning loops that facilitate the communication through a custom application.

On the Portfolio Loop, Marketing and Product Management focus on a high-level definition of the product’s functions and features. The Portfolio Team is responsible for the selection of the “best” products for the portfolio based on agreed KPIs. The underlying planning application is used to simulate contribution margins using drivers like sales prices and volumes in order to meet financial targets. One of the critical steps is the definition of Cost Targets for each product.

On the Product Loop, Engineering and Cost Management focus on individual product functions and features. The Product Team is responsible for developing the “best” solution to meet their technical and cost targets. The underlying product costing application is used to estimate production costs using drivers like material quantities and purchase prices, routings, packaging sizes, number of page and quality of documentation, etc. They must also align with operational KPIs like fill rate because … who wants a large box containing only a handful of famous bricks? Setting up this portfolio/product planning process reduced the duration of their iteration cycles from months to weeks, and even down to a few days in critical phases of the portfolio development.

The post Portfolio Planning: The Key is in the Process appeared first on Jedox BI Blog.

The Jedox development team has introduced the second service release of the latest Jedox version 6.0. The release SR2 comprises new features, tweaks and bug fixes, providing Jedox users with improved system stability and performance. Numerous optimizations within the Jedox Excel add-in and MS Office integration further enhance the usability and help making planning, data analysis and reporting with Jedox even more comfortable and efficient.

Jedox OLAP

ATTN Breaking Change: OLAP Accelerator (GPU) CUDA toolkit version change
The CUDA toolkit used for Jedox OLAP Accelerator (GPU) has been updated to version 7.5. An update of the NVIDIA driver is mandatory due to this change. On Windows, the latest driver can be used. On Linux, the driver from 7.5 toolkit should be used.

New goalseek mode: transfer
A new mode is available in goalseek splashing: transfer. This mode allows to transfer from one element to another within one dimension; the subtotals in all other dimensions will stay fixed on their current values after the transfer. The target of the transfer can be a single element or a set of elements. The mode is available in Splashing Wizard in Excel Addin, or can be used on cell inputs by using the “to” keyword, followed by the target element(s), for example, on a cell for element “January” in a month dimension: “500 to February”.

Jedox Web

ATTN Breaking Change: optimization for Conditional Formats in DynaRanges
The usage of conditional format rules in DynaRanges has been optimized. If a CF rule is applied on all rows of a vertical DynaRange, or all columns of a horizontal DynaRange, it will not be copied into multiple rules anymore once the DynaRange is activated (for example in Report Manager). Instead, only the ApplyRange of the rule is modified accordingly.
This change implies that in such rules, the correct type of cell reference (relative or absolute) has to be used. For example, an absolute reference (using $ characters) will now always point to the exact referred cell in such a rule; previously, the reference was adjusted as copies of the rule were created in the DynaRange.

Support for PALO.ESELECT() function
Jedox Web now supports the PALO.ESELECT() function. The function was introduced in Jedox Excel AddIn in version 6.0. It allows specifying a stored subset, which is used to filter element lists shown in the “Select Element” dialog. Additionally, it allows specifying an Alias and an Alias format. Long element lists on specific dimension level are displayed in paged mode. The search in both “Paste Elements” dialog and “Select Element” dialog will now search across the full dimension. Existing PALO.ENAME() formulas will automatically be converted to ESELECT formulas if the Element Picker is used on them.
Usage of the element picker on ESELECT cells is also supported in reports viewed in the Jedox Mobile app.

Configurable size of olap element lists in spreadsheets
The length of element lists retrieved from Olap Server in Jedox Spreadsheets (for example, PALO.SUBSET feeding a combobox) by default is limited to 65336 elements. This limit can now optionally be changed. To change the limit, add a new entry “max_result_size” in palo_config.xml, in the <palo_configuration> element, for example: <max_result_size>256000</max_result_size>

Option to disable Comments panel
A new global option in Jedox Web Settings Manager allows disabling the Comments panel for all Files and Reports. The option can be found in Settings Manager section “Collaboration”. Disabling comments will hide the Comments panel on all reports and files. Existing comments are not deleted. If the setting is changed to show Comments again, previously existing Comments will be visible again.

Option to increase quality of Widgets in PDF
A new global option in Jedox Web Settings Manager allows increasing the quality of Widgets in PDFs. To use the option, add a new key in Settings Manager called “spreadsheet.widget.print_quality_factor”, of type “float”. The default value for the key is 1.0. For higher quality of Widgets in PDF’s, you can increase this value. Values higher than 3.0 will only achieve very minimal changes. When increasing the factor, the size of the output PDF file will also increase.

Please note that the quality also depends on the content of the Widget, the Page Setup settings, the used PDF Viewer and possibly the used printer.

New Spreadsheet Function NETWORKDAYS()
Support for the function NETWORKDAYS() has been added in Jedox Web Spreadsheets. The function works in similar fashion to MS Excel, calculating the amount of working days between a start date and an end date. A single date or list of dates to be excluded from the calculation can be specified optionally.

Extended options for external Report Links
When generating external links to Jedox Reports via a Report’s properties dialog in Report Manager, there are additional options available for “Standalone” links.

You can

• disable Scrolling
• disable the Sheet Selector
• disable “pinch” zooming in Mobile environments

Continuous page numbers in Batch PDF
The Batch PDF Wizard now allows to define PDF header settings for the page and overall number of pages in a Batch PDF. When set in Batch PDF Wizard, the page number will be continuous for the whole generated PDF, and not restart at “1” for each report included in the report.

Additional feature for Conditional Formatting: “Dates Occurring”
A date can now be formatted depending on whether it is “Yesterday”, “Today”, “Tomorrow”, etc.

The screenshot shows all possibilities:

Jedox Integrator

New connection Mongodb
With this connection type it is possible to connect to the document-oriented database MongoDB which stores all data in documents with dynamic schemas and JSON-like field and value pairs.

GenericDB connection
The specification of the driver class of the JDBC driver is no longer obligatory. It only has to be set for legacy JDBC drivers which are not JDBC 4.0 compliant.

New extract Mongodb
This extract type can query data from a MongoDB.

Technical Health
In 6.0 SR2 following target platforms have been added to the supported list:

• Microsoft Office 2016
• Windows 10

The post Service Release – What’s New in Jedox 6.0 SR2? appeared first on Jedox BI Blog.

Two-tone charts…and the challenges of managing multiple series:

Dotted line…?

One of our customers came with an interesting request:

What if you change the graph to a dotted line where it changes from actuals to forecast?

Jedox charts are a great way to provide a quick overview of your data. Most of us have used graphs before and are familiar with the basic features. However, some may have struggled to create a graph that goes beyond standard.

The mentioned request led to such an example.

At first you would expect that this is not possible with Jedox charts. And yes, Jedox charts do not have a feature of creating a dotted line. The alternative would be a different color and works like a charm. We can define it manually.

Line chart

Let’s say you have monthly FTE numbers of a department. Actuals are available up till and including July. The actuals graph should be ‘extended’ with a forecast towards the end of the year. Here’s a simple and effective set-up.

1. Create a table with two series:

• one for your actuals,
• one for your forecast
• (and another one for your budget if you like)

2. The header row contains the months
3. In July, copy the realized value to the forecast and start forecasting from August

The data range for your chart would look like this:

Next, set up a line chart based on that data range. Jedox will automatically group data properly (your series are grouped by row).

Change the colors of the graphs as you like. In this example, the blue line is dark for actuals and light for the forecast. Right-click anywhere on the series chart and choose ‘Format Data Series’:

Your chart:

Line chart vs. XY scatter plot

The above example shows how easily you can work with different series in a line chart. So what about a scatter plot? It may look similar, but the data range needs an important change.

Main reason: A line chart makes use of one category for all series whereas a scatter plot uses one category per series. So you need to include x-values for Budget, Forecast and Realized. Please note that the series labels (first column) are put on the row of the category values (x axis).

The data range for your chart would now look like this:

Next, set up a scatter plot based on that data range. Jedox will not automatically group data properly. Select the following options:

Your chart:

Tips and tricks

• Each series added to the bottom of the table, will show on top of the others in the chart
• In the scatter plot, the automatic setting of major units on the category axis is 2. Change this manually to 1 in order to show all months.
• The series labels for the scatter plot source data are put on the row of the category values (x axis).
• Vertical grid lines may help the user to ‘read’ the chart. This is only possible in the XY scatter plot. Set the minor unit of the category axis to 1 and each month will have a grid line:
• If you have more series, you may consider changing some of them to another Chart Type.

Wishing you lots of creativity!

Download: Example *.wss file

Footnote: Line charts will evenly distribute values along the category axis, indifferent of their value. Take for example three data points at x=3, x=15 and x=16: the distance between 3 and 15 is the same as between 15 and 16: one unit. Therefore, both text and numeric values can be used. On the other hand, thescatter plot only allows numeric values on the category axis. As a result, data points will be plotted at a relative position along the category axis. As we may expect, there are 12 units between 3 and 15 whereas there is still one unit between 15 and 16.

The post How to create two-tone charts with Jedox appeared first on Jedox BI Blog.

Hundreds of companies are now completing their year-end, quarter end, and month-end close and reporting processes.  This can be a stressful process, running for weeks, probably even months, if you need to include the creation of year-end regulatory filings, year-end audits, and tax filings.  But with the right tools and processes in place, the year-end close and reporting process can be less stressful and painful.

If you’ve paid any attention at all to the latest business technology news and trends, then you’ve undoubtedly heard that Cloud technology is taking over the business world.  As the world becomes more global and interconnected, having instant access to business data and information is becoming more important than ever and having access to the same tools and applications you have at work is crucial in today’s fast-paced business environment.

With a Cloud-based software approach, business executives, financial leaders and sales personnel can access the data and information they need to perform their jobs properly.

When you look at the benefits of using Cloud-based budgeting software, it’s easy to see why companies want to move to the Cloud. Cloud-based solutions require less IT work than traditional, on-premises solutions, freeing up your IT department to focus on more important matters or eliminating the need for in-house IT altogether. Cloud solutions are flexible and easy to use, and most solutions can be accessed with any device that can connect to the Internet.  However, the main allure of adopting a Cloud-based solution is the cost savings it offers both small and large businesses.

Apart from this reason, there are three powerful motivators driving an appetite for moving toward a Cloud-based solution and looking at a system replacement, upgrade or enhancement:

1. Saving costs with systems that are too expensive to run or upgrade
2. Moving away from current systems that are too fragmented
3. Gaining access to big data analytics

Cost Savings in the Cloud

Cloud computing can create a significant return on a company’s investment – savings in licencing costs, administrative costs, energy costs – freeing up capital and people to innovate on new ideas.

A 2013 study by Rackspace, in conjunction with the Manchester Business School and Vanson Bourne, found that 88% users highlighted the fact that moving to the cloud saved them money, including reducing the need for their IT team to maintain an internal infrastructure.  Moreover, these savings enabled them to focus on strategy and innovation by reinvesting it back into the business.

And it’s not just the running costs – adopting a cloud-based solution means that you can minimise your capital costs.  Running your own servers requires up-front capital costs. But in the world of cloud-computing, financing that capital investment can be avoided, freeing up that capital so it can be saved or invested elsewhere in the business.

An additional cost that can be saved by moving to a cloud solution is that you no longer need to buy more hardware than you need in order to build in redundancies in case of failure.  In extreme cases, you need to duplicate everything.  Having spare hardware lying idle is an expensive way to maximise uptime.

Integrated Solutions

Cloud computing is also a compelling option for businesses of all sizes as it offers low cost of entry and ownership and faster time to market compared to traditional on-premise business software and servers.  This allows the business to reassess whether its existing business applications footprint for finance, sales, marketing, customer service, etc. will effectively support the growth of the business. Many businesses that started out with ad hoc, standalone applications will determine they need to upgrade to a more flexible cloud-based platform to support continued growth.

A note of caution – It’s important to recognise that while the cloud model resolves many problems of on-premise software ‘fragmentation’, adopting cloud applications as standalone silos will simply introduce inefficiencies, integration challenges and IT and administrative overhead of their own.   To avoid these limitations, it is essential to have a collection of cloud applications that are integrated around a single codebase and database, and which contain an integrated business process perspective.

Analytics & The Cloud

The world is experiencing a data explosion.  As a result, today’s companies are processing an astonishing 1,000 times more data than they did only a decade ago. On top of this, thanks to the proliferation of social media, 80 percent of the world’s data is unstructured, an unorganised chaotic conglomeration of tweets, likes, videos, photos, blogs—you name it—that cannot be analysed by traditional methods. Moreover, there are a number of ‘Big Data’ analytics platforms that have the capability to analyse all available data, both structured and unstructured. And it’s the cloud that makes the whole process easier and more accessible to both large and small enterprises.

Executives with cloud experience said in a recent IDG survey that cloud analytics offers more benefits than on-premises analytics offerings.  The most common use cases cited in the survey included incorporating cloud-based analytics into operational applications such as customer relationship management, supply chain management and HR systems, along with the ability to analyse cloud data sources.

Conclusion

Cloud based applications are having a profound effect on the finance function, saving money as well as driving increased efficiency and convenience.  Cloud computing eliminates the inefficiencies of spreadsheets in budgeting, planning and forecasting processes by enabling organisations to centralise their business models, implement standard processes, improve collaboration and control, as well as accelerate the budget cycle and time to decision.  With lower costs, enhanced convenience and improved budget performance, smart CFOs can have their cake and eat it.

Jedox Cloud

For a state-of-the-art cloud-based Budgeting, Forecasting and Planning solution, Jedox Cloud provides you with fast and cost-effective alternative.  Within the Jedox Cloud you can enjoy full Jedox functionality on-demand, with: No hardware, no software downloads, no facilities, no setup and configuration – just one Jedox cloud for all your planning, analysis and reporting.

Jedox makes your transition to cloud Budgeting and Planning easy.  Recognised by Gartner, BARC, Butler Analytics, and CeBIT, Jedox gives you self-service analytics and advanced budgeting, planning and forecasting capabilities, all on the cloud.  You gain a scaleable, cost-effective, and secure reporting, analysis, and planning

The post Why traditional, on-premises budgeting software is quickly becoming obsolete in favour of Cloud solutions appeared first on Jedox BI Blog.

Jedox R&D team is pleased to announce that the new app version of our Social Analytics App is now available in all App Stores! We have added two great analytics features to get even more out of the Twitter data:

New Jedox 6.0 SR2 Server

With the update Jedox Analytics uses the brand new Jedox 6.0 SR2 Server. You can learn about all the new features and performance upgrades here.

We’ve also added a lot of nice little features, like saved settings or optimized usability with new smart phone OS versions, stability fixes and performance improvements to ensure an even better user experience. And we have a new logo!

The iOS version of our App is now ready to support the new 3D map functionality of Apple Maps! See your Tweets in a 3D view of the world or any supported city and enjoy the wonderful 3D view combined with current Tweets or images in real-time!

Download Social Analytics App

Download the app in Windows Store (Windows Desktop / Windows Phone), Google Play Store (Android) or App Store (iOS).

The post Jedox Social Analytics 1.1 is out now! appeared first on Jedox BI Blog.

This blog entry will describe how to start a ETL job from a report. Many of you know this situation, if you want to implement a simple button in a report, which has a function to start an ETL job. So you can start ETL jobs from the report manager. There are many ways how to solve this problem and here is a description of one solution.

First of all, create a new spreadsheet. Now you can insert a button, which will start the macro. On the right side you can select the required information like ETL project name, job name etc. Additionally, you can implement two Combo Boxes, which will list the ETL projects and jobs. The result will look like this:

After you have selected the required information, you can create a new macro. The macro code looks like this:

  require library('integrator');
  // adapt protocol, host, port here to match your setup
  define('ETL_URL','http://127.0.0.1:7775');

  // wait for job to finish prior returning status
  define('WAIT_FOR_FINISH', true);

  // max execution time of script in seconds used in combination with WAIT_FOR_FINISH
  define('MAX_EXECUTION_TIME', 20);

  $prj = retrieve_variable  ('Project');
  $job = retrieve_variable  ('Job');
  $variables = array(array('name' => 'vColor', 'value' => activesheet()->range("H9")->value));


  $id = integrator_start_job($prj, $job, $variables, WAIT_FOR_FINISH, MAX_EXECUTION_TIME, '' , $_JEDOX['OLAP_SESSION_ID'], ETL_URL);


  if ( $id )
    {
	// if the $id will return true, the ETL job will start

		return [[ 'actn', 'refreshData' ],
			   [ 'msg',"Info" , "Info","Job done"]];
	}
  else
    {
	return __msgbox("Error! ETL Job not started");
    }

You can download a -zip-file with the report including the required macro, as well as the sampleBiker ETL project, by clicking here.

By opening the macro editor you will see three other methods getJobs(), getProjects() and soapConnect(). The first two function will fetch the list of all projects and jobs. Last but not least the method SoapConnect() will establish a connection to the SOAP interface of the ETL integrator.

After assigning the macro to your button, you can try to start for example the default job of the “sampleBiker” project. If all information and parameters have been passed right, the status should be set on “Completed successfully”:

The post How to Start an ETL Job From a Report appeared first on Jedox BI Blog.

Reporting for internal decision-makers and business partners

SSP Deutschland is the German market leader for travel gastronomy. The company with 3,000 employees provides a mix of local and international brands to travelers in airports, train stations and rest stops. The company is part of the international SSP Group, which serves over 1 million travelers daily at 600 locations in 29 countries throughout Europe, Asia, North America and Northern Africa.

Modernizing the BI environment

The secret recipe of the experienced service provider is its custom concepts and brand portfolio tailored to travelers’ needs in each location and country. A BI system delivers these insights for the company’s operations in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. As the demands on its first-generation BI solution continued to mount, performance took an unacceptable downturn. It soon took minutes to refresh reports during queries or in the planning process. That is when the decision fell to build a brand-new BI landscape.

Powerful, user-friendly planning

SSP wanted a BI solution that supported its planning and reporting requirements and fast data analysis in a Web portal. Since reporting at SSP is targeted to many different users with varying levels of IT skills, easy handling was a key requirement for the new solution. Aside from its own managers for each location and region, the company also sends reports to external business partners, such as the franchisers for the brands that SSP covers and the retail landlords at each location. Jedox, with its high-performance database and user interface similar to Excel, proved to be the ideal solution for these requirements.

Central information hub

Within a short time, the experienced BI project team at SSP quickly implemented its entire reporting in Jedox. Senior executives, users in various business departments as well as the location and regional managers can now access individual reports through Jedox Web. The executive team also uses the Excel add-in for in-depth analysis. The same system automatically generates and sends the reports to the external business partners.

Clean data model ensures efficiency

Aside from internal data from SAP and Microsoft Dynamics NAV, the BI platform combines information from many third-party systems, including various cash register systems of the franchise partners. Jedox supports the entire requirements of different report consumers and data suppliers in a single, consistent, efficient reporting environment. The users, in particular, appreciate the ultrafast performance. SSP worked with Jedox consultants during the implementation to maximize the speed of the powerful underlying technology through new ETL processes and optimized data cubes. The company now profits from data imports in seconds, real-time calculations and easy administration of the entire application.

Real-time aggregation of budget values and complex KPIs

Aside from monthly financial statements and budget balance sheets, the system also supports granular sales planning to show cost of sales and margin for individual articles. It also includes differentiated staff planning with personal scorecards, for example, to address the typical peak times (e.g. rush hour) in the train stations. Jedox automatically calculates “like for like” sales as a clean benchmark for organic growth. Clearly designed scorecards and real-time KPIs help steer the various locations individually.

Thanks to Jedox, SSP Deutschland can also support the growing information requirements of its public mother company. Jedox analyses currently serve as benchmarks for the entire SSP Group.

“Thanks to the real-time consolidations, our planning is always up to date and much faster than before” said Horst Schlereth, Head of Controlling, SSP – The Food Travel Experts

Benefits

• Implementing a comprehensive reporting portal for 320 users in under 4 months
• Real-time consolidations in the planning process
• Single BI platform for internal and external reporting
• 220 x faster data imports from various sources (10 seconds instead of 40 minutes)

READ THE WHOLE CUSTOMER SUCCESS STORY | SSP

The post Jedox delivers fast food for thought: Automatic, real-time calculations of like-for-like sales for SSP appeared first on Jedox BI Blog.

Global partnership combines Qlik’s visual analytics platform with Jedox’s advanced Enterprise Planning and Budgeting capabilities  

Jedox AG, a leading vendor of Enterprise Planning software, today announced a global partnership with Qlik® (NASDAQ: QLIK), a leader in visual analytics, to provide organizations with enterprise-grade planning, budgeting, and forecasting.

“Jedox and Qlik business partners have been asking us for a deeper integration to take advantage of both leading-edge technologies,” commented Kay-Ingo Greve, CEO at Jedox. “I am very happy about this joint step forward. The partnership with Qlik is a perfect fit to provide customers and channel partners with one unified Business Intelligence and Enterprise Planning solution to simplify their complex planning and budgeting processes.”

“This partnership with Jedox responds to the growing demand to empower business users with flexible visual analysis solutions and powerful enterprise planning functionality that immediately provides relevant information and insight,” said Toni Adams, Senior Vice President of Partners and Alliances, Qlik. “Thanks to the partnership between Qlik and Jedox, companies will have greater insight into financial information and metrics that drive decision-making processes, resulting in a significant competitive advantage.”

Building on native connectivity between Qlik and Jedox software, the two companies will extend their collaboration to offer customers the best of both worlds: self-service data visualization, analytics, and reporting with collaborative enterprise planning and data collection functionality. Customers using Qlik with Jedox will benefit from accelerated planning processes, workflow and collaboration, as well as powerful driver-based planning, what-if scenarios, and predictive analytics. Business users can create budgets and adjust forecasts in Jedox and immediately visualize them in Qlik’s visual analytics platform.

Both organizations were recently recognized by Gartner in their respective domains – Jedox in the “Magic Quadrant for Strategic CPM Solutions” and Qlik as a leader in the “Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms”.

To learn more how Jedox and Qlik empower businesses to get the best of BI and CPM, please download the free whitepaper:

The post Jedox Forms Partnership with Qlik to Simplify Planning for Analytics Users Worldwide appeared first on Jedox BI Blog.

(Jedox topped 12 categories in this year’s BARC Planning Survey. Our new 12-part blog series tells you why “Business Benefits”, “Ease of Use” or “Implementation support” should be on your check list when choosing business software. 6th category: Project Success)

Key Reasons why IT Projects Fail

“I have not failed,” Thomas Edison famously said. “I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Today he would find plenty of company in many organizations implementing IT projects. If one scans the literature and business press, it may be possible to find 10,000 reasons attached to failed IT projects; but a number of suspects appear more frequently than others.

An article in Information Week says enterprises can track large IT project failures to several key reasons:

• Poor or ambiguous sponsorship
• Confusing or changing requirements
• Inadequate skills or resources
• Poor design or inappropriate use of new technology

Complexity Leads to Failure

A recent Gartner study by Susan Moore makes a simple, powerful assertion: complexity leads to failure:

Gartner studied more than 50 projects that are on the public record as having experienced complete failure, have been seriously compromised, or have overrun their IT budgets significantly. The analysis showed that the organization’s refusal to address complexity in the business process is the main reason. Complex projects with unrealistic goals, unproven teams, and almost no accountability at all levels of the management and governance structure means no one is responsible for failure.

Over-Optimism: Too Big a Solution Right from the Start

The Australian version of CIO agrees about complexity, but adds another interesting failure factor: over-optimism. The article contends that over-optimism results in unrealistic schedules, and we have a feeling it also contributes to oversized projects. Too many businesses want too big a solution right from the start.

A more sensible approach to technology implementation, espoused by futurist Jim Carroll at the recent Automotive Manufacturing Summit sponsored by Siemens, is “Think big. Start small. Scale fast.” Through a measured “walk before you run” approach, Jedox provides coaching and self-service that facilitates customers implementing IT initiatives that succeed on time and on budget. A good example is how Jedox worked with Salesforce to provide enhanced reporting for better understanding of client behavior at Zimmer, a worldwide leader in musculoskeletal healthcare. You can see the details here.

What Users Are Saying about Project Success

For those involved in business software selection, among the most important resources are the independent assessments done by the Business Application Research Center (BARC). BARC just released its 2016 Planning Survey, the world’s largest survey of planning software users.
Among those using development-oriented planning solutions (i.e., solutions that allow customers to implement totally individual planning requirements), Jedox ranked number one in terms of project success, scoring higher than the peer group average (9.1 vs. 5.4) in that sector and higher than their nearest competitor (9.1 vs. 6.3). Here is BARC’s viewpoint on Jedox’s top-ranking performance in this category:

“Jedox software usually requires little effort to install and short implementation cycles. Projects are frequently completed on time and on budget so customers are generally satisfied with their implementations. This leads to a top ranking in the “development-oriented planning solutions” peer group […]”
(Source: BARC THE Planning Survey 16)

Think big. Start small. Scale fast.

“We met all our deadlines, completely rebuilding many models along the way. Following implementation, we used Jedox for our first sales planning session – a huge success for our team.” – Michael Bailey, Senior Manager Controlling, Sanofi

To see a comprehensive list of Jedox customers, including a number of use cases that provide the details of successful projects, you can go to our client list. To download the complete summary of Jedox in the BARC study at no cost, you can go here.

The post Why IT Projects Fail (Pt. 6) appeared first on Jedox BI Blog.