The term ad-hoc report development has long been part of the analytics lexicon, dare I say a buzzword. The idea of self-service analytics has been a clarion call for many of the major analytics providers - create tools and environments that empower the business users to develop their own analytics, with little or no support from IT required. This self-fulfilling prophecy has never fully materialized, and has only been relevant on the report development side of the analytics functions spectrum.
As mentioned in the previous blog post, the new release of Cognos Analytics presents an entirely new experience across the IBM analytics professional spectrum from consumer, to report/dashboard developer, to data modeler. Perhaps the most exciting and compelling changes are experienced by individuals actively curating, developing, and sharing analytics in Cognos.
Topics: Cognos Analytics
The official release of IBM Cognos Analytics (aka Cognos 11) represents a major re-write of the Cognos business analytics tools (not to mention, a re-branding of a re-brand). I’ve recently attended a Cognos Analytics training session and spent some time working in a Cognos Analytics environment.
Gary Quirke and I had the pleasure of organizing and presenting “A Power Users' Guide to the TM1 SDK and Planning Analytics” at the 2016 IBM Vision conference on Orlando, Florida. Our goal for the presentation was to provide attendees with a picture of the possible with the TM1 SDK, targeted toward both non-programmers and programmers who simply want to understand the alternative ways in which we can solve real business problems, new and old, using the powerful TM1 SDK tools that IBM has provided, which include the REST API, Java Extensions and TM1 Web APIs. We received very positive feedback, so thank you to everyone who was able to attend!
Topics: TM1
Effective dashboards form the backbone of a powerful business intelligence strategy, as well as the essential entry point in becoming an analytics-driven organization. Dashboards support fast and effective decision-making, provide valuable insight into key performance indicators, and make reporting simple and fast.
Over just the past few years, technology has created a massive shift in how finance organizations operate and how they’re expected to perform. For more than 20 years Excel has led the field as a business finance tool, but now alternative tools such as Google Spreadsheets and a variety of BI software platforms have matured and begun to edge into Excel’s business. At the same time, new financial modeling, database, and analytics software has entered the market to provide deeper, real-time capabilities that help companies optimize every aspect of their business.
According to an April 2015 survey, fewer than half of finance leaders are satisfied with their organization’s budgeting methods. This will come as no surprise to anyone who has been involved in the lengthy, sometimes mind-numbing process of assembling and re-keying data in order to create a budget document that may simply be set aside as soon as it’s complete. Some organizations require as much as eight months to complete the budgeting process, at which point all of the painstakingly collected data is eight months obsolete.
Nobody intends to create a cumbersome labyrinth of financial modeling systems, yet it happens to even the best of organizations. As the business adds new departments, software, and leadership, financial models are pasted together to meet growing needs. Each team uses data from ERP, HR, General Ledger, and other systems in order to create reports and make decisions. Unfortunately, the larger the organization grows, the more disconnected the models can become.
