The InfoBurst team at InfoSol is relocating their Infoburst2009 site to a new web address. Visit the new product blog at infosolblog.com/infoburst
As Xcelsius becomes more widely used and more mature, the level of complexity and creativity in its usage in Business Intelligence applications appears to grow exponentially. This was the third year of InfoSol’s Best Xcelsius Dashboard Awards and there was no shortage of great dashboards on display at IBIS 2010 at the Ritz Carlton, Laguna Niguel, California.
IBIS 2010 Winners
| Most Valuable Dashboard | SPX Service Solutions | Detroit, MI |
| Most Innovative Dashboard | United Educators | Washington, DC |
| Best Business Dashboard | Aluchemie | Rotterdam, Netherlands |
| Most Xcellent Dashboard | ARI | Mt. Laurel, NJ |
SPX wins Most Valuable Dashboard
This year’s winner of the Most Valuable Dashboard was SPX Service Solutions who developed a series of complex dashboards to provide on-line interactive views of Global Strategic Customers and Line of Business P&L’s for company executives and financial managers. The data was retrieved from an SAP BW (Business Warehouse) and delivered comparisons and analysis never previously available. The number of possible comparisons and drill-downs is huge and created some real challenges for the BI/BW team at SPX in terms of the amount of data to be retrieved. However, SPX overcame the data quantity and performance hurdles by using InfoBurst XDS with its Intelligent Caching.
The Most Innovative Dashboard Award is for the dashboard that is designed and developed in an innovative way or for an innovative solution. United Educators, who provide insurance to educational institutions, needed a solution to enable their clients to Self-Serve and Leverage Policy Data to make informed decisions. The United Educators dashboard application was certainly an innovative solution with its peer selection function that retained anonymity of the institutions being compared. Also, the design using selection /de-selection of multiple peer groups and write-back to prevent users “gaining” the system was unique and creative.
Best Business Dashboard won by Aluchemie
The Best Business Dashboard was awarded to Aluchemie, a manufacturer of anodes needed for the electrolysis process by which aluminum is extracted from ore, based in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. They were looking for a way to get Team Leaders, Production Managers and Executives excited about the roll out of their Manufacturing Execution System software, used to manage and monitor work-in-process on the factory floor. Xcelsius was the answer and they created a comprehensive set of options in a multi-tab dashboard with more than 120 different dynamic graphs showing trend analysis along with shift-by-shift and day-by-day comparisons of key production line metrics. The dashboard revolutionized their manufacturing reporting and brought to light critical production issues that could be seen clearly for the first time. As one Team Leader put it, he felt like they were finally, “coming out of the Stone Age”.
ARI receives Most Xcellent Dashboard Award - IBIS 2010
Last but not least, the Most Xcellent Xcelsius Dashboard was won by ARI, an international fleet Vehicle Leasing and Management Company. ARI already had the ability to compare and analyze key life cycle metrics of any vehicles through their existing customer portal but they wanted to make it more visually dynamic and add even more useful functionality. They used Xcelsius to create a visually intuitive interface with picture icons, dynamic sliders and a lot of pizzazz.
ARI’s Dashboard Prototype was shown at a key trade show and received rave reviews.
Representatives of the winning companies received their prestigious glass pyramid awards and also participated in a customer panel to explain how their dashboards were conceived and how their respective businesses are benefitting from them. In addition, three of the winners also presented insightful case studies on their dashboards.
The stream of articles, white papers and videos desperately trying to convince the business community of the negative impact of poor data quality on their bottom line seems to be never ending. It almost seems like the IT brigade is marching into a cul-de-sac at the end of which is a brick wall with three large letters written on it – ‘ROI’. Data Quality projects share their dreaded fate with all other projects emanating from the IT division and including the geeky word ‘data’ in their title. While the management continues to remain blissfully ignorant of the unsettling financial and human consequences of bad data, customers, employees and business itself continues to suffer from ‘Data Quality Blues’.
The one technology in recent years that has managed to captivate the business users in organizations across the globe is undoubtedly – Dashboards. Dashboards speak to them in a language which they are familiar with, the language of graphs, charts and metrics. The BI Dashboard serves as an abstraction layer that shields the business users from the intricate and unwelcoming world of the ‘Data Churners’. It is this instrument therefore, that should be leveraged to enlighten the management of financial losses that are incurred due to a seemingly trivial typo error or a misplaced digit in the sales figures. Although this may not be the panacea one is looking for, creating a real-time dashboard which attaches a price tag to every data quality issue and extrapolates the figures to demonstrate their long term impact, may just act like a sip of coffee that will stimulate their business senses.
Here’s an example of a Data Quality Dashboard
This dashboard was the outcome of the convergence of three technologies: BO Data Quality, InfoBurst 2009, and Xcelsius. Bundling a DQ dashboard with DQ Services benefits in the following ways:
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Photo Credit: Sieve photo in this post from Wikimedia
I arrived late at night at Copenhagen airport and headed for the taxi rank to get to my hotel. As I exited the terminal, there was a large sign pointing to “Danish Taxis” to the right and “Swedish Taxis” to the left. Not understanding the difference, I figured I should opt for the Danish taxis since I was in Denmark. As we drove to the hotel, I asked the driver about the Swedish taxis and he explained that they were cheaper but they take you to Sweden so I guess I made the right choice!
I checked in at the Kong Arthur Hotel (Kong being King in Danish) and made it to my room where this huge modern painting hung above my bed. 
I have included a picture since it will have different interpretations to each viewer. At that time it was saying to me “No matter how tied up in knots you are, come to bed”. In the morning, I noticed there was both the outline of a man and a woman in the picture and I had a totally different interpretation.
Although I did not see a lot of Denmark in one day, I did get to meet quite a few Danish people in my meetings and learned that Denmark is the home of Lego, Lager beer, ham and Vikings. I also noticed that the average Dane is significantly taller than the average European – must be that special beer and ham!
I was visiting one of the largest companies in Denmark where a couple of the divisions use BusinessObjects for their Business Intelligence. They were interested in finding a better way to schedule, publish and distribute their reports so I showed them a demonstration of the new InfoBurst 2009 along with presenting a few customer case studies. They were particularly excited about the ability of InfoBurst to apply Excel macro post processing. It seems they, like many other companies, have large numbers of Excel users that want all their Business Intelligence reports delivered in Excel format but publishing reports directly from BusinessObjects to Excel does not provide all the features in the Excel output that they want delivered to the user. For example, one customer wanted to make use of data grouping and outlining within Excel for one-click collapse and expansion of individual data groupings in the report. In addition, they wanted each and every data group and outline to be automatically collapsed in the initial delivery of the report – keeping the report compact and easier to view. This simply cannot be done publishing from BusinessObjects to Excel but with InfoBurst 2009, you can execute a VBA macro following report production and produce a revised version of the report for publishing.
This caused great excitement amongst my Danish audience and there were smiles and vigorous hand shaking at the end of the meeting. I think they really appreciated the logical building block of adding the Excel post-processing – just like Lego!
I arrive in Paris in the middle of a train strike and I am expecting the worst but as I step off the Eurostar train from London (not on strike – different company) and jump on the Metro (not on strike – different company), I notice nothing unusual. I was told by a close friend who lives in France that strikes have become a way of life there since they are so numerous and people have learned to adapt. In fact, I end up arriving at my appointment early and so I have time to go to lunch with the people I am meeting at SAP.
Eating in France is not so much a necessity as it is a religion. It is not to be rushed and the social aspect is as important as the eating itself. Needless to say, the discussion over lunch was really interesting and stimulating as we exchanged ideas on the future of various Business Intelligence solutions.
During the meeting and demonstrations after lunch, I was able to see the SAP Explorer solution running on an iPhone which I know the Londoner’s will love (see my BLOG from Day 1). I was also able to share the latest features of InfoBurst 2009 with the people from SAP.
At my next meeting that day with another partner, I started with the demonstrations and update on InfoBurst 2009. This was quite interesting since one of the people in the room did not speak English but he seemed to catch on due to the visual and intuitive nature of the solution. It also helped that I was very animated when I presented and when he looked really bemused, I threw in a sentence in French. This always seemed to make him laugh and I was not sure if this was because my poor French or due to my “Inspector Clouseau” accent.
After this meeting I went to dinner with the partner and, again, had a great conversation about strategy which was so much easier over a meal than in a board room.
My “take away” for the day was that the best way to do business in France is while eating and that if ever the restaurants went on strike in France, it would bring business to a standstill!