Business Intelligence Success Stories Using InetSoft

Read about the benefits of business intelligence. Hear how organizations are using business intelligence solutions. Some provide their managers performance management dashboarding. Others use data mashup technology to combine disparate data sources to provide comprehensive dashboard reporting. All of them leverage InetSoft's business intelligence technology to derive intelligence from their data.

Nebraska Educational Service Unit #1 selected InetSoft’s business intelligence software. The state organized support agency uses InetSoft’s Style Scope business intelligence application to gain advanced analytics and reporting on student performance and programs run by the special education department.

Style Scope is an edition of the InetSoft business intelligence software application, Style Intelligence, that allows organizations to gain better insight from their operational data stores and data warehouses using interactive, web-based analytical and monitoring dashboards and drillable, flexibly designed reports. The application includes a drag-and-drop self-service custom dashboard and report designer that facilitates rapid deployment requiring minimal training.

In addition to providing more visually compelling operational dashboards, the application also enables sophisticated, but intuitive, visual analysis with a multi-dimensional charting engine and point and click input controls such as filter box lists, drop-down selection lists, and range sliders.

While the majority of buyers of business intelligence software may be for-profit corporations, many not-for-profit organizations recognize the need for advanced information management solutions, as well.

The Nebraska Educational Service Unit #1 (ESU #1) is one such organization. Like commercial users, storing and managing data is just the beginning of their information management needs. Reporting, performance management, and trends analysis are what bring intelligence and value to any information management solution, including ESU #1’s. ESU #1 provides a host of services to kindergarten, elementary, middle and high schools in northeast Nebraska ranging from equipment and IT services to staff development to therapy and educational programs for handicapped children.

The special education department offers a variety of services and programs to assist children such as audiology, deaf education, and post-graduation transition. The staff now is able to take student data from a variety of different sources and combine them in a meaningful way. The goal of this activity is to measure the department’s own performance and identify strengths and weaknesses in particular programs.

Prior to using InetSoft’s business intelligence system, the limited visibility into such data made doing such analysis an ad hoc and arduous process at best. The need was recognized for more advanced reporting and analytics. A handful of options were evaluated and ultimately InetSoft was chosen because it could be integrated into other Web-based systems and because it proved to be the most cost-effective solution in the long-run.

SUNRx selected InetSoft’s Style Scope for internal use by various departments and the executive management team. The pharmacy technology and services provider uses InetSoft's interactive dashboard software to track industry specific KPIs such as prescription rejection rates as well as traditional financial metrics such as account receivables.

The enterprise-wide deployment of Style Scope has accommodated comprehensive information ‘dashboarding’ and reporting, spanning multiple data sources and applications including: Microsoft SharePoint, SQL Server, and Sage SalesLogix. The ability to create integrated performance metrics dashboards from disparate data sources, and an easier-to-use self-service reporting tool, were key drivers for this business intelligence project. Additionally, SUNRx sought a visual analysis tool that could perform OLAP analysis, but would not require the skills and overhead of a team of database analysts.

The company has been impressed with the visual appeal and ease-of-use of the interactive dashboarding software. They have also found InetSoft to be a flexible solution — an important feature to a fast growing company like SUNRx. Reason for selecting InetSoft included the cross platform data access, deployment options, including potential integration into other Web-based applications, and the flexibility of software licensing terms.