These same respondents ranked “achieving operational efficiency”, “containing costs”, and “managing inventory” as their top priorities for improvement due to the effect these areas would have on the overall performance of the organization.

So if these organizations want to improve their business performance, why aren’t they analyzing their operational, financial, and inventory data to help them make business decisions?

It may be because 24% of them believe they don’t have a budget for a business intelligence project, 17% believe BI takes too long to implement and provide a ROI, 10% don’t have the right skills in house to take advantage of business intelligence, and 7% don’t understand the benefits it can bring to their organization.

If you are using a Microsoft Dynamics ERP or CRM solution and you are still relying on intuition rather than insight to make your business decisions because you fall into one of the categories above, then you are wasting some of the investment that you have already made in your software and putting your business at risk unnecessarily.

Every Microsoft Dynamics solution includes easy to implement, easy to learn, and easy to use data analysis and business intelligence tools “out-of-the-box.” To learn more about what analytics tools are included in your Microsoft Dynamics solution, contact us today.

There’s an old adage that says “a picture is worth a thousand words.”  Maybe that’s why businesses today are scrapping their traditional reports with endless rows of tabular data and replacing them with business intelligence tools and visual dashboards that are simple to read and even easier to use. 

Years ago, Business Intelligence (“BI”) seemed nothing more than a popular buzzword and the exclusive domain of large enterprise companies with even larger IT budgets.  But as the technology has matured, today’s BI is more than just a buzzword.  It’s an affordable necessity for small and medium-sized businesses that want a competitive edge.

The Right Information at the Right Time
BI is an umbrella term that describes a variety of tools involved in the process of gathering & organizing data into graphical views, charts, and meaningful reports that enable quick and informed decisions. Put simply, BI delivers the right information in the right format to the right person at the right time. 

In a traditional reporting environment, a manager or executive might request a report that looks across multiple departments and often multiple software systems.  IT then scrambles to gather mounds of data, piece it together, and deliver a report that’s chock full of static data and rarely complemented by graphs and charts.  The resulting “information overload” can delay important business decisions.  But with BI, this whole process is quickly becoming a thing of the past.

No “Techie” Required
An important aspect of BI tools is that they enable non-technical users (like employees, managers and executives) to create charts and analytical reports that interpret large volumes of real-time data without the need for a technical degree.  The “real-time” distinction is important because too often, key decision makers are forced to wait while the data they need is extracted and compiled in a report that arrives well “after the fact.”  The ultimate objective of BI is to empower business software users to access more relevant, timely, and better quality information.

It’s As Easy as Driving a Car
One of the most important elements of BI tools is dashboard-style reporting.  One glance at the dashboard in your car tells you everything you need to know about your speed, fuel, oil temperature, and other vital systems to ensure your car runs smoothly.  The same thing can be said about a reporting dashboard that provides visual analysis of business activity.  Dashboards aggregate vital information that is scattered across your business and consolidates that information into a single screen providing you with a snapshot to quickly interpret trends and correlations at a glance.

Dashboards can be customized to include only the information that you feel is vital to your role in the company or for the smooth operation of your business.  These vital bits of data are sometimes referred to as key performance indicators, or KPIs.  Furthermore, dashboards can pull data from just about any source which makes it easy to combine financial information from your accounting system with non-financial metrics maintained in some other database.

It’s Not Just for “The Suits”
One of the nice things about BI is that it works great as both a strategic and operational tool.  Strategically, managers and owners can analyze trends, gross profit margins, what products are selling, which sales people are performing, where you stack up against the competition, and other key performance indicators. 

Operationally, departmental personnel can streamline their daily procedures.  Consider the example of a collections department that goes through a series of tasks, reports, call logs, customer notes, and possibly information in external spreadsheets to determine which customers are overdue.  Using BI, all of those tasks and data can be consolidated into a single “Collections Dashboard” that provides a graphical snapshot of overdue customers along with “click of a button” access to underlying detailed account data when needed.

Picture Your Business Using the Power of BI
Business Intelligence has changed the reporting landscape for small and medium-sized businesses.  Contact us and discover how companies like yours are using BI and Dashboard Reporting to get a better picture of business operations and a leg up on the competition.

For more information, read our whitepaper: “The Truth About Analytics”

During one of the sessions here at the BI Conference I learned about a new feature to SQL Server 2008 R2 called Master Data Services(MDS). It is a way for business users to do several things with the data that are not always captured in the ERP or CRM systems.

MDS captures supplemental data that is not captured when entering data into the ERP system allowing the business user to create special groupings or even change a product or customer from one group to another with drag and drop functionality.  MDS also has a web based interface that is easy to use and can be secured using SQL Server security. 

Another benefit to MDS is the versioning capabilities that will allow users to manage and save snapshots of hierarchies. This allows users to view data in a cube with the dimensions in a before-and-after view.  The auditing capability allows users to track who changed items and when they were changed. When used in conjunction with fuzzy logic, MDS will enable you to find duplicate data and match and map the duplicates for clean up.

MDS is an exciting new feature in the R2 release of SQL Server 2008; I look forward to learning more about this topic today at the BI conference…

Socius’ Business Intelligence Solutions team is in New Orleans attending the Microsoft BI Conference 2010 and Tech Ed.  Get a live stream of their activities at the conference by following @SociusBIguru on Twitter!

In GP 2010, users will see this enhanced reporting functionality right off the bat on their personalized homepage in the new dashboard functionality.  Each user’s dashboard is easily customizable to include only the metrics relevant to their role or roles.  If a particular report is relevant to multiple individuals, it can be stored at the company level and thereby accessed by any system user, thus preventing duplicate efforts in report creation. 

The point of a dashboard is to give you snapshot of your business.  One of the greatest benefits of a dashboard is that you can see, at a glance, if any area of your business is amiss. Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 takes dashboard functionality  another step in helpfulness by including drill-back functionality so all you need to do is click on any metric in your dashboard and the data set that created the metric will open.  You can even define the level of detail for your drill-backs to save time and effort in retrieving data.  SQL Server 2008 is required for the drill-back functionality. 

Building reports in Dynamics GP 2010 is easier, and less costly, than ever too!  Excel Reports, SRS Reports and Report Models, and Management Reporter Viewer are all part of the new and improved Dynamics Client for Office license which grants licensees access to GP data without paying for full system user licenses. 

In focusing on enhancing reporting, the GP 2010 developers have produced small features that will have a huge impact on user experience – making reports easier to access and manage by the individual users of the system. 

For more about the new features of GP 2010, attend one of our GP 2010 Launch Events in Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, and Northern California.

You can also stay up to date on the latest features of this new release of Microsoft Dynamics GP by following InterDynSocius on Twitter to receive our “Feature of the Day” updates.

Socius is proud to be headquartered in Dublin, which is in the Top Seven Intelligent Community annual list of smart cities worldwide, was named as the top small city in the U.S. to start a business by both Fox Business and BusinessWeek, and was recently rated the number-two place to work in the nation in an independent National Citizen Survey. 

From our offices in the heart of the Dublin Entrepreneurial Center, we have the privilege of working with some of the best and brightest companies in Dublin and across the country.  We are always delighted to celebrate the success of our clients – but we know that it doesn’t have anything to do with the “luck of the Irish”.  Our clients are leveraging their Microsoft Dynamics and Sage software solutions and reaping tremendous results!

A great example is Sarnova Inc. (formerly known as Bound Tree Medical).  This Dublin-based company is the leading distributor of emergency medical products in the nation.  Socius has worked with Sarnova to implement an end-to-end business management solution centered on Microsoft Dynamics GP.  In 2008, Bound Tree was reporting that through automating processes with GP, they were saving 50 labor hours per week.  In addition, they were able to give their remote staff real-time access to customer and inventory data, as well as provide their management with a daily snapshot of the health of the organization through enhanced Business Intelligence and reporting. 

Rhiannon Greene, Director of MIS, said, “We have a stable, efficient solution that can grow with the company.”  And boy have they ever grown since she said that!   After merging to create Sarnova in 2008, the company has continued to acquire additional organizations and new lines of business.  They have built a firm foundation for their thriving business by establishing efficient processes, making the most of their technology investments, and finding innovative ways to use their business solutions to gain a competitive advantage. 

Read the Sarnova/Bound Tree Medical Success Story!

In a year of economic uncertainty, it is especially difficult to trust your numbers and use them as a basis to plan for future success.  That is why the same ERP solution that you use to extract your financial data provides tools to help you analyze that data and leverage it to plan and set your budgets.  Each ERP solution has slightly different tools for budgeting, but all will influence the decisions you make and confidence with which you make them. 

Sage Active Planner

If you are a Sage MAS 90, 200 or 500 user, you can take advantage of Sage Active Planner to improve the flow of key information such as business drivers and transaction data, through templates, automatic distribution and consolidation of the budget, central control over budget revisions, real-time seamless integration of data sources, and built-in security mechanisms.   To learn more and see Sage Active Planner in action, attend this Sage software webinar on December 8th at 1:00 PM:  Control Your Budget – Don’t Let it Control You

Microsoft Forecaster

Microsoft Dynamics ERP users (those that use Microsoft Dynamics GP, Great Plains, Solomon, or Microsoft Dynamics SL for example) can take advantage of can build budgets that incorporate market conditions and specific business objectives. When the business environment changes, Microsoft Forecaster can be used to adjust forecasts and budgets so that managers can respond effectively.  Additionally, it allows you to quickly view current budget-to-actual comparisons to help you understand the effect of changing numbers on your plans.  Read how Socius’ client Bellefaire JCB/Wingspan Care Group is using Forecaster with Microsoft Dynamics GP to create budgets that stear them toward their goals while reducing administrative costs by 5%. 

BIO for Microsoft Dynamics SL

While BIO provides a wealth of business intelligence tools to Microsoft Dynamics SL users, for the purpose of this post, we’ll focus on it’s budgeting capabilities.  Not only can the business insights revealed by BIO help guide your decision making, but BIO also contains the ability to track your business performance and measure it against a goal or budget, so that you can adjust as you go and grow.  Because it is specialized for Microsoft SL, BIO not only helps with organizational budgeting, but also creating project budgets.  Lastly, BIO data is presented in role-based scorecards so everyone in your organization sees the data most relevant to them.  Learn more about BIO for Microsoft Dynamics SL.

Perhaps you have noticed the Business Insights folder in the tasks menu but, haven’t paid much attention.  You may be missing out on a big part of the results of the R&D from your Sage annual subscription dollars.  You’ve paid for it.  Maybe it’s time to take a look.

Open the Business Insights – Explorer folder and you’ll see the list of available “views” for accessing your data.

Beginning with Sage MAS90 4.2 these views became available from the “Explore” folder for each applicable module, also.  The view may be opened from either location.  They may also be placed on your shortcut task menu or launcher bar for quick access.

The real power of the views lies in a few key features that enables you to:

• easily apply data filters to view just relevant information
• easily export the resulting data to Excel or printed reports
• conveniently save the tailored view with applied settings for future use

Let’s face it.  Many of us have years of data stored in Sage MAS 90 and thousands of records for each module.  We don’t want to see it all each time we look.  Here are a few tips for setting up your Explorer Views to yield efficient results:

First time use:
Explorer will automatically try to load all corresponding data for the selected view.  For example; ALL GL transactions for ALL dates for EVERY GL account.  Not only is this more information than you probably want or need, you will undoubtedly receive a message to the effect you have reached the maximum number of rows.

Click “yes” to open the options window.  It will open to the “Data” tab.  I like to uncheck the “Automatically Load Data..” feature and uncheck the “Limit Row Count” feature.

 Here’s why.  When the view opens and the “Automatically Load Data” box is unchecked, the view will be empty and open practically immediately.  It is “waiting” for the filters that you wish to apply for that viewing.  You then may set your data requirements (filters) if it is a new view, keep or change the requirements if it is a saved view.  Simply clicking the “refresh” button will populate the view with your selected data.  Keeping the “Limit Row Count” unchecked will ensure all the records for your selection criteria will be returned.  If you routinely perform views that return an unmanageable amount if information you may wish to fine tune your filters.

Apply a filter:
Learn how to use the “Filter Builder” to select the information you wish to see.  For Example:  Current open invoices for all customers in California and Wisconsin grouped and totaled by salesperson.

You can then view it in itemized detail like above or summarized with a couple of mouse clicks.

Here we see at a glance that Harvey has 20 invoices from his California customers with a total open balance of $1,044,153.81.  If his commission is distributed on paid invoices only, he may want to make a few calls.  He’ll know exactly who to call using this information. 

Export to Excel -  As simple as three clicks: “File” “Export Options” “Microsoft Excel” Notice the export alternatives!

Here’s Harvey’s results in Excel:

The view has been created by the sales manager of California and Wisconsin, Gail.  Gail wants to save the view with the filters for future use.  Very simply create and save the setting name.  Choose to make it a private or public view.

Of course, this was just an introduction highlighting use of Business Insights Explorer.  By experimenting with the features described you will begin to see the value in a new way of extracting relevant data from your Sage MAS90 ERP system.  A good thing to remember is that the views are “look but don’t touch” – you cannot alter your live data through viewing it.  It is very easy to create a new view or add a filter and click “refresh” to observe the results.  If you don’t like your choices for the view you have created there is always the “delete” button. 

If you are one of those organizations, it might be time for a new Performance Management System.  One of Socius’ Business Intelligence solutions consultants, Brad Blackmore, presented the following Performance Management System solution at Socius’ Aspire conference in October:

BPM is a series of business processes designed to optimize the development, execution and management of business strategy.  It involves facilitating the creation of strategic goals as well as supporting the subsequent management of the performance and progress toward those goals.

• Focus on the key activities that organization considers critical to remain successful
• Mix the past, present, and future
• Balance the needs of all stakeholders
• Start at the top and flow down 
• Have targets based on research and reality

The most popular Performance Management System the fulfills these criteria is the Balanced Scorecard (BSC).

Follow these steps to develop a Balanced Scorecard:

1.  Develop your strategic foundation

• Values
• Mission
• Vision

2.  Develop your strategic assessment

• External environment
• Industry environment
• Balanced Scorecard SWOT

3.  Define your strategic destination statement

4.  Align strategies and actions in a strategy map

5.  Select metrics and set targets

6.  Implementation

7.  Roll-out and conduct strategic reviews

To see an example of BPM through a Balanced Scorecard, download Brad’s presentation.

Contact Socius if you would like assistance implementing a Balanced Scorecard approach to BPM in your organization.

• Have difficulty sharing, using, and exploring customer data?
• Maintain multiple inconsistent data sources?
• Struggle with inaccurate sales, marketing and service reports?

If so, then you may be interested to know how Microsoft Dynamics CRM addresses each of these issues through its complimentary Analytics Accelerator. 

Microsoft Dynamics CRM has many “out-of-the-box” business intelligence capabilities that enhance your ability to glean and comb through relevant customer data to help you make smarter business development decisions.  However, despite this array of features, Ohio Microsoft Dynamics CRM software users were still left looking for ways to:

• Plan with greater clarity and insight
• Gather, monitor, and report on performance with ease
• Analyze data and act strategically

As a result, Microsoft has released a series of Accelerators, which are complimentary, downloadable add-ons to Microsoft Dynamics CRM version 4.0, one of which is the Analytics Accelerator which provides analytical tools for each department working in CRM.

The Analytics Accelerator helps:

Marketing

1. Drive campaign ROI
2. Increase response rates
3. Improve marketing agility

Sales

1. Develop accurate forecasts
2. Achieve revenue goals
3. Increase close rates

Service

1. Increase customer satisfaction
2. Reduce customer service costs
3. Drive revenue through customer service channels

To see more of the CRM Dashboards enabled by the Analytics Accelerator, check out this presentation made to our Ohio CRM software users at our Aspire conference in October.

In addition to the Analytics Accelerator, Microsoft has developed and released 12 accelerators that enhance Microsoft Dynamics CRM capabilities to optimize everything from sales methodology to social networking. 

Learn more about and download CRM Accelerators here.

Requirements:

• Excel 2007 (Excel 12)
• ERP/CRM database such as Microsoft Dynamics GP or Dynamics CRM
• Some basic knowledge of SQL Views (or access to someone who can help)
• A hypothesis or theory you would like to prove or disprove

Here are 5 reasons why people don’t use Excel for BI and how they can be debunked.

1. Lack of confidence in the data. This is true if you connect to a SQL view that isn’t validated.  Use these best practices:  
   • Isolate a known result and test output from Excel
   • Use naming conventions such as ExcelView FlatSales
   • Use an Excel data connection library
   • Use data governance- appoint Excel connections manager
2. Can’t trust worksheets as they move around.  This is true if you don’t refresh the data connection.  Use these best practices:
   • Set all connections to refresh when opened
   • When using a data connections library, the connection is stored on the server
   • When a worksheet is e-mailed/shared, it will automatically seek the server connection file and refresh the data
   • Limit users who can modify connection files
3. Takes too long to refresh the data set.  This is true if you don’t use parameter queries.  Use these best practices:
   • Use parameters to limit the data as it comes in.  For example, use a month parameter for a monthly report or limit sales people so they can only see their customers
4. Excel is just a spreadsheet.  This is true if you don’t know the true purpose of Excel 2007.  Excel 2007 was designed as an ad-hoc BI tool.  Use these best practices:
   • Start by providing pre-built pivot tables
   • Offer basic training in Excel data connections
   • Provide advanced Excel training for power users
5. Excel requires many complicated calculations.  This is true if you don’t use SQL for the calculations.  Use these best practices:
   • Limit the need for users to perform their own calculations (avoid rework)
   • Assign a SQL developer the task of implementing common calculation in SQL View (i.e. Gross Profit=Sales Amt-Cost Amt)
   • Don’t overwhelm basic users with too many calculations
   • Advanced Excel users can add calculated fields to the pivot table

Excel offers even more powerful tools and techniques such as Predictive Analytics to predict a certain outcome and Data Mining to gain insight into relationships.  To learn more about using Excel 2007 for business intelligence,  view the entire “Accessing Company Data Using Microsoft Excel 2007″ presentation, presented by Socius’ BI consultant, Brad Blackmore.

Learn More about Socius’ Business Intelligence Solutions