Panorama Business Intelligence

Panorama Software’s thought leadership article featured in Microsoft Momentum Magazine:

We’ve all heard the industry call: “Let’s get BI on every desktop.” Managers everywhere have been transfixed on putting more relevant data in the hands of information workers because they know that the right facts and data empower users to make impactful decisions with positive results. To do this, they must have access to analytical tools to interact with data in a more meaningful way.

As the first phase of bringing BI to the masses, canned reports with data extracted from line-of-business systems have had some success. Today’s information worker uses reports to create a snapshot of aggregated data that gives them the initial information to do their jobs correctly.

Sadly, many businesses never realize the full potential of the rich data collected by business intelligence software, for the simple reason that a typical user can’t make heads or tails of it. If more BI vendors realized this, the whole concept of business intelligence wouldn’t have come under so much scrutiny over the years.

Microsoft is pulling through in the clutch. MS Office is one of the most widely used tools in the world and enables users to perform analysis and generate key insights for their businesses. Microsoft has taken an open approach, allowing third-party contributors to extend and build on top of the Office platform, taking the innovation to the next level.

Panorama Software has been working with Microsoft since 1996, when Microsoft acquired its OLAP technology to eventually become the foundation for SQL Server Analysis services. Since then, Panorama has made it its goal to bring BI to the masses by taking the best of Microsoft and combining it with the best of Panorama’s own flagship product – NovaView.

NovaView functions with a unique user interface that integrates as a set of web parts inside of Microsoft SharePoint. Most BI solutions rely on the skill sets of their users to explore features and functions and learn how to manipulate analytical tools. Where NovaView differs is its intuitiveness in guiding users through the process of data analysis.

Consider pivot tables. They’re extremely powerful when it comes to letting users slice, dice, filter and sort data—but users need to know what it is they can and want to do to make that data analysis meaningful. NovaView guides users through the different options they have to truly make reports useful. This is accomplished with flash: NovaView makes relevant functionalities blink, flash and pop in a context-sensitive way. Instant picks provided by the software suite can help generate further insights.

Sometimes the most difficult part of BI is creating that initial report; NovaView helps relieve some of this stress by applying an “I’m feeling lucky” concept that intelligently creates that initial report. Once they’ve got that first one out of the way, workers are free to customize subsequent reports based on what is and isn’t useful.

Bringing the two platforms together offers information workers enough simplicity for them to adopt the concept of data analysis. At the same time, the combination extends to give more BI power to power users and enable enterprise companies to deploy an end-to-end BI solution for the organization.

Everything Panorama does is based on Microsoft Office, SQL and SharePoint platforms. Our ultimate goal is to extend the use of these great products and truly bring BI to the masses in a comprehensive and accessible way — and that’s exactly what NovaView does.

For more information on Panorama’s complete end-to-end BI solution for the Microsoft platform, please visit www.panorama.com.