Out-of-the-Box Adaptive Analytic WarehouseOut-of-the-Box Adaptive Analytic Warehouse

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Summary

Ventana Research recognizes the value of a data warehouse in providing the foundation for financial performance management, but acknowledges that many solutions are not well aligned with the specific needs of mid-market organizations. Low-cost, minimal resource demands for ongoing maintenance and rapid time-to-value are key requirements for a data warehouse servicing SMB/SME ERP solutions. AnalySoft Development delivers an out-of-the-box data warehouse solution focused on delivering financial performance management to users of Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) ERP offerings.

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Now that most organizations have made significant investments in ERP-based transaction processing, their focus has changed to extracting maximum value from these investments. A data warehouse offers a foundation for the cross-ERP-module analysis and reporting that informs financial performance management. But data warehouses are known to sap IT bandwidth — both in setup and maintenance — especially when the source systems are subject to ongoing customization, a core capability of all three MBS ERP offerings: Axapta, Great Plains, and Navision. Customers of MBS ERP solutions have many choices when it comes to analyzing and reporting transactional data to drive improved financial performance management. But most of these customers have limited IT resources to implement and maintain such a system and therefore need a low-cost, rapid payback system to deliver a justifiable ROI.

Ventana Research recommends that mid-market organizations look carefully at the data warehouse approach as a foundation for financial performance management and consider this against the potentially high setup costs and maintenance demands on IT resources. There are many data warehouse solutions out there, but few that are truly focused on the needs of mid-market organizations and the ERP applications they actually use.

Assessment

AnalySoft Development has recognized the need to deliver a data warehouse solution that is tightly linked to MBS ERP solutions, quick to set up, and largely self-maintaining, even in the face of ongoing customization of the source system. Rapid payback is the aim of AnalySoft's AnalyServer product, leading to lower total cost of ownership over the solution lifecycle.

The initial version of AnalyServer automatically creates a data warehouse from an existing MBS Navision database. The warehouse includes data from multiple Navision modules to provide full drilldown and drill-around capabilities. The warehouse schema accommodates both the optional “Advanced Dimensions” and any custom fields created by the user organization on top of the standard Navision schema. The warehouse is refreshed on demand or according to a user-defined schedule and any changes in the underlying schema are automatically detected so that the user has the opportunity to decide how to incorporate these changes into the AnalyServer metadata.

Users access and navigate the AnalyServer warehouse using Microsoft Excel, via a spreadsheet add-in (XLCubed) that allows full exploitation of the drill-around capabilities offered by the single AnalyServer “hypercube” data structure. Unlike other vendors, Analysoft has rejected multiple domain-specific cubes in favor of a single multi-dimensional cube that integrates and aggregates financial data sourced from across general ledger, payables and receivables, order processing, and inventory modules.

The AnalyServer warehouse can be up and running and usable from within the familiar Excel spreadsheet environment within hours. This Excel front-end may be replaced or complemented by any desktop analytic tool that is capable of working with a standard Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services cube, which includes most of the BI tools on the market. Analysoft is currently extending its XML-based, patent-pending integration technology to deliver financial performance management from MBS Axapta, Great Plains and Microsoft CRM.

Stewart McKie is European Analyst Director at Ventana Research.