Microsoft Excel 2007 it is rapidly proving to be the de facto Business Intelligence (BI) front end for a whole host of technologies.
Excel 2007 Pivot tables and pivot charts connected to OLAP cubes provide the user with a known, comfortable environment whilst delivering incredible performance thanks to the combination of in-memory pivot tables coupled with the power of an OLAP server engine.
One issue remains and that is the time it takes for an average user to fully grasp and understand pivot table concepts. The locii Insight Excel client is specifically designed to bridge this gap. The locii Insight Excel client provides a classical menu approach to pivot reporting whilst still delivering the power and flexibility that this new breed of tools offer. Users with no previous experience can navigate a simple menu system to find reports but still remain in Excel 2007 to benefit from the massive array of features, as their knowledge grows.
The locii Insight Excel client is typically an enterprise wide tool used to view up to date reports whilst allowing trained users to use it as a powerful analysis tool.
The locii Insight Excel Client offers an array of features including :-
·Multi-level access menu that can be fully customised internally
·Preset pivot-table and pivot-chart reports
·Drill through features
·One Click export to Powerpoint
Cube Formulas
Many customers consider Locii cube formulas the most powerful and compelling reason for implementing Insight.
Locii cube formulas appear in Excel for all desktop users that have security access to Insight. They allow a user to write a formula in a few seconds in to an Excel worksheet cell that creates a permanent link to the Insight cubes. For example the user can return the balance on an account or the sales value of a product for a specific time period. The user can create thousands of these formulas and they calculate in a split second. Locii cube formulas will update on demand or when a workbook is reopened.
Benefits
Locii Cube Formulas can almost eliminate the reporting cycle allowing continuous analysis of fresh, accurate data at incredible depth with the power of all the other Excel functionality available to extend their analysis or reports.
The ability to have data almost magically appear and update in spreadsheet cells, opens an enormous array of possibilities for ad-hoc applications, KPI dashboards and management reports.
Examples:
- A customer’s financial and company reports are produced in one day instead of two weeks.
- A large customer decreased stock holding reports generation from 3 hours to 2 seconds while gaining vastly greater flexibility and reporting depth.
- Another customer added an SKU dashboard that receives over 1000 hits per day.
Insight Excel Ribbon
The locii Insight Ribbon is the perfect BI report building tool that expands on the ribbon technology to increase productivity. Unique to Insight, the Insight Ribbon is integrated into Excel 2007 giving simplified access to : -
·Pivot Templates – Pivot tables that appear at any position in a user’s worksheet and are directly linked to an Insight cube.
·Data Lists – Business Lists (eg locations, products) that can be dropped into worksheets with a single click.
·Data Validation Areas – Provide drop down lists for worksheet cells that ensure user input accuracy.
·Cube Formula Builder – Provides users with a simple step by step approach to writing Insight cube formulas.
The Insight Ribbon dramatically accelerates the building of reports, analysis tools, dashboards and KPI worksheets.
