Business intelligence spans from business to everyday life

By the start of 2007, I had already made numerous attempts to categorize and essentially make sense of my personal finances; however, managing the accumulating Excel spreadsheets proved to be a bit too cumbersome to manage and eventually became time consuming. Comparing data from multiple months side by side in an Excel document did not prove to be very useful from a visual standpoint; though, I knew my data had an important story to tell. I needed a better way to quickly see patterns and trends in my spending; I needed a better approach to managing my finances. Luckily, I learned that one of my coworkers had been using Crystal Reports from the BusinessObjects Enterprise package (BOE) for years, not only to help organizations manage their operational and financial data, but to manage her own personal accounts. When I decided to go that route myself, I was introduced to the sleek and visually stimulating Xcelsius tool. After seeing the power behind Xcelsius, I decided to take her Crystal report to an entirely new level.

As with many of the projects we manage where a client needs to customize their reports and determine how they want to "see" their information, I needed to create a design that could fit my needs, a prototype that could produce a better outlook on my finances with monthly performance indicators placed on my savings and checking accounts along with real-time information concerning my stock option selections. By using an Excel document as a data source and converting the once static, boring data into a visual snapshot of information, I have much better control not just over my spending habits for shoes but over my investments in stocks and bonds, my income and how it reacts to annual changes in spending or inflation. Using a Web Intelligence report as a host, I could simply import my data into the report and embed an Xcelsius flash file on the front-page. Within Web Intelligence, it was very easy to lay out items on the report and once I ran the report; the tool did all the "heavy-lifting" involved with handling aggregations in the background.

By using Xcelsius as my front-page, right away I can compare my expenses across months, find major changes in my spending quickly, and import live data from NASDAQ to view any changes in my stock plans. Below is a sample of how I was able to transform a simple table holding stock information in Excel into a design that could now be intuitively grasped from the model.

Stocks portfolio in Excel:

Stocks portfolio in Xcelsius:

The ticker at the top streams live data across my dashboard directly from NASDAQ; this enables me to receive an on-demand, quick look at how the market is doing at any given moment. The graph directly below the ticker offers a snapshot of how my stock programs have either increased or decreased over the past three months. From the same graph, I am able to select/deselect months I would like to compare, or just view my international funds alone by deselecting the corresponding checkbox.

Finally, a user can determine how he/she would like to view his/her data. These tools accommodate an adaptable interface which allows a user to decide how they want to view data instead of leaving the decision to a pre-defined template or pre-planned design environment. The design is completely up to the user and the macro language behind Xcelsius is fairly powerful in that it allows the ability to use a mix of components such as radio buttons, gauges, and dynamic charts to allow for faster comprehension of complex data. By using trend analysis, alerts, and scenario-based snapshots of my data, I can bring it to life in a form that I can understand, which is the same type of freedom that many companies desire.

In the next format, I look to optimize my spending for the month of January. This model was designed for the average household incurring monthly expenses:

From the sample above, I can immediately see which top factors consume the most of my funds; but what other functionality do I have? By creating a what-if scenario, I can see what happens if I were to increase my weekly groceries expense from $80 to $110 just by using the slider functionality. This fairly simplistic example can realistically be used in any household to assess and manage finances. As well, could be used by organizations looking to see what would happen "if" the cost of one of their parts increased or "if" their sales dropped 10%. Personally, I have used BOE to produce a monthly report to show my financial planner before our meetings. We both use the presentation because it creates a logical depiction of my finances that we can both clearly interpret and build upon.

BusinessObjects Enterprise is engaging a new audience of end-users, promising better, improved functionality for creating reports, managing goals, and increasing user interactivity to important data. Whether a user is pulling data from a Web Intelligence, Desktop Intelligence, or Crystal Report, end users can be assured data is accurate and up-to-date. Reports and dashboards can pull information from different data sources, can be linked or exported to multiple external sources (PDF, Word, PowerPoint, and the internet) and are capable of handling large, complex tabular data consisting of aggregate functions, external links, or embedded macros. 

Like any business, we as individuals look for ways to improve productivity, increase usability of the product, and reduce the propensity of making of bad investment decisions. With Business Objects, users can proactively manage their own data with a process that can be as simple as moving around icons. Besides improving my comprehension of finance, the end goal of using these Business Objects tools for me was to increase interactivity and connect me to more resources that will then lead me to make solid financial decisions.

When thinking about how I could use Business Objects for myself; finances was the first topic that came to mind; however there are many more opportunities that can be realized with the use of the BOE package. Because data is no longer viewable from a one dimensional angle, BusinessObjects Enterprise has created a platform that allows the user to determine how best to view the data. When this package came onto the market, it was immediately seen as a way to provide an organization with an "at-a-glance" insight into performance initiatives so managers could make wiser long-term decisions.

Now, we are seeing that this collection of products was intentionally created with more than one type of end-user in mind. For users with any level of computing experience, creating reports or designing dashboards is fairly simple to achieve because just like the inventors of online banking and Turbo Tax, Business Objects understands that more people would be willing to use it if there was only an easier, less laborious way. Whether it is managing a fortune 500 business, managing finances or shopping for a new car, BOE offers a flexible and adaptive way for business and "everyday" end-users to analyze and capture important information quickly to reach those their goals.

Written by Brandi Parker, Consultant