BUSINESSANALYTICSFORMICROSOFTNAVISION370.doc

BUSINESS ANALYTICS FOR MICROSOFT® BUSINESS SOLUTIONSNAVISION®Key Benefits:· Gain Insight into your business· Helps sharpen your competitive edge with smarter, faster decision making · Help each employee drive the success of your businessBusiness Analytics for Microsoft Business SolutionsNavision helps you gain business insight, make faster smarter decisions, and equip your employees to contribute to your growthBusiness Analytics on Your DesktopDesigned for midsized companies, Business Analytics turns your data into business critical information quickly and simply. It provides you with easy-to-use analytical tools for greater control over your entire business. Using Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) from Microsoft SQL Server 2000, Business Analytics organizes all of your business data into information units called cubes. Using a familiar Microsoft Outlook®-style interface, Business Analytics presents this information to your desk top where easy to use analytical tools allow you to carry out targeted analysis that is tailored by you, for you.Figure 1: The familiar look and feel of Microsoft Outlook in the left-hand menu helps make Business Analytics straight-forward to use.Pre-defined functionality in Business Analytics includes Finance, Sales, CRM, SCM and Project (Jobs). Implementation time for Business Analytics is speeded up because these areas are installed automatically from the beginning. Therefore, you can begin to analyze your business information quickly.Gain accurate and timely insight into your businessInstead of waiting for the overburdened IT department to generate a report of sales for a particular product in a specific region, you can generate your own report instantly. Instead of waiting for the end of the month to analyze the performance of your sales team, you can generate simple, effective analytical views at any time using pre-defined and easy to use Outlook-style functionality. You decide on the depth of the analysis so you can use Business Analytics to get both an overview of your entire organization and insight into the specifics of your business.Analytical views can be generated in simple tables or using a range of graphics including pie charts as well as maps of regions, countries or the entire globe. Get the big picture with any number of objects, displayed in one view. Display sales and purchases along side each other for a simple analysis of profit versus expenditure, for instance.Figure 2: With a few easy clicks, a pie chart view has been added to the screen (Figure1). The pie chart view is another graphical representation of sales figures in different countries, as indicated in the globe view in the upper left-hand cornerData mining is another efficient statistical tool that can be activated from the desk top with a single mouse click. It gives you the ability to do extensive drill-downs starting from a high level and displaying details in a decision tree.All new views in Business Analytics can be stored for future use. Once defined, a standard view can easily be customized. For example, click on the Microsoft Outlook style “Criteria” dialogue box in the Business Analytics task bar to add or remove criteria such as a period of time, a region or a product name. Automate our monthly report generation with the schedule option. Setup the report once and have Business Analytics distribute it for you with the latest information, via e-mail to the relevant people.Sharpen your competitive edge with smarter, faster decision-makingWith a direct connection to the data stored in Microsoft Business Solutions-Navision, Business Analytics can help empower employees at multiple levels in your company to make confident decisions based on facts. Business Analytics gives you and your employees a targeted view of your business that allows for clear overviews and quick comparisons whenever they are required. You can instantly spot trends and identify weak spots to take immediate action. Because all of the analytical views can be accessed by your colleagues, you can share your insights, strengthen your arguments for a plan of action and back decisions up. Help each employee drive the success of your businessEach of your employees is an expert in his or her own field so it makes sense that they can interact with information that is critical to their role simply and quickly without having to get an intermediary involved. Business Analytics is a practical tool that allows you and your people to carry out report writing tasks that were until recently the preserve of IT specialists. This saves time, valuable money and gives key people the independence to get on with the job in hand.Business Analytics has an intuitive Outlook-style interface that has a familiar feel for many users, and thereby, shortens the time needed for user training. In order to make you as productive as possible from the start, Business Analytics comes with the pre-defined function package mentioned previously. Each of the five cubes in the function package matches a specific business area which can be further customized and extended to suit your business needs. Your administrator determines the access rights of each employee based on their role and can change the permissions any time. The Business Analytics Web Viewer especially for international companies with employees located in different locations can be used to access your critical data anytime, anywhere online. To use the Business Analytics Web Viewer, you simply require a Web browser and an internet connection. All existing views and objects that a user has permission to access can be viewed. The Business Analytics Web Viewer includes highly efficient access control and comprehensive security functions that allow you to limit the access rights of employees, business partners and customers to a particular level. Technology SummaryBusiness Analytics is integrated into your existing Microsoft Navision system giving you the full benefit of access to your stored data. A Data Transformation Services (DTS) package pulls data from Microsoft Navision into SQL tables. From here, other DTS packages transform and structure these tables into multidimensional cubes, in Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services.Theses cubes represent the five main categories: Sales, Finance, CRM, SCM and Project (Jobs). Using Business Analytics as a front end tool the user starts with these cubes and builds simple or complex queries within each of the categories. Utilizing the latest .NET technology you can also work with Business Analytics from a Web browser.About Microsoft Business SolutionsMicrosoft Business Solutions, a division of Microsoft, offers a wide range of integrated, end-to-end business applications and services designed to help small, mid market and corporate businesses become more connected with customers, employees, partners and suppliers. Microsoft Business Solutions' applications optimize strategic business processes across financial management, analytics, human resources management, Project (Jobs), customer relationship management, field service management, supply chain management, e-commerce, manufacturing and retail management. The applications are designed to provide insight to help customers achieve business success. More information about Microsoft Business Solutions can be found at Address:Microsoft Business Solutions One Lone Tree RdFargo, ND 58104Key FeaturesDescriptionANALYTICAL VIEWSGenerate simple, effective analytical views of your business critical information at any time using pre-defined and easy to use Windows-style functionalityAUTOMATE REPORT GENERATIONWit the schedule option, set up a report once and have Business Analytics distribute it automatically, with updated information, via e-mail to the relevant peopleMULTIPLE OBJECTS IN ONE VIEWView multiple objects such as a table, a pie chart or a global map in one viewCUSTOMIZABLE OBJECTSOnce an object such as a table or a graph has been created it can be saved, retrieved and updated at any timeUSE BUSINESS ANALYSIS ACROSS YOUR ENTIRE ORGANIZATIONBusiness Analytics comes with five key functional areas including Finance, SCM, CRM, Sales and Project (Jobs) that can be used across your organization as soon as implementation is completeOUTLOOK LOOK AND FEELBusiness Analytics uses an Outlook-style menu bar along the left hand side of the display, which will be familiar to many users. This helps users to more easily work in Business Analytics and get the analyses views they want faster.WEB-ENABLEDUsing the Business Analytics Web Viewer you can access and update all existing views and objects for which you have permission, anytime and anywhere online. To use the Business Analytics Web Viewer, you simply require a Web browser and an internet connection MS SQL SERVER ANALYSIS SERVICESA Data Transformation Services (DTS) package pulls data from Microsoft Navision into SQL tables. From here, other DTS packages transform and structure these tables into multidimensional cubes, in Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services.SYSTEM REQUIREMENTSTO OBTAIN ALL OF THE FEATURES MENTIONED IN THIS FACT SHEET, THE FOLLOWING MODULES AND TECHNOLOGIES ARE REQUIRED:Microsoft Windows® NT (Intel) version 4.0, SP6a, Workstation or Server; Microsoft Windows 2000; Microsoft Windows XP; Microsoft Windows 2003Microsoft SQL Server 2000, SP3 Microsoft Analysis Services (from Microsoft SQL Server), SP3(Please note Microsoft SQL Server has its own requirements, which are not listed here. Please check with your Microsoft Certified Business Solution Partner for more information.)Hardware Resources Hard disk space:About 360 MB (full installation incl. two language modules)About 110 MB (minimal installation incl. two language modules)Memory:60 MB free memory with default cache settings© 2004 Microsoft Business Solutions ApS, Denmark. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Great Plains, Navision, FRx, Business Analytics are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation, Great Plains Software, Inc., FRx Software Corporation, or Microsoft Business Solutions ApS or their affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. Great Plains Software, Inc., FRx Software Corporation, and Microsoft Business Solutions ApS are subsidiaries of Microsoft Corporation. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. The example companies, organizations, products, domain names, email addresses, logos, people and events depicted herein are fictitious. No association with any real company, organization, product, domain name, e-mail address, logo, person, or event is intended or should be inferred.