You would think that businesses would understand the value of Mobile BI! After all, we are a mobile society. Today’s consumers and business users expect to have access to all of their tools, apps, software and websites on their mobile devices, and no matter what kind of device they have – iPad, tablet, Android smart phone, iPhone etc., they expect to have seamless performance. So, is it any wonder that businesses are facing the question of analytics on the go?

Gartner has predicted that, ‘overall analytics adoption will increase from 35% to 50%, driven by vertical and domain-specific augmented analytics solutions.’

‘Mobile BI can provide your business with the foundation to achieve your data democratization and user adoption goals.’

If your business users and Citizen Data Scientists have access to robust augmented analytics and traditional and modern BI within the walls of your enterprise, why don’t they access to these all-important tools when they are working remotely, in a client office, at an airport, on the road or working with a supplier or a partner? Consider the increased productivity and the improved workflow your team can achieve if you add Mobile BI. If you have invested in an analytics solution and you want to achieve the best return on investment (ROI) and the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO), you need to expand user access to a mobile environment.

With the right Mobile BI solution your users can enjoy many benefits. When you consider a Mobile BI and augmented analytics solution, be sure your solution provides:

• A native app, with seamless user interface for a great user experience (Ux) – compatible with iOS and Android
• An extended  office environment for swift analysis and decisions from anywhere
• Encourages user adoption and provides support for BI investments and data democratization
• Access rights are defined on the server so security and privacy is ensured at all levels
• Can be hosted anywhere within IT infrastructure –on premises, public or private cloud
• Business Users have access to dashboards, reports, Clickless Analytics – Google-type Natural Language Processing (NLP) Search functionality
• Start-up is easy, within a few minutes and support is readily available

‘Consider the increased productivity and the improved workflow your team can achieve if you add Mobile BI.’

Choose a  Business Intelligence Reporting Solution that promotes data literacy and provides BI tools your IT team can easily implement and support, and a solution that business users will want to adopt. Choose flexible, agile business intelligence solutions that can be used at all levels to collaborate, share data, and report and communicate with clarity. Mobile BI can provide your business with the foundation to achieve your data democratization and user adoption goals.

Since 1954, this Client has been recognized for its quality and its scientific and medical excellence. As a world leader in cardiology, its ambition is to become a renowned, focused, and innovative player in oncology by targeting rare and hard-to-treat cancers.

This Client required augmented analytics and reporting capabilities within the confines of the Healthcare Information System and Revenue tracking reports required by the industry standards and its management team. Smarten provided a comprehensive set of reporting and analytics tools, e.g., Headquarter Sales reports, Stock Transfer Planning, Site Net Sales, Outstanding Summary, Party Sales and many more.

Key Benefits and Deliverables:

• Real-time report for Stocks, Sales, Returns, Regions etc., to track information about inventory
• Short roll-out time
• Enhance the value provided by the Client by offering an analytical platform
• Integration Smarten works with existing technologies to deliver results
• Easy integration of dashboards and objects with Client healthcare management solution
• Automate all operational reports with comprehensive data integrity
• Provide a user-friendly interface to reduce the burden of ad hoc queries for the Client IT team

The integration of augmented analytics with its proprietary Healthcare Information application enabled the Client to improve end user and customer satisfaction and recognition across the industry. The integration of interactive reports provided a competitive advantage and enabled the Client to better leverage its data and operate more efficiently, thereby increasing revenue.

Gartner research reveals that, ‘data literacy will become an explicit and necessary driver of business value, demonstrated by its formal inclusion in over 80% of data and analytics strategies and change management programs.’ When businesses adopt and embrace business intelligence and augmented analytics, the expectation is that the enterprise will benefit by improving data literacy as well as productivity.

But if your business wants to make the most out of BI tools and augmented analytics, it is important to choose the right solution; one that is easy to use and will provide clear results – results business users can leverage to make decisions and to plan accurately. To understand the results and whether policies, processes and tasks are effective, your organization must establish metrics, and those metrics must also be clear.

‘Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are crucial to this feature set, as they provide critical metrics that enable the business to discover and manage results objectively and to adapt and change quickly and effectively.’

A solution that provides easy-to-use, multidimensional key performance indicators (KPIs) will allow your team to establish metrics that are unique to your needs and to your industry and market and help the enterprise understand how the business measures up in the competitive market, how well the products and services are faring with customers and whether workflow and business processes are having the desired effect.

Benefits of Self-Serve, Multidimensional Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

• When the organization gives business users the tools to establish and manage KPIs, it can become more productive. There is no waiting for the IT team or a data scientist to produce important reports, so the team can be agile and flexible.
• Interactive KPIs provide tools to gather, analyze and measure with breakdown and dynamic frequency and slice and dice so users can focus on critical metrics and gain true insight into results. Users can leverage a powerful expression engine to set polarity, frequency and threshold levels in a browser-based interface and go beyond static monitoring to change frequencies, and dimension breakdowns and gain an understanding of performance and issues.
• Users can establish and monitor KPIs at the individual, team, department, division, and company level and KPIs are integrated with other features to further analyze trends. Multidimensional KPIs gives business users the opportunity to monitor and manage results against goals and objectives and change processes, tasks, and activities as and when change is required.

‘When your business chooses a BI tool, it is important to choose the right solution; one that is easy to use and will provide clear results – results business users can leverage to make decisions and to plan accurately.’

If your business wishes to improve data literacy and productivity by implementing or upgrading a Business Intelligence or Augmented Analytics solution, it is imperative that you review the available modules, tools and features to ensure that the solution provides easy-to-use, sophisticated functionality that is suitable for your business users. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are crucial to this feature set, as they provide critical metrics that enable the business to discover and manage results objectively and to adapt and change quickly and effectively.

Choose a  Business Intelligence Reporting Solution that include Multi-Dimensional Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Provide business intelligence that your IT team can easily implement and support, and a solution that business users will want to adopt. Choose  flexible, agile business intelligence solutions that can be used at all levels to collaborate, share data, and report and communicate with clarity. Self-Serve BI Tools can provide your business with the foundation to achieve your data democratization and user adoption goals.

If you are considering a Business Intelligence solution or BI tool, or if you wish to upgrade your business intelligence and reporting tools, look for a solution that has self-serve cross tabulation, or cross-tab reporting. Cross-Tab reporting reveals the relationship between two factors or targets. This analytical tool can be used for side-by-side comparisons and to compare results for one or more data points, variables, or targets.

Did you know that, by some estimates, data-driven businesses are nearly 25% more likely to acquire customers? If you can give your team easy-to-use BI tools with self-serve cross-tab reporting, you can put the power of market and customer knowledge in their hands!

‘Business Intelligence solutions with self-serve cross-tab reporting can provide an intuitive, clear method of data analysis for your business users by revealing relationships in a way that makes the results clear and helps the organization to make the best decisions.’

In this article, we discuss the value of self-serve BI tools with Cross-Tab capabilities and the benefits of this type of focus and insight.

Benefits of Self-Serve Cross Tabulation Reporting

Flexible for Business Use Cases

Cross-tab reporting allows for intuitive use by business users with average technical skills, and can be beneficial for all types of business functions and industries. In an educational setting, a university or school might use cross-tab reporting to analyze teacher or course evaluations, looking at the relationship between student satisfaction and the subject, the class time, class location and other factors. Businesses can analyze team and employee satisfaction and attrition by looking at job location, benefits, the results of exit interviews, available training, and support, etc. Cross-tab reporting is frequently used in market research to analyze the various factors that relate to product or service satisfaction, including product features and options, where and how the product is sold, the sales and marketing approach, etc. A retail store owner might use cross-tab data analysis to determine customer satisfaction by looking at demographics, the gender of the person buying the product, the price of the product in a particular region, etc.

Data Clarity

There are many ways to slice and dice data and many ways in which crucial information can hide inside that data. The self-serve cross-tab reporting approach allows business users to examine relationships among data points and factors, with more clarity and accuracy. This type of analysis provides more clarity and reveals results, interdependent relationships and factors that might otherwise be missed. Users can avoid confusion when working with data and analyze large datasets to reveal frequencies and percentages. With this information, the business can understand the ‘what if’ of the various factors and see how results would change if one factor or relationship is changed.

Fact-Based Decision-Making

Self-serve cross-tab reporting simplifies analytics and allows business users to spot trends and patterns and collaborate with other team members to adapt tasks and activities to resolve issues and/or capitalize on opportunities. Using cross tabulation reporting to understand the connection and relationship between two or more factors allows the business to make a decision, with confidence. Rather than guessing the reason for declining results, increased employee attrition or other problems, the enterprise can clearly see what factors (and the relationships among factors) are the cause of a problem and how to change those factors to get better results.

‘If you can give your team easy-to-use BI tools with self-serve cross-tab reporting, you can put the power of market and customer knowledge in their hands!’

Business Intelligence solutions with self-serve cross-tab reporting can provide an intuitive, clear method of data analysis for your business users by revealing relationships in a way that makes the results clear and helps the organization to make the best decisions. By giving your team members these tools, you can leverage domain and industry knowledge and combine data analytics in a day-to-day environment without the need for assistance from data scientists or the IT staff. Self-Serve Cross-Tab reporting produces clear results that are easy to understand and can be used in staff meetings and presentations to support recommendations and help the business become more agile.

Look for seamless Business Intelligence Reporting And Flexible Tools that include self-serve Cross-Tab reporting. Provide business intelligence that your IT team can easily implement and support, and a solution that business users will want to adopt. Choose  flexible, agile business intelligence solutions that can be used at all levels to collaborate, share data, and report and communicate with clarity. Self-Serve BI Tools can provide your business with the foundation to achieve your data democratization and user adoption goals.

If your enterprise has not already adopted business intelligence tools, it is missing a crucial benefit in competitive positioning and accurate, dependable decision-making. If your organization has implemented BI tools, but you are falling short on user adoption success, return on investment (ROI) and total cost of ownership (TCO), it is probably because the business intelligence solution is not meant to support business users.

PC Magazine says that, as business users are asked to leverage BI tools, the enterprise must focus on simplicity to engender user adoption.

‘When your team can access BI tools that support the way they work and provide meaningful views and features to easily integrate with work and business processes, user adoption is easier and more immediate.’

To achieve your enterprise goals, ensure user adoption and get the most out of your investment, you must focus on two things: user-friendly features and function and sophisticated analytics.

In this article, we list some of the considerations for business intelligence solution selection or product upgrade. This list is meant to help you assess your current solution, and/or review the capabilities of any BI tool you are considering.

Simplicity in Technology:

• 100% browser-based solution
• Intuitive interface
• Mobile application that is suitable for iOS and Android
• Simple, affordable licensing
• Rapid implementation (roll out in minutes, not months)
• Simple, multi-layered access and user rights management
• Simple architecture

Simplicity of Use:

• Ability to personalize dashboards
• KPI Reporting
• Easy-to-use reporting tools
• Collaborative features
• Social BI for sharing, ranking and commenting
• Smart Data Visualization
• Assisted Predictive Modeling
• Self-Serve Data Preparation
• Clickless analytics for easy searching and results

The business intelligence tools you select can and should include out-of-the-box, ready-to-use features that are designed to support your applications, your industry, and/or your business function. When your team can access BI tools that support the way they work and provide meaningful views and features to easily integrate with work and business processes, user adoption is easier and more immediate.

‘To achieve your enterprise goals, ensure user adoption and get the most out of your investment, you must focus on two things: user-friendly features and function and sophisticated analytics.’

Look for Ready-To-Use Tools that users will want to adopt. Provide business intelligence that your IT team can easily implement and support, with features your users will readily leverage. Choose  flexible, agile business intelligence solutions that can be used at all levels to collaborate, share data, and report and communicate with clarity. Self-Serve BI Tools can provide your business with the foundation to achieve your data democratization and user adoption goals.

Change is ever-present, and no more so than in the past three or four years. As COVID has changed the way people work, and the location in which they do their work, the need for mobile BI Tools has grown exponentially. Neither the organization, nor the business users can afford to delay the use of business intelligence tools until they are in the office. Every business must do more with less.

‘Mobile BI should provide data analytics access for all business users and, above all, provide flexible, agile solutions that can be used at all levels to collaborate, share data and report and communicate with clarity.’

Mobile BI tools can provide support for team members as they travel, as they work from home, and as they collaborate with other team members from a client office, an airport, a train station, or a supplier location.

According to recent studies, the single most important benefit of Mobile Business Intelligence is enhanced data visibility. Another way to look at it is to consider the lost opportunities and the many missteps the organization will experience if it cannot make sense of its data in real time and with a comprehensive view into the data it captures across the enterprise.

Don’t try to dictate the type of device, the size of the screen or the resolution. Be sure you choose a mobile BI solution that will satisfy all manner of devices. Choose a user interface (UI) that is responsive and adaptive – one that provides self-serve tools without redesign or restructuring of dashboards for specific devices or screens. You can enhance total cost of ownership (TCO) and improve return on investment (ROI) with tools that are flexible and can be easily used in any environment.

Empower your users with integrated business intelligence tools that provide access to data in an interactive, personalized view and enable data sharing, identification of trends and patterns and user empowerment and accountability. Out-of-the-box mobile BI tools should support your users with tools that make it easier to understand data analytics and use data for reporting, presentation and collaboration with personalized dashboards and reporting and flexible graphs and charts.

‘Be sure you choose a mobile BI solution that will satisfy all manner of devices.’

The right mobile business intelligence solution should allow your users to get started right away without extensive training and at a reasonable cost. It should enable integration of data across disparate data sources so users have access to all the data they need to get a complete and comprehensive picture of business results, the root cause of problems and the opportunities that will provide unique competitive advantage to the organization.

Comprehensive BI Tools and Mobile BI should provide data analytics access for all business users and, above all, provide flexible, agile solutions that can be used at all levels to collaborate, share data and report and communicate with clarity. Simple, Self-Serve BI Tools can provide your business with the foundation to achieve your data democratization and user adoption goals. Let us help you achieve your vision and improve productivity and insight across the organization.

The Smarten Augmented Analytics solution allows the Client users to interact with data to identify overall profitability at various levels in the organization. It also allowed the Client team to measure tactical and operational results at a summary level, and at a detailed level for an individual task, or a group achievement.

Key Benefits and Deliverables:

• Consultancy for understanding and designing sales and transactional analytics across functional departments and data cleaning and structuring
• Centralized access to information from diverse data sources, through interactive graphical and ad-hoc analysis
• Defining common themes and designing user friendly Management Dashboards
• Compiling, structuring, and harmonizing various modules like Sales, Collection, Services, Finance, etc.,
• Exceptions and alert analysis for monitoring performance against budget allocated for each project
• Automating all operational reports with pristine quality data
• Training IT staff, power users and end users
• Low cost of acquisition, short rollout time, and less training results in lower TCO
• User-friendly interface reduces burden of ad hoc queries to IT team
• Enterprise architecture with zero footprint browser interface ensured rapid rollout across various locations to many users
• Responsive user interface allowed users to access the solution with all popular smart phones, tablets, and other mobile devices

Provides Mobile App access for all BI dashboards and reports for portability and on-the-go report access. The Mobile App also allows users to share reports in various formats over diverse mobile platforms and applications.

The Smarten team initially executed an on-premises installation of the solution and followed this with migration to AWS ‘m5.4xlarge with 64 Gb memory and 16 core’ instance. The Smarten team provided the Client with cloud and application management services for the Smarten application.

With the selection and implementation of the Smarten Augmented Analytics solution, the Client has achieved its goal of creating a centralized analytics system that is accessible and adds value at all levels of the organization. The Smarten intuitive interface allows users to make the most of available data and to effectively manage their resources, revenue, procurement, business operations, manpower allocation etc. It supports the Client team in tracking organizational performance, to reduce cost and increase the profitability of each department, without compromising quality.

Gartner research states that, ‘90% of corporate strategies will explicitly mention information as a critical enterprise asset and analytics as an essential competency.’

Whether yours is a small or a large business, your success today depends upon your agility and adaptability and those characteristics also apply to your data and your information.

If you are to build a flexible business environment, you must have tools and solutions that allow you to monitor and manage data and information and use that data to make fact-based decisions.

‘Comprehensive BI tools should provide data analytics access for all business users and, above all, provide flexible, agile solutions that can be used at all levels to collaborate, share data and report and communicate with clarity.’

When considering a business intelligence (BI) solution, choosing a self-serve tool serves two purposes:

Support for the Organization and Users

A business can provide software and tools for users, but if those tools are not user-friendly, or if team members do not perceive their value, they will not adopt the solution into their business processes. In order to ensure that the organization can expect a good return on investment (ROI) and a low total cost of ownership (TCO), the enterprise must select a BI tool that is useful to the team and can easily be applied to satisfy the needs of their role and their responsibilities. The tools must also provide self-serve tools that offer comprehensive predictive analytics, key performance indicators (KPIs), flexible reporting, self-serve data preparation, deep dive analytics, mobile BI and social BI. This foundation will allow business users to improve data literacy and perform analytics with confidence, thereby improving fact-based decision-making.

Flexibility and Agility

When the organization selects business intelligence tools that are flexible, users can leverage personalized dashboards and customize their use to serve the needs of their role, their team and their business unit. The ability to adapt quickly by finding the root cause of a problem, spotting a trend and addressing that trend or identifying an opportunity to improve competitive advantage can provide an edge in the market and allow the organization to move quickly. Users can collaborate and share data to make decisions and recommendations and suggestions are clearly supported by data, so there is no hesitation or delay.

‘If you are to build a flexible business environment, you must have tools and solutions that allow you to monitor and manage data and information and use that data to make fact-based decisions.’

Comprehensive BI Tools should provide data analytics access for all business users and, above all, provide flexible, agile solutions that can be used at all levels to collaborate, share data and report and communicate with clarity. Simple, Self-Serve BI Tools can provide your business with the foundation to achieve your data democratization and user adoption goals. Let us help you achieve your vision and improve productivity and insight across the organization.

Do you know what Data Democratization is? It’s simple, really. Data Democratization is the purposeful approach to cascading and integrating data into the daily workflow of business users to provide access to crucial information and the tools to analyze and understand that data and use it to make confident decisions. Instead of holding data in silos that are only accessible to IT, business analysts, data scientists and management, the enterprise recognizes the value of providing team members with the right information to do their job and contribute to the bottom line.

‘To succeed in data democratization, you need BI tools that provide data analytics access for all business users.’

Gartner predicts that, ‘75% of organizations will…deploy…multiple data hubs to drive mission-critical data and analytics sharing and governance.’ The key here is the ‘analytics sharing’ piece of the statement!

In order to fulfill the promise of this approach, your enterprise must employ business intelligence solutions that are easy-to-use and designed for business users, without advanced technical skills or advanced analytical skills. These tools allow your team members to engage in analytics and enjoy data democratization without the frustration of leveraging solutions designed for data scientists or IT staff.

Here are a few considerations to give you an idea of the kinds of things you will need to support your data democratization initiative. These factors are crucial to success, as they ensure that your users can and will adopt the BI tools you select to enjoy the new data access you have given them. Without these, you run the risk of spending the time and money to provide access and achieving poor return on investment (ROI) because of poor user adoption.

Embedded BI – By embedding business intelligence into the enterprise apps your users love, you can encourage data democratization and analytics in a single sign-on environment. Users do not have to sign in to multiple systems or move data around. They can start with the data within the ERP, HR, Finance or other system and perform analysis from within that system. Make it as easy as you can, and users will be happy!

Mobile BI – Don’t make your users sit at their desk in an office to use the BI tools. Make these tools accessible from the office and on the road, at home and in a client location or hotel. If you want your users to see the value in data democratization and you want to achieve your goals for this initiative, you must give your users the tools they need WHEN THEY NEED those tools.

Business Intelligence with Seamless User Access and Security – Data democratization does NOT mean throwing caution to the wind. Data must still be secured and accessible to users for the things they need to see, but not for the things they are not eligible to see and not in an environment where data security and privacy are at risk. To democratize your data, you must also ensure data governance, security and access standards and requirements are met.

Natural Language Processing – Make the augmented analytics and BI tools intuitive. Democratized data is no good if the users need an advanced degree to access the data. Natural Language Processing (NLP) allows your users to access data in a familiar way, with a Google-type search interface where they can ask questions using regular language and receive answers in a way that is easy to understand. If they can search, query and find information easily, they are more likely to a) use the system and b) understand the information they produce and make the right decisions.

Tools Designed Specifically for Business Users – The solution you select should be designed for business users, not for data scientists, business analysts, IT or statisticians. While you want the data democratization initiative to expand the skills and knowledge of your team, you do not want them to need advanced skills or training. Select a system that can be adopted and used within minutes – not months. Users want sophisticated functionality in an easy-to-use environment. That is important!

‘If you want your data democratization initiative to succeed, select tools that allow your team members to engage in analytics without the frustration of leveraging solutions designed for data scientists or IT staff.’

There are other considerations but, if you address the ones we have highlighted in this article, you will be well on your way to achieving your data democratization goals and ensuring that your users adopt the solution you select.

BI Tools should provide data analytics access for all business users. Simple, Self-Serve BI Tools can provide your business with the foundation to achieve your data democratization and user adoption goals. Let us help you achieve your vision and improve productivity and insight across the organization.

There is no room in today’s business world for speculation or guesswork! Whether you are presenting to your Board of Directors, making a recommendation to your management team, or pitching a new product or idea, objective, provable results and information are required. In order to succeed in business, team members must have access to tools that allow them to establish and monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) with measurable results so that the business can adapt to change, alter and adjust activities and tasks that do not provide successful outcomes, and build on success using models that have historically proven to achieve results.

‘Take the time to select a business intelligence solution that will advance your business interests and provide clear insight and help you to measure results.’

According to recent research, businesses use one of the following methods to capture and measure key performance indicators (KPIs): Spreadsheets, Dashboards and Reporting Tools, BI and Analytical Software.

In fact, the option that is likely to provide the most success is one that will eliminate human error in data entry and calculation of formulae and metrics. That would seem to suggest that a BI and Analytical software tool is the best way to establish and manage KPIs. But the sheer volume and complexity of enterprise data, distributed across the organization can be overwhelming.

Here are some important considerations for your business that will help you to choose the right BI tools and KPI features:

• By gathering and integrating data from disparate systems and selecting a business intelligence solution that incorporates augmented analytics suitable for business users, the business can create a foundation upon which to build its success.
• When selecting a BI tool, be sure to look at the capabilities provided for managing key performance indicators. With the right approach, the enterprise can achieve measurable and clear insight into key business objectives, so you can set goals, develop strategies to achieve these goals and objectively evaluate your performance and progress.
• Look for business intelligence software that allows business users with average technology skills to define KPIs using an easy-to-use, powerful expression engine and to set polarity, frequency and threshold levels using a browser-based interface.
• Avoid static reporting that will frustrate business users and instead give them interactive tools that are dynamic and will allow them to explore, slice and dice and get to the heart of the matter. KPIs should not be limited to static monitoring.
• Choose KPI Analytics that provide interactive options to change frequencies, dimension break downs and drill down to further analyze trends, and reasons for performance and non-performance.
• Remember that KPI tools are designed to be used. If you want your users to adopt these tools and use them on a daily basis, you will need an easy way to measure results and to make adjustments to workflow, processes and activities and adjust KPIs as appropriate. This method of continuous monitoring and management ensures that users can resolve issues and capitalize on opportunities as they arise.

‘A BI and Analytical software tool is the best way to establish and manage KPIs.’

Your business management team understands the need for clear, objective metrics. Be sure you take the time to select a business intelligence solution that will advance your business interests and provide clear insight and help you to measure results, adapt to the changing market and create an environment of continuous improvement.

BI tools with Multidimensional Key Performance Indicator (KPIs) features should provide data analytics access for all business users. Simple, self-serve BI tools can provide your business with the foundation to achieve your goals. Let us help you achieve your vision and improve productivity and insight across the organization.

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Knowledgebase Articles

1. LDAP/AD : AD Integration in Smarten
2. Email Configuration & Templates : Email Account (SMTP) with Two Factor authentication
3. Embedded / API Integration : API Call to rebuild cubes / datasets

Predictive Use cases

1. Handling Missing Values using Smarten Augmented Analytics
2. Handling Outliers Using Smarten Assisted Predictive Modelling

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2. Dataset : Dataset Action Editor – Action item status (active or inactive) is not saved permanently

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Original Post : Smarten Support Portal Updates – December – 2022!

When a business decides to implement a self-serve business intelligence (BI solution, it must ensure that the tools really are ‘self-serve’ and that they provide the flexibility and agility to give power users the ability to create and analyze, and business users with average technology skills the ability to quickly and easily understand the augmented analytics tools they now have access to, and to use those tools to the benefits of the team and the organization.

‘With cross-tab, deep dive tools, users have flexible tools to create views without restriction, so they can build reports and the views they need to see data in a way that is meaningful to them.’

One crucial feature of self-serve BI tools is cross-tab analytics, a tool that allows for deep-dive analytics. Cross-Tab Analytics provides numerous benefits to the organization and its business users. Cross-tabulation refers to the process of analyzing relationships between two variables.

Some research suggests that cross-tab analytics can be especially helpful for market research, customer satisfaction survey results, HR and other functions responsible for corporate culture and growth. In truth, cross-tab analytics can help all of your team members, when it is placed within the confines of a self-serve business intelligence solution. Here are just a few of the benefits you will achieve when you include cross-tab features within your business intelligence solution.

• Clear, concise visual analytics for monitoring and step-by-step deep dive tasks.
• A 360-degree view of multi-dimensional data.
• Ad-hoc and business intelligence reporting that is easy enough for all users.
• The ability to slice, dice, drill down, drill up and drill through data to gain insight into relevant information.
• Relationship analysis among two or more variables.
• The ability to summarize data in rows and columns.
• Insight into the root cause of a problem.
• The ability to identify patterns, trends, pricing sensitivity, etc.
• Creates a comprehensive picture of expenses, sales, salary and employee data, customer buying behavior, profits and revenue, suppliers, etc.
• Easy-to-use features for complex data operations, summary operations, time series functions, filters and custom column expressions.
• Pivot tables and OLAP analysis.
• Browser-based environment that is available in the office and on mobile devices.

‘Cross-tab, deep dive BI tools allow users to quickly and easily understand the augmented analytics tools they now have access to, and to use those tools to the benefits of the team and the organization.’

In today’s rapidly changing environment, your IT and management team cannot possibly anticipate every need the team will have for analytics and for insight into data to make day-to-day and crucial operational decisions and to provide accurate, dependable recommendations to their business unit and management team. With cross-tab, deep dive tools, users have flexible tools to create views without restriction, so they can build reports and the views they need to see data in a way that is meaningful to them.

Users can ask questions on the fly to make decisions. This type of BI analytics and cross-tab tool gives users many options so they can choose filters on unlimited dimensions and drill into the data in any way they wish. Users can add columns, compare disconnected time periods and rank, filter, sort and change data operations to get the results they need to make confident decisions.

Self-Serve Business Intelligence solutions should include Cross-Tab And OLAP Analytics and deep dive tools that make it easier to achieve data literacy and provide data analytics access to all business users. Simple, self-serve BI tools can provide your business with the foundation to achieve your goals with features and tools like Social BI, Embedded BI, etc.  Let us help you achieve your vision and improve productivity and insight across the organization.

Your business probably has a lot of software and apps to address your various needs. From ERP to CRM, HRMS and accounting, to production management, payroll, etc. You may even have provided a database or data management approach to integrate data from all systems so it is easier to access and report.

By embedding BI, you can improve the user adoption rate, lower TCO and improve ROI. Integration APIs provide intuitive, self-serve BI tools from within enterprise applications and public websites so you can put the power of facts, data, and business insight in the hands of business users.’

But the truth is, each of your users probably has a ‘favorite’ or necessary software solution or app that they use to perform day-to-day tasks related specifically to their roles and responsibilities. AND that isn’t going to change just because you decide to implement a business intelligence or augmented analytics solution.

According to Gartner, the BI adoption rate is only 35%. Not great!

But what if you could improve the return on investment (ROI) and total cost of ownership (TCO) results of your new augmented analytics solution and your enterprise apps and software – all at the same time? By embedding BI and augmented analytics into the enterprise apps and software solutions, you can make analytics accessible from within the confines of the popular and familiar systems your team uses the most, and you can ensure user adoption and suitable ROI and TCO.

In this article, we discuss just a few of the benefits of embedded BI with integration APIs:

• Provide unique solutions and analytics integration without significant investment
• Improve user adoption and ROI for BI investments
• Support rapid implementation and deployment – quick, efficient, and simple!
• Ensure affordable, flexible licensing models
• Provide seamless support
• Dependable development and upgrades to keep pace with business and market needs
• Provide embedded BI and access to timely data for public websites, to deliver crucial updates and analytics
• Integrated business intelligence objects with easy-to-use, scalable APIs allow for simple integration in a single sign-on environment
• Deep dive analytics capability
• Supports collaboration, data sharing and fact-based decisions

‘By embedding BI and augmented analytics into the enterprise apps and software solutions, you can make analytics accessible from within the confines of the popular and familiar systems your team uses the most, and you can ensure user adoption and suitable ROI and TCO.’

If you truly want to implement augmented analytics across the enterprise, it is imperative that you provide tools that are as easy and accessible as possible. By embedding BI, you can improve the user adoption rate, lower TCO and improve ROI. Integration APIs provide intuitive, self-serve BI tools from within enterprise applications and public websites so you can put the power of facts, data, and business insight in the hands of business users.

Discover the power of Embedded BI And Integration APIs and explore how this approach can improve user adoption of augmented analytics, improve return on investment (ROI) and total cost of ownership (TCO) and, ultimately, improve the results your organization can achieve with fact-based, clear, concise reporting, data sharing and collaboration.

Original Post : Can Embedded BI Make More of Enterprise Apps?

In today’s mobile society, no enterprise can afford to overlook the importance of mobile access for business applications. Your team may be working remotely, or out of the office meeting with clients or a sales team. Whatever the case, mobile access to apps is crucial to productivity and collaboration. Business Intelligence solutions are no exception!

‘If the mobile BI solution is not flexible and seamless so that it operates on all devices; if it does not provide all features and functionality in a mobile environment, business users will be frustrated.’

According to recent research, the global mobile analytics market is projected to reach $28 million USD within the next decade. The reasons for that growth include an expanded interest in data democratization and the use of analytics among team members throughout the business organization, as well as a need for mobile access to optimize resources and ensure productivity.

The choice of solution is key to success and any mobile BI solution the business considers must support both Android and iOS, and operate in a ‘design once, use anywhere’ approach that accommodates desktops, tablets, and smart phones with an intelligent, adaptive user interface (UI) that supports any screen resolution and any size screen with seamless navigation and performance.

Anytime, Anywhere – Team members are more tech savvy today and they will not accept or adopt solutions that are restrictive or cumbersome. A mobile business intelligence solution must provide support for a fast-paced work environment and support users in the office and on the road.

Designed to Support Growth and Change – The mobile BI solution must support growth and be flexible to expand user volume, multiple locations and changes in business processes, reporting needs, etc.

Integrated Data Access – The mobile BI solution must be easy to use and operate out-of-the-box without customization to enable access to data for analytics, working across disparate data sources to serve seamless, clear information on mobile devices.

Comprehensive Features – Features should include the ability to personalize dashboards, report features including graphs and charts and key performance indicators (KPIs). Solutions that restrict access to all features on mobile devices will not serve your business users well.

‘The choice of a mobile BI solution is key to success. It must support both Android and iOS, and operate in a ‘design once, use anywhere’ approach that accommodates desktops, tablets, and smart phones with an intelligent, adaptive user interface (UI).’

It is important to understand that simply having mobile access is not enough. If the mobile BI solution is not flexible and seamless so that it operates on all devices; if it does not provide all features and functionality in a mobile environment, business users will be frustrated and are not likely to adopt and use the solution on a daily basis which will negatively impact return on investment (ROI).

Mobile BI and Business Intelligence solutions should include tools and techniques that make it easier to achieve data literacy and provide data analytics access to all business users. Simple, self-serve BI tools can provide your business with the foundation to achieve your goals with features and tools like Social BI, Embedded BI, etc.  Let us help you achieve your vision and improve productivity and insight across the organization.

When a business or a manager is trying to illustrate the value of augmented analytics to its business users, there is nothing more helpful than providing examples. Sample business use cases that relate to a team member role or responsibility, or an illustration of an analytical technique can allay user fears about the complexity of augmented analytics or about the real value of integrating an augmented analytics solution into the day-to-day workflow.

Gartner predicts that, ‘90% of corporate strategies will explicitly mention information as a critical enterprise asset and analytics as an essential competency.’

‘Share this information with your users to help them understand how these various techniques can be used to identify the root cause of problems, to clearly understand challenges and opportunities and to strategize and share data.’

If your enterprise is planning to implement an augmented analytics strategy to enable data democratization and improve data literacy and the accuracy of decisions and strategies within the organization, it should support and encourage user adoption by illustrating the value of analytics for business users and how predictive analytics can help team members to complete tasks and make confident decisions.

In this article, we provide a list with links that will detail some of the many analytical techniques your business users will employ and provide examples of how these techniques can be used to solve problems and identify opportunities with clear, easy techniques and results. Business users are often daunted by the titles and perceived complexity of the predictive analytics algorithms. But it is crucial to understand that these sophisticated techniques are simplified in use within the augmented analytics solution, so users do not have to be a data scientist, an IT professional, or a business analyst. Self-serve assisted predictive modeling provides recommendations and suggestions based on data volume, type and other parameters, so users will be directed to the appropriate analytical techniques and receive clear, concise results that are easy to understand and apply for confident decisions.

We invite you to explore the explanations and examples contained within each of these links and to share these with your users to help them understand how these various techniques can be used to identify the root cause of problems, to clearly understand challenges and opportunities and to strategize and share data.

‘Allay user fears about the complexity of augmented analytics and the real value of integrating an augmented analytics solution into the day-to-day workflow.’

Find out how Augmented Analytics help your business plan for success and explore the profound impact of these easy-to-use Predictive Analytics tools and Analytical Algorithms And Techniques.

Original Post : Assisted Predictive Analytics is as Easy as 1-2-3!

When a business considers the implementation of an analytics solution, it may be focused on choosing the easiest, most flexible analytics solution to encourage its users to make analytics part of the process and to incorporate it into everyday tasks to achieve better results.

Gartner technology research firm states that, ‘75% of organizations will have deployed multiple data hubs to drive mission-critical data and analytics sharing and governance.’ With so much data in so many locations, the choice of an augmented analytics solution that is suitable for business users must also incorporate seamless access and tools and features designed to encourage adoption. If the data exists in too many locations, if it isn’t integrated and served to the user in a way that is easy for them to understand and leverage, there is little chance they will adopt the tools. Users might see the possible benefits of analytics and fact-based decision-making, but they will not want to waste their time gathering and preparing data from disparate locations and data hubs OR using tools that are difficult to manage.

‘With Embedded BI and Integration APIs, users can easily see the value in BI tools and analytics and embrace these tools willingly.’

When it comes to ease-of-use, the analytical techniques and access to those techniques are important. Yes! But, it is equally important to offer these tools in a familiar environment and in a way that makes it fast and easy to get the job done.

When a business offers Embedded BI tools with Integration APIs, it provides the easiest, most intuitive access a user could want. And business users can say ‘yes’ to all of the following questions.

I Know How to Navigate

Embedded BI with Integration APIs allows users easy access in a single sign-on environment. Users sign on to a familiar business application, enterprise app or website and enjoy a complete set of business intelligence and augmented analytics tools they can use to gather data from within that familiar application or system. They know how to navigate through the application and can use the BI tools to execute deep dive capabilities, share data and make decisions without coming up against data silos and a plethora of analytical applications into which they must load data. It’s all there, within the application they already know.

I Know and Can Leverage the Data

With Embedded BI, business users can easily find the data within the application, system or solution and use that data to take the next step. They do not have to learn a new solution or be trained on complex analytical tools to gather and use the data they need. By taking advantage of these familiar enterprise applications and solutions, the business can build on the foundation of existing technology and tools without having to start from scratch and train users on complicated data structures and tools.

I Can See How Embedded BI Will Help Me

When a business combines familiar business applications, websites and solutions with easy-to-use augmented analytics accessible from within the business application, it allows users to get beyond the ‘what’s in it for me’ phase of introducing a new solution and to understand and accept that augmented analytics can, in fact, help them do their job better, faster and more efficiently. With intuitive, integrated dashboards, KPIs, natural language processing (NLP) search capability and clear, concise graphs, cross-tab and tabular displays and reports, users can easily see the value in BI tools and analytics and embrace these tools willingly.

‘With so much data in so many locations, the choice of an augmented analytics solution that is suitable for business users must also incorporate seamless access and tools and features designed to encourage adoption.’

Leverage the Smarten approach to Embedded BI And Integration APIs to add powerful functionality and provide access to existing ERP, SCM, HRMS, CRM or any other products and to provide analytics capabilities within existing products without major Investment. Your business users will say ‘yes’ to analytics and you can achieve the results you want.

Original Post : Embedded BI Encourages Users to Say ‘Yes’ to Analytics!

Research reveals that the global statistical natural language processing (NLP) market size is projected to grow to $3.7 billion USD within the next five years, an annual growth rate of 20%.

The use of natural language processing for search capability is ubiquitous. From the Google-type ‘ask a question and get an answer’ environment consumers love, to the augmented analytics solution that provides an NLP environment to make it easy for non-technical business users to perform data analytics, using the tried-and-true question/answer approach, without the need for data science or IT skills.

‘It is wise to choose an augmented analytics solution that is based on natural language processing (NLP) search capability and will make it as easy as possible for your business users to adopt these analytics tools and use them to gain insight into data.’

‘Clickless Analytics’ ensures that your business users can achieve results and gain insight into issues, challenges, opportunities and the root cause of problems and results – all without the need for time-consuming, complicated analytics.

It’s simple, really! Natural Language processing-based search capability allows business users with average technical skills to gather and analyze data without the need to scroll through menus or write complex queries. The user simply asks a question like, ‘who sold the most baked goods in the Southwest in April of 2019’, and the system translates the query and returns the results in natural language, providing those results in an appropriate form, e.g., tables, numbers, visualization, or written descriptions.

Natural Language Processing Search Analytics (NLP) is a crucial component of search analytics and smart data discovery today. NLP search allows business users to create complex searches without endless clicks and complex navigation and commands. Using this type of search analytics, users can access and view clear, concise answers and analysis quickly and easily.

Natural Language Processing (NLP) search analytics allows for advanced data discovery, leveraging sophisticated algorithms and analytical techniques, using machine learning and providing results in a self-serve environment that ensures swift user adoption and requires no complex training. Users who are familiar with existing online search engines and techniques can easily transition to augmented analytics and use the same search techniques in real-world business use cases.

‘The NLP environment makes it easy for non-technical business users to perform data analytics, using the tried-and-true question/answer approach, without the need for data science or IT skills.’

If your business wishes to democratize data and improve data literacy and fact-based decision-making, it is wise to choose an augmented analytics solution that is based on natural language processing (NLP) search capability and will make it as easy as possible for your business users to adopt these analytics tools and use them to gain insight into data, make accurate predictions and plan with confidence.

Find out how Augmented Analytics and Clickless Analytics can combine to help your business plan for success.

Original Post : How Can Natural Language Processing (NLP) Help My Business?!

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Knowledgebase Articles

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Email: support@Smarten.com

Original Post : Smarten Support Portal Updates – November – 2022!

If your business is trying to gain a competitive advantage, it is important to understand the current trends. Perhaps nothing has garnered more attention today than the transition to remote work caused by the pandemic. As the disruption from the pandemic eases, many businesses are choosing to provide remote work options for employees on an ongoing basis and, at the very least, to acknowledge the reality that team members do more work outside the walls of the office. Here are two statistics that might interest you:

• 60% of employees use apps for work-related activity (Source: Digital Strategy Consulting)
• 80% of IT executives said employees cannot do their jobs effectively without a mobile phone (Source: Samsung/Oxford Economics)

‘With appropriate planning and review of the options and function and features of an augmented analytics solution, and an understanding of your team needs for mobile access, you can select the right solution.’

When a business decides to provide access to analytics for its team members, it must incorporate the consideration of mobile access into its project plan. Without mobile access to data, it is difficult to implement strategies for Citizen Data Scientists or initiatives for Digital Transformation (Dx), data literacy or data democratization. Every team member expects to have mobile access to tools and information in order to perform tasks and fulfill their role.

Here are just a few of the considerations your business should include to ensure that it selects the right mobile augmented analytics application:

• Be sure the app is designed for seamless user interface as a cross-platform, hybrid mobile app that is available for both iOS and Android.
• Ensure that the app is truly mobile and not just a desktop app that provides access but offers less than optimal navigation and user experience.
• Review training requirements to ensure that your team members can quickly adopt and use the app without extensive training.
• Ask about support and implementation requirements to ensure that your team will not be mired in complex implementation, upgrade and support tasks.
• Ensure appropriate security and privacy methodologies and processes.
• Look for flexible hosting – on premises, public or private cloud.
• Start-up should take minutes (not weeks).
• Be sure your users will have access to easy-to-use augmented analytics tools, e.g., dashboards, reports, clickless analytics with natural language processing (NLP) search analytics and sophisticated functionality that allows for easy access and clear, concise reporting without data scientist skills or IT assistance.

‘When a business decides to provide access to analytics for its team members, it must incorporate the consideration of mobile access into its project plan.’

With appropriate planning and review of the options and function and features of an augmented analytics solution, and an understanding of your team needs for mobile access, you can select the right solution and ensure that your total cost of ownership (TCO) and return on investment (ROI) will be positive and that user adoption will be successful.

Discover the power of Smarten Mobile BI with intuitive, self-serve features and products of the Smarten Augmented Analytics solution.

Original Post : Choose a Mobile BI App and Give Your Team the Data They Need!

Here are some sobering statistics:

According to technology research firm, Gartner, ‘85% of data analytics projects fail, and only 20% of analytics insight projects will deliver business outcomes.’

We advise our clients to include a comprehensive review of stakeholders and accommodate concerns and needs, including those issues that may make users or stakeholders resistant to the concept of data democratization and the use of analytics across the organization.

With appropriate planning, the business can:

• Justify investment and resources
• Provide measurements and metrics to monitor success after implementation
• Achieve data analytics and user adoption goals
• Improve data literacy across the enterprise
• Achieve continuous improvement in the organization
• Demonstrate business value and results for data analytics initiative

As with any new business process or change in workflow or enterprise culture, stakeholders must see and embrace the changes and are much more likely to do so if they see the value to their everyday role and work processes and how it will help them achieve their goals, advance their careers and positively impact communication and collaboration.

Here are some critical Do’s and Don’ts that will help your business plan and execute its data analytics and augmented analytics solution strategy to achieve optimal results.

DON’T

Don’t Focus on the Technology – While your IT team and data analytics planning team must find the right solution, and dig into the current and desired infrastructure and technology to implement software, apps and mobile access that will allow users to work with data and share and collaborate, this technical detail is NOT what your users or stakeholders want to know. Of course, they want to know the solution will work and that they will have access, but they are more focused on the benefits of the new workflow and processes and less focused on the ‘how’ and ‘what’ of the actual technology delivery.

Don’t Lecture and Promote – Rather than trying to ‘sell’ users on the importance of data analytics, provide them with business use cases, and actual work-related examples and workflow that will allow them to practice and/or see solutions to their very real problems. Take the time to understand their ‘hot buttons’ and what frustrates them today, and align your new solution and capabilities to these issues to show users how data analytics can solve their problems.

Don’t Assume Things Will Work Out on Their Own – Your team must plan for project steps and outcomes and ensure that the implementation, training and monitoring of the process is in place, so that it can adapt to changes as necessary. For a change as crucial as democratized analytics, the enterprise cannot assume that putting it on paper is enough. There must be a team in place to monitor and work with the business users, IT and other stakeholders as the roll-out takes place.

DO

Do Tell Users and Stakeholders ‘What’s in It for Them’ – Work with team members and leaders who are on the ground facing issues and challenges every day so you can translate things like ‘increased revenue’ and ‘market share’ to a more personal achievement. How will embracing data analytics and augmented analytics solutions help the business user gain visibility and advance their career? Will they get more done in less time? Might they receive a bonus for using data to make recommendations and suggestions that add value and are fact-based? Can they experience team visibility and be seen as a leader if they learn and champion data analytics?

Do Be Honest About Challenges – Change in culture and business processes can be somewhat painful. Even if the business user embraces the concept, they may have to convince others that it is a good change. There may be some hiccups or missteps in the technical shift, or it may take some time to roll out all of the components. Maybe it will take some time to find, interview and hire staff to assist with the implementation, or the team may be working with an IT consultant, and that may be new for them. Be honest about these challenges and prepare your team for them, so that they are not disappointed or frustrated and they have the tools to work with the reality of change.

Do Create a Roadmap – Integrate the technology changes and improvements with the culture change and plan a timeline and steps in the process to be sure you have considered and addressed all the issues you will face.

Do Be Clear About the Results – Each business unit, team member role and stakeholder will have a different set of concerns. Be sure to clearly state WHEN these users will see the changes, WHAT the changes will be, WHY the changes are taking place, and HOW they will be impacted, as well as WHAT BENEFITS they will achieve. Again, be sure to provide specifics that resonate with each of these stakeholders so they are more likely to collaborate and cooperate.

This article includes foundational information that will get your business started with the planning process and ensure that your data analytics project is more likely to succeed. It is important to note that there are many other details and that the best approach to this type of project is to engage an IT consultant with augmented analytics, domain and industry experience. With the right partner, the business is more likely to create a comprehensive plan and execute that plan to achieve its goals.

If your organization is considering the implementation of a data democratization and data analytics initiative, these White Papers will help you explore the issues and prepare for the challenges. ‘Accelerating Advanced Analytics In An Immature Analytics Culture’, ‘A Roadmap To ROI And User Adoption Of Augmented Analytics And BI Tools’, and ‘Integrate Augmented Analytics And Digital Transformation To Achieve Continuous Business Improvement.’

Original Post : Some Simple Do’s and Don’ts for Data Analytics Success!

Technology research firm Gartner has predicted that 50% of data scientist activities will be automated by artificial intelligence, easing the acute talent shortage.

As a business owner, executive or manager, you are likely aware of the term, ‘Citizen Data Scientist.’ Perhaps you have even implemented this type of initiative in your organization. While every business journal, industry and technology publication discuss the advantages of the Citizen Data Scientist approach, many businesses fail to get the most of the initiative. In most cases, the reason these projects fall short is because of poor planning.

The Citizen Data Scientist strategy is a crucial component of the augmented analytics, artificial intelligence and data analytics concepts that Gartner predicts will improve productivity and allow businesses to move forward without adding an endless supply of data scientists.

‘Transforming business users into Citizen Data Scientists, provides advantages to the organization, to the business users and to data scientists.’

If your business wishes to leverage the power of the Citizen Data Scientist strategy and enable data literacy and a balanced approach for data analytics, the enterprise must do more than select an augmented analytics solution for its team members. While this aspect of the project is certainly crucial to success, the organizational culture is equally important. In order to achieve your goals for a Citizen Data Scientist strategy, you must carefully assess and address your current team culture, how your business users interact with and leverage data and technology, how they collaborate, and other factors that will affect project success.

Without changing the culture, the enterprise runs the risk of spending money and time implementing an augmented analytics solution that will sit on the shelf and gather dust. To understand the various factors involved in the successful implementation of a Citizen Data Scientist strategy, you may wish to review this White Paper, ‘Preparing Your Business For Digital Transformation (Dx) And Data Literacy.’ This White Paper outlines the need for, and the components of a solid strategy to support the Citizen Data Scientist approach.

Once you have a roadmap to incorporate all aspects of the Citizen Data Scientist strategy, you will want to provide a clear and common understanding of the roles, collaborative techniques and the augmented analytics solution and analytical techniques your business users will employ to enable this new strategy. A simple and risk-free way to achieve this common understanding is to offer a free online training course that will allow for self-paced training and for users to repeat any elements of the training they wish to review, so that everyone can proceed at their own pace.

The course should include:

• A review of the Citizen Data Scientist Concept
• An overview of the benefits of and reasons for the Citizen Data Scientist approach
• A review of analytical roles and processes and how business users will collaborate with other roles
• A definition and discussion of Predictive Analytics
• A discussion of analytical techniques
• Real-world examples of the use of analytics in business use cases

‘If your business wishes to leverage the power of the Citizen Data Scientist strategy and enable data literacy and a balanced approach for data analytics, the enterprise must do more than select an augmented analytics solution for its team members.’

Transforming business users into Citizen Data Scientists, provides advantages to the organization, to the business users and to data scientists. Today, businesses can explore a FREE Online Citizen Data Scientist Course, and the right augmented analytics solution, and organizational planning, to build a solid foundation and business user confidence. The business should also consider engaging an IT consulting partner with knowledge of the augmented analytics market, and a solution and support services to provide the guidance and Products And Services your business will need to succeed.

Original Post : Create a Thorough Plan and Training Strategy for Citizen Data Scientists!

Smarten is pleased to announce the launch of its FREE online Citizen Data Scientist course. 

Smarten CEO, Kartik Patel says, ‘This comprehensive, free online course is designed to support businesses and individuals who wish to pursue, or are interested in finding out more about, the Citizen Data Scientist journey. The Smarten advanced analytics product suite was specifically designed to support business users and those with average technology skills and offers sophisticated analytics tools in an intuitive, easy-to-use environment and this self-paced course material is a natural extension of the self-serve Smarten Augmented Analytics approach.’

This Free Citizen Data Scientist Course describes the Citizen Data Scientist role, and its benefits to team members and the organization, including improved data literacy, support for user adoption of augmented analytics tools, and an understanding of the basic algorithms and analytical techniques used in the process. There are no prerequisites for this course. It is intended for business and technology users and team members within the business environment.

“By the end of this course, participants will understand the role and value of Citizen Data Scientists and the benefits to the organization, as well as the integration points and cultural shifts that will position analytical professionals and Citizen Data Scientists to work more productively,” Patel says. “ Participants will gain a basic understanding of applicable analytical techniques, including predictive analytics, how to apply these techniques to real world business use cases and the augmented analytics tools they can use to make fact-based decisions and move the organization forward. We believe this course can play a valuable role in moving an enterprise and its users toward a more data literate environment.”

By providing this course as a free online offering Smarten hopes to further support and encourage users and businesses to embrace the very real benefits of the Citizen Data Scientist approach to analytics and objective, data-driven metrics and results.

Begin the Citizen Data Scientist Journey now, or contact the Smarten team for more information on Smarten Augmented Analytics solution.

About Smarten

The Smarten approach to business intelligence and business analytics focuses on the business user and provides Advanced Data Discovery so users can perform early prototyping and test hypotheses without the skills of a data scientist. Smarten Augmented Analytics tools include Assisted Predictive Modeling, Smart Data Visualization, Self-Serve Data Preparation, Sentiment Analysis, and Clickless Analytics with natural language processing (NLP) for search analytics. All of these tools are designed for business users with average skills and require no special skills or knowledge of statistical analysis or support from IT or data scientists. Smarten is listed in multiple Gartner Reports including Gartner Data Preparation Report, the Market Guide for Enterprise-Reporting-Based Platforms and the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms Report for the ElegantJ BI Business Intelligence Suite.

Original Post : Smarten Announces Free Online Citizen Data Scientist Course Available to All!

Technology research firm Gartner states that, ‘40% of application development teams will be using automated data science and machine learning services to build models that add AI capabilities to their applications.’

‘By integrating analytics within the Tally ERP environment and providing out-of-the-box reporting and results, the business can provide tools that ensure fact-based decision-making, get to the root of problems, and identify opportunities for growth.’

By now, your business has probably seen the articles about the use of augmented analytics and business intelligence in publications, on industry websites and in other locations. Whether you are implementing this strategy or just considering it, you will want to carefully plan for this capability if you are a Tally ERP user.

Why? Because integrating analytics within your Tally ERP app will add value in numerous ways. Perhaps one of the most important benefits is the opportunity for business professionals to add value to the organization or, in the case of practice management, to clients and customers.

So, how does Tally Integrated Analytics work?

The augmented analytics solution is integrated with Tally ERP so users can sign on to Tally to view and interact with data. On-premises installation is connected to the desktop app which connects to a secured cloud server to push data at predefined frequencies so users have access to near real-time access and recent transactions and data. Native mobile apps communicate with the cloud server to fetch and display data, graphs and reports. All interact and transactions are secured.

There are numerous value-add considerations your finance and accounting professionals can expect when you add integrated augmented analytics to the Tally ERP environment.

Going Beyond Data Entry

Accounts, financial professionals, inventory managers, purchasing managers, sales managers and others work with numbers and data all the time. To stay abreast of progress, revenue and projects, team members enter data into Tally ERP and these managers and professionals use this data to track and manage. With integrated augmented analytics that is easy enough for all users to understand and leverage, finance and related professionals can go beyond data entry to analyze across modules, and to create and monitor key performance indicators (KPIs), analyze sales, identify trends and patterns, and solve problems.

Providing Sophisticated, Clear Reporting

With integrated augmented analytics, team members and managers can gather data and create reports for sales, purchasing, bank and cash, payables, receivables, inventory, taxes, cost centers, ledgers, and account statements with drill-down capability. The business can add value by analyzing sales, top customers, sales registers, and looking at trends over a period of time. Users can achieve clear, concise results of analysis of creditors and debtors by product, service, component, collections data etc. Inventory managers can add value and make long-term decisions based on shortages, overstock, supplier data and shipping and distribution. Accountants can gather and prepare data for statutory submission and advise management and make recommendations based on historical and current results and issues.

Ensuring Fact-Based Recommendations

By integrating analytics within the Tally ERP environment and providing out-of-the-box reporting and results, the business can provide tools that ensure fact-based decision-making, get to the root of problems, and identify opportunities for growth. Users do not have to wade through modules and columns of data or restrictive reports to get to the ‘nuggets’ of information that will help them make better choices and be more productive.

‘There are numerous value-add considerations your finance and accounting professionals can expect when you add integrated augmented analytics to the Tally ERP environment.’

Find out how the addition of SmartenApps For Tally will support your accounting, finance, sales, inventory, and purchasing analytical needs, and bring your team and your business to the next level. Users can Download And Register for SmartenApps for Tally and use Tally data to analyze, explore and clarify.

Original Post : Add Value for Clients with Tally ERP Integrated Analytics!

Gartner research reveals that, ‘90% of corporate strategies will explicitly mention information as a critical enterprise asset and analytics as an essential competency.’ As business professionals, we all know that information is power and today, your business users are expected to know more and to keep pace with industry, market and customer changes that will negatively impact the business or have provide potential opportunities. But how do your team members achieve these goals when they are busier than ever, and the changes are coming more rapidly than ever!

‘Simple, self-serve BI tools can provide your business with the foundation to achieve your goals with features and tools like Social BI, Mobile BI, Embedded BI, etc.’

In this article, we will discuss the topic of modern business intelligence tools and solutions and the advantages of providing self-serve tools to your users for day-to-day analysis and intelligence gathering.

First, let’s look at some of the challenges you will need to consider when implementing self-serve BI tools:

Challenges of Self-Serve BI

• Technology Access and Infrastructure Readiness – Your IT, finance and management teams will need a comprehensive understanding of your current technology and infrastructure, the data hubs, data warehouses and software solutions (legacy, best-of-breed, ERP, etc.) that will provide the foundational data for your users. You will need a plan and a roadmap to integrate these into your business intelligence strategy. A modern, seamless BI solution can provide a simple solution for what might otherwise be a challenging situation. If you can easily integrate your data sources and make them available for data gathering and analytics, your users can leverage the data to report, share and collaborate.
• Team Member Adoption and Understanding – Your team will also need an understanding of the average technology skills of your business users and their willingness to adopt new tools and solutions. If your team members perceive that your BI tools are difficult to use, or if they are not educated on the need for and the benefits of self-serve business intelligence, they are unlikely to adopt the new tools. If, on the other hand, they see the value to their role and how it can make them more productive and streamline their work process; if they see that the solution is easy and intuitive to use, your business is less likely to face the challenges of team reluctance.

There are many other challenges and considerations that should inform your BI tools strategy, but these two are perhaps the most important.

Now, let’s consider some of the many benefits of self-serve business intelligence and how it can support your goals and simplify the lives of your business users:

Benefits of Self-Serve BI

• Social BI – Social BI allows users to champion the use of business intelligence. Power users and those who are curious by nature will create reports, share and collaborate, using easy-to-use tools and thereby encourage others to use the tools and to repurpose report formats etc. to achieve their own goals. Social BI allows business users to share, ‘like’ and perform tasks in a way that is similar to social networking and is therefore popular among business users.
• Mobile BI – Today’s team members often work remotely, or spend a lot of time on the road. By providing self-serve business intelligence that is intuitive to use and accessible on Android and iOS devices, the business can ensure that users will have seamless access and can accomplish tasks, search for information, share and collaborate, without missing a beat!
• Data Democratization and Data Literacy – If you want your team members to grow and add more value, you want to encourage data literacy and ensure data democratization. Move away from restricted data access and sole ownership of analytics by data scientists, IT and business analysts. Provide easy-to-use tools that allow for simple search analytics in a Google-type environment and will make it easier for reluctant business users to embrace your new BI solution and develop new data analytics skills they can use for fact-based decisions.
• User Adoption – There is nothing more frustrating than spending the time and money to implement a new solution, only to find that your users are resistant to using that solution. With true self-serve BI tools and intuitive data visualization, reporting, analytics and access, users will want to adopt the tools and share their discoveries with other team members.
• Embedded BI – If you want to leverage existing technology, improve your Return on Investment (ROI) and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for your current solutions and infrastructure, consider that self-serve BI tools can be embedded into existing solutions. With embedded BI with Integration APIs, users can leverage familiar, favorite software solutions in a single sign-on environment, and find information within those solutions without having to learn complicated new techniques or fighting with data silos and transferring data from one place to another.

There are many other advantages to Self-Serve Business Intelligence. This short list should give you some ideas of how you can leverage these tools in your own business landscape.

‘As business professionals, we all know that information is power and today, your business users are expected to know more and to keep pace with industry, market and customer changes that will negatively impact the business or have provide potential opportunities.’

Business Intelligence solutions should include tools and techniques that make it easier to achieve data literacy and provide data analytics access to all business users. Simple, self-serve BI tools can provide your business with the foundation to achieve your goals with features and tools like Social BI, Mobile BI, Embedded BI, etc. Let us help you achieve your vision and improve productivity and insight across the organization.

Gartner says that, ‘90% of corporate strategies will explicitly mention information as a critical enterprise asset and analytics as an essential competency.’ If your business is considering the addition of business intelligence and augmented analytics solutions to democratize data, improve data literacy and encourage users to adopt analytics as part of their daily routine, there is ample reason to include Mobile Business Intelligence in your requirements planning.

‘Mobile BI tools that allow access on desktops, tablets, Android and iOS devices provide maximum flexibility and ensure user adoption and user satisfaction.’

You may wonder why it is necessary to make BI tools accessible on mobile devices. In this article, we will consider three of the many reasons mobile BI is an important addition to your analytics strategy.

Fulfill User Expectations

When the enterprise considers new business software solutions and applications, it is wise to remember that employees and team members are also consumers. Today, every team member uses technology inside and outside of the organization. As consumers, team members are used to buying products, looking for information, making reservations and appointments, etc. When it comes to business applications, your business users will expect access to BI tools as and when they need them. Your organization may have provided augmented analytics and tools for desktops, but that doesn’t help a user when they are working out of the office, in a staff meeting or away from their desk and need access to crucial information. Mobile BI tools that allow access on desktops, tablets, Android and iOS devices provide maximum flexibility and ensure user adoption and user satisfaction.

Support Productivity Initiatives

Today’s businesses are challenged to do more with less and every organization strives to be more productive. Increasing access and selecting tools that are easy-to-use and encourage user adoption will ensure that the business user will leverage the solution your business selects and that they can be more productive. Whether they want to perform a quick task or look up information on a commuter train, in a hotel or working remotely, they will not have to postpone activities and tasks or wait until they get back to the office to complete the research and review and take action.

Encourage Collaboration and Team Effectiveness

Workflow and business processes are often delayed by lack of access to information or team members. The ability to leverage business intelligence and augmented analytics to prepare data, perform analytics and share the techniques and the results will encourage collaboration, create analytics champions and support the transition of business users to Citizen Data Scientists.

‘There are many reasons to include Mobile BI in your business requirements for a Business Intelligence and Augmented Analytics solution.’

Explore Smarten Mobile Augmented Analytics And Mobile BI and add powerful functionality and access for your business users with out-of-the-box Mobile BI and advanced analytics for every team member in your enterprise.  For more information on Mobile BI and Augmented Analytics, read our article, ‘What Should My Business Consider When Selecting A Mobile BI Solution?’

Original Post : Including Mobile BI in Analytics Requirements is Crucial!

Every business is unique and it is that unique character that drives its decisions. When it comes to analytics, and the democratization of data throughout the enterprise, the choices a business makes will be based on its unique needs. Gartner has predicted that, ‘60% of organizations will compose components from three or more analytics solutions to build business applications infused with analytics that connect insights to actions.’ The options an enterprise chooses to satisfy its analytics needs must be suitable for its IT team, its data scientists and its business users, as well as executives, middle managers and others.

‘When an enterprise chooses a solution that integrates both traditional and modern BI tools with augmented analytics and advanced tools that are easy enough for all users, it can achieve its goals without sacrificing user satisfaction or user adoption.’

As analytics has evolved, the traditional concepts of BI tools have given way to augmented analytics, designed to be used by business users. Each of these approaches has its benefits and, for many, the idea that the business must choose between the two is antithetical to its business acumen and its understanding of what various users and roles need.

So…why choose? If your business can leverage traditional business intelligence tools AND advanced augmented analytics, it can provide the features and tools its users need without being forced to choose and without forcing its team to use a solution that is not ideal for their role or their needs.

In this article, we look at the benefits of combining a business intelligence and augmented analytics approach and how your business can have both in one solution.

Traditional and Modern BI Tools and Benefits

Team members working on day-to-day projects and activities need access to easy-to-use, intuitive tools that combine those ‘workhorse’ features and allow for swift, accurate action and decisions. With an integrated, mobile approach to BI tools, business users can leverage personalized dashboards, multidimensional key performance indicators, and KPI tools, report software, Crosstab & Tabular reports, GeoMaps and deep dive analytics and enjoy Social BI and collaboration. The benefits of this type of solution include:

• Personalized Dashboard
• Multidimensional Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
• Deep-Dive Analytics
• Social BI tools for data sharing
• Graphical Analysis and Cross-Tab Analytics for Intuitive reporting
• What-If Analysis to test pricing, budget and cost information
• GeoMap support with interactive maps
• Out-of-the-Box Mobile BI tools for access from anywhere
• Personalized alerts
• Real time and cached data management
• R Integration for all with no programming experience required
• Intuitive, informative reporting
• Publishing and delivery agent

Advanced Augmented Analytics Advantages

Augmented analytics that is designed with sophisticated features for use by team members, IT, data scientists and others, provides many advanced features and enables improved data literacy and data democratization across the enterprise. With products and modules that include self-serve data preparation and ETL for business users, predictive analytics with auto-suggestions and recommendations to help users choose the right predictive modeling techniques, and smart data visualization with recommendations for the type of visualization best suited for a particular type of data, the users can make choices confidently and gain insight into issues without the programming or data science knowledge needed in decades past. Embedded BI with integration APIs allows users to leverage single sign-on within familiar software and perform analytics from within that solution. Additional features and tools include:

• Sentiment Analysis
• Key Influencer Analysis
• Clickless Analytics with Natural Language Processing (NLP) and easy ‘Google-type’ searches and queries
• Auto Insights and toolsets that leverage machine learning
• Anomaly Monitoring and Alerts

‘As analytics has evolved, the traditional concepts of BI tools have given way to augmented analytics, designed to be used by business users. Each of these approaches has its benefits.’

When an enterprise chooses a solution that integrates both traditional and modern BI tools with augmented analytics and advanced tools that are easy enough for all users, it can achieve its goals without sacrificing user satisfaction or user adoption.

Find out how Augmented Analytics and Traditional BI Tools can combine to help your business plan for success.

Original Post : Combine BI Tools and Augmented Analytics. Satisfy ALL Needs!

Gartner has predicted that, ‘a scarcity of data scientists will no longer hinder the adoption of data science and machine learning in organizations.’ As businesses embrace the concept of transforming business users to Citizen Data Scientists, the Gartner prediction takes on a very practical application and enterprises try to sort through the roles of data scientists, business analysts and Citizen Data Scientists.

‘You can be a subject matter expert, or a professional trained in a very specific business function or industry and you can combine this expertise with augmented analytics to achieve your goals.’

Those at the top of major corporations, with experience in managing the reality of the data science landscape, are now realizing that they can create a collaborative environment that includes those who have data science and statistical experience, as well as those who have professional experience that is brought to bear for operational and strategy decisions by combining industry and domain knowledge with intuitive data tools and solutions.

In a recent CDOTrends Article, experts describe a data analytical environment that includes economists, engineers, data scientists and others from varied disciplines. In another publication in Fortune Magazine, experts talk about the very real evolution of data science and the fact that professionals at all levels will need to use, and WILL be using, data and analytics.

These articles point out the fact that Gartner predictions are now a reality, and that data science is proliferating across organizations of all sizes in all industries. Foundational data science skills are important but, as Gartner has predicted, the sophisticated, professional data scientist training is not required for business users to participate in, and benefit from, data analytics. Augmented analytics, designed for use by business users, provide tools that are easy enough for all users, and allow for natural language processing (NLP) and search analytics in an environment where users only have to ask a question, and can then allow a system to provide the context-oriented response they need to gain insight into an issue.

You can be a subject matter expert, or a professional trained in a very specific business function or industry, and you can combine this expertise with augmented analytics to achieve your goals. Data Scientists can then focus on strategic initiatives where analytics must be 100% accurate. When a business provides support for business users to transition into Citizen Data Scientists, the tools allow business users to leverage sophisticated techniques and to become more data literate and comfortable with analytics as part of their day-to-day workflow and business processes.

All of this is a long way of saying that Citizen Data Scientists are a reality today, and that the evidence of efficacy and effectiveness exists in many organizations today.

‘Combining professional experience to make operational and strategy decisions, and a user’s industry and domain knowledge with intuitive data tools and solutions is a powerful benefit to the enterprise.’

As we gain experience with the new reality of distributed data science, we hear from senior executives and experts who have seen the good and the bad of the evolution. And, the experts tell us that the most important trait of successful data analysis is curiosity. Citizen Data Scientists can use their experience in their role to ask the right questions and allow the new generation of augmented analytics solutions to provide the answers, without coding or sophisticated data science skills. Business users can easily understand what the data is saying in layman’s terms and translate complex issues into insight that is easy to understand.

Transforming business users into Citizen Data Scientists, provides advantages to the organization, to the business users and to data scientists. Today, businesses can explore a FREE Online Citizen Data Scientist Course, and the right augmented analytics solution, and organizational planning, to build a solid foundation and business user confidence. The business should also consider engaging an IT consulting partner with knowledge of the augmented analytics market, and a solution and support services to provide the guidance and Products And Services your business will need to succeed.

Original Post : The Results Are In: Citizen Data Scientists ARE Beneficial!

Gartner has predicted that, ‘90% of corporate strategies will explicitly mention information as a critical enterprise asset and analytics as an essential competency.’ Establishing the strategy is one thing, but getting business users to adopt an analytics and information-based business workflow is quite another.

‘Modern business intelligence tools that are designed with self-serve features makes it easy enough for every user (no matter their technical skill) to leverage analytics to report, share and collaborate.’

When it comes to teams, there are two things that are always true: 1) they learn a process and workflow and rarely want to change that familiar process and 2) they are always suspicious of ‘new’ initiatives and nearly always believe that these new initiatives will result in more work for them. There is a reason your team resists new processes and initiatives and that reason is simple. Usually, their fears are warranted!

So, if you want to engender support for new analytics initiatives and engage a business community in fact-based, action-oriented initiatives, you need to plan this new initiative with your users in mind.

In this article, we focus on two of the primary components of a new business user analytics initiative.

Self-Serve BI Tools

Modern business intelligence tools that are designed with self-serve features like smart data visualization, self-serve data preparation and assisted predictive modeling make it easy enough for every user (no matter their technical skill) to leverage analytics to report, share and collaborate. By adding value to the user’s everyday tasks and reducing the rework and issues they will confront, you can encourage your users to adopt analytics initiatives.

• Any promotion of analytics strategy must clearly illustrate business use cases and benefits of these tools.
• Support a more productive, streamlined environment that will allow them to do more with less and get the job done quickly.
• Ensure that business users can collaborate and share and grow their own expertise and visibility.
• Provide measurable results and information to make recommendations and support those recommendations.

Cross-Tab Analytics Capabilities

Those self-serve tools should include reporting and graphical tools that are clear and concise. Business users don’t want tools that produce complex reports filled with columns and mind-numbing numbers that do not help them reach a decision or illustrate an issue. Cross-tab analytics have been around for some time but the new, improved versions of this capability provides real insight into data in a way that is clear for every user. Sophisticated functionality is underpinned with easy-to-use tools so users can analyze the relationship between or among two or more variables and summarize data in rows and columns making it easy to understand the relationships and intersection of the various types of data. Understanding relationships in data is crucial to identifying the root cause of a problem or to targeting an issue or identifying a business opportunity. Your team members can work with multi-dimensional data and perform ad-hoc queries to gain a clear view of performance, dive into your data, and find and understand the data they need quickly and intuitively. Cross-tab analysis simplifies complex data operations, summary operations, time series functions, filters and custom column expressions and enables business users with simple tools they can really use.

‘If you want to engender support for new analytics initiatives and engage a business community in fact-based, action-oriented initiatives, you need to plan this new initiative with your users in mind.’

Business Intelligence tools can improve your business results. If your business understands the challenges of implementing a business intelligence solution and adequately plans for implementation and user adoption, it can leverage the benefits of these tools and solutions and ensure success. Let us help you achieve your vision and improve productivity and insight across the organization

If your organization is considering BI tools or augmented analytics but your management or IT team believes it will be too difficult to engender user adoption, it is important to understand your options. With the right tools and strategy, your enterprise can implement analytics, democratize data and improve data literacy, assuring user adoption and a significant return on investment (ROI) and low total cost of ownership (TCO).

‘With the right solution and features, and an Embedded BI solution with integration APIs, the organization can offer its business users the tools they need, and make user adoption as easy as possible.’

In the Gartner Analytics and BI Magic Quadrant customer reference survey, the average modern analytics and BI Adoption rate is 35%. But that doesn’t have to be you! There are numerous reasons for poor user adoption. In this article, we discuss the factors for success and how your business can ensure user adoption and improved performance.

Provide augmented analytics that leverage Integration APIs to support embedded BI tools within enterprise applications and public websites. Intuitive, self-serve tools put the power of facts, data and business insight in the hands of business users. With access to self-serve analytics from within familiar enterprise apps, BI adoption and use increases exponentially. Business users can access augmented analytics and BI tools from within their enterprise applications or mobile apps and enjoy deep dive capabilities, engender collaboration, data sharing and fact-based decisions. Because these tools are accessible and easy to use, your business users will WANT to use analytics.

Provide Single Sign-On Access (SSO). SSO means your users can log in to their favorite, familiar app using existing login credentials. Your IT team will have the confidence of leveraging existing security protocols including OAuth2, OpenID and other custom SSO authentications and enterprise developers can implement custom SSO authentication using AD or Open LDAP to link analytics with existing portals or applications. Business users do not need to understand or consider any of those security issues. All they need to know is that they can login to their enterprise app and have access to embedded BI and augmented analytics within that application. Again…it’s easy so they are more likely to adopt and use the tools.

Provide Embedded BI Objects from within your application(s) with easy to use, scalable Integration API so business users can leverage Dashboards, Crosstab, Tabular, KPIs, Graphs, Reports, Clickless Analytics for simple, intuitive searches using natural language processing (NLP). These new features and tools will allow your users to enjoy sophisticated analytics without extensive training and will provide them with valuable insight and support for fact-based decisions.

Businesses that report poor user adoption of analytics typically fall short on planning and do not provide the right tools or the right environment to support user adoption. With the right solution and features, and an Embedded BI solution with integration APIs, the organization can offer its business users the tools they need, and make user adoption as easy as possible. If a business user has easy access, great new features and obvious value to support their role and their responsibilities, the enterprise can ensure user adoption and great return on investment (ROI).

‘Provide augmented analytics that leverage Integration APIs to support embedded BI tools within enterprise applications and public websites’

Leverage the Smarten approach to Embedded BI And Integration APIs to add powerful functionality and provide access to existing ERP, SCM, HRMS, CRM or any other products and to provide analytics capabilities within existing products without major Investment. Reduce time to market and stay ahead of the competition!

Original Post : Ensure User Adoption of Analytics with Embedded BI!

You made sure you gave your business users the software they need to support their business function. Tally® ERP is popular among your team members. Accountants are using the appropriate module to enter data and print reports. Inventory managers are managing stock, and purchasing managers are coordinating suppliers, supplies and expenses. But you’ve been hearing about analytics at all the conferences and in the industry trade papers and you wonder whether you need to take your Tally ERP solution to the next level with integrated analytics.

‘Your users can still enjoy the familiar features and functionality of Tally ERP while adding the capabilities of integrated augmented analytics and out-of-the-box reporting to enable data-driven decisions,’

Gartner predicts that, ‘By 2023, overall analytics adoption will increase from 35% to 50%, driven by vertical- and domain-specific augmented analytics solutions.’ While your business may not be in a narrow vertical industry or a market with limited competitive dimensions, the concept of vertical and domain specific analytics can be applied to financial service practices or to a business unit within any enterprise that is dedicated to accounting, managing finances, controlling expenses etc. The reason is simple. No matter the type of company or industry in which is participates, the needs, regulatory specifications and requirements for reporting are specific to accounting, finance, and other departments that control investment, expenses and revenue.

If your business is considering adding integrated analytics to your existing Tally ERP solution, here are some things to consider that may help you answer the question, ‘how do I know if I need to integrate analytics with my Tally ERP solution.’

You Need Clear, Concise Information

When your business users are confined to the data and reports for their particular function, e.g., accounting or inventory, there is no flexibility and no way (short of expensive customization or IT report requests) to create a clear picture of a particular issue or question. Business user access to reports and data is restrictive and limited to columns and simple graphs that do not tell a story or reveal the root cause of a problem or the hidden opportunities within the data to improve products, pricing, purchasing agreements, tax strategies, investment opportunities, etc.

You Need Reporting and Analytics that Cross Business Functions

Users do not have access to comprehensive reporting for sales, tax, receivables, payables, cash, banking, accounting statements or other needs but rather must depend on simple templates and reports. Reporting is limited to a particular business function and data cannot be gathered across modules and analyzed to highlight issues that cross business function boundaries or opportunities for collaboration or process improvement.

You Need Mobile Access to Workflow and Reporting

Users are limited to desktop or, in some cases, browser access. No true, flexible mobile access is available to accommodate native operating systems (OS) and provide simple, user-friendly analytics for team members who must perform tasks, analyze data and report and share information while on the road.

You Need Measurable Results

Your business has the data in Tally ERP but needs to establish and monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) and provide metrics for measurable results against objectives and goals.

If some or all of these issues sound familiar to you, your business may wish to consider simple, integrated, mobile augmented analytics for Tally ERP.

‘You’ve been hearing about analytics at all the conferences and in the industry trade papers and you wonder whether you need to take your Tally ERP solution to the next level with integrated analytics.’

Your users can still enjoy the familiar features and functionality of Tally ERP while adding the capabilities of integrated augmented analytics and out-of-the-box reporting to enable data-driven decisions, gain insight into issues, and identify opportunities with intuitive dashboards, KPIs and reporting. Users can analyze data using a myriad of value-added tools and features.

Find out how the addition of SmartenApps For Tally will support your accounting-related analytical initiative and bring your team and your business to the next level. Users can Download And Register for SmartenApps for Tally and use Tally data to analyze, explore and clarify.

Original Post : Should I Add Integrated, Mobile Analytics to Tally ERP?

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Original Post : Smarten Support Portal Updates – September – 2022!

Gartner has predicted that, ‘Overall analytics adoption will increase from 35% to 50%, driven by vertical and domain-specific augmented analytics solutions.’ Your business, like every other business in the world, has its own industry, domain and vertical concerns, and these concerns drive your competitive strategy, your products and your services.

Predictive analytics uses sophisticated analytical methodologies to predict future outcomes based on historical data. Using these techniques, the organization can predict future events, customer buying behaviors, and business outcomes. These techniques can help the business drive results, improve revenue, understand customer and client buying behavior, solve problems, plan for new locations and products, create accurate pricing strategies and plan for new resources and training, as well as for appropriate maintenance, supply chain services, etc.

‘Take the guesswork out of the planning process and analyze factors that influence business success. Plan and forecast accurately.’

Predictive Analytics utilizes various techniques including association, correlation, clustering, regression, classification, forecasting and other statistical techniques. These techniques can be targeted to specific business use cases to solve specific, unique business issues and to help the business plan, forecast and compete.

In order to understand how businesses might use assisted predictive modeling and predictive analytics, let’s look at some business use cases and how analytical techniques can help the enterprise derive concise, clear information to support decisions and strategies.

Customer Churn

The cost of acquiring and interacting with customers can be expensive and each time a business loses a customer, it must spend money to replace the customer.

Fraud Mitigation

Businesses must mitigate fraud and control business costs and must develop and sustain fraud detection processes to monitor operations.

Quality Control

Businesses must control quality or risk losing customers and market share and exposing the enterprise to legal risk and liability.

Demand Planning

Take the guesswork out of the planning process and analyze factors that influence business success. Plan and forecast accurately.

Product/Service Cross-Selling

Leverage customer satisfaction to cross-sell and upsell products and services and increase revenue and brand loyalty.

Maintenance Management

Focus on equipment maintenance to ensure that downtime is limited and equipment is up and running, anticipate resources, hours on the job and training needs.

Customer Targeting

Identify the reasons customers buy a product or service and use fact-based data to create products, marketing campaigns, ads and customer outreach. Target specific demographics and customers.

Human Resource Attrition

The enterprise must retain team members and to do so, it must understand what makes a team member stay or go, what makes them invest in the future of he business and what issues create issues and dissatisfaction.

Loan Approval

The enterprise must avoid bad loans, so as to enhance profitability and productivity and it must have a dependable process for identifying and attracting the right clients and for reviewing, approving and managing loans.

Marketing Optimization

Create attainable targets and goals with an understanding of what improves and affects sales and how customers choose a product or service, how to market and advertising to achieve objectives.

Predictive Analytics Using External Data

Integrate external data and analyze data to assess the affect on sales, marketing, finances, resources, productivity, etc.

Online Target Marketing

Optimize marketing funds and resources, understand what works and what does not work, and how, when and where to message and the ideal demographic and profile of the target customer.

Student Academic Performance

Predict academic performance of students to effectively manage student interaction and training and improve environment to assure student success.

Crime Type Prediction

Predict the type of crime that is likely to occur to plan for appropriate law enforcement resources, placement and strategies and ensure public safety and appropriate use of funds.

‘Predictive Analytical techniques can be targeted to specific business use cases to solve specific, unique business issues and to help the business plan, forecast and compete.’

Find out how Assisted Predictive Modeling and Augmented Analytics can help your business plan for success, and explore the potential of comprehensive Predictive Analytics here.

Original Post : Assisted Predictive Modeling Use Cases Provide Insight!

As a business considers the implementation of a BI Tool and access to augmented analytics for its business users, it must define its requirements carefully in order to satisfy its corporate goals and its user needs. In today’s on-the-go work environment, mobile BI and the concept of an augmented analytics app are necessary components of the analytics strategy.

‘Ensure that the Mobile BI solution does not require expensive, extensive customization of dashboards or of the app in order to satisfy your business and user requirements.’

Gartner predicts that, ‘data literacy will become an explicit and necessary driver of business value, demonstrated by its formal inclusion in over 80% of data and analytics strategies and change management programs.’

If the business wishes to encourage data literacy and increase business value, it must carefully select its analytical tools and solutions. In this article, we provide a short list of factors your business should consider when selecting a business intelligence and augmented analytics tool with mobile capabilities.

Support for Devices

Be sure your solution provides mobile support for iOS and Android, with a seamless user experience that accommodates all screen sizes and resolutions.

Out-of-the Box Functionality

Ensure that the Mobile BI solution does not require expensive, extensive customization of dashboards or of the app in order to satisfy your business and user requirements. Features and functionality should be out-of-the-box so you can get started right away.

Access to Crucial Features

Some mobile analytics solutions provide restrictive access and provide read-only limitations, or only display pieces of the information from the data sources. Be sure your Mobile BI App provides intuitive dashboards, graphs, key performance indicators (KPIs), PDF reports and natural language processing (NLP) searching all within the mobile app. Users should be able to login, browse and search objects and perform interactive analytics, with access to ‘favorites’ and recently used objects.

Integration with File Formats

Your Augmented Analytics App should allow users to access objects via PDF and XLS and share data via WhatsApp, email or other sharing apps on their device.

Appropriate Security and Access

The Mobile BI solution should provide access rights and security, defined on a server to ensure security and privacy and access at the correct level, given the user credentials.

Mobile Hosting

Your Augmented Analytics App should be flexible and agile enough to host from anywhere within the IT infrastructure – on premises, or via public or private cloud.

Licensing

Be sure the augmented analytics provider is not charging expensive add-ons for the mobile app. If you currently have a license for augmented analytics, the mobile BI app should be an easy add-on, without expensive fees, and should be easy to download and implement and easy for users to adopt and use right away.

‘In today’s on-the-go work environment, mobile BI and the concept of an augmented analytics app are necessary components of the analytics strategy.’

Explore Smarten Mobile Augmented Analytics And Mobile BI and add powerful functionality and access for your business users with out-of-the-box Mobile BI and advanced analytics for every team member in your enterprise. For more information on Mobile BI and Augmented Analytics, read our articles, ‘Considering A Mobile BI App? Understand The WHAT Of Mobile Augmented Analytics Before You Choose’, and ‘The Importance Of Adding A Mobile BI App To An Augmented Analytics Strategy.’

Original Post : What You Need to Know Before You Select a Mobile BI Solution!

Technology research and analysis firm, Gartner, coined the term, ‘analytic process automation.’ This process ‘converges data science, analytic and process automation into a single platform—which helps companies automate and integrate the way data and business processes come together. Companies can also make data more actionable across the organization.’

‘By providing augmented analytics tools to all business users, with appropriate access and security, each team member has seamless, clear insight into data and can apply analytics to support their roles and responsibilities.’

When an enterprise undertakes a Citizen Data Scientist initiative, it is striving to do just that. In other words, the business wants to make data more actionable across the organization.

In this article, we review the possibilities of the Citizen Data Scientist environment in an effort to help your organization imagine the new business landscape.

Power Users and Champions

With the right augmented analytics tools, designed specifically for business users, team members can leverage analytics, smart data visualization, self-serve data prep and predictive analytics and all of the sophisticated analytical techniques they will need to make fact-based decisions and recommendations. Those team members who are curious about analytics and comfortable sharing knowledge of these technology tools will become power users and champion the democratization of data and data literacy throughout the organization. This cultural shift will take team members out of the ‘wait and see’ environment and avoid guesswork and opinion, and the delays and data gaps that occur when a business user must depend on IT or on data scientists to get detailed, concise reports.

Business Process Streamlining

By enabling personalized dashboards and pushing alerts and reports, businesses processes can be streamlined and users can create dependable processes and actionable data without wading through restrictive reports, or trying to interpret information coming from disparate sources and staff members. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) provide streamlined, data-based metrics and measurements and keep the team on track.

Collaboration

Augmented Analytics solutions that support business users encourage collaboration and data sharing and allow users to test theories and hypothesize, sharing the results of their research and creating business use cases that can be applied to real-world issues, challenges and opportunities.

Goals and Objectives

By providing augmented analytics tools to all business users, with appropriate access and security, each team member has seamless, clear insight into data and can apply analytics to support their roles and responsibilities. Actions and tasks can be tied to appropriate metrics and to specific goals and objectives to ensure that every team member is working to achieve business goals in a timely, accurate fashion.

‘When an enterprise undertakes a Citizen Data Scientist initiative, it is striving to make data more actionable across the organization.’

Transforming business users into Citizen Data Scientists, provides advantages to the organization, to the business users and to data scientists. With appropriate Citizen Data Scientist Training, the right augmented analytics solution, and organizational planning, the business can provide a solid foundation and build business user confidence by providing an introduction and fundamental information on Predictive Analytics and other tools these users will employ. The business should also consider engaging an IT consulting partner with knowledge of the augmented analytics market, and a solution and support services to provide the guidance and Products And Services your business will need to succeed.

Original Post : Citizen Data Scientists Achieve More Results!

Gartner research reveals that, ‘80% of organizations seeking to scale digital business will fail because they do not take a modern approach to data and analytics governance.’

If you are considering democratizing business intelligence gathering and analytics, you are not alone! Businesses today face more competition from local and global markets and every team member must work quickly and accurately in support of goals and objectives if the enterprise is to achieve its goals.

‘When senior executives and managers have reliable information and dependable recommendations and suggestions, they can improve performance and accuracy in forecasting, planning and demand.’

In this article, we discuss a few of the reasons a business should consider democratizing business intelligence and analytics within its team and how this type of initiative can be implemented to help your enterprise succeed.

Working Smarter

When you provide BI tools to your business users, you democratize data and begin to build a better understanding of the root cause of problems, the opportunities the business can leverage and the way forward to solving problems and creating business success. Team members can work smarter, with quick, concise access, and insight into data via self-serve solutions that streamline and simplify the typically complex analytical process and allow every team member to perform the analysis and, more importantly, to understand what the results are telling them.

Focusing on Core Responsibilities

When you democratize business intelligence and analytics with augmented analytics tools, IT team members, data scientists and business analysts can focus on strategic goals and on initiatives where data must be 100% accurate. Team members can use BI tools on a daily basis to test theories and gather and analyze information to support activities and tasks, collaborate with others and move forward, so EVERYONE can focus on their own roles and core responsibilities.

Supporting the Greater Good

When senior executives and managers have reliable information and dependable recommendations and suggestions, they can improve performance and accuracy in forecasting, planning and demand. Team leaders, business unit managers and others can realize long-term benefits and count on the fact that all team members are working with the right information, that information and analysis is based on current, integrated data and on measurable results. The organization can shift to a results-based environment where problems are analyzed and resolved and opportunities are leveraged to the greatest extent possible, so the enterprise can create an environment of continuous improvement.

Creating a Common Language

When all team members are using business intelligence to test theories and hypothesize, to solve problems and get to the root of a problem, to identify those all-important ‘nuggets’ of information that make a competitive difference, managers and executives can feel confident that the team is speaking a common language and that every team members knows how to find a problem, how to explain that problem and how to dependable recommendations to solve that problem.

‘Businesses should consider democratizing business intelligence and analytics within teams to help the enterprise succeed.’

Business Intelligence tools can support data democratization and improve your business results. If your business understands the challenges of implementing a business intelligence solution and adequately plans for implementation and user adoption, it can leverage the benefits of these tools and solutions and ensure success. Let us help you achieve your vision and improve productivity and insight across the organization.

Gartner predicts that, ‘50% of analytical queries will be generated via search, NLP or voice, or will be automatically generated.’ If your business is considering democratizing data and rolling out analytical capabilities to team members within the organization, you will want to plan for an augmented analytics solution that is designed for, and can be used by, all team members – even those with limited technology skills.

‘The benefits of augmented analytics using NLP enable swift, easy searching and allows business users to create context-rich searches that provide in-depth information and concise results.’

By incorporating natural language processing (NLP) and NLP search capabilities within its features and functionality, business users can gather data, integrated from disparate systems and solutions and use that data to prepare and analyze and to achieve swift, accurate results for decision-making.

Meet User Expectations

Business team members use technology outside the walls of the business. Every business user is accustomed to simple search techniques, ala Google. Ask a question, get a list of results with worry-free dependability. Augmented Analytics solutions using NLP search capabilities ensure that users can gather and analyze data and get results quickly, all by using familiar search techniques. Natural Language Processing Search Analytics (NLP) is a crucial component of search analytics and smart data discovery today. NLP search allows business users to create complex searches without endless clicks and complex navigation and commands. Using this type of search analytics, users can access and view clear, concise answers and analysis quickly and easily. Advanced analytics with Natural Language Processing (NLP) provides a familiar Google-type interface where a user can compose and enter a question using common human language. Augmented Analytics that leverages machine learning and natural language processing (NLP), is designed as a self-serve environment that is easy enough for every business user resulting in increased user adoption, improved data democratization, and return on investment (ROI).

Simplify Search and Analysis

NLP search technology simplifies the user experience and the process of building analytics and achieving results. A business user might ask, ‘who sold the most bakery products in 2017 in the Southwest region?’ It’s that simple! With natural language-processing-based search capability, users can avoid scrolling through menus and navigation and simply enter a search query in natural language. The system will translate the query, and return the results in natural language in an appropriate form, such as visualization, tables, numbers or descriptions. Clickless Analytics democratizes advanced analytics so business users can enjoy the benefits of analytics and data democratization and can improve data literacy and fact-based decision-making using natural language searches. No advanced training is required.

The benefits of augmented analytics using natural language processing (NLP) enable swift, easy searching and allows business users to create context-rich searches that provide in-depth information and concise results and can be used to solve problems, identify opportunities, spot trends and patterns and present data and recommendations – all without extensive training or skills.

‘Incorporate NLP search capabilities within augmented analytics and gather data, integrated from disparate systems and solutions. Use that data to prepare and analyze and to achieve swift, accurate results for decision-making.’

Explore the advantages of Natural Language Processing and NLP Search Analytics.  Let us help you implement a solution that will be suitable for your team members and your business results.

Original Post : Natural Language Processing Search Capability for Your Team!

If you are considering, or have already purchased software, you probably faced the questions from your management team about return on investment (ROI) and total cost of ownership (TCO). No doubt, your team did their homework when the business acquired Tally^® ERP software.

‘Out-of-the-Box analytics tools allow the user to leverage and optimize the existing technology in new ways.’

Gartner defines total cost of ownership as ‘a comprehensive assessment of information technology (IT) or other costs across enterprise boundaries over time.’ Forbes defines return on investment (ROI) as ‘…a metric used to understand the profitability of an investment. ROI compares how much you paid for an investment to how much you earned to evaluate its efficiency.’

On the surface, the calculations for TCO and ROI may seem simple.

TCO = Acquisition cost + Service/Maintenance cost – Salvage value

ROI = Net Income/Cost of Investment

But while these calculations provide a starting point for investment decisions, the impact of ROI and TCO on the team is something business users will live with every day. When it comes to the popular Tally solution, business managers, accountants and finance professionals have embraced and are using the various modules to support sales, manufacturing, accounting, finance, inventory, purchasing and other functions.

Your business can improve ROI and TCO for Tally by adding integrated augmented analytics. In this article we discuss how Tally Mobile Analytics can improve ROI and TCO for the business.

User Adoption

While your users are probably used to Tally and leveraging the module(s) that are most suitable for their role, there are probably team members who don’t use the solution as often as you might like. They may feel it is restrictive and limited to data entry or simple reporting. If they ARE using it, they may not find all the information they need and therefore will not be champions of the software. There is a lot to like about Tally ERP and a lot of capabilities and functionality. By adding integrated augmented analytics with features and sophisticated analytics that are easy enough for the average business user, the team is more likely to adopt and get the most out of the Tally investment. Expanded capabilities for built-in reporting and analytics will allow users to provide more value to clients and colleagues and this is likely to encourage user adoption as it will support career visibility, etc.

Optimization of Technology

Optimizing your investment in software is always important. If you are able to make the most out of the tools by providing an overlay of analytics, the data that already resides in your software and data source is more readily accessible. Out-of-the-Box analytics tools allow the user to leverage and optimize the existing technology in new ways.

Optimization of Resources

Every business is short-handed today, and the expansion and growth of digital tools and processes has allowed business users to do more and to be more productive. Getting to the information quickly, without the assistance of IT or data scientists or business analysts allows the user to ask a question, get an answer, make a recommendation, share data and move on. The enterprise can offer tools to its team without the frustration of extensive training and complex, time-consuming search and analytical techniques, thereby improving productivity and making the organization more agile.

Mobile Access

Nearly every business today has remote workers and staff on the road, working out of a hotel room or in an airport. By providing mobile access to analytics and to the Tally ERP data, the organization can leverage its investment 24/7, without experiencing delays in workflow or output. Near real-time analytics and access to reports, tasks and data sharing allows the business to move faster and more precisely.

‘Your business can improve ROI and TCO for Tally by adding integrated augmented analytics.’

Find out how the addition of SmartenApps For Tally can help your business improve ROI and TCO, support your accounting-related analytical initiative and bring your team and your business to the next level. Users can Download And Register for SmartenApps for Tally and use Tally data to analyze, explore and clarify.

Original Post : Improve Tally ERP ROI and TCO with Tally Mobile Analytics!

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Original Post : Smarten Support Portal Updates – August – 2022!

Businesses develop and/or license software solutions for a variety of reasons. Most enterprises invest in software to solve a problem, perform tasks, etc. But the useful life of a software solution and the breadth and depth of its overall value can often fall short of expectations for return on investment (ROI) and total cost of ownership (TCO).

‘By adding the value of Embedded BI with integration APIs, the team can achieve results, better leverage and use data by producing actionable reports and clear insight, and extend the useful life of the existing software applications.’

In order to leverage the full value of your users’ favorite software application and to increase user adoption, an enterprise can add embedded BI and augmented analytics. By providing seamless access to analytics in a single sign-on environment, the organization can ensure that business users get the tools they need to make recommendations, support decisions, report on progress, solve problems and identify opportunities, thereby improving the value of the existing software solution and the value of the team member as an asset to the organization.

With the right augmented analytics solution, business users can enjoy the advantages of sophisticated BI tools without additional training or complex processes and queries. Analytics are embedded via APIs for a seamless, scalable approach to analytics without a lengthy integration or implementation process.

According to Forbes, ‘the average single application today is powered by 18 APIs. Half of all B2B collaboration happens through APIs. And most staggeringly — 83% of all web traffic is attributable to APIs.’

Embedded BI with integration APIs offers numerous benefits including:

• The best of analytics and best practices of application integration to produce results and encourage user adoption
• Expansion and improvement of the value of existing software applications by adding integrated analytics
• The use of data within an existing application or software product to produce meaningful analytics and reports

Every business management team looks hard and long at software investments. These investments are typically expensive and time-consuming and often over promise when it comes to results. But once committed, these investments must be justified and cannot be undone without a lot of difficulty, confusion and complex backtracking. After the implementation, the IT team and business users are committed to the use of the software (whether it is helpful or not) and business managers find themselves in a quandary. They need the software to perform certain tasks but the software does not provide the promised value, ROI or TCO.

By adding the value of Embedded BI with integration APIs, the team can achieve results, better leverage and use data by producing actionable reports and clear insight, and extend the useful life of the existing software applications – all without requiring extensive training or complex implementation and additional high-cost investments.

‘In order to leverage the full value of your users’ favorite software application and to increase user adoption, an enterprise can add embedded BI and augmented analytics.’

Leverage the Smarten approach to Embedded BI And Integration APIs to add powerful functionality and provide access to existing ERP, SCM, HRMS, CRM or any other products and to provide analytics capabilities within existing products without major Investment. Reduce time to market and stay ahead of the competition!

Original Post : Improve ROI and TCO with Embedded BI & Integration APIs!

But, when it comes to analytics, NLP is typically much more restrictive. Talk all you want about machine learning and natural language processing but the boundaries and restrictions placed on these concepts in a typical analytical solution do not make it as easy as business users might like.

Remember that your business team members are also consumers outside the walls of the office and they use and appreciate the ease of Google searches. Here, a consumer might ask, ‘how many ounces in a pound’, or ‘what is the tallest building in the world’, and they get an immediate answer. THAT is what they want in analytics as well and if you don’t give it to them, they are unlikely to adopt the analytical tools you invested in or to achieve the results you wanted for optimizing resources, improving productivity and, most importantly, engaging in fact-based decision making that will improve the business bottom line.

So, what, if anything can one do about the disconnect between the ease of use of analytics and the typical NLP solution? To answer this question, we first need to understand the difference between standard natural language processing in analytics (AKA Dumb NLP) and context-driven searching using natural language processing (AKA Intuitive NLP).

Context-driven natural language processing allows people to think and communicate like people – not like machines! It is intuitive and ‘smart’ and goes far beyond ‘dumb’ NLP.

Dumb NLP: The use of NLP in analytics provides the basic foundation to get a user into the details of the data and allow them to choose and filter using columns and filters. It recognizes the data in the column or field but not the context. Much like a text to speech solution, it can read, translate and present the data but it has no real understanding of what the data means. Users often get frustrated when they try to use these tools because they have to wade through the choice of columns, click on menus and sift through scripts and when the NLP query results are presented, they may discover that they did not get what they wanted because they omitted or included some inappropriate data.

Intuitive NLP: Context-driven natural language processing allows the user to think of a question and ask that question in a way that supports human thought, and natural communication. Context-driven NLP ‘understands’ and interprets the question and the user intention so, for example, if a user wants to find sales results for a product sold during the ‘Thanksgiving’ season, they do not have to know the date for a particular year or years. They can simply ask the question. ‘How many donuts were sold in Scottsdale, Arizona during Thanksgiving 2019 and 2018? The system will understand the question and interpret it to provide the right information.

Much like your best friend can understand your intent and respond to a question without your being concise or detailed, context-driven NLP can handle the subtleties and the context without the need for excruciating detail and restrictive programming or scripting.

Ask, ‘What was the best day of bakery sales in Tucson Az last year?’, and the system will know that, a) the ‘best day’ means best day of sales for you, that b) bakery sales means all items that fall within the bakery category in your product portfolio, such as cake, brownies, croissants, cookies, bread etc., c) that Az means Arizona and that d) last year was 2019. Just ask the question…and you will get an answer. It’s that simple.

Context-driven, intuitive NLP provides many opportunities to ask questions and handles many concepts, including,

Synonyms, Phonetics and Abbreviations – Enter question and the system will recognize and process information correcting for spelling errors, abbreviations and related words.

Geography, Places and Persons – Enter a question and allow the system to identify a person or place automatically, and give the answer in context of person or geo location.

Time Series – Enter a question and receive results based on absolute time, or on a range or relative time period.

Rank and Polarity – Enter a question and receive results based on a determination of ‘higher’ or ‘lower’ results.

Aggregation – Enter a question to understand results for averages, minimum, maximum, first, last, sum, counts, etc.

Comparison – Explore how sales or other factors compare from one region, year or variable to another.

Context-driven natural language processing allows people to think and communicate like people – not like machines! It is intuitive and ‘smart’ and goes far beyond ‘dumb’ NLP by offering tools that users will want to leverage and interacting with users in a way that is meaningful to them. Your business users don’t need have to use or understand sophisticated skills to create a query or ask a question. They don’t have to wade through five or ten steps to create a query. With context-driven NLP, users just have to think of a question and type that question and they will get the answers they need.

Make your business more productive, optimize resources, empower your team members and allow them to make confident, fact-based decisions and to solve problems and get the information they need to do their job – without stress or time-consuming training or procedures! THAT is the difference between using ‘dumb’ NLP and using intuitive (context-driven) NLP in analytics.

Original Post : Context-Driven Natural Language Processing (NLP) Beats ‘Dumb’ NLP Every Time!

Many businesses are considering, or have implemented, business intelligence and augmented analytics solutions. According to renowned technology research firm, Gartner, ‘80% of organizations seeking to scale digital business will fail because they do not take a modern approach to data and analytics governance.’ With this prediction in mind, the addition of business intelligence and augmented analytics to the organization workflow, business processes and technology infrastructure is a wise decision.

‘The addition of mobile capability will improve user adoption, support culture changes and extend the office environment for a more productive business and team foundation.’

In order to address the ‘modern approach’ Gartner describes, the business must include a mobile BI and augmented analytics app strategy. In this article, we discuss the importance of including a Mobile BI App in the organizational approach to business intelligence and advanced analytics.

Changing the Culture and Business Processes

With any data literacy and data democratization effort, the business MUST look at culture change. If it intends to encourage business users to transform to Citizen Data Scientist, it must look at all aspects of its culture, business processes and workflow, and to integrate data sources and make that information available at appropriate levels so that users can access and analyze data and IT and senior management can be assured of appropriate data governance. When the business implements a business intelligence and/or augmented analytics solution, it must consider the importance of adding the capabilities of a Mobile BI App so that users can access data from anywhere. By providing mobile augmented analytics, the business can enforce and enable the culture change and modernize its approach to data access and data sharing. Providing restrictive business intelligence or analytics solutions without mobile capability will further inhibit user adoption and act as a barrier to the culture change within teams.

Extending the Office Environment

Over the past decade, businesses have changed drastically and one of the greatest changes is the concept of a ‘team’ or ‘group’ working on a project, or toward a goal. In recent years, the idea of remote workers has grown exponentially, and teams spread across the country (or across countries) and geographic locations are now using software and technology to collaborate and share data. Users want to access data on the road, in a hotel room, while working at a client office or in an airport, and when it comes to analytics, that need is just as great. It is important to provide a solution that accommodates all types of devices from desktops and tablets to iOS and Android devices, so that the user can access data and analytics from anywhere on any device.

Improving User Adoption

When senior management teams announce a new initiative like the adoption of analytics, it is easy for team members to discount the commitment and to believe the new ‘flavor of the month’ will simply disappear and they will go back to the old way of doing things. The culture change we discussed in this article is a necessary component and the availability of the tools, and easy-to-use solutions that require little training is crucial. A mobile BI and augmented analytics app meets the expectations of users for intuitive tools – tools that are accessible as and when they need them, and with simple, powerful reporting and collaborative tools, the users will be encouraged and enabled and user adoption will improve.

There are many other important aspects of mobile BI and augmented analytics. Here, we have provided a few of the crucial considerations a business must include when it reviews its requirements and builds a strategy to implement business intelligence and analytics for business users. The addition of mobile capability will improve user adoption, support culture changes and extend the office environment for a more productive business and team foundation.

‘In order to take a ‘modern approach to BI and analytics, the business must include a mobile BI and augmented analytics app strategy.’

Explore Smarten Mobile Augmented Analytics And Mobile BI and add powerful functionality and access for your business users with out-of-the-box Mobile BI and advanced analytics for every team member in your enterprise. For more information on Mobile BI and Augmented Analytics, read our articles, ‘Considering a Mobile BI App? Understand the WHAT of Mobile Augmented Analytics Before You Choose’, and ‘What Should My Business Consider When Selecting a Mobile BI Solution?’

Original Post : Mobile BI and Augmented Analytics App Improves Productivity

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If you don’t find what you need in the Support Portal, we hope you will contact us with your questions, comments or suggestions. We are here to help and to support your business goals and success!

URL: Smarten Customer and Partner Community
Email: support@Smarten.com

Original Post : Smarten Support Portal Updates – July – 2022!

The renowned technology research organization, Gartner, states that ‘30% of organizations will harness the collective intelligence of their analytics communities, outperforming competitors that rely solely on centralized analytics or self-service.’ To achieve these goals, businesses must provide analytics and tools that are suitable for business users, and for data scientists and business analysts and all others who will participate in data analytics to achieve goals and objectives – in other words, a solution that will meet the needs of every user in every role in the enterprise!

‘Solutions that are designed to support users and roles working at all levels can ensure user adoption and optimize the contribution of data champions, business users, data scientists and IT.’

When a business considers the analytics solution market, it may find a variety of options, from restrictive, complex solutions to simple solutions designed for business users. It is difficult to create a balance and find tools that will be sophisticated enough to provide the support a data scientist needs and wants while still offering business users with average technical and analytical skills a solution that allows them to participate in new data literacy and data democratization initiatives.

A business can use spreadsheets and complex algorithms to perform analytics, or it can select a robust solution, deeply engrained in analytical techniques and designed for those with advanced training. But those options do not allow business users to participate!

Achieve Balance Between Function and Usability

When a business chooses an augmented analytics solution, it can satisfy the needs of business users with sophisticated functionality that is ‘built-in’ and will allow swift, accurate analytical activities without advanced skills. That same solution should also offer more advanced options and tools to enable data scientists, business analysts and IT team members to work at a level that is commiserate with their needs and roles and will integrate with tools they need and use on a daily basis, e.g., R Script, etc.

Choose a Solution that is Mobile and Accommodates User Needs

Complex, restrictive solutions do not easily lend themselves to a mobile environment. A myriad of columns and required field choices, will not allow users to access and report easily on mobile devices. Choose a solution that allows users to leverage desktops, tablets, iOS or Android devices and provide simple navigation and tools that can be used by any and all users on the road, in the office or working remotely.

Select a Solution that will Grow with the Enterprise

The need to add functionality or customize features can become costly and can mean that upgrades and user needs will be left behind in favor of budget restrictions. Choose a solution that makes it easy to add users, to personalize and customize dashboards to satisfy advanced users and to provide flexible reporting and infrastructure and licensing to ensure that the solution will grow with the organization.

Encourage Collaboration and Embrace New Roles

Traditional analytics solutions are designed to support advanced skills and roles. Solutions that are designed to support users and roles working at all levels can ensure that data champions, business users, data scientists and IT can collaborate, share creative analytics approaches and build data literacy and data democratization across the enterprise.

‘Businesses must provide analytics and tools that are suitable for business users, and for data scientists and business analysts and all others who will participate in data analytics to achieve goals and objectives.’

Advanced analytics solutions can be expensive, time-consuming to deploy and upgrade and difficult to optimize. These solutions are not meant to accommodate the skills and needs of business users. But the organization does not have to sacrifice functionality and advanced capabilities in order to give business users what they need. By selecting an augmented analytics solution that is comprehensive and advanced, the business can have the best of both worlds and satisfy the needs and roles of data scientists and business users.

Explore the advantages of Augmented Analytics Products And Services. Let us help you implement a solution that will be suitable for your team members and your business results.

Original Post : How Can My Business Use Tally ERP and Analytics to Improve Results?

If your business is currently using Tally ERP, your business users are familiar with the features and the data structure of the module they use, whether they are an accounting professional, managing inventory, reviewing sales or preparing statutory financial reports. Your management team may be considering adding analytics to your organization in order to democratize data and to improve fact-based decision making. If the organization decides to add analytics to the Tally ERP environment, it will have the best of both worlds.

Gartner states that, ‘90% the world’s top 500 companies will have converged analytics governance into broader data and analytics governance initiatives.’ There are many reasons a business leader will converge analytics and other initiatives. One of these reasons is that the integration of analytics into other work processes and activities ensures successful deployment of analytics throughout the enterprise.

‘By adding analytics to the Tally ERP environment, the enterprise can improve organizational agility, increase the value of existing team member knowledge and experience and avoid creating data silos that will inhibit user adoption.’

In this article, we take a look at why it is wise to integrate your Tally ERP solution with integrated analytics and how it can benefit your enterprise.

One-Stop Analytics

When you integrate augmented analytics with the familiar Tally ERP solution, users can leverage their favorite application to prepare and perform analytics. There is no need to frustrate users with data silos and new applications that are complex and difficult to use. Using out-of-the-box analytics with sophisticated functionality in an easy-to-use environment, users can analyze and report on sales, purchasing, bank, cash, payables, receivables, inventory, taxes, cost centers, ledgers and account statements.

Value Add

Financial, accounting and other professionals can add more value to the organization, to business units, to clients and to colleagues by performing analytics across modules, leveraging pre-built reports and gaining insight into data. Your finance-related teams will be welcomed as crucial team members and can provide clarity and help the organization use the data contained within the Tally ERP solution to understand issues and opportunities and identify trends.

No Advanced Skills Required

Using domain, topic and career experience, your finance-related team members can prepare, analyze and understand data and information without the assistance of IT team members or data scientists. This allows the organization to democratize data and improve data literacy and takes the professional business users beyond data entry and into the realm of analytics without asking them to learn new technology skills.

By adding analytics to the Tally ERP environment, the enterprise can improve organizational agility, increase the value of existing team member knowledge and experience and avoid creating data silos that will inhibit user adoption.

‘Your management team may be considering adding analytics to your organization in order to democratize data and to improve fact-based decision-making.’

Find out how the addition of SmartenApps For Tally will support analytical initiatives and provide benefits to your users and your enterprise. Users can Download And Register for SmartenApps for Tally and use Tally data to analyze, explore and clarify and to provide insight to clients, colleagues, management and team members.

Original Post : Do I Need to Integrate Analytics with Tally ERP?

If your business is struggling to forecast and predict outcomes and results, your management team is probably considering predictive analytics. The technology research firm, Gartner, states that, ‘50% of data scientist activities will be automated by artificial intelligence, easing the acute talent shortage.’

For the average team member, the concept of predictive analytics may seem daunting and, if you are a business user whose management team has asked you to embrace and participate in analytics, the addition of predictive analytics to your day-to-day business processes may seem irrelevant or it may seem to mean you will be expected to work harder or produce more output. But don’t be too quick to assume the worst.

‘By providing this type of expanded functionality to the team, the business can enable both data scientists and business users with predictive analytics that will benefit the organization.’

Let’s take a look at Predictive Analytics, the benefits of Assisted Predictive Modeling and its importance in the organization and how intuitive augmented analytics can help business users achieve their goals without requiring advanced training or additional workload.

What is Predictive Analytics?

Predictive analytics is comprised of sophisticated analytical methodologies that allow businesses to predict future outcomes based on historical data. Using these techniques, the organization can predict future events, customer buying behaviors, and business outcomes. Predictive Analytics utilizes various techniques including association, correlation, clustering, regression, classification, forecasting and other statistical techniques.

Understanding Assisted Predictive Modeling

When a business provides augmented analytics tools for business users, it allows the team to perform predictive analytics on a daily basis without the assistance or skills of a Data Scientist or an IT professional. Assisted Predictive Modeling provides auto-suggestions and recommendations to guide business users with recommended techniques, selecting the most appropriate techniques for the type and volume of data the user wishes to analyze. If the business chooses an augmented analytics tool with intuitive predictive modeling features, it allows users to work quickly and receive clear, concise results for decision-making so user adoption of the tools is more likely and forecasting and predictions are accurate and timely. All popular predictive modeling techniques are incorporated into the solution, so users have access to the most sophisticated predictive analytics and tools and can use these tools to model and review business use cases and issues.

The Benefits and Importance of Assisted Predictive Modeling

These tools allow the organization to apply predictive analytics to real use cases to analyze customer churn, to target customers, to identify cross-selling and product bundling, to find and set appropriate price points, to forecast where and when to open new locations, when the business will need new suppliers, when equipment will require maintenance, etc. A comprehensive augmented analytics solution also includes the benefit of integration with R Script, so that data scientists can capitalize on expertise and leverage enterprise investments in R open-source platforms, to perform statistical and predictive algorithms, and complex analysis to provide the depth of detail and advanced analytics and reporting the organization needs for strategic decision-making. By providing this type of expanded functionality to the team, the business can enable both data scientists and business users with predictive analytics that will benefit the organization, encourage collaboration and data sharing, and improve data literacy – all without increasing workload or frustrating users and team members.

‘Intuitive assisted predictive modeling and augmented analytics can help business users achieve their goals without requiring advanced training or additional workload.’

Find out more about Assisted Predictive Modeling and Augmented Analytics and explore the potential of comprehensive Predictive Analytics here. Find out how it can improve user adoption of analytics and increase accuracy of forecasting and results.

Original Post : Predictive Analytics Can Make Business Users Happy!

If you follow industry and business publications, you know that analytics are taking the lead in business strategy. Gartner states that, ‘90% of corporate strategies will explicitly mention information as a critical enterprise asset and analytics as an essential competency.’ If your enterprise is implementing a business intelligence and analytics strategy, it is important to plan carefully and to understand the real benefits as well as the challenges of choosing the right BI tools and deploying these tools to users in a way that will ensure optimal user adoption and leverage of analytics to achieve the results you need.

‘Your business should carefully assess requirements and plan for expected user adoption by selecting a BI tool that will offer the features, ease-of-use and functionality your team members need.’

In this article, we provide examples of the various benefits of BI tools for specific business functions and some of the technology and user challenges you will face as you consider your options and plan for implementation.

No matter the business function, there are benefits to implementing a business intelligence strategy that will deploy these tools to your team members. Here are some examples:

Benefits

Finance

Your organization will be more efficient and profitable, with Ready-to-Use Dashboards, Analysis, and KPIs designed especially for the Finance domain. This business intelligence solution includes interactive Dashboards that allow users to perform intuitive, easy analysis of key metrics including Profitability, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payables, Cash Flow Analysis, Past Due Invoices, Balance Sheets, Income Statements and more!

Inventory

Inventory business function allows users to accurately plan and optimize inventory. Interactive Dashboards track item movement, compare sales to closing stock, and monitor warehouse stock and value, and answer critical questions regarding stock turnover ratio, seasonal buying, back-order assessment and safety stock to prevent lost sales. Users can analyze inventory levels to effectively manage stock based on the buying behavior of customers.

Purchasing and Procurement

Allows users to view and analyze spending details, analyze procurement data, drill through data to analyze issues, measure performance, identify savings opportunities, and track supplier performance. Identify reliable trading partners, analyze supplier cost, perform purchase rate comparisons, reveal trends, identify top/bottom vendors, and achieve timely insight into spending patterns and trends across all departments.

Production

Quantify and visualize data at the operational level to make fact-based decisions. Analyze Output, Reduce Labor Costs, Maintain Inventory Levels, Optimize Equipment Performance, Monitor Rejection Ratios and Downtime, and take action before problems arise to mitigate risk, and capitalize on opportunities. Publish automated reports to monitor and manage plant performance and provide management with quality metrics and relevant data.

These are just a few examples of how business intelligence can be used within a business function, department or business unit to benefit business users and to help the organization make fact-based decisions, spot trends and patterns and opportunities, and identify the root cause of problems.

If you want to take advantage of all of these benefits and ensure success of your business intelligence initiative, your business should carefully assess requirements and plan for expected user adoption by selecting a BI tool that will offer the features, ease-of-use and functionality your team members need.

Technology and User Challenges

Social BI

Your team members are also consumers and outside of the office they are used to a collaborate and social experience. By engaging in Social BI, your team can champion data sharing, collaborate on creative ways to analyze data and make quick work of data analytics, with tools that allow the user to ‘like’, ‘share’ and leverage other social tools and networking techniques.

Mobile BI

Not every BI tool provides real mobile business intelligence to accommodate every type of device, screen size and resolution. Choose a solution that has a Responsive and Adaptive UI engine, so you can roll out BI tools on any Desktop, Tablet or Smartphone without any device specific development. ‘Design once, Use anywhere’ concept in true sense.

Personalized Dashboards

Business users will not adopt a solution that limits them to predefined dashboards. Each user has a need to see and use data in a different way. Be sure to select a solution that allows your users to work in a way that is meaningful to them.

Interactive, NOT Restrictive

Choose a solution that will allow users to leverage deep dive analytics. There is no way an organization can anticipate every question or type of analytics a business user will need to incorporate into decision-making. Provide truly interactive tools that will assure user adoption and make your organization more agile.

Ease-of-Use

Advanced Data Discovery allows business users to perform early prototyping and to test hypothesis without the skills of a data scientist. Advanced Data Discovery ensures data democratization with Self-Serve Data Preparation, Smart Data Visualization and Plug n’ Play Predictive analysis that can drastically reduce the time and cost of analysis and experimentation.

‘No matter the business function, there are benefits to implementing a business intelligence strategy that will deploy these tools to your team members.’

Ready-To-Use Business Intelligence tools can support data democratization and improve your business results. If your business understands the challenges of implementing a business intelligence solution and adequately plans for implementation and user adoption, it can leverage the benefits of these tools and solutions and ensure success. Let us help you achieve your vision and improve productivity and insight across the organization.

Smarten CEO, Kartik Patel says, “The availability of Smarten augmented analytics on a mobile device encourages user adoption and provides support for business intelligence investments and data democratization.”

Business Users have access to dashboards, reports and Clickless Analytics – Google-type Natural Language Processing (NLP) Search functionality. Users can share reports and data via WhatsApp, email, chat or other content sharing apps on mobile devices, encouraging information sharing and collaboration.

The Smarten mobile application provides intuitive dashboards and reports, stunning visualizations, dynamic charts and graphs and key performance indicators (KPIs).

“The Smarten mobile application is easy to install and easy to use,” says Patel. “Users can analyze and interact with data with full visibility of dashboards, reports and other BI objects.”

The Smarten Mobile Application provides out-of-the-box Mobile BI and augmented analytics to extend the office environment and allow for swift analysis and decisions from anywhere with worry-free, comprehensive security and privacy controls at all levels.

The Smarten Augmented Analytics and BI platform allows business users to leverage deep dive analysis using highly interactive dashboards, reports and NLP search on a mobile device. Engender business intelligence data democratization, enable meaningful analytics and fact-based decision-making, and alleviate user frustration with real self-serve dashboards and deep dive capabilities.

Contact the Smarten team for more information on Smarten Augmented Analytics solution and the Smarten Mobile App.

About Smarten

The Smarten approach to business intelligence and business analytics focuses on the business user and provides Advanced Data Discovery so users can perform early prototyping and test hypotheses without the skills of a data scientist. Smarten Augmented Analytics tools include Assisted Predictive Modeling, Smart Data Visualization, Self-Serve Data Preparation, Sentiment Analysis, and Clickless Analytics with natural language processing (NLP) for search analytics. All of these tools are designed for business users with average skills and require no special skills or knowledge of statistical analysis or support from IT or data scientists. Smarten is listed in multiple Gartner Reports including Gartner Data Preparation Report, the Market Guide for Enterprise-Reporting-Based Platforms and the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms Report for the ElegantJ BI Business Intelligence Suite.

Original Post : Smarten Augmented Analytics Now Available on Mobile App!

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Knowledgebase Articles

1. Time Series : Configuration of Timeseries Year Selection in Dashboard Filters
2. SSDP : Dataset Action Item Status (Active/Inactive) Not Saved Permanently
3. Cube : Error when rebuilding cube with comments in the cube query
4. Publishing Reports : User list empty while publishing object
5. Real-Time Cubes & Datasets : Avoid data filter issues due to numeric precision limit
6. Log-in & Profile Management – Unable to Change the Password

Predictive Use cases

1. Handling Missing Values using Smarten Augmented Analytics
2. Handling Multicollinearity using Smarten Augmented Analytics

Forum Topics

1. SSDP: Dataset Action Editor – Action item status (active or inactive) is not saved permanently
2. Dashboard : Publish – My user list is empty while publishing any object

Manuals and Technical Guides

1. Smarten Working with Clickless Analytics
2. Smarten-SSDP-Best-Practices

If you don’t find what you need in the Support Portal, we hope you will contact us with your questions, comments or suggestions. We are here to help and to support your business goals and success!

URL: Smarten Customer and Partner Community
Email: support@Smarten.com

Original Post : Smarten Support Portal Updates – June – 2022!

But, as with any other discussion of ‘democracy’, there is no true benefit to this concept unless data is truly democratized across the business landscape. The real focus on data democratization is meant to reach the front line workers so that every team member has access to simple, easy-to-use analytics and can use data in a way that is meaningful to their job. It isn’t enough to ask a team member to use data in reports. If the business user and team member does not see or feel the value in their everyday tasks, the business has failed at data democratization.

If you are willing to acknowledge that the real operational decisions are – and must be – made on the front lines, then it is wise to give your team the tools they need to make those decisions in a more efficient, effective manner.

The first step is making the data available to every user. That means planning for and rolling out analytics across the board, typically by starting with one business unit or area and then rolling the initiative out from there until the entire enterprise has access to appropriate, timely, integrated data for use in analytics and decision-making.

If you are managing a financial institution, that would mean giving access to these tools to your loan officers and your customer service representatives. If you are in sales, your sales reps need to be able to see data and metrics for products, conversion of prospects to customers, returning customers, bundled product and sales initiatives, upcoming discounts and promotions, and more. If you are working in manufacturing, your production line employees need to see and anticipate scheduled maintenance and identify issues with equipment performance, downtime, etc.

Give your line workers, customer-facing representatives and team members access to augmented analytics that are easy to use and will not frustrate them as they attempt to solve problems and identify opportunities to improve or create new ideas to improve results. Predictive analytics can help users define the risk inherent in approving a loan for a particular client or it can help sales reps to establish a reasonable target and not overestimate sales for a particular season or location.

The team members on the front lines are the ones that have to make the tough decisions and, while they have targets and goals and marching orders, the use of analytics to make day-to-day decisions will help everyone by establishing a baseline and measuring whether certain tasks or activities are supporting those goals. It will also help your team by making them more accountable and empowering them with the tools they need to make a confident decision. There is no time for guesswork or opinion in today’s competitive, rapid paced environment.

If you are willing to acknowledge that the real operational decisions are – and must be – made on the front lines, then it is wise to give your team the tools they need to make those decisions in a more efficient, effective manner.

Giving a Sales Manager an analytical tool allows them to monitor and measure performance by location, region, sales representative, product, and other factors. Giving a Sales Representative an analytical tool allows them to make a difference, to see what is working in real time and to share, collaborate and make decisions that will truly affect the bottom line. It isn’t enough to report on the history. Give them the right tools and democratize your data for front line workers and you will help them MAKE history.

Consider the logic of a store manager keeping the key to the stock room on a key chain. If workers have to find the store manager every time they need something out of the stock room, there is a loss of productivity and empowerment. If a stock room has a lock that is opened by swiping an employee ID card, the employee gets what they need, the customer is served and the business has the data it needs to govern and manage its stock safely.

Data is a tool. Data is a part of your product and service offering. That data should drive your decisions on pricing, changes in workflow and activities, planning and forecasting and resource and equipment management. When you put data analytical tools in the hands of your front line workers, you improve the agility, flexibility and performance of your business.

Original Post : Data Democratization On the Business Front Line!

As your business moves toward metrics and measurable results and embraces analytics, it is likely to consider the implementation of augmented analytics across the enterprise.

‘The real beauty of Smart Data Visualization is that it is built within an Augmented Analytics environment that is designed for the average business user without advanced technical skills.’

Gartner predicted that, ‘augmented analytics will be a dominant driver of new purchases of analytics and BI as well as data science and machine learning platforms, and of embedded analytics.’ The decision to invest in augmented analytics and in data democratization means that your business users will need tools that are easy-to-use and provide sophisticated functionality. And, when it comes to the presentation of data, users will want new and improved ways to tell the story. Whether you are presenting in a staff meeting, sharing data and reports across teams or talking through a problem, smart data visualization is going to help you make a better decision, because it provides a clear picture of results and ensures that data is not misunderstood or misinterpreted.

In this article, we explore Smart Data Visualization and the concept of a ‘picture is worth a thousand words’ to discover how data visualization can make a real difference in your analytical environment and in supporting decisions.

What is Smart Data Visualization?

Once a user has gathered the data they wish to analyze, Smart Data Visualization uses auto-suggestions and recommendations to help you choose the right way to visualize your data and produce reports based on data type, data volume the nature of the data, the patterns and the dimensions. Smart Data Visualization and Visual Analytics allows business users to analyze, share and present information without waiting for assistance from visualization experts or programmers. With augmented data discovery tools, business users can cut through that mountain of data to find those elusive nuggets of information that have the most impact on business results.

How Does Smart Data Visualization Work?

By combining cutting-edge technology and machine learning on the backend, with an intuitive user experience on the front end, business users can easily leverage sophisticated tools with suggestions and recommendations on how to personalize data displays to create meaningful views and collaboration. Machine learning provides guidance to determine the visualization technique that will be the best fit for the data business users want to analyze. It allows for better understanding of data, and identifies unusual patterns in data, and achieves the best output and results.

What Can My Business Do with Smart Data Visualization?

Visual Analytics tools enable users to identify relationships, patterns, trends and opportunities and to explore detailed data with simple drill down and drill through capabilities and make sense of data from all sources, with a guided approach that allows users to identify patterns and trends, and quickly complete analysis with clear results.

The real beauty of Smart Data Visualization is that it is built within an Augmented Analytics environment that is designed for the average business user without advanced technical skills. Users can leverage sophisticated features to get that one picture that will tell the story – all without involving IT or data scientists, so the day-to-day work of decision-making can go forward with confidence and accuracy.

‘Smart data visualization is going to help you make a better decision, because it provides a clear picture of results and ensures that data is not misunderstood or misinterpreted.’

Explore the advantages of Augmented Analytics Products And Services, and Smart Data Visualization. Let us help you implement a solution that will be suitable for your team members and your business results.

Original Post : Smart Data Visualization Tells the Story of Your Business!

Gartner has predicted that ‘augmented analytics will be ubiquitous, but only 10% of users will use it to its full potential.’ Perhaps one of the most important aspects of user adoption is to provide the business intelligence tools at the place and time the user needs them. That means that a solution considered by the organization must be one that supports mobile devices.

‘The organization should look for a ‘design once, use anywhere’ approach that allows for maximum flexibility.’

In this article, we discuss how the organization can assess and choose the right Mobile BI solution to ensure optimal results and user adoption.

Convenient Access for Users

The augmented analytics, business intelligence solution that offers out-of-the-box mobile access for all types of mobile devices, tablets and desktops allows users to perform analytics, collaborate and report on the road, in the office, in hotels – in short, anywhere. With mobile BI support, the enterprise can provide a self-serve BI tool that encourages user adoption and supports data democratization and analytics for all team members without expensive customization or restrictive dashboards or reports. The Mobile BI solution that supports all devices and screen sizes allows users to access analytics using any device they leverage for work-related activities.

Dependable Performance to Support Technology Infrastructure and Future Needs

The enterprise must assess its business intelligence needs and plan for the future but not every evolutionary path is predictable. So, a Mobile BI tool that supports current and future data and user volume is an imperative. The organization should look for a ‘design once, use anywhere’ approach that allows for maximum flexibility. As devices change and evolve and users, locations and data changes, the organization can meet its needs without additional licensing or developmental costs.

Integrated Mobile BI Tools

If the augmented analytics solution and BI tools are comprised of comprehensive features to allow for easy-to-use dashboards, reporting, and graphs, charts and key performance indicators (KPIs), those features must be designed to seamlessly display and function on any type of device, any screen and any resolution, so users are not frustrated and access is simple and intuitive.

‘Perhaps one of the most important aspects of user adoption is to provide the business intelligence tools at the place and time the user needs them.’

Find out how Mobile BI And Augmented Analytics can support data democratization and improve your business results. Let us help you achieve your vision and improve productivity and insight across the organization.

Gartner has predicted that, ‘30% of organizations will harness the collective intelligence of their analytics communities, outperforming competitors that rely solely on centralized analytics or self-service.’ What does this mean for business Citizen Data Scientist initiatives? It does NOT mean that the organization should turn away from this type of initiative. What it DOES mean is that a business should recognize the value and purpose of each aspect of its analytical community.

‘The organization should establish rules of engagement and manage guidelines to dictate which roles will take on which types of analytics and when and how they will collaborate.’

In this article, we will discuss how Citizen Data Scientists, Data Scientists and other professionals can work together and where and how these professional roles can collaborate to produce better results.

Here are some crucial considerations to include in your assessment and your implementation of a Citizen Data Scientist initiative in order to ensure that collaboration with other roles is part of the process.

• Citizen Data Scientists are not business analysts or data scientists. They are business users and team members within the organization. The typical profile of an ideal Citizen Data Scientist is a person who is respected within the organization and often shares data and information with other users to collaborate and produce outcomes that are designed to achieve goals and objectives and produce a successful outcome. These individuals may already be ‘power users’ of business applications and may have developed and reported or presented data to others with an eye toward clarifying decision-making. Citizen Data Scientist candidates may also be IT team members who are interested in data science. Because Citizen Data Scientists can come from any corner of the organization, they bring their professional expertise and domain knowledge to the task of analytics and they can influence and affect the use of analytics within their own team. This cultural shift allows analytical champions to bring other professionals and roles into the process of data democratization. Citizen Data Scientists will perform day-to-day analytics at the individual, team and business unit level and develop hypotheses and prototypes, establish appropriate use cases and collaborate with Data Scientists, IT and others as appropriate. In most cases, this collaboration will occur when a topic or issue must be 100% accurate to clarify a strategy or meet an overall objective.
• Data Scientists will renew their focus on strategic initiatives and analytics that require refined accuracy and clarity. Data Scientists will be available to refine analytical results produced by Citizen Data Scientists as necessary and requested. The senior executive team may wish to implement a process for escalating these results to Data Scientists with guidelines for when and why analytics will be advanced to the Data Scientist team for further refinement. This will ensure that there is no confusion on when and where Data Scientists should be called into play. Data Scientists will collaborate as appropriate with Citizen Data Scientists and IT team members.
• The organization should establish rules of engagement and manage guidelines to dictate which roles will take on which types of analytics and when and how they will collaborate. IT, CDO involvement in data source management and access rules will allow for appropriate enterprise data governance using watermarks and data identification to ensure that all parties understand the provenance and credibility of the data they are using. The business should establish and manage a data literacy program to ensure that managers, team members, analysts, executives, IT and other roles understand how to use and interpret data for the best results.

‘Citizen Data Scientists will perform day-to-day analytics at the individual, team and business unit level and develop hypotheses and prototypes.’

Transforming business users into Citizen Data Scientists, provides advantages to the organization, to the business users and to data scientists. Appropriate Citizen Data Scientist Training and organizational planning will provide a  solid foundation and build business user confidence by providing an introduction and fundamental information on Predictive Analytics and other tools these users will employ. The business should also consider engaging an IT consulting partner with knowledge of the augmented analytics market, and a solution and support services to provide the guidance and Products And Services your business will need to succeed.

Original Post : Citizen Data Scientists, Data Scientists and Analysts Can Work Together!

The research and technology consulting firm, Gartner predicts that ‘By 2023, overall analytics adoption will increase from 35% to 50%, driven by vertical and domain-specific augmented analytics solutions.’ Whether your software business produces solutions or modules for a vertical market, a specific industry or a government or public service market, building an analytical solution to serve your clients or partners is an expensive, complicated proposition and one that will require significant funding and skilled resources.

‘Having a built-in analytics solution that can be adopted without extensive training and used in a single sign-on environment to access analytics from within your existing software solution will increase customer satisfaction and put you ahead of the competition.’

In this article, we discuss just a few of the advantages of embedding BI and augmented analytics within your existing software in an OEM or ISV relationship.

Time to Market

Once your company has decided to become more competitive by adding augmented analytics into the mix, you face the issue of getting to market quickly enough to get the jump on your competitors and provide unique, user-friendly tools that your clients will value. Instead of building a solution or attempting to customize integration, it is more efficient and timely to use an embedded BI product, one with integration APIs that will allow you to build the simple connections and get started right away, ensuring rapid time to market with dependable, proven products.

Support for Users

Software businesses are keenly aware of reputation and customer satisfaction. You get one chance to impress and you won’t want to choose a product or solution that makes claims and then falls short. Features and functionality are important of course, but dependability, scalability, security and other factors must be considered in order to meet user expectations. You want to choose a solution that is supported by the service provider and will be upgraded and maintained to keep pace with the market – one that is easy to use; one that the users will WANT to adopt.

Cost-Effective

When it comes to business decisions, everything comes down to cost. Choosing a solution that leverages APIs to establish integration and ensure easy access is important. Providing a single sign-on (SSO) environment where users can access their favorite software and leverage augmented analytics, will provide an impressive return on investment (ROI) for clients and for the OEM or ISV and will improve total cost of ownership (TCO) and value to the customer or user. When comparing the cost of acquiring a proven, existing augmented analytics solution to the cost of building one in-house or spending the money to customize integration with your modules and solution, there is no doubt that the ease of integration APIs and access to databases and data sources is faster, less expensive and more effective for users and for your software company.

‘Once your company has decided to become more competitive by adding augmented analytics into the mix, you face the issue of getting to market quickly enough to get the jump on your competitors and provide unique, user-friendly tools that your clients will value.’

Software companies face the increasing challenges of market expectations, customer satisfaction and competitive strategies. Having a built-in analytics solution that can be adopted without extensive training and used in a single sign-on environment to access analytics from within your existing software solution will increase customer satisfaction and put you ahead of the competition.

Leverage the Smarten approach to Embedded BI And Integration APIs to add powerful functionality and provide access to existing ERP, SCM, HRMS, CRM or any other products and to provide analytics capabilities within existing products without major Investment. Reduce time to market and stay ahead of the competition!

Original Post : Don’t Develop Your Own BI. Embed BI as an OEM or ISV Partner!

Tally^® ERP is a popular finance and accounting solution used by many team members in many businesses. It provides modules to support inventory management, purchasing, sales professionals, accountants, finance managers and other expense and revenue related functions responsible for taxes, statutory reporting etc.

The McKinsey consulting firm reports that organizations with fast and efficient decision-making processes are twice as likely to report financial returns of at least 20% as a result of recent decisions.

‘Taking your Tally ERP solution beyond data entry and standard reporting allows your finance and accounting professionals to gain insight and achieve results.’

When a business wishes to support its team members and provide more value and more effective financial decision-making, it should consider adding integrated analytics to its Tally environment. Augmented Analytics, designed specifically to support business users with no data science skills, provides an opportunity for businesses and business professionals to mitigate risk and to improve revenue and results.

In this article, we discuss a few of the ways in which integrated augmented analytics can work within the Tally ERP environment to provide valuable insight and support innovation, problem solving and business agility.

Sales

By adding integrated augmented analytics and pre-built reports to support professionals in their efforts, the business can gain insight into sales in a way that is not possible with standard reporting. Businesses can establish key performance indicators (KPIs) to drive results, and identify trends for a particular sales region, individual, product line, customer segment or regional or channel-specific marketing initiative.

Payable and Receivables

Augmented Analytics can provide insight into payables and receivables, segmented by creditors and debtors, by product or product line revenue, by service offering, etc. Businesses can track wholesale and partner collections and spot trends in overdue invoices. Where the business has established a threshold for payable and receivable completion, managers can stay abreast of issues and identify the root cause of problems that will affect their metrics.

Cost Centers

The cost center dashboard is a key report that displays balances and progress by cost center groups and accounts and by ledger relevance and association. The ledger provides classic and detailed views of entries and balances and allows for drill down to the individual voucher level to examine and analyze entries. Meeting budgetary goals and objectives and monitoring and managing cost centers allows finance managers to identify and understand where and how a particular cost center is exceeding or falling short of expectations and address those issues to stay on track.

‘When a business wishes to support its team members and provide more value and more effective financial decision-making, it should consider adding integrated analytics to its Tally environment.’

These are just a few examples of how businesses can gain insight and provide actionable reporting to improve results. Taking your Tally ERP solution beyond data entry and standard reporting allows your finance and accounting professionals to :

• Perform financial statement analysis and understand the current financial position of the business.
• Review income statements and compare results to expected performance to inform annual reporting and stay on track
• Provide forecasts to estimate the financial impact of proposed initiatives and projects and ensure positive return on investment (ROI)
• Monitor budgets, resources and deliverables and report on performance
• Dive into cash flow and profit margins to determine the root cause of shortfalls or identify opportunities for growth

Find out how the addition of SmartenApps For Tally will support your accounting-related analytical initiative and bring your team and your business to the next level. Users can Download And Register for SmartenApps for Tally and use Tally data to analyze, explore and clarify.

Original Post : How Can My Business Use Tally ERP and Analytics to Improve Results?

One of the best ways to encourage and improve data literacy is to implement a digital transformation strategy that encourages business users to leverage data from across the enterprise to analyze results, understand the impact of activities and anticipate trends and to present recommendations and results using metrics and information based on fact-based analysis.

‘When faced with the challenge of improving data literacy and enabling digital transformation, the business would do well to consider the Embedded BI with integration APIs approach.’

But how does an organization encourage the use of data analytics and help business users to become more comfortable with the use of data? Every team member is overloaded with tasks and responsibilities and every team member is likely to use software to accomplish these tasks. These software solutions are familiar and often times are a crucial part of workflow, helping the user to capture and monitor data and to check approvals, orders, project status etc.

So, if your team is already used to enterprise, best-of-breed or legacy systems, why not add integrated analytics via embedded business intelligence? Through the use of APIs, these BI tools can be embedded in the enterprise application and accessible via a single sign-on through the user’s favorite software application. So, the user does not have to learn a new software product or visit a separate app to get the job done. They can work within the confines of a familiar software solution to gather and analyze data and produce clear results.

You can enable r business intelligence data democratization and alleviate user frustration with solutions and access to improve user adoption of business intelligence tools, and ensure collaboration, data sharing and fact-based decisions.

Embedded BI and Augmented Analytics includes traditional BI components like dashboards, KPIs, Reports with interactive drill-down, drill through, slice and dice and self-serve analytics capabilities. It is also supported by advanced analytics components including natural language processing (NLP) search analytics, and assisted predictive modeling to enable the Citizen Data Scientist culture.

Benefits of Embedded BI

The benefits of Embedded BI and Augmented Analytics are numerous. Here are a few for your to consider:

• Improve overall organizational value.
• Provide unique solutions and analytics integration without significant investment
• Improve user adoption and ROI for BI investments and for existing technology and software investments
• Support rapid implementation and deployment – quick, efficient and simple!
• Provide embedded BI and access to timely data for public websites, to deliver crucial updates and analytics

‘How does an organization encourage the use of data analytics and help business users to become more comfortable with the use of data?’

When faced with the challenge of improving data literacy and enabling digital transformation, the business would do well to consider the Embedded BI with integration APIs approach, as it will ease the transition for business users and encourage them to adopt tools that will help them on a day-to-day basis.

Find out more about Augmented Analytics and the benefits of Embedded BI. We can help your business succeed and improve user adoption and data literacy.

Original Post : Users WILL Adopt Embedded BI and Augmented Analytics!

Smarten CEO, Kartik Patel says, “The CERT-IN certification for our Smarten suite of software products is an important credential. Our team is honored to receive this acknowledgement of our process and our methodologies, and the application security standards our team has implemented on the Smarten platform. Our clients can take comfort in the credibility and the dependable products and services this certification ensures.”

The Information Technology Amendment Act of 2009 designated CERT-IN as the national agency to perform functions for cyber security, including the collection, analysis and dissemination of information on cyber incidents, as well as taking emergency measures to handle incidents and coordinating cyber incident response activities. CERT-IN also issues advisories, guidelines and white papers for security practices. As a certified CERT-IN service and product provider, Smarten adds additional security assurances to its already rich foundation of security measures and methodologies to support clients, partners and stakeholders.

“The CERT-IN review and evaluation process provides a comprehensive and crucial validation of our products and services, and assures that our clients can be confident in our team, our processes, and our methodologies and the data and application security validation the CERT-IN certification assures,” says Patel.

The CERT-IN certification increases and improves security and provides a multi-layered approach to ensure that Smarten products and services are in compliance with privacy, regulatory and security standards.

Contact the Smarten team for more information on Smarten Augmented Analytics solution.

About Smarten

The Smarten approach to business intelligence and business analytics focuses on the business user and provides Advanced Data Discovery so users can perform early prototyping and test hypotheses without the skills of a data scientist. Smarten Augmented Analytics tools include Assisted Predictive Modeling, Smart Data Visualization, Self-Serve Data Preparation, Sentiment Analysis, and Clickless Analytics with natural language processing (NLP) for search analytics. All of these tools are designed for business users with average skills and require no special skills or knowledge of statistical analysis or support from IT or data scientists. Smarten is listed in multiple Gartner Reports including Gartner Data Preparation Report, the Market Guide for Enterprise-Reporting-Based Platforms and the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms Report for the ElegantJ BI Business Intelligence Suite.

Original Post : Smarten Augmented Analytics Receives CERT-IN Certification for Its Products and Services!

‘Understanding relationships in data can help users understand the root cause of a problem, targeting an issue or opportunity.’

There are many ways in which a business can improve the effectiveness of its reporting but, perhaps the easiest and most effective way is by producing clear, insightful results that point the way toward action and change.

In this article, we discuss three (3) factors of self-serve reporting access and cross-tab, business intelligence reporting tools that will improve reporting and provide access to the very vital information used for analysis and decision-making.

Cross-Tab Reporting Designed for Business Users

Self-Serve BI tools with cross tabular reporting provide a 360° view of the business to provide objective metrics and help users to quickly determine whether the organization, department, or team is achieving its goals. Integration with data extraction, cube management features, and ad-hoc queries and BI reporting ensures a clear view of performance. Business users have access to analytical tools that can produce summary, detail, graphics, charts, and reports with ease to satisfy weekly, monthly or other reporting requirements. Users do not have to wait for IT or data scientists to create reports but rather can dive in and explore data, visualize and produce reports that will best represent results and support conclusions and recommendations.

Flexible Views, Filters and Report Formats

Provide users with sophisticated, complex functionality in a simple user interface that is integrated with enterprise systems and sources and provides precise, cross-tab or tabular reports without technical assistance.

• Dynamic analysis design
• Interactive, easy-to-use analysis design wizard
• Multiple page dimension filter
• Runtime retrieval parameter on loading analysis
• Drill-up, drill-down and through
• Graphical view of analysis
• User defined rows and columns
• Spot lighters with color
• Data Value – Display Value Mapping
• Sorting and ranking of rows and columns
• Group and ungroup rows and columns
• Value mapping for user friendly display of data
• Access to central cube repository objects
• Cell notes and table notes with private or public option
• Cell format with resizing and renaming
• Sharing and Publishing
• Exports: PDF, CSV, XML, JPEG, XLS
• Publishing and Delivery agent

Interactive Features and Personalization

When you consider data democratization and rolling out a BI tool or analytical solution to your team members across the enterprise, you have to think about how to ensure that team members can easily adopt analytics and use them in their day-to-day tasks with a clear understanding of the results. Static dashboards and restrictive analytics reporting can confuse a user and undermine the goals of a data democratization and business user analytics initiative. A solution that provides flexible reporting and ad-hoc queries will help your team members gather, analyze and understand data and results. Look for a solution that provides cross-tab analytics for a deep dive analytics experience that will help your users leverage data and gain confidence in the use of an analytics solution. Cross-tab reporting provides a view of multi-dimensional data and the ability to perform ad-hoc queries to gain a clear view of performance, deep dive into your data, and easily slice and dice data, to find and understand relevant Information. It simplifies complex data operations, summary operations, time series functions, filters and custom column expressions.

‘A business can improve the effectiveness of its reporting by producing clear, insightful results that point the way toward action and change.’

With cross-tab analysis users can analyze the relationship between or among two or more variables and to summarize data in rows and columns and easily see the intersection of data points. Understanding relationships in data can help users understand the root cause of a problem, targeting an issue or opportunity. The enterprise can use this insight to manage business and identify patterns, trends, and sensitivity for things like pricing and more.

Find out how Self-Serve Business Intelligence Tools and Deep Dive, Cross-Tab, Flexible Reporting Tools can support data democratization and improve your business results. Let us help you achieve your vision and improve productivity and insight across the organization.

Business users are business professionals who have expertise in an industry or market arena or perform a function to support the ongoing operation of the business – professionals who may be front line workers on a production line, finance professionals, sales representatives, non-profit office workers, medical researchers, middle managers, regional managers for retail chains, transportation dispatchers or…well, you get the idea. These team members know their job and they do it well. But, they probably don’t have the technical skills to write a SQL query, or to filter out the columns and fields for an analytical search in order to get the results they need to make a decision.

If you want to improve results, ensure fact-based decisions, increase data literacy, improve productivity and collaboration and ensure great ROI and TCO (not to mention improving user adoption and user satisfaction), look for augmented analytics solutions with NLP AND context-driven search capability.

So, again, this article will serve as a plea on behalf of the average business user. When you choose an analytical tool to support the needs of your organization, choose a tool that is easy enough for every team member to use. If you want your business to improve productivity and data literacy, if you want to improve data democratization and you intend to provide self-serve analytical tools for use by the average team member, choose a tool that is designed to make life as easy as possible for each of those team members.

Every employee is also a consumer in the real world and they are used to easy tools. They know how to search for something on Google and get the results they need. The reason they can do this is simple: the tools provided for this purpose are designed for human interaction. You ask a question…you get an answer.

But, analytical tools often fail to provide that same support.

While there are plenty of analytical tools out there, and some great augmented analytical tools that offer guidance and suggestions to users, the concept of Natural Language Processing (NLP) may not be engaged in a way that supports the same Google type search mechanism.

And, when we take the NLP concept one step further and provide context, we give business users the ultimate, easy-to-use, analytical tool.

That tool will ensure that they adopt the technology and use it to make decisions every day, thus supporting rapid ROI and low TCO and improving productivity and fact-based decision-making.

Moreover, you will make your business users happy. No one wants to struggle to find the information they need to do their job or to find out after they make a decision that there was information that would have led them in a different direction and improved the outcome. But, business users are not IT professionals or data scientists. They know their job and they may be expert in legal issues, financial investment, sales, marketing or any number of other professional pursuits, but they don’t get paid to focus on technology. So, if you want to empower them and hold them accountable for their decisions, give them the tools they need to easily find information.

Ask a question…get an answer. Find the information you need and gain insight into issues.

Here are just a few examples of how context-driven NLP searches can inform your business users and help them make decisions:

• Ask a question to compare costs: ‘What is the cost of goods for producing washing machines in Arizona vs. Arkansas?
• Ask a question that reveals ‘most’ or ‘least’, ‘high’ or ‘low’: What was the highest temperature in Arizona in 2019 and when did it happen?
• Ask a question about a point in time without the need for specific dates: How many silk blouses were sold during Christmas season in 2016 vs. 2018?
• Ask about sales without specifying a sales rep name or a specific product: Who sold the most fruit in Phoenix, Arizona in the first quarter of 2018?

As you can see, this type of context-driven searching allows the average business user to ask a question, using standard human language and following a thought or concept they have, without having to translate this question into a system query or programming language. So, your users can do their job, get the answer they need to improve results and go on with their day.

That concludes my plea on behalf of your business users.

If you want to improve results, ensure fact-based decisions, increase data literacy, improve productivity and collaboration and ensure great ROI and TCO (not to mention improving user adoption and user satisfaction), look for augmented analytics solutions with Natural Language Processing (NLP) AND context-driven search capability.

Original Post : Please Consider Your Business Users When Selecting an Analytics and Data Search Tool!

According to a West Monroe Partners’ survey, 68% of business and technology leaders surveyed don’t believe their competitors are leveraging data successfully. Obviously, when it comes to your competitive market space, your business does not want to exist in that 68% of the pie chart! Your senior execs and managers want to leverage data and information to gain a competitive advantage and succeed.

Recent studies have focused on the trends in business intelligence and augmented analytics, predicting that businesses will grow analytics within the enterprise with:

• Augmented Analytics to enable non-technical business users to create sophisticated data models.
• Data Privacy to ensure government and industry regulations are in compliance as business users adopt self-serve BI tools.
• Self-Serve Business Intelligence that integrates data from disparate data sources and makes it available for mobile access.
• Social BI Tools that allow for sharing of data, alerts, dashboards and interactivity to support decisions, enable online communication and collaboration.
• Data Discovery including self-serve data preparation, smart data visualization with charts, graphs and other visualizations for clarity and decisions.
• Predictive Modeling to support business needs, forecast, and test theories.
• Embedded BI to allow users to sign in to familiar enterprise apps and leverage APIs to integrate analytics within that application for intuitive use.
• Cloud and Mobile Access to make business intelligence, data models and data sources accessible from anywhere.

As you review the list of predictions above, note that traditional and modern BI tools and Augmented Analytics with Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine learning seems destined to co-exist for the foreseeable future. Each of these approaches provides a unique and critical support foundation for business users and for the organization.

‘When considering all the features and functionality you want for your business, you must also be aware that it will be more cost effective and timely to select a BI tool and an augmented analytics solution that do not require custom integration or separate maintenance and support approaches.’

In this article, we will discuss the importance of Business Intelligence and Augmented Analytics and a few select factors the business should consider when choosing a service provider or vendor solution.

Traditional business intelligence is focused on reporting and queries, whereas advanced analytics is focused on the analysis of structured and unstructured data to optimize, correlate and predict the activities and strategies that will help the business succeed and to predict results.

Business Intelligence

Dashboards

A BI tool is crucial for business users to monitor and present data. Business users should have the ability to design personalized dashboards in minutes, without knowledge of any programming or SQL queries. Users should have access to stunning visualizations, alerts for exceptions and trends, and deep dive analysis using highly interactive dashboards. When reviewing your BI tools options, avoid static, restrictive packages and look for a tool that will allow business users the ability to use interactive, self-serve dashboards for deep dive capability.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

KPIs allow the business to establish and monitor KPIs for objective metrics. Users must be able to define KPIs with an easy to use, powerful expression engine and set polarity, frequency, and threshold levels using a browse- based interface. KPI Analytics provide interactive options to change frequencies, dimension break downs and drill down to further analyze trends, and reasons for performance and non performance.

Cross-Tab Reporting

Business users need easy-to-use, flexible tools that will allow for Cross-tab analytics offers a 360 degree view of your multi-dimensional data with ad-hoc queries and BI reporting so you can take full advantage of Business Intelligence with a clear view of corporate performance and ability to slice and dice data, drill down, drill up and drill through to find the most relevant Information.

Real Time and Cached Cube Management

Business users need flexible options for data access and management so you can choose the option that is best for your use case scenario. You should be able to connect to data sources using simple wizard-based connection interface. Real-time cube management connects to data sources in real time, and compiles data for fast performance to deliver real time analytics to users. Cached cube management provides high performance analytics on pre-aggregated data and provides other computations for superior performance and analytics, refreshing data from data sources at a defined frequency.

Intuitive Reporting

Your business needs web-based BI reports that are simple to use, practical to implement and affordable for every organization. Users should be able to point-and-click and drag-and-drop and instantly create a report to summarize your performance metrics, or operational data, all in a self-serve environment without programming or database or SQL skills and automate publication and delivery of these reports via email, thereby improving productivity and ensuring that information reaches the right people at the right time.

Augmented Analytics

Self-Serve Data Preparation

Users with average skills can perform data preparation and transform, shape, reduce, combine, explore, clean, sample and aggregate data, without the need for SQL skills, ETL or other programming language.

Assisted Predictive Modeling

Users get predictive modeling capability assisted by auto-recommendations and auto-suggestions to simplify use and allow business users to leverage predictive algorithms without the expertise and skill of a data scientist. Users can apply predictive analytics to any use case using forecasting, regression, classification, clustering and other algorithms.

Smart Data Visualization

Business users can interact easily with data discovery tools and analytics software and build a view that will tell a story using guided visualization and recommended data presentation so there is no need for assistance or delays. Guided recommendations are made based on data type, volume, dimensions, patterns and nature of data.

Sentiment Analysis

Users can leverage Natural Language Processing (NLP), text analytics, and computational linguistics to identify and analyze sentiment, opinion and responses and can be used for text analysis to gain insight into how and why people make choices and what they are really thinking and categorize feedback as positive, negative and neutral sentiments. The process is simple, and is designed for business users, and does not need any scripting or coding.

Key Influencer Analytics

Focus on what matters and find the most relevant influencers for your target KPIs. Business users often find it difficult to identify the right targets and to understand relationships and factors that influence results. Point to the dataset you want to analyze and the system will identify the target variable and influencers that matter achieving objective.

Clickless Analytics

A familiar Google-type interface where a user can compose and enter a question using common human language. Users do not need to scroll through menus and navigation. They can simply enter a search query in natural language and the system will translate the query, and return the results in natural language in an appropriate form, such as visualization, tables, numbers or descriptions.

Auto Insights

Allows business users to simply select the dataset to be analyzed and let the system interpret the dataset, select important columns of data, analyze its type and variety and other parameters and use intelligent machine learning to automatically apply the best algorithm and analytical technique and provide data insights.

Anomaly Monitoring and Alerts

Reveal trends, anomalies, and answers, map your targets, focus on influencers that matter, adapt and succeed. Prescribe for improvement! Support the evolving role of Citizen Data Scientists with interactive tools that allow a business user to establish key performance indicators (KPIs) and receive auto-suggestions and alerts on changing contributions and the impact of influencers on the target, and related anomalies and volatility.

When considering all the features and functionality you want for your business, you must also be aware that it will be more cost effective and timely to select a BI tool and an augmented analytics solution that do not require custom integration or separate maintenance and support approaches. Working with a vendor that can support your business with both modern business intelligence and KPI tools, as well as augmented analytics and advanced analytics features and functionality will allow your enterprise to provide appropriate tools for each of your business users, and deliver these tools in one platform and application. . And, it’s all in one platform and application!

‘Traditional business intelligence is focused on reporting and queries, whereas advanced analytics is focused on the analysis of structured and unstructured data.’

Explore the advantages of Augmented Analytics Products And Services, and Traditional And Modern BI Tools. Let us help you implement a solution that will be suitable for your team members and your business results.

Original Post : Combine BI Tools and Augmented Analytics for Business Success!

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If you don’t find what you need in the Support Portal, we hope you will contact us with your questions, comments or suggestions. We are here to help and to support your business goals and success!

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Original Post : Smarten Support Portal Updates – May – 2022!

Whether you have recently been nominated to become a Citizen Data Scientist or you are considering the value of this type of transition for your business, managers and team members alike often ask exactly what a Citizen Data Scientist can do. According to technology research firm, Gartner, the number of Citizen Data Scientists will grow at five times the rate of traditional data scientists. If that’s the case, there must be something to this trend, right?

‘Citizen Data Scientists can create new models, share models and collaborate, thereby improving business results and data literacy.’

In this article, we provide some examples of what a Citizen Data Scientist can do to advance the goals and interests of the organization and optimize their productivity and performance. What follows is a short list of sample use cases that leverage predictive analytics. These examples will help the reader to better understand how business users can leverage augmented analytics to perform tasks, refine results and make fact-based decisions on a daily basis.

Predicting Demand

If a business wishes to optimize inventory, production and supply, it must have a comprehensive demand planning process; one that can forecast for customer segment growth, seasonality, planned product discounting or sales, bundling of products, etc. In order to predict and forecast and assure product or service availability, the business must also look at the dependability of suppliers, shipping and the purchasing of parts that make up the products. It must also plan for appropriate resources and training and, where necessary, plan for new products. Predictive analytics uses data integrated from appropriate data sources, and augmented analytics allows the business to anticipate production demands, plan for new locations and markets and predict targeted customer buying behavior and changes in product demand across multiple market segments. Assisted predictive modeling is easy enough for every business user and will allow team members to plan at the department, divisional, unit and company level for manufacturing, logistics, travel and hospitality, and product and service sales and marketing. Businesses invest significant funding in inventory and warehousing and shipping and every step along the supply chain. Where demand can be optimized, the business will alleviate the issue of inventory shortages or overages and will optimize production and distribution to improve the bottom line and ensure that customers are satisfied.

Analyzing Customer Churn

The cost of acquiring and interacting with customers is one a business must fund and, every time the business loses a customer (customer churn), it must spend more money to replace that customer. Every business wishes to identify the issues that most often cause a customer to leave. Dissatisfied customers often close an account or choose another service provider without explaining their decision. The business wants to use predictive analytics to identify those customers who were most likely to leave and develop processes and strategies to improve customer retention and reduce customer churn. The business will use the tools provided in assisted predictive modeling to identify customers who are likely to leave, and their issues, improve services and processes and increase customer retention.

Anticipating Machine Maintenance Needs

Sooner or later, all machines will fail and monitoring the condition of equipment is crucial for any enterprise as any unplanned downtime can have greater economic impact resulting in reduced productivity and ultimately loss of customers. Anticipating the need for repairs, allows the business to schedule downtime and control risk and exposure, to order parts so that the enterprise does not experience delays or emergencies or incur additional costs for rush shipments, etc. machine in a good condition is to timely monitor it and detect the patterns to predict the breakdowns. Predictive maintenance of machines helps in evaluating the timely collected machine data in order to gauge its condition and predict when maintenance work is needed. If the enterprise is to succeed, it must strive for accuracy and identify trends and patterns to predict future results and mitigate risk and downtime.

Citizen Data Scientists can use many types of algorithms and techniques to analyze, identify trends, predict, forecast and problem solve. The use cases listed here are meant to give the reader an idea of what business users can do with the right augmented analytics tools. These tools are sophisticated yet easy to use and will allow business users to analyze data, integrated from disparate sources, without the assistance of IT or data scientists.

‘Business users can leverage augmented analytics to perform tasks, refine results and make fact-based decisions on a daily basis.’

Citizen Data Scientists can dive into data, using tools that will alleviate frustration and delays. They can create new models, share models and collaborate, thereby improving business results and data literacy.

Transforming business users into Citizen Data Scientists, provides advantages to the organization, to the business users and to data scientists. Citizen Data Scientist Training provides a solid foundation and builds business user confidence by providing an introduction and fundamental information on Predictive Analytics and other tools these users will employ. The business should also consider engaging an IT consulting partner with knowledge of the augmented analytics market, and a solution and support services to provide the guidance and Products And Services your business will need to succeed.

Original Post : What Can a Citizen Data Scientist Do to Improve Results?

If your business is software, and you want to expand your client base and your offerings, there is no reason you need to spend the time to hire developers who are skilled in analytics or to build your own solution. This is an expensive and time-consuming process and one that will require you to constantly update skills and the solution to keep pace with the market and with technology.

‘Integrating augmented analytics within your existing software solutions is simple. An integrated solution provides single sign-on access to data sources and data warehouses.’

In this article, we discuss the value of embedding BI and augmented analytics within existing software solutions to improve your revenue stream, add value, provide more features and functionality and better serve your customers without undertaking a complex and comprehensive development project.

Rapid Deployment

Integrating augmented analytics within your existing software solutions is simple. The integrated solution provides access to data sources and data warehouses using a robust data architecture with single-tenant or multi-tenant modes and flexible deployment via public or private cloud, or via on-premises hardware, so the business can deploy anywhere with no environmental dependencies.

Simple Access and Single Sign-On

Your clients have access to embedded BI objects from within the application with scalable integration APIs and objects including dashboards, crosstab, tabular, KPIs, graphs, reports etc. The single sign-on environment allows clients to log into your solution and gain access to the augmented analytics environment from within your software and includes comprehensive security protocols and user authentication.

Simple Administration and Management

The integrated augmented analytics approach includes simple tenant management to deploy with a shared data model for single-tenant mode or an isolated data model for multi-tenant mode and software as a service (SaaS) applications. You can create common data models and BI object templates to publish across tenants with a single click. SDKs are designed to support your business framework and technologies including .NET, ASP.NET, PHP, MVC, .NET Core, Vue, Angular, React, Java etc. so your team can embed BI objects into web or mobile applications, and work directly with data using web services in web or mobile apps.

‘OEMs and ISVs can provide integrated analytics and add value, provide more features and functionality and better serve customers without undertaking a complex and comprehensive analytics development project.’

Leverage the Smarten approach to Embedded BI And Integration APIs to add powerful functionality and provide access to existing ERP, SCM, HRMS, CRM or any other products and to provide analytics capabilities within existing products without major Investment. Reduce time to market and stay ahead of the competition!

Original Post : Embed BI and Analytics as an OEM or ISV and Expand Your Market!

The technology research firm, Gartner has predicted that, ‘predictive and prescriptive analytics will attract 40% of net new enterprise investment in the overall business intelligence and analytics market.’ When combined with Citizen Data Scientist initiatives, the adoption and use of predictive modeling and forecasting techniques can be a boon to any enterprise. Team members who have access to augmented analytics and assisted predictive modeling can plan better, predict more accurately and dependably meet goals and objectives.

‘Provide the right predictive analytics tools to transition business users into Citizen Data Scientists and achieve the kind of results this type of initiative can deliver.’

Predictive Analytics involves forecasting or predicting business results for planning purposes and it employs various analytical and modeling techniques, leveraging historical data, both internal and external and business results. It is meant to identify crucial relationships and opportunities and risks and help the organization to accurately predict:

• Growth
• Competitive Changes
• Market Changes
• Trends and Patterns

In this article, we discuss three factors to consider when selecting a predictive analytics solution to help business users make the transition to Citizen Data Scientists and become more data literate and productive.

Complete Set of Analytical Techniques

The augmented analytics solution your business chooses must have a complete set of predictive analytical techniques with built-in, sophisticated algorithms and tools that are easy to use and will guide the user to choose the right predictive analytical technique for the data they are analyzing.

Access to Flexible, Intuitive Predictive Modeling

The assisted predictive analytics tools must be easy for business users with average technical skills. Providing these easy-to-use tools will ensure user adoption and allow Citizen Data Scientists to apply predictive analytics to real business use cases to develop accurate forecasts, plans and predictions that will keep the business on track and avoid missteps and problems. The business can leverage use cases across the enterprise to address all kinds of issues, including:

Foundation to Operationalize Processes for Management and Monitoring

Assisted Predictive Modeling with Augmented Data Science and Machine Learning allows business users without data science or analytical skills to apply predictive analytics to any use case using forecasting, regression, clustering and other techniques with auto-recommendations and guidance to suggest appropriate analytical techniques. The solution your organization selects must be easy to use and allow business users to walk through the process, step-by-step to achieve results.

• Select an Algorithm Technique
• Select the Dataset or Cube
• Select the Target and Predictor Variables
• Apply Data Filters
• Analyze the Model with Visualization and Interpretation

When your business is considering an augmented analytics solution, it must include these factors, in order to ensure that it can provide the right predictive analytics tools to transition business users into Citizen Data Scientists and achieve the kind of results this type of initiative can deliver.

‘Selecting the right predictive analytics solution can help business users make the transition to Citizen Data Scientists and become more data literate and productive.’

Transforming business users into Citizen Data Scientists, provides advantages to the organization, to the business users and to data scientists. Citizen Data Scientist Training provides a solid foundation and builds business user confidence by providing an introduction and fundamental information on Predictive Analytics and other tools these users will employ. The business should also consider engaging an IT consulting partner with knowledge of the augmented analytics market, and a solution and support services to provide the guidance and Products And Services your business will need to succeed.

Original Post : Give Your Citizen Data Scientists the Right Predictive Analytics!

There are many finance-related roles within a business. Whether you are an accountant or a finance manager or controller, or you manage inventory, purchasing, sales or other critical areas of the business, it is likely that you are responsible for a budget and for mitigating expenses and improving revenue. Tally^® ERP users understand the software solution and use it daily to enter data and to produce standard reports.

‘With augmented analytics, and the ability to spot and understand trends, results and issues, your team members can take their knowledge of the domain, industry and role and add to it with clear data.’

But what if you, as a business professional could improve results, improve visibility for your own role and add more value simply by adopting and adding integrated augmented analytics to your Tally^® ERP environment?

A recent survey revealed that more than 60% of accounting and finance professionals and firms predict that analytics will play a key role in their responsibilities. Adding this capability to your day-to-day process can help your business, your team and your career prospects!

In this article, we discuss three benefits of Tally^® Mobile Analytics and how these benefits can support accounting and finance professionals in their daily endeavors.

Three Ways Accounting and Finance Professionals Can Benefit from Integrating Augmented Analytics with Tally® ERP

Value-Added, Integrated Reporting

Tally^® ERP includes standard reporting targeted to each of its modules and related disciplines. Leveraging business intelligence and BI tools and augmented analytics capabilities, the expanded reporting available within the integrated augmented analytics environment provides pre-built reports and flexibility to dig deeper into results and understand trends, patterns and details. Reports include Payables and Receivables, Cost Center, Inventory, Sales and Purchasing, Bank and Cash Reports, Tax Reporting, Ledgers, Account Statements and Overview Reports.

Metrics and Fact-Based Decision-Making

Every team member in a business is expected to perform at a higher level today. Organizations want specificity, clarity and decisions and suggestions made from a basis of fact, not opinion or guessing. Accountants, finance and business analysts, inventory managers, purchasing managers and other finance-related roles are not exempt from this expectation. Anywhere the business takes in or spends money is going to affect the bottom line. With integrated analytics, Tally^® ERP users can dig in and look for problems, find the root cause, find and advance opportunities for considerations, etc. Sales and purchasing reports allow team members to explore data on a monthly, quarterly and yearly basis and review key performance indicators (KPIs) by customer or sales register. Payables and receivables analysis includes analysis by creditor and debtor, by product, service or even components, so team members can spot trends and analyze overdue collections, etc. Inventory analytics provides details on shortages, overages, key data for stock management, supplier issues, shipping and distribution. KPIs and analytics can cross modules and identify factors affecting the business in other business units.

Increased Productivity and Contribution

Accounting and finance positions are often seen as ‘bean counters’ or, at best, responsible for statutory reporting but not to be consulted on matters of strategy or operational efficiency, etc. With augmented analytics, and the ability to spot and understand trends, results and issues, your team members can take their knowledge of the domain, industry and role and add to it with clear data that will point them to effective suggestions and recommendations and help them to see and interpret the business, adding value to senior management and to their respective teams. This proactive approach will improve business results and allow team members to operate with more agility and effectiveness.

‘What if you, as a business professional could improve results, improve visibility for your own role and add more value simply by adopting and adding integrated augmented analytics to your Tally® ERP environment?’

Find out how the addition of SmartenApps For Tally^® will support your accounting-related analytical initiative and bring your team and your business to the next level. Users can Download And Register for SmartenApps for Tally^® and use Tally^® data to analyze, explore and clarify.

Original Post : How Can Tally Mobile Analytics Help Accounting and Finance Pros?

If your business is considering an advanced analytics solution, your IT and management team has probably already done some research and concluded that the concept of augmented analytics designed to support business users is the right way to go. To democratize data, improve data literacy and transition business users to the Citizen Data Scientist role, the business must select the right solution and plan for success.

‘NLP search analytics technology improves productivity, user adoption, business results and competitive positioning in the market.’

Gartner, the renowned technology research firm, has predicted that, ‘… 90% of corporate strategies will explicitly mention information as a critical enterprise asset and analytics as an essential competency.’ Your competitors are implementing this strategy and it is time you do so as well. But if you are to choose the right solution, you must first understand the concepts of new systems and solutions and how data science and analytics have changed to incorporate search analytics, tools and features that will support your business users.

Consider the ubiquitous nature of Google-type searches and how the concept of natural language processing (NLP) and tools that allow users to ask questions and get answers easily can be applied to your business analytics.

In this article we define Search Analytics and the WHAT and WHY as well as the BENEFITS of implementing this type of solution.

What

One of the greatest obstacles to self-serve analytics is the need for a specialized skill set to use the solution. The concept of search is designed to provide sophisticated features in a user-friendly environment so business users can leverage these tools to perform analysis and produce reports. Search analytics provides an interactive environment wherein business users can obtain rapid, accurate results. These tools use natural language processing (NLP) to simplify the input and output so that users can ask questions and receive answers without programming or analytical knowledge, thereby enhancing user adoption and the clarity and usefulness of the analysis and reports the enterprise produces. Rather than the user scrolling through menus and navigation or using drag and drop, the user can enter a search query in natural language. The system translates that search analytics language query into a query that the analytics platform can interpret, and return the most appropriate answer in an appropriate form such as visualization, tables, numbers or descriptions in simple human language.

Why

The natural language processing (NLP) approach to Search Analytics allows users to process question in natural language, and presents relevant, easy-to-understand visualization reports, numbers, trends and key performance indicators (KPIs) to answer questions. The old, structured approach is gone; replaced by an expanded data environment where users can get information in a way that is meaningful to them and easy to interpret. Users can leverage these simple Search Analytics tools to perform analytics on any internal and external data sources and thereby create a foundation for fact-based, data-driven analysis that is easily accessible.

How it Can Help Your Business

Search analytics produces clear results, and data is available in an intelligent adaptive user interface and users can access these tools from any desktop, tablet or mobile device, so users will WANT to use the solution. Search Analytics further supports your business by helping you to achieve rapid ROI and sustain low total cost of ownership (TCO) with meaningful tools that are easy to understand, and as familiar as a Google search. These tools require very little training, and provide interactive tools that ‘speak the language’ of the user. Search analytics interprets natural language queries and presents results through smart visualization and contextual information delivered in natural language so every business users can capitalize on these tools, no matter their skill level or their analytical need. When a business user can leverage this type of clickless analytics search capability, the user can achieve rapid, clear results and use those results to solve problems, share information and optimize opportunities for the business. With natural language-processing-based search capability, users do not need to scroll through menus and navigation. The business can address complex questions using this simple search capability with a contextual flexible search mechanism that provides one of the most flexible, in-depth search capability and results offered in the market today. Clickless Analysis and contextual search capabilities go beyond column level filters and queries to provide more intelligence support. The solution translates the contextual query and returns results in an appropriate format, e.g., visualization, tables, numbers, or descriptors. This NLP search analytics technology improves productivity, user adoption, business results and competitive positioning in the market.

‘You must understand how data science and analytics have changed to incorporate search analytics, tools and features that will support your business users.’

Explore the advantages of Augmented Analytics Products And Services, and Search Analytics Tools. Let us help you implement a solution that will be suitable for your team members and your business results.

Original Post : How Can NLP Search Analytics Help My Business? 

If your business is focused on data-driven, fact-based decisions, your business users may be leveraging an analytics solution to gather, find and analyze data. Business goals include improving results and productivity, and getting the best results out of your data, as well as gaining meaningful insight into data.

But, you certainly want to accomplish all those goals without frustrating business users or forcing them to adopt tools that do not add value to their day-to-day workflow and tasks.

When a business sets goals and establishes metrics to determine the value of an analytical solution and a business user analytics initiative within the enterprise, the management team often fails to focus on the more subtle, but powerful, concept of efficacy. Just how effective is the search process and, equally important, the results produced by that search.

If a user can quickly and easily ask a question without having to find and choose columns or fields, they can avoid the time and complexity of putting together an effective search and the frustration of receiving results that do not fit their requirements.

When a business envisions a data-driven environment and establishes the foundation with an analytical solution, it should expect user adoption and a more data literate team environment. But, without effective search tools, that vision will fall short.

Augmented Analytics that include context-driven, Natural Language Processing (NLP), will provide the kind of support your business needs to achieve the results you envision.

Context-driven searches using Natural Language Processing (NLP), allow users to go beyond restrictive searching based on column filters to provide context such as season, time series or range, polarity, and they address abbreviations, and analyze phonetics to handle misspellings, etc.

This approach allows users to ask a question using a more human, conversational approach, without having to consider which columns or fields they need or how to ask the question to get an answer that provides meaningful insight into their question without frustrating the user by returning no results or results that have nothing to do with the question.

‘If a user can quickly and easily ask a question without having to find and choose columns or fields, they can avoid the time and complexity of putting together an effective search.’

In order to understand the very real value of this type of tool, it is helpful to consider a few examples of business application.

Context: Time Series

Benefits

Enter a question and receive results based on absolute time, or on a range or relative time period.

Sample Date Range Question

Which sales representative sold the most pancake mix during April 2015 to May 2019?

Sample Relative Time Period Question

Who sold the most cake in Phoenix, Arizona in the last quarter of 2019?

Sample Absolute Time Question

What is Bill Jones’ best-selling product for this year?

Context: Synonyms, Phonetics & Abbreviations

Benefits

Enter question and the system will recognize and process information correcting for spelling errors, abbreviations and related words.

Sample Phonetics-Based Question

Who sold the most fruit juice in Phonix, Arizona in Christmas of 2018?

Sample Abbreviation Question

Who sold the most fruit juice in Phoenix Az in Christmas of 2018?

Context: Aggregation

Benefits

Enter a question to understand results for averages, minimum, maximum, first, last, sum, counts, etc.

Sample ‘Average’ Question

What is the average list price for ginger tea in the Western Region?

Sample ‘Count’ Question

Tell me the number of sales representatives in Arizona.

Think about context-driven searching as the foundation for more collaboration and improved insight. If you are sitting in a staff meeting or at a conference, and listening to a presentation, the presenter will often provide time at the end of the session for questions. After considering the topics and issues presented, you may need answers to further clarify the information you are processing and make the best use of the information presented. Context-searching provides the same kind of support.

If a sales manager is considering how to optimize her sales team and leverage customer product and purchasing preferences, the business would want to encourage creativity and out-of-the box thinking. With context-driven searching, the sales manager can ask all kinds of questions to test theories and hypotheses. She can explore the team results and discover interesting and useful insight into sales, regions, team vs. individual results and more – all without having to understand data extraction techniques or having to create complex searches using column filters and other data structural components, or navigating menus or scripts to elicit answers from the data. What you want (and what you will get) from NLP searches is a ‘what you see is what you get’ approach to searching. Think of a question and type that question and you’ll get results.

When a business is choosing analytical tools, it is wise to choose tools that support the way humans think and communicate, and provide results in a clear fashion to support fact-based decisions. Keep it as simple as possible. Ask a question and get an answer. That is the most effective way to search for information.

Original Post : Get Context-Driven Natural Language Processing for the Best Search Results!

No matter the task or job, every team member needs the right tools to be successful. Accountants, finance professionals, purchasing managers, inventory professionals and other team members responsible for expenses and revenue need the right tools to do their jobs and, in this day of remote work and dispersed teams, that need is greater than ever. The answer to that need is, of course, founded on technology.

‘Providing mobile access to Tally ERP allows users to leverage a familiar software solution to perform tasks and combines that access with new, value-added tools for augmented analytics.’

Tech research and analysis firm, Gartner predicts that, ‘Through 2024, 50% of organizations will adopt modern data quality solutions to better support their digital business initiatives,’ and that prediction applies to all types of industries and vertical business sectors, including finance and accounting.

For Tally^® ERP users, the need to access enterprise tools via mobile device is crucial. But, perhaps even more crucial is the need to improve data quality solutions by adding integrated augmented analytics that are accessible to users from anywhere. When a team member is performing a task, checking or monitoring progress or trying to solve a problem, it is useful to have analytical tools that can provide insight into the reasons for success or the reasons for poor results.

Adding integrated mobile analytics to the Tally ERP solution provides numerous benefits. When your business is ready to adopt these all-important tools, be sure to look for a solution that will provide the following features and capabilities:

• Users can access all companies in a Tally ‘instance’ to see data for a specific company or for multiple companies.
• Includes out-of-the-box numerous dashboards, KPIs and report formats for all users.
• Users can track trends and perform analytics.
• Mobile users can view recent transactions.
• All mobile Tally users can share reports in PDF, XLS and via WhatsApp, Email and other options.
• Accessible data includes products, inventory, ledgers, vouchers, etc.
• Provides the ability to perform a full company extract
• Offers near real-time access to Tally data and rapid application loading for smooth, seamless use.
• Provides seamless search options and text searches throughout the mobile app.
• Offers cost-effective, simple registration and user access.
• Integrates with enterprise applications including ERP, CRM, Excel and Google analytics data as well as other data sources.
• Is accessible as a ready-to-use software as a service (SaaS) app with no on-premises installation, development or training required.
• Provides proven, dependable support for users.
• Offers augmented analytics components including self-serve data prep, smart data visualization and assisted predictive modeling.

As with any software or technology acquisition, the key to success is meeting business and user expectations and providing tools that are easy-to-use and cost-effective. Providing mobile access to Tally ERP allows users to leverage a familiar software solution to perform tasks and combines that access with new, value-added tools for augmented analytics in an environment that is easy for every user and accessible on any mobile device.

‘Adding integrated mobile analytics to the Tally ERP solution provides numerous benefits. When your business is ready to adopt these all-important tools, be sure to look for a solution that will provide adequate features and capabilities.’

For more access options and information on desktop and web versions of SmartenApps and the available reports, see our article, entitled, ‘The Value Of Tally ERP Web-Based Accounting Analytics.’ Find out how the addition of SmartenApps For Tally will support analytical initiatives and provide benefits to your users and your enterprise. Users can Download And Register for SmartenApps for Tally and use Tally data to analyze, explore and clarify and to provide insight to clients, colleagues, management and team members.

Original Post : Add Mobile Augmented Analytics to Tally ERP and Win the Day!

The days of data silos and exclusive data access are over. Data Scientists and business analysts are still an important component of the business and IT teams are still crucial to the success and stability of the organization BUT if you are thinking that these roles are still responsible for day-to-day analytics and delivering every bit of data analysis to the enterprise, your business strategy needs an upgrade!

‘Democratizing data means providing the data that a business user needs as and when they need it.’

Tech research giant, Gartner has predicted, ‘Through 2025, 80% of organizations seeking to scale digital business will fail because they do not take a modern approach to data and analytics governance.’ But, what does that mean, exactly? What is a ‘modern approach to data and analytics governance’?

In this article, we discuss four (4) factors that will take your business from the dark ages of business intelligence concepts to the era of modern data and analytics.

Preparing the Organization for Data Democratization

Data Democratization is a concept that must be cascaded throughout the organization, in order to provide access to data for all business users. Data can then be used to perform daily tasks, test assumptions, monitor and manage, solve problems, etc. It is the foundation of self-serve analytics in that it allows the average business user to access the data and use that data to make fact-based decisions, thereby creating a data-driven culture. In order to successfully achieve data democratization, the organization must prepare the culture, the management teams and the technology infrastructure to support self-serve business intelligence tools and augmented analytics and enable users to leverage these tools within the walls of the organization and via mobile devices when the user is on the road or working remotely. Establishing data democratization is not just a question of making the announcement! Senior managers, middle managers and users must be aware of the importance of this new initiative and reward systems and expectations must be established to reinforce the use of data in making recommendations and presenting information for management decisions. Technology infrastructure investment may be required in order to bring the enterprise up to date and prepare it for the business intelligence tools users will need to achieve the results the business expects.

Selecting the Right Business Intelligence and Analytics Solution

Traditional and Modern Business Intelligence and Augmented Analytics tools should support the business user with features and a foundation that is designed for the average technical skills of your team members, and includes Smart Data Visualization, Self-Serve Data Preparation, Assisted Predictive Modeling, Dynamic Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), simple, flexible reporting and other features designed to support the organization and make it simple to upgrade and stay abreast of new requirements.

Ensuring Appropriate Security and Data Governance

The senior team and IT professionals will want to ensure appropriate security and access to data. A plan to identify data sources and secure information that is appropriate to the roles of the users is a mandatory consideration. If suppliers or partners are to be given access to data to contribute to approval processes, complete orders, etc., the systems and solutions the business chooses must allow for multi-layered security to mitigate risk and protect the organization from legal and government regulatory gaps. Democratizing data means providing the data that a business user needs as and when they need it. It does not mean opening the door to every level of organizational data. So, be sure your business chooses a solution that allows for appropriate security, privacy requirements and industry and government regulatory controls.

Building for the Future

The business may choose to implement a data democratization initiative and BI tools in one business unit or division to begin the process, to learn from the experience and to establish a foundation for success. Be sure the solution you choose allows for growth in user volume, in the number of locations etc., and be sure that the vendor has a proven track record of upgrading the features and technology to keep pace with the market and with trends and requirements.

‘…80% of organizations seeking to scale digital business will fail because they do not take a modern approach to data and analytics governance. Don’t let that be you!’

Find out how Self-Serve Business Intelligence Tools and Augmented Analytics tools can support data democratization and improve your business results. Let us help you achieve your vision and improve productivity and insight across the organization.

If you have not registered yet, Click Here to obtain your login credentials.

Knowledgebase Articles

1. LDAP/AD : AD Integration in Smarten
2. Embedded / API Integration : API Call to rebuild cubes / datasets

Predictive Use cases

1. Independent Sample T-test Using Smarten Augmented Analytics
2. Customer Churn model using Smarten Assisted Predictive Modelling

Forum Topics

1. LDAP/AD : How to configure AD in Smarten?
2. Dashboard: How to improve the dashboard loading time in Smarten?

If you don’t find what you need in the Support Portal, we hope you will contact us with your questions, comments or suggestions. We are here to help and to support your business goals and success!

URL: Smarten Customer and Partner Community
Email: support@Smarten.com

Original Post : Smarten Support Portal Updates – April – 2022!

No matter the size of your business or in what industry your market is involved, the concept of analytics is more important today than ever before. Businesses competing locally or on a global scale are all engaged in market competition and, in order to grow and succeed, every business must understand its competitors, its own products and services, and most importantly, its customers and what products they are buying. Businesses must build and monitor and manage processes and activities, all with the goal of being the most productive and responsive in the market.

‘Key Influencer Analytics can cut through the noise and confusion to find the real relationships and impact of decisions for your targets.’

Augmented Analytics and more specifically, Key Influencer Analytics can help your business achieve its goals. In this article, we define Key Influencer Analytics and provide a few reasons why your business should consider this important capability.

You may be interested to learn that Gartner recently predicted, ‘By 2025, data stories will be the most widespread way of consuming analytics, and 75% of stories will be automatically generated using augmented analytics techniques.’ Using augmented analytics, key influencer analytics and user-friendly tools designed to simplify analytics with key features that allow users to gain insight and to truly understand the impact of business decisions, and key activities and tasks, is a crucial step toward success. And, it can help you tell the story, to provide metrics related to impact and relationships so that decisions are clearer and based on facts.

So, what is Key Influencer Analytics and why is it so important to your business?

Key Influencer Analytics: Defined

data you will need to analyze to get those all-important nuggets of information that will drive your success. One of the most frustrating tasks a business user has in analytics is finding and gathering the right data for analysis and ensuring that all factors, variables and data that may affect the outcome of the analysis is included. That is why these activities are typically performed by Data Scientists, analysts or IT in many organizations. Depending on the size of the dataset a user selects, there may be hundreds or thousands of variables, and business users often find it difficult to identify the rights ones. Yet without the ability to identify the right variables, the business is likely to measure and attend to the wrong things. Key Influencer Analytics provides the power and clarity of targeted analytics for business users. Team members can simply point to the dataset they want to analyze and Key Influencer Analytics identifies the target and the influencers or predictors that will affect the target, along with its impact and it provides crucial metrics such as mean, outliers, and others and identifies relationship and distribution among variables. The system will auto-suggest relationships and present distribution and impact using the most appropriate visualization.

Why is Key Influencer Analytics Important For Your Business?

By identifying the key influencing factors and relationships among your products, features, services, customers, marketing campaigns, etc., the business can avoid missteps and solve problems and most importantly capitalize on opportunities to improve and gain visibility. Stop doing what isn’t helping and start doing what will get you to your goal! A software solution that can see beyond guesswork to identify the relationships and impact based on machine learning – that is more likely to support your needs than a ‘dart board’ approach. The solution can interpret insight using simple language, so users don’t have to be data scientists to understand the results. It can reveal the key influencers with the most impact on the target. Users enjoy interactive features that allow them to see and explore other combinations and impacts and can select target and predictors, and use them for models, reports or KPIs. Key Influencer Analytics empowers every business user and allows them quickly select and target data to achieve results without the assistance of a data scientist, IT professional or analyst.

• Identify what matters most in your data!
• Understand the impact and interdependence of variables
• Leverage auto-suggestions and machine learning to get data insights
• Identify influencers affecting the target variable with auto-suggestions and quick maneuvers using different combinations
• Avoid missteps in the market
• Become more productive
• Use metrics to make decisions

‘Augmented Analytics and more specifically, Key Influencer Analytics can help your business achieve its goals.’

The bottom line is that Key Influencer Analytics can cut through the noise and confusion to find the real relationships and impact of decisions for your targets and, in so doing, can help you to refine your strategies and focus on the activities, products, features and customers that will have the greatest positive impact on your business.

Find out more about Augmented Analytics  and how Key Influencer Analytics can help your business succeed and improve user adoption and data literacy.

Original Post : Why is Key Influencer Analytics Critical to My Business?

Gartner predicts that ‘… augmented analytics will be ubiquitous, but only 10% of users will use it to its full potential.’ One of the primary reasons that augmented analytics is not adopted and leveraged to its full capacity is that the business chooses a solution that is not easy enough for team members to adopt – one that is restrictive, inaccessible or requires sophisticated skills.

‘If the user sees the value, and can easily leverage the new tools, without learning complex systems or techniques, your data democratization initiative is much more likely to succeed.’

In order to achieve data democratization and improve data literacy, the enterprise must understand its requirements, the current and desired business processes and its ability to provide and encourage augmented analytics solutions across the organization and to encourage the use of these solutions with cultural transition.

This article discusses the need for easy-to-use tools that will encourage business users to adopt augmented analytics and to embed fact-based, data-centric information into day-to-day decisions and recommendations.

Natural Language Processing Search Analytics (NLP) – is a crucial component of search analytics and smart data discovery today. NLP search allows business users to create complex searches without endless clicks and complex navigation and commands. Using this type of search analytics, users can access and view clear, concise answers and analysis quickly and easily. Advanced analytics with Natural Language Processing (NLP) provides a familiar Google-type interface where a user can compose and enter a question using common human language. With natural language-processing-based search capability, users do not need to scroll through menus and navigation. They can simply enter a search query in natural language and the system will translate the query, and return the results in natural language in an appropriate form, such as visualization, tables, numbers or descriptions.

Clickless Analytics – uses natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning to delivery augmented analytics with auto-suggestions and recommendations that help the user to choose the right data visualization and the right predictive analytics algorithms to best illustrate and reveal results for the type and volume of data they have selected. Users can simply enter the query in natural language and let the system do the rest. No advanced training is required. The Clickless Analytics approach is designed to support a self-serve environment that is easy enough for every business user resulting in increased user adoption, improved data democratization, and return on investment (ROI).

If the organization wishes to achieve expected results from data democratization, it must provide an augmented analytics solution with Clickless Analytics – one that is easy to use and will allow business users to leverage their professional skills and knowledge to find and use data and to gain insight, solve problems and share and collaborate. Most business users do not want to be a data scientist, and they will feel pressed to adopt analytics. But if the user sees the value, and can easily leverage the new tools, without learning complex systems or techniques, your data democratization initiative is much more likely to succeed.

‘In order to achieve data democratization, the enterprise must provide easy-to-use tools that will encourage business users to adopt augmented analytics and to embed fact-based, data-centric information into day-to-day decisions and recommendations.’

Find out more about Augmented Analytics  and how Clickless Analytics can help your business succeed and improve user adoption and data literacy.

Original Post : Clickless Analytics and NLP Are Key to Data Democratization!

With experience comes valuable knowledge and, presumably, a history of what works, what has been tried, and how to navigate life and business. But, there is a growing phenomenon in the IT community, one that challenges the concept of experience and a lifelong dedication to a career or area of study. As that phenomenon gains traction, team members and employees of IT businesses find themselves scratching their heads over the realities of hiring, advancement and the idea of a thriving future in an IT career.

So, what is changing and what is driving that change? It is simple, really. If you look at the culture and fabric of information technology, it doesn’t take long to recognize that it has been changing rapidly and that change is faster and more intense than ever.

Now, consider the relevance of the knowledge gained from a degree achieved in 2000 in an IT related discipline. How much has changed since then?

What about those dedicated IT professionals who grew up on C++, SQL or Visual Basic, COBOL, Oracle D2K and other older technologies and techniques? You may be an expert in these areas, but that knowledge probably won’t be relevant in today’s new application and software product development environment. While these skills may be in some demand because of older legacy systems that are still running inside the walls of certain organizations, that demand is diminishing and will soon be irrelevant. In an era of smart phones, apps, machine learning, natural language processing, DevOPs, AI and GPS, how can one compete?

Consider how quickly the development environment has changed. Just a few short years ago, programmers were developing systems from scratch. In today’s technology environment, no one builds from scratch. Instead, they leverage open source components and other libraries for faster, more dependable design and development. Even the way we develop software and manage software projects has changed with new phenomenon such as DevOPs.

Those who have not kept pace with these rapid changes are likely to be left behind with stagnant salaries and limited or no career growth.

This trend of new technology and rapidly changing skill set requirements can be daunting and disturbing to those who have spent years building a career in IT. Even if you advance into management or sales with soft skills and a path toward leadership, the relevance of your technical skills may set you back in your career path. BUT, to remain competitive, you must constantly upgrade your skills, take training, subscribe to blogs, read trade journals and periodicals, attend conferences and perhaps even go back to school!

Businesses that focus on, or rely heavily upon IT skills must support this training with funding and recognize that the time spent out of the office in training will translate into revenue and/or productivity and dependability of products and services offered by the enterprise.

Gone are the days when an IT ‘geek’ or ‘nerd’ could happily sit in a corner and crank out code without the need to upgrade skills or interact with customers or internal users. Today, IT professionals are expected to demonstrate a wide array of skills including soft skills, leadership, and cutting-edge technical abilities and the capacity and willingness to explore and integrate new technologies including open source stacks.

When a business can hire a young professional straight out of school with the most relevant, current technical knowledge and skill, and the enthusiasm and hunger that comes with youth, and pay a salary that is significantly lower than a mid-tier or high-level technical professional salary, the best option will always be the most relevant skills and value at the lowest cost.

So, how does an experienced, mature IT professional compete in this new world of disposable, rapidly aging skills and knowledge? In short, how does one avoid obsolescence?

The fact is that there is a real shortage of cutting-edge skills and, hence, a myriad of positions that go unfilled or that are filled with the next best thing. For the IT pro who wants to remain relevant and advance in their career of choice, it is important to volunteer for projects that will expose you to new concepts and technologies and to take advantage of every training opportunity provided by your enterprise. If you are working for a business that does not support continuous improvement and skills enhancement, consider moving to a forward-looking enterprise that will support your ongoing growth and help you fulfill your potential.

The future of businesses that focus on new technologies and new combinations and partnerships of technologies to create new products and services is bright. If an IT professional is complacent, if they become lazy and rely on existing skills without a clear view of the future of their chosen career, those IT pros are likely to become redundant, and risk topping out in a job that is not challenging and will not provide the financial or career nurturing they demand.

While this experience vs. salary and career growth conundrum is not yet a tsunami, the wave IS growing, and it is already at plan in mid-tier IT positions and spreading into the most experienced levels of IT. If you are a business owner, it is difficult to justify a high salary or a promotion for someone who has twenty or thirty years of experience in older, obsolete skills and is not proficient in data science, big data or other cutting-edge technology trends.

Today’s IT landscape is competitive and changes rapidly. It is not a place to hide, or bide your time. It is a place of constant growth and change that requires professionals who are willing to adapt and embrace the future.

Original Post : Experience Obsolesce: The Glaring Reality of Rapid Technology Change!

A business that does not optimize its resources is doomed to fail. In this rapidly changing business environment and market, every organization must make the best of precious human resources. No one has enough funding to hire additional resources to get the job done and, when there are extra funds, those funds are quickly earmarked for new products, marketing and other crucial activities.

‘A Citizen Data Scientist training program; will provide a solid foundation from which to launch this initiative and help to build business user confidence.’

Just as markets benefit from disruption, the enterprise too can benefit from disruption. Implementing initiatives to democratize data and improve Data Literacy is a good way to disrupt the culture and transform business users into Citizen Data Scientists. When business analytics is brought to the team member level it can provide crucial support and an environment where team members can leverage their core skills and knowledge and combine that knowledge with Data Analytics to innovate, solve problems and support organizational goals.

Gartner predicts that ‘By 2023, overall analytics adoption will increase from 35% to 50%, driven by vertical and domain-specific augmented analytics solutions.’ In order to encourage this adoption, businesses must embrace the concept of Citizen Data Scientists and empower their business users with the tools they need to make fact-based decisions and to improve data literacy.

By implementing this type of strategy, Data Scientists can focus on strategic initiatives while business users are free to make confident day-to-day decisions, share data and perform Advanced Analytics, all without the assistance of IT professionals or analysts. By providing sophisticated, easy-to-use tools to business users, the organization can free data scientists to perform strategic tasks and use their skills more effectively. When and as daily business user analytics requires refinement to improve accuracy for strategic decisions, the Citizen Data Scientist and Data Scientist can collaborate to ensure optimal results.

A Citizen Data Scientist can add significant value to the organization and, as business users adopt Business Analytics tools, and data is shared, power users will emerge and the enterprise will gain insight into the type of data and reporting that is crucial to the organization and can help to plan, forecast and identify opportunities.

Benefits to Business Users

• Support for Day-to-Day Business Decisions
• Insight into Data, Trends, Patterns, Problems and Opportunities
• Dependable Hypotheses and Prototyping
• Improved Business Agility and Effectiveness
• Timely, Accurate Decisions
• Organizational Responsiveness
• Alignment with Business Objectives and Metrics
• Reusable, Sharable Analytical Models to Encourage Collaboration

Acquiring New Skills

• Reduce Daily Requests from Business Users
• Ability to Develop Useful Analytical Models
• Ability to Focus on Strategic Projects
• Ability to Focus on Projects Requiring 100% Accuracy and Data Science Tools and Knowledge

‘Implementing initiatives to democratize data and improve Data Literacy is a good way to disrupt the culture and transform business users into Citizen Data Scientists.’

Transforming business users into Citizen Data Scientists, provides advantages to the organization, to the business users and to data scientists. For the enterprise considering this type of initiative, it is important to help business users understand the new role, as well as the augmented analytics solutions they will use and the analytical techniques they will employ. Citizen Data Scientist Training provides a solid foundation and builds business user confidence. The business should also consider engaging an IT consulting partner with knowledge of the augmented analytics market, and a solution and support services to provide the guidance and Products And Services your business will need to succeed.

Original Post : Citizen Data Scientists Improve Productivity in the Enterprise!

Sentiment Analysis can take your business to the next level by helping you to understand what your customers and potential customers think, understand what people think about world issues, how voters make choices, and what products and features consumers like. This sophisticated analytical technique goes beyond quantitative questionnaires and surveys to capture the real opinions, feelings and sentiments of consumers, employees, and other stakeholders.

Smarten CEO, Kartik Patel says, “Smarten Sentiment Analysis leverages Natural Language Processing (NLP), text analytics, and computational linguistics to identify and analyze sentiment, opinion and responses and can be used for text analysis to gain insight into how and why people make choices and what they are really thinking and categorize feedback as positive, negative and neutral sentiments.”

The process is simple, and is designed for business users, and does not need any scripting or coding, and provides significant value to the organization. Businesses can analyze text to understand positive, negative and neutral sentiments, and can analyze the sentiments further with slice and dice with context variables such as persons location or demography. They can analyze how product opinions change over time and understand sentiments to improve the response to product reviews, movie or book reviews, advertising campaigns, Amazon product reviews, social media tweets and comments, news headlines media content, and more.

“Sentiment Analysis can help you solve problems,” says Patel, ‘And it can identify opportunities and improve your brand image and competitive stance in the market.’

Smarten Sentiment Analysis provides a powerful Artificial Intelligence (AI) technique to analyze customer feedback, and understand attitudes about products, events, trends, etc. Algorithms can be applied to text to understand what a person is thinking and why, and to look for commonality of sentiments in geographic location, demographics, etc. Smarten Sentiment Analysis is simple enough for business users and allows every enterprise to democratize data, improve data literacy and cascade analytics to every team and every user in the organization.

Contact the Smarten team for more information on Smarten Augmented Analytics solution and the powerful opportunities provided by Sentiment Analysis.

About Smarten

The Smarten approach to business intelligence and business analytics focuses on the business user and provides Advanced Data Discovery so users can perform early prototyping and test hypotheses without the skills of a data scientist. Smarten Augmented Analytics tools include Assisted Predictive Modeling, Smart Data Visualization, Self-Serve Data Preparation and Clickless Analytics with natural language processing (NLP) for search analytics. All of these tools are designed for business users with average skills and require no special skills or knowledge of statistical analysis or support from IT or data scientists. Smarten is listed in multiple Gartner Reports including Gartner Data Preparation Report, the Market Guide for Enterprise-Reporting-Based Platforms and the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms Report for the ElegantJ BI Business Intelligence Suite.

Original Post : Smarten Announces Sentiment Analysis Capability Designed for Business Users!

Here are a few things your business will need to do in order to ensure success:

Perform Assessment

Implementing augmented analytics and BI tools can provide numerous benefits, but if you do not understand your current technology environment and where all of your data resides; if you do not plan for integrating these data repositories and assuring that your infrastructure and technology can adequately support your augmented analytics choice, you will find yourself lost in a sea of complex decisions and dead ends. Engage your IT team, your CTO and others to take a look at what you have now, what you will need and how you will accomplish this integration. Don’t ignore the possible use of IT consultants. Remember, that these teams have years of experience in requirements planning and assessment and can build a roadmap to get you where you are going in a timely, affordable fashion, without a lot of the missteps that might occur if your team is not skilled at this type of project.

Engage with Stakeholders and Users

Make sure your senior executives, managers and team members are on board. Talk to them about what they are doing now, how augmented analytics can help them (and the business) achieve goals and find out about their concerns. In this day and age, BI tools and analytics solutions must be self-serve if you are to democratize data, improve data literacy and make the jump to digital transformation. Digital transformation allows you to leverage technology, software and streamlined approval loops and business processes so that you can make the most of your resources, and ensure that your team has the information to make the right decisions. Remember that your team members know their role, their domain and their profession well. But, they are not data scientists, nor do they want to spend time learning new, complex systems. Find out what they want and then go out and look for the solution that will best ensure user adoption.

Choose a Solution with the Right Features

Any augmented analytics or BI tools should be user-friendly but sophisticated. Your business needs to engage with a solution that provides the features you need AND makes it easy for your users to adopt and leverage the solution to analyze data. Embedded BI and integration APIs allow you to provide features like self-serve data preparation, smart data visualization and assisted predictive modeling, designed with natural language processing (NLP) so users can leverage familiar NLP Search techniques to find and use data – and it is all presented within the confines of their favorite enterprise applications, mobile apps and can be presented within websites that contain crucial data to provide up-to-date analysis of issues, projects, etc. If your users have access to embedded BI and integration APIs, they don’t have to learn a new, complicated system to engage with augmented analytics. They can use a single sign-on to the application they typically use and perform analytics within that application.

Plan for the Future

When you choose an augmented analytics solution and/or an IT consultant, be sure to plan for change and for the future. Whether you are adding locations, users or new software to your environment, you will want an augmented analytics and BI tool that will support your needs now and in the future and that requires a focus on flexibility and agility and on continuous upgrades and improvement of the solution you choose, along continuous improvement and upgrade of IT consulting skills and knowledge.

There are many other considerations involved in implementing augmented analytics and meeting ROI and TCO expectations. Contact us for more information about the potential and benefits of Embedded BI And Integration APIs, and Augmented Analytics.

Original post : Techniques to Ensure Successful Augmented Analytics Implementation!

The Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) states that, ‘Accounting analytics can help an organization answer financial questions by looking at all the data gathered by a company (e.g., transactional data, financial data, investment analysis, etc.) and analyzing this information to gain significant insights, predict future outcomes, or even ascertain risk.’

‘There is no doubt that the amount of information contained in accounting and finance systems can be daunting but analysis of this data in an easy-to-use reporting environment can reap numerous rewards without reducing productivity or frustrating users.’

For accounting firms serving a client base or accountants within a business who are tasked with managing expenses, there is no doubt that a basic accounting system is mandatory. But, in today’s competitive environment, the do-more-with-less approach is rampant and accountants, finance professionals, inventory managers, purchasing managers and other finance-related professionals find it increasingly difficult to manage the data and monitor it in a way that provides value to clients and colleagues.

New roles include a value-based approach where the team is expected to provide insight, reduce expenses, spot trends, make recommendations and do it all in a fact-based environment where missteps will be mitigated and competitive advantage is key.

For users of the Tally^® ERP Solution, the availability of integrated augmented analytics and reporting provides true benefits. The integration of analytics across all modules allows team members to analyze and report on data to solve problems, identify opportunities and make recommendations that will advance the interests of the business using a desktop or a mobile app approach.

Available Reports Include:

OVERVIEW

Overview of key business parameters, e.g., Sales, Purchase, Payable & Receivable, Income & Expense, Cash & Bank and Duties and Taxes, and monthly trends. Also includes Top and Bottom Analysis, Contribution Analysis, and KPI analysis of these key indicators.

SALES & PURCHASE

Explore sales to date, and monthly, quarterly and yearly KPI and trends. Analyze monthly sales, top customers and detailed sales register.

BANK & CASH

Reveal trends and patterns in banking and cash results over a period of time. Users can compare results from previous time periods.

PAYABLE & RECEIVABLE

Breakdown payables and receivables by creditors and debtors as well as by products, services and components. Look for trends for overdue collections.

INVENTORY

Analyze inventory for shortages and overages. Explore overstock, understock, suppliers, products and shipping and distribution.

TAXES

Examine previous taxes, tax due summary, estimate tax obligations, analyze taxes for future periods.

COST CENTER

Analyze cost center balances and movements by cost center groups, cost center accounts as well as their association with ledgers.

LEDGER

Analyze ledger entries and balances in details with drill-down to individual voucher level.

DRILL DOWN

Pre-built drill-down views to balances at higher level groups, and drill down in hierarchy to ledger and transaction level.

ACCOUNTS STATEMENTS

Ideal for accountants for statutory submission purposes, and to review balance sheet statement, trial balances, profit and loss statements and more.

REPORTS

Various interactive reports with drill-down to slice and dice data by vendor, product, service, cost, sales person, location, customer, inventory, purchasing, costs, etc.

When these reports and tools are combined with the skill and knowledge of an accounting or a finance professional, the results can be profound. There is no doubt that the amount of information contained in accounting and finance systems can be daunting but analysis of this data in an easy-to-use reporting environment can reap numerous rewards without reducing productivity or frustrating users.

‘The integration of analytics across all modules allows team members to analyze and report on data to solve problems, identify opportunities and make recommendations.’

Find out how the addition of SmartenApps For Tally will support analytical initiatives and provide benefits to your users and your enterprise. Users can Download And Register for SmartenApps for Tally and use Tally data to analyze, explore and clarify and to provide insight to clients, colleagues, management and team members.

Original Post : Tally ERP Integrated Analytics Provides a Competitive Advantage!

One of the most common SME considerations today is how to satisfy the need for actionable data and fact-driven decisions without hiring a team of data scientists. A recent Gartner study states that, the number of data and analytics experts in business units will grow at three times the rate of the experts in IT departments, forcing companies to rethink their organizational models and skill sets. That prediction is a reflection of the move to self-serve data analytics and it recognize that SMEs must further empower their team members and hold them accountable for results.

But, to democratize data and enable data literacy across the SME organization, the business cannot simply implement an advanced analytical solution. It must fundamentally change the enterprise culture so that the management team, IT and professional analysts support and encourage the use of data and facts in presentations, and in business user advancement and skills, and that concept of Citizen Data Scientists is embedded in each department and division.

The demand for hybrid skills (soft, technical and functional skills) is growing day by day and nearly every business, no matter the size, now requires a data-literate workforce. No matter the employee role, every user must be able to use and understand data and to share and explain data in a meaningful way.

Augmented analytics tools provide guidance and recommendations so users can find data and analyze it in a way that is meaningful to them and to their audience, without having the skills of a data scientist. Sophisticated functionality is married with simplicity of use and intuitive environs, so business users can enjoy data popularity and power users will emerge to further solidify the collaborative data-driven environment in the organization.

While SME organizations can greatly benefit from self-serve advanced analytics, the enterprise must be prepared to understand that value and to support user adoption and empowerment. Don’t just focus on teaching the basics of data analysis and the use of tools. Your business must also focus on helping users and managers to understand the context of data within a particular team or department and mentor and support users as they make the transition from being data dependent to becoming more autonomous and data literate.

To make the transition to self-serve augmented analytics, SMEs can find and nominate champions within each area of the business and look for opportunities to suggest and support projects that entail data analysis and presentation with the goal of creating actionable outcomes that will encourage the team and individuals to embrace data analytics and use it as part of the process on a daily basis. An SME should tie metrics and data analytics to goals and objectives to engender analytical deliverables and insight. As the culture shifts, the SME business can also encourage the collaboration of IT, Citizen Data Scientists and analysts or data scientists to further solidify the organization.

This type of culture change allows the SME business management team to better leverage the functional and professional knowledge of business users by allowing them to test theories and hypotheses and validate business decisions to get the best outcomes for every stakeholder in the business.

Original Post : SME Businesses Must Engage in Culture Change to Successfully Integrate Self-Serve Advanced Analytics!

When a business takes on the task of going from an opinion-based, guessing game environment to a metrics-based, fact-based environment, it must decide WHAT to measure. Metrics are fine, but deciding what is important to measure is crucial. You can measure the wrong things and end up knowing nothing about what is happening in your enterprise, and which tasks and activities are contributing to your bottom line, as opposed to the tasks that are non-productive and business processes that should be modified.

‘Include key performance indicators and performance management in your strategy to understand why your results are improving or declining…stop working the dark.’

The University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) focuses organizational metrics in five areas of the enterprise:

• Customer Satisfaction
• Work Environment
• Business Processes
• Learning and Innovation
• Financial

This approach can provide an example of a roadmap, but every organization is different and establishing key performance indicators (KPIs) that reflect your business focus, industry, function and market will be an exercise that is unique to your organization.

One thing is very clear, metrics are critical to performance management and businesses that wish to establish a fact-based, measurable environment must provide access to tools and software that will allow management, IT, analysts and business users to create, monitor and manage KPIs and metrics using collaborative tools that make it easy to integrate data form disparate sources and use that data to analyze and measure for decision-making, problem solving and course correction.

KPI tools will provide critical metrics by which you can measure success and avoid subjective results and opinion-driven decisions.

Features and Functionality should include:

• Simple, easy-to-use business intelligence and BI tools with multidimensional KPI capability
• Browser-based access to encourage user adoption and enhance productivity and collaboration
• Flexible tools with interactive options to change frequencies, dimension breakdowns and allow users to drill down to analyze trends, etc.
• Ability to monitor at individual, team, department, division and company level
• Expression engine to set polarity, frequency and threshold levels

Every business is under pressure to capitalize on the business knowledge and professional skills of its team members and to give them the analytics and tools they need to make recommendations and suggestions and to solve problems and, most importantly, to find and leverage opportunities to improve business results. Whether you are beholden to a board of directors, shareholders or to an executive team looking to cut costs and stay on target, it is crucial to include key performance indicators and performance management in your strategy. If you don’t understand why your results are improving or declining, you will be working the dark.

‘Every organization is different and establishing key performance indicators (KPIs) that reflect your business focus, industry, function and market will be an exercise that is unique to your organization.’

Find out how Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), performance management, Self-Serve Business Intelligence Tools and Augmented Analytics tools can improve your business results. Let us help you achieve your vision and improve productivity and insight across the organization.

Gartner predicted that ‘…data preparation will be utilized in more than 70% of new data integration projects for analytics and data science.’ If your business is not already including this approach in analytics and decision-making, it is missing a crucial link to success. Self-serve data preparation and augmented analytics solutions are now more popular than ever. By democratizing data and improving data literacy, the business can do more with less. But the sheer volume of data within an organization can be challenging.

‘By providing augmented analytics with self-serve data preparation business users with average skills can perform data preparation to prepare data for their analytics using tools that enable data extraction transformation and loading.’

If a business user has access to integrated data from disparate systems and can easily prepare that data in a self-serve environment, the team can analyze data, gain insight and make decisions without waiting for IT or data scientists to assist them. This makes the organization nimble and agile and ensures that decisions include all the relevant data.

Benefits of Self-Serve Data Preparation

• Improve business analyst and business user productivity and collaboration
• Reduce the time required to prepare data for analysis
• Reduce user dependence on business analysts, IT team, and ETL and SQL expertise
• Enable Social BI and data popularity
• Balance organizational agility with appropriate data governance
• Ensure data quality
• Provide easy-to-use tools for business users to search, profile and catalogue, shape, reduce, combine, clean and explore, data, ascertain data lineage, collaborate, connect, mash-up, use auto-suggest tools to define relationships, JOINs and type casts, perform sampling and process outliers

By providing augmented analytics with self-serve data preparation business users with average skills can perform data preparation to prepare data for their analytics using tools that enable data extraction transformation and loading – ETL for business users! In other words, business users can quickly move data into the analytics system without waiting for IT.

‘Self-serve data preparation and augmented analytics solutions are now more popular than ever.’

Explore the advantages of Augmented Analytics Products And Services, and Self-Serve Data Preparation tools. Let us help you implement a solution that will be suitable for your team members and your business results.

Original Post : How Can Self-Serve Data Prep Help My Business?

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If you don’t find what you need in the Support Portal, we hope you will contact us with your questions, comments or suggestions. We are here to help and to support your business goals and success!

URL: Smarten Customer and Partner Community
Email: support@Smarten.com

Original Post : Smarten Support Portal Updates – March – 2022!

The Accounting Research Center and Continuous Auditing & Reporting Lab at Rutgers University stated that, “The audit profession is leveraging technology and electronic information to expand the auditor’s ability to access and analyze vast amounts of information.”

The recognition of this new reality and its importance is crucial to building a foundation of a fact-based, analytical approach to accounting, auditing, and other finance-related functions in businesses all around the world. In the past, the accounting function was often seen as a ‘bean counter’ function, producing simple, columnar reports and tracking expenses and revenue.

‘A rich array of built-in, web-based reporting access and, for every accounting and these reports can be used as a foundation for the new analytical environment and to encourage the use of that analysis to make decisions and recommendations.’

Today, access to data analytics is crucial to enterprise success and, if accounting and auditing professionals have that access in a simple, easy-to-use interface, it is more likely they will adopt and use these new tools.

Users of the Tally^® ERP Solution now have the ability to access and analyze data via web browser, and can leverage these integrated analytical tools in a simple environment with built-in reports that are easy to produce and easy to understand. This type of business user analytics can take the accounting function to another level by adding value and insight that can be used to advise clients and colleagues and by spotting trends, identifying and solving problems and capitalizing on opportunities.

In this article, we highlight the types and purpose of these analytical reports for reference and the value of these web-based reporting tools.

OVERVIEW

Overview of key business parameters, e.g., Sales, Purchase, Payable & Receivable, Income & Expense, Cash & Bank and Duties and Taxes, and monthly trends. Also includes Top and Bottom Analysis, Contribution Analysis, and KPI analysis of these key indicators.

SALES & PURCHASE

Explore sales to date, and monthly, quarterly and yearly KPI and trends. Analyze monthly sales, top customers and detailed sales register.

BANK & CASH

Reveal trends and patterns in banking and cash results over a period of time. Users can compare results from previous time periods.

PAYABLE & RECEIVABLE

Breakdown payables and receivables by creditors and debtors as well as by products, services and components. Look for trends for overdue collections.

INVENTORY

Analyze inventory for shortages and overages. Explore overstock, understock, suppliers, products and shipping and distribution.

TAXES

Examine previous taxes, tax due summary, estimate tax obligations, analyze taxes for future periods.

COST CENTER

Analyze cost center balances and movements by cost center groups, cost center accounts as well as their association with ledgers.

LEDGER

Analyze ledger entries and balances in details with drill-down to individual voucher level.

DRILL DOWN

Pre-built drill-down views to balances at higher level groups, and drill down in hierarchy to ledger and transaction level.

ACCOUNTS STATEMENTS

Ideal for accountants for statutory submission purposes, and to review balance sheet statement, trial balances, profit and loss statements and more.

REPORTS

Various interactive reports with drill-down to slice and dice data by vendor, product, service, cost, sales person, location, customer, inventory, purchasing, costs, etc.

As you can see, there is a rich array of built-in, web-based reporting access and, for every accounting and these reports can be used as a foundation for the new analytical environment and to encourage the use of that analysis to make decisions and recommendations.

‘Users of the Tally® ERP Solution now have the ability to access and analyze data via web browser, and can leverage these integrated analytical tools in a simple environment with built-in reports.’

Find out how the addition of SmartenApps For Tally will support your accounting-related analytical initiative and bring your team and your business to the next level. Users can Download And Register for SmartenApps for Tally and use Tally data to analyze, explore and clarify.

Original Post : Stay Abreast of the Trends with Accounting Analytics!

A recent report revealed that by, 2028, the Augmented Analytics market is projected to reach USD 46.26 billion at a CAGR of 24.30%. The business intelligence solution market has evolved into augmented analytics and these solutions designs have progressed to support average business users with simple solutions that combine sophisticated analytical techniques and algorithms with easy navigation, reporting and insight.

‘Augmented Analytics and BI tools should support the user within the walls of the office and outside the office with Mobile BI so users can work remotely and still have all the information they need, working on whatever device is easiest for them to access at the time.’

There are a number of factors to consider when your enterprise reviews prospective BI tools and augmented analytics solutions. These factors include available features, user access, including mobile access, ease-of-use and more.

When a business intends to implement an augmented analytics solution to improve data democratization and data literacy among its team members, one of the most important considerations is the concept of Mobile BI. Mobile business intelligence and analytics allows the enterprise to operate in the real world, with team members working remotely, in hotel rooms, in airports and on the road.

Even the most impressive augmented analytics tools will fail at user adoption if access is limited to desktops within the walls of the enterprise.

Here are just a few of the benefits the business will enjoy with a Mobile BI and Mobile Augmented Analytics app:

• Native app, with seamless user interface for a great user experience (Ux). Available for iOS and Android
• Extends the office environment. Allows swift analysis and decisions from anywhere
• Encourages user adoption and provides support for BI investments and data democratization
• Access rights are defined on the server, so security and privacy is ensured at all levels
• Hosted within IT infrastructure –on premises, public or private cloud
• Business Users have access to dashboards, reports, Clickless Analytics – Google-type Natural Language Processing (NLP) Search functionality
• Start-up is easy, within a few minutes and support is readily available

‘One of the most important consideration in choosing a BI tool or augmented analytics solution is the concept of Mobile BI.’

When the business combines Modern BI tools with advanced analytics, it can encourage user adoption with tools that are easy and intuitive to use, thereby improving total cost of ownership (TCO) and return on investment (ROI). Business users with average skills can leverage BI tools and augmented analytics to gather and analyze data and receive results that are clear and easy to understand. These tools should support the user within the walls of the office and outside the office with Mobile BI so users can work remotely and still have all the information they need, working on whatever device is easiest for them to access at the time.

Explore the advantages of Mobile BI and world-class Augmented Analytics Products And Services. Let us help you implement a solution that will be suitable for your team members and your business results.

Original Post : Mobile BI is an Important Component of Augmented Analytics!

In my mind, there is NO reason for a software demo to go wrong! But, if the vendor or consultant wants to ensure success, there are a few primary considerations.

• The sales/technical team must have done its homework and truly understand what the customer wants and needs and how they will use the software.
• The team must have a comprehensive understanding of the features of the product and the supporting services.
• The team must understand the principles and components of a good demo (enough of the right information, not too much mind-numbing detail and no crucial gaps).

In order to make your demos consistently excellent you must remember one thing above all else:

In the meantime, here are a few suggestions to help you prepare and execute a great software demo:

1. BE PREPARED: NEVER go into a demo unprepared. Don’t assume that your software will sell itself. Remember that the customer will likely see many competitive products and you will want them to remember YOURS. KNOW what the customer needs, know their pain points and know the skill level of their users. Know the gaps and issues they want to address and be ready to clearly and quickly demonstrate the product to provide answers for their issues. Show them that you have been listening. Know whether they will need to integrate the product, know how they currently produce reports, know WHO uses the existing system and who will use the new software. DO NOT show every corner of the product. Show what matters to THIS customer. You should be prepared to answer questions and clarify (although your demo should ideally, provide most of the answers if your preparation is thorough enough). ANTICIPATE and be ready!
2. TEST YOUR DEMO: PLEASE schedule and execute a test run with your team. Role-play is a great way to see if you are prepared. Have a trusted team member play the role of the customer, ask appropriate questions and give you feedback later on how to improve the presentation.
3. MAKE IT REALISTIC: When you are creating a demo environment, be sure to use the company name, logo and REALISTIC data. Customers don’t want to see things that look obviously fake. Think about watching a movie and being jarred out of the moment by a bad edit or cut or something that is obviously wrong for the scene. You want to immerse the customer in the demo. Just like a walk-through of a home sale, you want the customer to picture THEIR data in the software and to see themselves using the product and getting things done!
4. FOCUS ON THE DEMO: Keep your introductions and general overview information short and sweet. The customer wants to see the software in action. They do not want or need a 60-minute slide presentation! You can provide handouts that describe the history of the company and include referrals or testimonials. Don’t try to sell yourself or the company. Sell the innovative products and services as they apply to the customer needs!
5. KNOW YOUR PRODUCT AND BE SURE IT WORKS: Know what your product can do and be sure everything is functional and ready for an audience. There is nothing worse than having technical problem or being uneducated about a particular aspect of the software. Test connections, test equipment, test, test, test, and be READY. Do not make a customer wait for a glitch to be resolved. That is just unprofessional and will likely lose the sale.
6. TELL A STORY…AND PACE YOURSELF: Don’t be SO immersed in the software that you forget to explain what you are doing or what you are about to do. Remember that the customer probably hasn’t seen the product before and, while it may be easy enough for a three-year-old to use (in your mind), the customer will feel more comfortable if you can ‘story board’ the experience as you go. Go quickly enough to avoid boredom but not so quickly that the customer will get dizzy trying to follow your cursor!
7. WATCH THE TIME: Respect the customer’s time. Do NOT run over the allotted time for the demo and do allow time for questions. Stay on track and watch the clock. You will have to adjust your pacing and schedule to accommodate questions and other issues but you should always know where you are in the flow of the presentation and have a mental grasp of what you MUST compete before the end of the session. Be flexible enough to know what has to be done and what you can eliminate if time is an issue. Sometimes people are called away during a session and you need to know how to handle issues related to planned vs. actual time available.
8. CALL FOR ACTION: ALWAYS end the demo with an agreement on where things go from here. When will you talk again? Will you follow-up to answer questions? How does the client reach you? What does the customer expect in terms of a schedule? DON’T be pushy or demand a decision but DO leave them with a call to action.

The best software demos may seem effortless but the key to success is in the preparation, and the research and a solid grasp of human nature, as well as how people like to receive information, and how customers analyze information to make a decision. Get yourself a good mentor and practice, practice, practice. You (and your team) will see a definite improvement in conversions and customer satisfaction and, as the first face of the business, you will establish a great customer rapport and help your enterprise reputation!

Original Post : 8 Suggestions to Assure a Great Software Demo!

Address the Challenges and Enjoy the Benefits of Self-Serve BI Tools!

If you are a business manager, senior executive, IT professional or analytical professional, you are probably well aware of the emergence of business intelligence solutions, BI tools and augmented analytics for business users. In all likelihood, you have been hearing about these trends in annual conference and industry journals. If your business has not yet adopted such an initiative, it is likely to do so within the next year. But it might surprise you to know that, world renowned technology research firm, Gartner, predicts that ‘By 2022, augmented analytics will be ubiquitous, but only 10% of users will use it to its full potential.’ Given the focus and effort invested in business intelligence and augmented analytics, this prediction is disappointing, but understandable.

‘With complete insight, and all users on the same page, the organization will be more productive and can do more with less.’

There are numerous reasons for this ‘failure to launch’. In this article, we will focus on the top three challenges and the top three benefits of self-serve business intelligence.

TOP THREE CHALLENGES

Enterprise Support

It isn’t enough to make a decision and to declare that the business will invest in self-serve business intelligence. If a business is to succeed, there must be an understanding of the challenges. Not the least of these challenges if the existing culture and expectations at every level, including management, users, IT, HR, etc. As with any major change in an organization, it is important to educate the team on what, why and how, and to listen to concerns and address those concerns in the implementation plan. Enterprise support for new initiatives must also include a thorough review of business processes, training and other factors that will affect success and a commitment to review and change the culture to support the new techniques and solutions.

User Adoption

Business users are a large part of the picture and, without their understanding of the need for and importance of this new approach, it is impossible to succeed. Self-serve BI tools and augmented analytics are designed for business users, so the organization need not worry about the need for additional training, but users with less than stellar technical skills and users who are ‘afraid’ of data, will need some additional support. The user community must also see that the organization is committed and has illustrated that commitment with new forms of employee evaluation that include the use of data to support recommendations and a willingness to embrace the new techniques and technology. In order to ensure user adoption, the organization must also take care to choose the right solution – one that will support data democratization and self-serve BI with user-friendly tools.

Organizational Infrastructure

A business that is considering business intelligence for business users must work with its IT team or an IT consultant to review and address infrastructure, hardware, and network concerns and to plan for Mobile BI to encourage users by making these new tools accessible from inside and outside the office.

If a business is willing to plan for and address concerns and issues, it will achieve many benefits. Here are three primary benefits of self-serve BI tools and data democratization.

TOP THREE BENEFITS

ROI and TCO

With a well-planned implementation of self-serve BI tools, the business can achieve an impressive return on investment (ROI) and control costs with a low cost of total ownership (TCO). If the business is to succeed with this type of initiative, it must choose the right solution to assure affordable use and upgrades.

Refined Results

The value of fact-based decision making cannot be overstated. Business users and executives will no longer have to depend on opinion or guesswork to make decisions, so there will be few missteps in the market and the organization will be nimble in its response to customer demand and to the changing market. With complete insight, and all users on the same page, the organization will be more productive and can do more with less.

Competitive Advantage

A business that has a well-trained, informed staff and a seamless approach to data management, is better positioned and able to address the rapidly changing market and can gain a competitive advantage.

‘If your business has not yet adopted…a self-serve BI…initiative, it is likely to do so within the next year.’

Find out how Self-Serve Business Intelligence Tools and Augmented Analytics can improve your business results. Let us help you achieve your vision and improve productivity and insight across the organization.

A recent survey found that 93% of application teams report improvement in user experience as a result of embedded analytics, and 94% of teams report improved customer satisfaction with embedded analytics. The concept of embedded BI is simple. By leveraging APIs, the augmented analytics solution is embedded within familiar enterprise apps and made available to users via single sign-on so that the user can access  favorite software solutions and applications to perform tasks and use the data contained there to analyze data and make decisions.

‘Users can access familiar business applications while enjoying the capabilities and opportunities provided by augmented analytics – all within a single sign-on environment.’

There are many benefits to Embedded BI approach including:

• World-Class Data Architecture provides access to a wealth of data sources and data warehouses, and accommodates business application architecture with single-tenant mode or multi-tenant modes.
• Flexible Deployment via public or private cloud, or enterprise on-premises hardware. Deploy anywhere! There are no environmental dependencies.
• Simple Tenant Management to deploy with a shared data model for single-tenant mode or choose an isolated data model for multi-tenant mode and SaaS applications. The business can create common data models and BI object templates to publish across tenants with just a single click.
• Single Sign-On Access (SSO) for access to Smarten analytics, using the same login credentials as those employed to access the business application. Businesses will have the confidence of leveraging existing security protocols including OAuth2, OpenID and other custom SSO authentications. Enterprise developers can implement custom SSO authentication using AD or Open LDAP to link with existing portals or applications.
• Access to Embedded BI Objects from Within Your Application with easy to use, scalable Integration API. Integrate objects (Dashboards, Crosstab, Tabular, KPIs, Graphs, Reports, Clickless Analytics and more) into your business application with minimal efforts – in just a few hours.
• Comprehensive Administration APIs to manage object access rights, user access rights and perform configuration and administration tasks within a single-tenant or multi-tenant environment.
• SDKs Designed to Support Your Frameworks and Technology including .NET, ASP.NET, PHP, MVC, .NET Core, Vue, Angular, React, Java and more! Tuned for all major frameworks, so your business can embed BI objects into enterprise Web or Mobile Apps. You can also work directly with data using web services in web applications or mobile apps.

Today’s business leaders have recognized the need for augmented analytics and data democratization and want to use augmented analytics to improve data literacy and the quality of decisions across the enterprise. But it isn’t always easy to get business users to embrace and adopt new solutions. Even if these solutions are easy to use, the need to learn and use a new, separate system to get information can put off even the most dedicated user. But, when users can follow the usual business processes to complete tasks, and access familiar business applications while enjoying the capabilities and opportunities provided by augmented analytics – all within a single sign-on environment, it is easier to encourage user adoption and to gain advantages, improve return on investment (ROI) and improve Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

‘By leveraging APIs, the augmented analytics solution is embedded within familiar enterprise apps and made available to users to perform tasks and use the data contained there to analyze data and make decisions.’

Find out more about Embedded BI And Analytics and how it can help your business succeed and improve user adoption and data literacy. Discover the benefits of the Augmented Analytics approach to advanced analytics.

Original Post : Include Embedded BI into Your Business Applications!

In this article, we look at just three of the ways a business can leverage augmented analytics and integrated reporting to optimize the value of Tally ERP and the time and skill of its professional resources.

Near Real-Time Access with Desktop and Mobile User Interface

With augmented analytics, the business user can leverage stunning visualization, dynamic charts and graphs, modern business intelligence features, and key performance indicators (KPIs) metrics to help your business sustain a competitive edge. There is no need to involve IT or data scientists or business analysts. The insight and valuable ‘nuggets’ of information are at your fingertips with built-in reporting. Users can share, collaborate and work with data to analyze results and clearly see what direction is best.

Reports that ‘Speak Your Language’

Accountants, finance professionals, inventory managers and purchasing professionals are just a few of the staff that will find built-in reporting designed to answer questions and illustrate results in a way that reveals trends, patterns, and helps the team to get to the bottom of things. Whether your users want to see data about ledgers, vouchers, detailed sales receipts, tax and statutory implications, inventory and supplier purchasing data or any other discipline, there is something for each of your business users.

Managing the Business

Businesses cannot survive without a plan and today, business is changing so quickly that it is often hard to anticipate results. Whether your questions relate to the efficacy of supplier networks, the decrease or increase in sales following a price increase, the ‘sweet spot’ for inventory managers, shipping or distribution issues or the dreaded tax planning for quarterly or annual tax cycles, it is crucial that the business make concise plans and have the confidence that these plans will be accurate. That accuracy in planning ensures that the company can have the funds to invest appropriately, receive dependable revenue from a product line and report to a Board of Directors or executive management team with reliable numbers and information.

As the business incorporates augmented analytics and built-in BI reporting with Tally ERP, each of its professional accounting and finance professionals will find creative ways to leverage these tools and add value and the business can also optimize its resources by allowing professionals to get the job done with less redundancy and a more streamlined process.

In this article, we have discussed just a few of the ways in which your business can enjoy the benefits of integrating augmented analytics with Tally ERP. If you want to get more value out of your Tally ERP solution and optimize your resources and professional efforts, Contact Us for more information on SmartenApps For Tally.  For more information about integrating Augmented Analytics with Tally ERP, visit our Blog.

Original Post : 3 Ways You Can Use Tally Analytics and BI Reporting to Succeed!

If you are a business owner, executive or manager, you have already heard about (and are probably implementing) strategies for Citizen Data Scientists. If you are a business user, you may be hearing rumblings of this in your everyday work and wondering exactly what this type of initiative means for you and why you should consider it beneficial.

‘When a Citizen Data Scientist is recognized for their value and contribution, the business user role is elevated.’

Not long ago, the technology research firm, Gartner predicted that ‘…more than 40% of data science tasks will be automated, resulting in increased productivity and broader usage by citizen data scientists.’ While this may not seem like a foregone conclusion, the trend is definitely evolving and your business will probably be jumping on the band wagon, if it hasn’t already.

So, as a business user, considering the transformation to Citizen Data Scientist, what’s in it for you? Let’s consider just three of the benefits inherent in the Citizen Data Scientist transformation and how they can help you, as a business user, to achieve your goals.

Acquiring New Skills

Many of us become complacent in our careers and positions but there is no doubt that a fresh approach to skills building will be a benefit. When you transition to a Citizen Data Scientist role, you will be using an augmented analytics solution – one that is designed specifically for business users. So, while you will not be expected to take extensive training, you will find that, as you develop a comfort level with the new augmented analytics solution and the techniques it supports, you will improve your data literacy and your comfort level with using data for decision-making. As you begin to use these skills in your day-to-day work, those skills will become engrained in your work process, thereby increasing your value to the organization.

Streamlining Your Process

We all become accustomed to the standard work and business processes we (and the organization) have developed. In fact, it is sometimes difficult to see how much more nimble and agile our processes can be until we take a step back. By integrating data from disparate data sources across the organization and leveraging user-friendly tools with built-in suggestions and guidance, users can gather information more quickly, gain additional, valuable insight into data and make confident decisions. By streamlining the process, the user community becomes more productive and avoids missteps and rework.

Encouraging Collaboration

Many businesses still struggle with business silos where information is shared only among those on a team or in a business unit. When augmented analytics is employed and the Citizen Data Scientist role is implemented, every business has the tools and access they need to perform their own tasks and to advise other departments and teams on related issues. Collaboration is key to results, and provides an opportunity for business users to work across teams and business units and to be more effective.

Increasing Visibility

Each business user brings a unique combination of technical, industry, professional and business experience. By combining that knowledge and skill with insightful information, a business user can tell a story to support a recommendation or a suggestion, and can provide more appropriate and confident support and perform tasks more effectively. When a Citizen Data Scientist is recognized for their value and contribution, the business user role is elevated and the value of the combined skill set and data analytical capabilities will build a solid foundation for professional reputation.

‘as a business user, considering the transformation to Citizen Data Scientist…you might ask…what’s in it for you?’

If your business is considering transforming business users into Citizen Data Scientists, it is important to help business users understand the new role, the augmented analytics solutions they will use and the analytical techniques they will employ. A  Citizen Data Scientist Training Program; will provide a solid foundation from which to launch this initiative and help to build business user confidence. The business should also consider engaging an IT consulting partner with knowledge of the augmented analytics market, and a solution and support services to provide the guidance and Products And Services your business will need to succeed.

Original Post : Jump on the Citizen Data Scientist Bandwagon!

When it comes to analytics, many systems require IT or programming knowledge to write queries, or the solutions are restrictive and designed to try to anticipate what users will want to know. You may be able to choose data from a particular column or field but you are not likely to get information in a way that is easy to digest or understand. As Natural Language Processing (NLP) is applied to the analytical domain, business users find it easier to leverage an analytical tool in an augmented analytics environment where questions can be entered using natural language, but NLP without context-capability can still miss the mark.

‘Context-driven searching allows the user to ask a question using the a more human, conversational approach, without having to consider which columns or fields they need or how to ask the question to get an answer that provides meaningful insight into their question.’

To truly understand the value of context-searching in NLP, let’s look first and what is commonly used in analytics and business intelligence today.

IT or Data Scientist Business Intelligence and Analytics – scripted or programmed by IT. Here a business user must provide information on what they need in order to get the results and by the time IT provides the analysis, the data may be out-of-date or incomplete and the delays may have created business issues.

Self-Serve Business Intelligence or Analytics – provides a wizard or menu where power users can create a query by clicking through options and creating reports and graphs. This approach is restricted to the capability of the system and is inflexible.

Natural Language Processing – allows users to ask a question using natural language and receive results in the same manner. In analytics, NLP is much more useful than the first two options but without the ability to consider context. This approach typically uses column filters and ID to answer basic questions, i.e., ‘what were the sales for white blouses in 2019?’ but it doesn’t provide the more subtle insight required by many users and still requires the user to specify date ranges and other information in structured fashion.

Now, let’s consider Context-Driven NLP

The true value of NLP is only just emerging as Context-Driven Searching comes to the forefront! So, what is context-driven searching and why is it so important to users? Context-driven searches allow users to go beyond restrictive searching based on column filters to provide context such as season, time series or range, polarity, and they address abbreviations, and analyze phonetics to handle misspellings, etc. What is a context-driven search?

Let’s look at a few examples:

A sales manager might ask, ‘Who sold the most alcoholic drinks in Phoenix, Arizona during Christmas of 2019?. You will notice that the sales manager does not have to enter a specific date but rather can simply ask about ‘Christmas of 2019’, and using the context-driven NLP approach, can receive results that anticipate and handle dates for holidays, seasons and events. Users can also use terms like, ‘winter of 2019’ to get results without defining a date range.

Or…

A sales manager might ask, ‘What was the worst month for cookie sales in Scottsdale in 2019?’. In this example, the context-driven NLP approach to analytics will interpret the term ‘worst’ to provide insight, taking into consideration ‘high’ or ‘low’, ‘best’ or ‘worst’ as noted by the user.

Context-driven searching allows the user to ask a question using a more human, conversational approach, without having to consider which columns or fields they need or how to ask the question to get an answer that provides meaningful insight into their question without frustrating the user by returning no results or results that have nothing to do with the question.

The value of context-driven searching in natural language processing is easy to understand. It saves the user time, and it allows users with average technical or analytical skills to leverage powerful analytical tools and gain insight into issues to solve problems and capitalize on opportunities. Because this solution is easy to use, it will ensure user adoption and it will provide improved productivity and encourage users to collaborate and share data, thereby improving data democratization and data literacy. Using context-driven search NLP improves user engagement and allows users to get more out of the system. Every team member knows how to use Google and context-driven searching is as simple as a Google search! There are no special skills and there is no training requirement.

In short, the value of context-driven NLP is this: Just ask a question and you’ll get an answer. You can use that answer to improve results, adapt and change quickly and become more agile and flexible in your approach to business.

Original Post : Natural Language Processing (NLP): The Value of Context-Driven Searches!

When a business considers business intelligence and augmented analytics tools, there are always concerns about selecting the right vendor and the right solution. The solution must be affordable, it must have the right features to meet business requirements and it must be dependable. And, when considering analytical solutions, the selected product must be easy to integrate so that the business can pull together data from disparate sources, gather and analyze data easily. In the world of self-serve BI tools and augmented analytics, the solution must also be easy for the average business user to employ.

A business manager, IT team or executive team knows well how difficult it is to engender change in the organization and, if you are asking a team member to learn a difficult, new software product, it is not likely you will be successful. But, there are worse things than user dissatisfaction; namely what happens when your users do not adopt the software. What happens is that your return on investment (ROI) plummets and your total cost of ownership (TCO) goes way up.

That means you have a shiny new product sitting on the shelf, with nothing to show for your investment. So, how does one improve ROI and TCO for business intelligence and augmented analytics? By ensuring that users will have what they need to do the job and will WANT to adopt the solution, and by making it easy to achieve outcomes using sophisticated tools that are easy to use and will illustrate to the user that it is to their benefit to adopt the solution and use it on a daily basis.

Business users want to do a good job and, over time, they have learned where and how to engage with tools and processes that support their needs. If they have a software tool that they use every day, they aren’t likely to want to learn something new. BUT, if that something new is integrated with a familiar software product and allows them to perform analysis and to see, share and report on data from within that familiar (favorite) enterprise application, the business users is more likely to give it a try.

As your team members get used to the new application, and their managers see and appreciate the new, timely and fact-based information, and realize the benefits, the users who resist the adoption of the new solution are more likely to follow suit.

In addition to achieving better TCO and ROI on the augmented analytics, business intelligence application, the business will see improved results for other applications as well. Mobile apps, enterprise applications and even websites that provide critical information can produce and display analytics that are timely; data that answers questions and allows for planning problem solving. So, the addition of augmented analytics and embedded BI will allow your business to achieve better ROI and TCO across all solutions and applications within the organization.

By allowing team members to perform analytics within enterprise applications, the business can engender an appreciation for data, improve data literacy and improve business results. Data will no longer reside in silos and, with the integration of analytical capabilities using integration APIs, the business can find those all-important ways of saving money and optimizing resources.

For more information about Digital Transformation and how Augmented Analytics can support your business, explore our white paper: ‘Integrate Augmented Analytics And Digital Transformation To Achieve Continuous Business Improvement’, Embedded BI And Integration APIs.

Original Post : How Can I Improve Business Intelligence and Augmented Analytics ROI and TCO?

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Original Post : Smarten Support Portal Updates – February – 2022!

What is Natural Language Processing and Why Do I Need it in My Advanced Analytics Solution?

What is Natural Language Processing (NLP)?

Natural Language Processing utilizes artificial intelligence to translate computer code and language into real world, human language. While the goal is to simplify human interaction with computers, NLP is a complex mix of computational linguistics and computer science. When a business is considering an augmented analytics solution that leverages natural language processing, it need not concern itself with the complicated underpinning of code and design, but should rather consider what NLP can do for its users and for its business results.

Gartner predicts that, ‘By 2023, enterprises will have doubled their current spending on natural-language-technology-based solutions’, and there is good reason for that investment.

‘When a business contemplates the deployment of an advanced analytics solution to support its goals for business agility, data literacy and competitive advantage, it is wise to select an augmented analytics solution that includes natural language processing (NLP).’

To remain competitive in an ever-changing market, with ever-changing customer buying behavior, the average business (whether local or global) must understand its clients, its market, its competitors and the trends that will change all of these factors in the near future. Team members are prized for their professional knowledge and skill but, in the past, were never part of the analytical picture. When a business needed to understand what was happening, it would turn to its business analysts, data scientists or IT team members to gather data from disparate enterprise systems and analyze that data, in hopes of answering questions.

Augmented Analytics solutions that include the Natural Language Processing approach, allow businesses to provide a solution that is appropriate for all users, no matter their technical skills.

The Benefits of NLP include:

• NLP search allows business users to create complex searches without endless clicks and complex navigation and commands.
• Familiar Google-type search analytics allow users to access and view clear, concise answers and analysis quickly and easily.
• Users can compose and enter a question using common human language, e.g., ‘who sold the most bakery products in 2017 in the Southwest region?’
• Users do not need to scroll through menus and navigation, they can simply enter a search query in or descriptions.
• NLP clickless analytics leverages machine learning and NLP in a self-serve environment that is easy enough for every business user.
• Businesses enjoy improved democratization and return on investment (ROI).
• When business users can ask a question, using normal language and get a response that they can immediately understand, they are more likely to adopt the tools and use them in a way that will help the business to achieve its goals and objectives.
• No advanced training is required.

‘Gartner predicts that, ‘By 2023, enterprises will have doubled their current spending on natural-language-technology-based solutions’, and there is good reason for that investment.’

When a business contemplates the deployment of an advanced analytics solution to support its goals for business agility, data literacy and competitive advantage, it is wise to select an augmented analytics solution; one that is designed to support business users, and one that includes natural language processing (NLP). All the data in the world is not helpful if users and businesses cannot easily find those all-important nuggets of information that will help them with a pricing decision, a marketing campaign, an investment, an HR planning issue or any other crucial business issue.

NLP creates an environment where humans can interact with data to test theories, ask questions and discover critical information easily and quickly.

Explore the advantages of Natural Language Processing (NLP), Clickless Analytics and simplified search analytics, and find out how this approach to augmented analytics can support your goals and objectives.

Original Post : What is Natural Language Processing and Why Do I Need it in My Advanced Analytics Solution?

What Determines the Success of a Citizen Data Scientist Initiative?

By now, every wise business team has acknowledged the advent of digital transformation and the transformation of business users into Citizen Data Scientists. But acknowledging the reality and enabling that reality within the walls of an enterprise are two very different things. Where many businesses fail in implementing the Citizen Data Scientist initiative, it is typical to find that the business has simply decided to deploy the strategy without much planning or culture change. Without understanding the shift in workflow, responsibilities and how the use of data will change the enterprise, it is unlikely that the business will succeed in its Citizen Data Scientist initiative.

Gartner has predicted that ‘…more than 40% of data science tasks will be automated, resulting in increased productivity and broader usage by citizen data scientists.’

‘If a business is truly committed to the concept of Citizen Data Scientists, and wishes to achieve the benefits of this type of initiative, it must review its current environment, make the right augmented analytics solution selection and plan for and execute the changes required.’

This prediction reflects the shift toward the use of data within the enterprise, and rightly so. The use of real data allows the business to better plan, adjust to the realities of the market and make real-time, confident decisions. Business users with the right support and solutions can work toward common goals and make fact-based decisions and recommendations, thereby avoiding missteps in the market and improving productivity and data literacy across the enterprise.

Factors affecting the success of a Citizen Data Scientist initiative include:

Solution Selection and Support
In order to adequately support the business user community, the business must select the right augmented analytics solution; a solution that is designed for users with average skills, and provides sophisticated analytics and capabilities in a self-serve environment that is easily adopted by users across the enterprise. The best foundation for user adoption is a solution that includes a full range of features, e.g., self-serve data preparation, smart data visualization, assisted predictive modeling, and a technology-based solution that offers users the ability to search using Google-type, familiar search techniques based on natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning. By removing the complexity and the need for IT or data scientist support, the organization can ensure that the users will have tools they can leverage on a daily basis, and will WANT to use these tools to accomplish their goals.

Training
The right solution to support Citizen Data Scientists must be one that is easy to implement and does not require lengthy training. Business users want to complete tasks quickly and easily and are not inclined to adopt a new software solution that is hard to use, complex or requires additional knowledge in the way of SQL queries, training by data scientists or IT. If the user has to wait for assistance to complete a query or a report, they will find another way to get the job done, and the Citizen Data Scientist initiative will falter.

Culture Change
No major initiative can be accomplished without a comprehensive review of the culture of the organization, including how business processes and workflow are currently handled, and how and when the organization rewards business users and team members for accomplishments. If a user is presenting a recommendation or suggestion in a staff meeting, the organization must be willing to support the idea that the user must base his/her recommendation on data acquired from the augmented analytics solution, and require that reporting and suggestions are based on facts and metrics rather than opinion and guesswork. Career advancements and team leadership should reflect the willingness of the business user to embrace these new tools, and the organization and its management team must encourage, champion and support the new tools and techniques on a daily basis. It isn’t enough to say the words. The culture must be changed to acknowledge and enforce the new tools and analytical approach to decisions.

If a business is truly committed to the concept of Citizen Data Scientists, and wishes to achieve the benefits of this type of initiative, it must review its current environment, make the right augmented analytics solution selection and plan for and execute the changes required with an eye toward reinventing the culture and organization to encourage and support data literacy, and fact-based decision-making and improving the value of each team member by providing the tools and knowledge they need to perform at the highest level.

‘Gartner has predicted that ‘…more than 40% of data science tasks will be automated, resulting in increased productivity and broader usage by citizen data scientists.’

In order to accomplish the goal of transforming business users into Citizen Data Scientists, the organization should consider a foundational Citizen Data Scientist Training Program; one that will provide a better understanding of the role, how to collaborate, how to use the augmented analytics tools and analytical techniques and algorithms. In addition, it is wise to select an IT consulting partner with knowledge of the augmented analytics market, and a solution and support services to provide the guidance and Products And Services your business will need to succeed.

Original Post : What Determines the Success of a Citizen Data Scientist Initiative?

Here’s How Mobile BI Encourages User Adoption and TCO!

Businesses that invest in business intelligence solutions expect to achieve results, become more competitive and improve productivity, but these businesses often fail to understand the need for Mobile BI. Mobile business intelligence should provide all the features and search capability a user needs to perform tasks and get information while on the road, working remotely or visiting a client, partner or regional office.

Gartner has predicted that by 2022, augmented analytics will be ubiquitous, but only 10% of users will use it to its full potential. While there are numerous reasons for this failure, one of the causes for poor user adoption is related to user access. A business can acquire a business intelligence solution, but if that solution is not easily accessible as and when the user needs the data, users will not adopt the solution and use it on a daily basis.

A business intelligence solution that restricts usage to in-office application greatly restricts the return on investment (ROI) and negatively impacts the total cost of ownership (TCO). Even for business functions that are typically performed in the office to trend toward doing more with less, the challenges of finding and keeping enough resources and the need for data sharing and collaboration are all impacted by the accessibility and ease-of-use of BI tools.

‘When these tools are available in a mobile environment, and accessible on iOS and Android devices, the business can be confident that every business user has access to the right data at the right time in a format that is clear and concise.’

Consider the following trends and challenges faced by the average business:

Data Democratization – Democratizing data improves the consistency and timeliness of decisions and creates agility so that businesses can respond more easily to competition and to resource shortages.

Changing Work Environments – Businesses today must face the fact that they are struggling to find enough resources, and enough of the right resources. The pandemic has created an uncertain environment where team members may be in the office one day and working remotely another day.

Integrating Analytics and BI for Mobile Access – Integrating Modern Analytics and BI is necessary so that business users, data scientists and executives can make the most of the data they have amassed in the enterprise and can do so easily and quickly.  Integrating modern analytics and BI in a Mobile environment is imperative if the business is to give its users the tools they need at their fingertips.

Fact-Based Decision Making – The enterprise can no longer rely on guesswork or opinion to make decisions. There is no time in the market for a misstep or a decision that might negatively impact customer satisfaction or put the business at risk. Every business user needs KPI Tools, BI Software and personalized Dashboard Tools to help them quickly gather, analyze and clarify data, to spot trends and patterns, to identity opportunities and to test theories before making changes in the market.

Mobile business intelligence allows the enterprise to focus on these challenges and issues with BI tools that make it easy to democratize data and provide access to business users (even those with average technical skills) so that they will want to adopt business intelligence tools and use these tools to perform day-to-day tasks and to manage and monitor metrics and measurements using key performance indicators (KPIs). Flexible reporting on data gathered from disparate data sources allows the business to make decisions based on the most current, most complete data picture.

‘Gartner has predicted that by 2022, augmented analytics will be ubiquitous, but only 10% of users will use it to its full potential. A business intelligence solution that restricts usage to in-office application greatly restricts the return on investment (ROI) and negatively impacts the total cost of ownership (TCO).’

When these tools are available in a mobile environment, and accessible on iOS and Android devices, the business can be confident that every business user has access to the right data at the right time in a format that is clear and concise. Allowing the users to produce reports that most accurately represent the point they want to make, and to share these reports with other users, also builds a positive user adoption environment and encourages business users to share these tools and to champion the use of business intelligence and mobile BI across the enterprise.

Find out how Mobile BI and foundational Modern BI And Analytics can help your business to achieve its goals and add value by leveraging resource time and effort and knowledge.

Combine Traditional BI with Modern BI and Analytics to Improve User Adoption and Gain Advantage!

The world-renowned technology research firm, Gartner, predicts that, ‘through 2024, 50% of organizations will adopt modern data quality solutions to better support their digital business initiatives’. As businesses consider the options for data analytics, it is important to understand the impact of solution selection.

A business that wishes to improve its data quality, must also consider the positive impact of data democratization, user adoption of analytics solutions and the resulting increase in productivity, collaboration and fact-based decision-making.

‘When a business selects a solution that combines Traditional BI with Modern BI tools and Augmented Analytics, it can support business and user needs today and in the future.’

There are a number of factors a business should consider when it reviews prospective solutions. These factors include available features, user access, including mobile access, ease-of-use and more. Today’s business users work in an environment that requires both traditional BI tools, and modern business intelligence with augmented analytics capabilities.

In order to clarify the importance of this combined solution approach, it is important to understand the difference between Traditional BI tools and Modern BI and Analytics Tools.

Traditional Business Intelligence focuses on analyzing past results, with self-service features and basic components, including personalized dashboards for clear visualization, key performance indicators (KPIs) and reporting, as well as Mobile BI available on desktop or mobile device, Social BI and Embedded Business Intelligence with APIs to embed BI tools within familiar, favorite enterprise applications for simple, accessible analytics within the enterprise app. Out-of-the-box mobile business intelligence provides easy-to-use report formats to create non-columnar, custom reports and templates and design and configure documents that suit the needs of the business. Traditional BI tools support power business users with self-serve report creation – all without the need for SQL skills or IT assistance.

Modern BI and Augmented Analytics takes business user analytics to the next level with advanced analytics components including self-serve data preparation, smart data visualization, assisted predictive modeling and natural language processing (NLP) foundational search analytics so users can ask a simple question and get a simple answer without coding or queries. This type of solution includes key influencer analytics, anomaly detection, alerts, clickless analytics and other tools designed to support the transformation of business users to Citizen Data Scientists and to increase data literacy in the enterprise.

The benefits of a combined traditional BI and modern BI and augmented analytics solution include:

Ease-of-Use Improves User Adoption – When the business combines Modern BI tools with advanced analytics, it can encourage user adoption with tools that are easy and intuitive to use, thereby improving total cost of ownership (TCO) and return on investment (ROI). With simple, Google-like search techniques, business users with average skills can leverage BI tools and augmented analytics to gather and analyze data and receive results that are clear and easy to understand. These tools should support the user within the walls of the office and outside the office with Mobile BI so users can work remotely and still have all the information they need, working on whatever device is easiest for them to access at the time.

Integration – Embedded BI with integration APIs that allow users to access familiar enterprise applications and provide BI tools in a single sign-on environment to improve user adoption of BI tools and analytics and expand the value of existing business applications and software.

Flexibility, Upgrades and TCO – Perhaps the most important factor of solution selection is to choose a solution that will stay abreast of technology and market changes. As modern BI and analytics markets change, the business will want to support its users with appropriate upgrades, new technology, new features and a solution design that reflects the most up-to-date analytics trends and position itself to be agile, flexible and responsive to the market with an affordable, dependable solution that encourages user adoption.

‘Gartner, predicts that, ‘through 2024, 50% of organizations will adopt modern data quality solutions to better support their digital business initiatives’. When the business combines Modern BI tools with advanced analytics, it can encourage user adoption with tools that are easy and intuitive to use, thereby improving total cost of ownership (TCO) and return on investment (ROI).’

A solution that combines traditional BI tools and modern BI tools and augmented analytics ensures that the business has what it needs and that its users can leverage the tools and features that best suit their role and their responsibilities to achieve the best outcomes. There is no need to deploy and maintain two different tools or multiple technology stacks. A one-stop solution with both components allows users to access crucial analytical and BI tools using a mobile device, and to collaborate with other users to improve productivity and fact-based decision-making.

Discover the possibilities of Traditional BI Tools, Modern BI and Analytics and the advantages of the Augmented Analytics approach to advanced analytics.

Original Post : Combine Traditional BI with Modern BI and Analytics to Improve User Adoption and Gain Advantage!

Going Beyond the Numbers with SmartenApps for Tally!

The Tally^® ERP Solution and its latest TallyPrime offering are popular accounting and finance related suite of modules that provides support for invoicing and accounting, inventory management, reports, credit and cash flow management, banking, cost control and analysis, payroll management and other finance-related activities.

Tally serves millions of users across industries in over 100 countries and supports a network of more than 28,000 partners, providing sales, support and services.

‘The SmartenApps for Tally approach provides value out-of-the-box with analytics, dashboards and reports.’

The Tally software solution suite has gained in popularity and is particularly popular among businesses in India. As the Tally team expands its market reach, it has added additional capabilities to better serve its clients. Among the most important new capabilities is the integration of augmented analytics to support business users in gather and analyzing data contained within the Tally modules.

The SmartenApps for Tally integration takes the Tally solution beyond data entry and basic reporting. Users can leverage familiar features and modules with integrated analytics to enable data-driven decisions and gain insight into issues, identify opportunities and solve problems, all within the environs of an intuitive dashboard, with key performance indicators (KPIs) to establish and manage metrics and pre-built reports to satisfy accounting and finance-related roles and needs.

Here are some of the benefits of SmartenApps for Tally analytical integration:

• Users have near real-time access to recent transactions and data
• Web and Mobile access allows for intuitive analysis
• Users can access the SmartenApps for Tally using web and native mobile app user experience
• SmartenApps for Tally extends the office environment and allows for swift analysis and decisions from anywhere
• SmartenApps for Tally is free to use for 30 days with simple, affordable licensing fees thereafter
• Start-up is easy, within a few minutes
• Support is readily available
• No need for a separate analytical solution, that will require training, access credentials and a separate sign-on

The SmartenApps for Tally approach  provides value out-of-the-box with analytics, dashboards and reports that include an Overview, Sales & Purchase, Bank and Cash, Payables and Receivables, Inventory, Taxes, Cost Center, Ledger, Drill-Down, Accounts Statements, and Reports. All of these report templates are ready-to-use, with more pre-built reports released periodically.

Business users with average technical skills can use SmartenApps for Tally to gain insight into data using value-added tools and features.

The SmartenApps for Tally application is based on the Smarten Augmented Analytics product, which is accredited by Gartner and recognized for its intuitive, easy-to-use analytics, so the business and its users can be assured of dependable, world-class features, functionality and performance.

‘Tally serves millions of users across industries in over 100 countries and supports a network of more than 28,000 partners, providing sales, support and services.’

Find out how SmartenApps For Tally can support your users and improve results within your organization. Users can Download And Register for SmartenApps for Tally and use Tally data to analyze, explore and clarify.

Original Post : Going Beyond The Numbers With SmartenApps For Tally!

Smarten intuitive interface allows users to make the most out of available data and effectively manage order details, revenue, patient details, business operations, etc. The Smarten collaborative partnership approach builds trust and paves the way for project success, meeting analytical requirements, streamlining processes and allowing the Partner to achieve its objectives.

The Partner Healthcare Information system is now integrated with augmented analytics and embedded BI, allowing Client end users to access the healthcare system using a single sign-on and enjoy the features and functionality of the analytics solution including reporting and analytics. As a Smarten OEM partner, the Partner can provide easy-to-use analytics for use by all of its Client end users to leverage the existing Partner solution.

Embedded BI APIs provide a comprehensive set of reporting and analytics tools including Revenue Management, Patient Management, Billing and Inventory Management, etc., and delivering all data and information via interactive self-serve reports, including dashboards, KPIs, Graphical Analysis and more.

The combination of the Smarten OEM partnership and the Smarten Augmented Analytics and Embedded BI approach, provided a competitive advantage to the Partner and enabled the Partner to better leverage its data and to operate more efficiently, thereby increasing revenue and allowing the Partner to add and effectively support more end users.

It used to be that a prospect or customer expected to hear all about the product or service, and all the reasons that particular company was the best company to hire. The pitch was always focused on all the positive aspects of the deal and it always made the assumption that the customer would just love to do business with the company.

But, one thing I have learned over the years is that the best sales professionals are pessimistic!

While it is their goal to sell the product or service, they go into the sales meeting with the assumption that there are those on the prospect team that want to scuttle the presentation, and they are prepared with plenty of ammunition.

Sometimes, a prospect has an unspoken agenda. They might favor another company, or they might have heard something about your product or service that caused them to form a negative opinion.

They may not think their business needs ANY product or ANY service you have to offer. They may feel that old processes, products, services or techniques are just fine and that change is unnecessary.

So, in addition to knowing your product, your service and the needs of your prospect, you must also be prepared to counter the naysayers in the group  – without being defensive, of course.

You must firmly, and positively present your case to get ahead of the skeptics and make your case before the question is even asked…before the argument is made.

Think of the sales meeting as making a preemptive strike! When it comes to sales, it is OK to be paranoid!

It is a good idea to anticipate the objections and bring them up before the prospect can take an offensive position and poke holes in your presentation.

Consider a statement like, “Some businesses might think that this product can’t possibly be that easy to customize”, or “Some customers believe our stated service levels can’t possibly be met”. These statements do not sound defensive but they do open the door for you to argue your case and present the facts before a prospect can go on the attack and scuttle your carefully planned presentation.

A great sales professional is always looking for the challenge or the healthy skeptic and isn’t afraid to fight the good fight.

If you are still hesitant to embrace this approach, consider the embattled coach in a press conference that follows a lost game, or the political spokesperson representing a leader. They go into each Q&A fully expecting to be challenged and pushed to the limit. But, if they become defensive, they lose their advantage. Craft your sales persona carefully and watch how the best of the best do their jobs. Then, go in there and get on the offensive to address the problem BEFORE it emerges. That is the way to make an impression and close a sale!

Original Post : Conflict in the Sales Meeting? No Problem!

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1. Handling Outliers Using Smarten Assisted Predictive Modelling

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Original Post : Smarten Support Portal Updates – January – 2022!

Drive User Adoption with Embedded BI and Single Sign-On Convenience!

All of your business users have a favorite software application – an app they value because it helps them do their job more easily, or helps them get crucial information. These are the applications they have learned and they are used to leveraging them on a day-to-day basis to perform tasks. When you introduce augmented analytics into your business environment, one of the most critical factors is whether you can expect user adoption. Finding and implementing the right augmented analytics solution is just the first step. If you can’t get your users to USE the application, your return on investment (ROI) will be poor and your total cost of ownership (TCO) will be high.

The wise business manager knows that they have to help users see the value and explain how the new analytical solution will assist the user in everyday workflow and business processes. And, even if the application is as user-friendly as advertised, it won’t be adopted if the user finds it inconvenient to do so.

SO…you can choose the right advanced analytics solution, promote and champion it well and still fail at user adoption. Why? Because your users are creatures of habit. They are used to the software applications they like – those legacy or best of breed apps that help them do their jobs. But, what would happen if you embedded BI and analytics into the software app your users love so well, into ALL the software apps your users like and use?

With a single sign-on to the software application of choice, the business user can perform tasks, get their work done and use analytics to find data, using a familiar interface and system, and analyze data to make better decisions and to share and collaborate. Managers will see results in the form of improved productivity, user adoption and (most critically) fact-based decisions and recommendations that will drive objectives and goals.

Embedded Business Intelligence and Augmented Analytics gives your users the best of both worlds. They can take advantage of the new tools and features and they can use the same software applications they love, all in one place. Problem solved!

If you want to encourage your business users to employ data analytics and make analytics available within familiar enterprise applications, you can explore the advantages here: Embedded BI. Download our White Paper, ‘Making The Case For Embedded BI And Analytics.’

Original Post : Embedded BI and Analytics Ensures User Adoption!

1.    Missing Data – Why does it matter so much?

Ever worked upon an analytical project and noticed the presence of blank or NAN or undefined values in the records representing the data and being in need of correctly dealing with them? This might be a routine situation while working with real world data. It becomes a crucial step to execute fair technique to handle these missing values after understanding the analysis required from the data as often data for one party can be a noise to another party. Data can be missing owing to corrupt data, incomplete data extraction process, data entry errors or simply the data is rare and is actually missing! But handling such data is of great challenge in order to make right decisions and generate robust predictive models or reports. This article sums up key steps to handle missing values using Smarten Augmented Analytics and further explains its utility from the Employee Salary Prediction dataset. 

2.    Just leave it or impute it!!

The best possible methods to handle missing data are:

It is a most common practice to delete the records from the data which contains missing values. This technique creates a robust machine learning model. As such it’s elementary to remove records for which we do not have adequate information as it then doesn’t weigh much for our analysis. However, this leads to loss of data and if the amount of data missing is sky scraping, our analysis shall perform poorly. Considering the example of employee salary prediction for instance, it might be quite possible that employees belonging to say engineering team might not be disclosing their income and bonus percentage and employee team being the main determining factor for salary prediction. In such a storyline, it can be recommended to drop missing records rather than imputing it with non-realistic values. 

The strategy to impute the values of variables not only reduces loss of data but also adds variance to the dataset leading to better results. This technique is admirable when the size of the data is small as in such a scenario, deletion of records will in fact compact the data leading us with lesser information for decision making.  

Employee Salary Prediction Dataset

It can be evident that we intend to predict the Salary of employees based upon their Gender, belonging to Senior Management or not, Team associated with as well as Bonus percentage being offered. This speaks of many missing values which need to be dealt with in the pre-processing stage itself. Also, it can be scrutinized that Bonus percentage is the only measure predictor and rest are dimensions. Let’s acquire the ability to operate such data using Smarten Augmented Analytics.

Creating a new Smarten Insight

Selecting the dataset to be handled for missing values

4.3.    Perform Sampling and Filtering if required and click NEXT

Sampling and Filtering using Smarten

Look upon the data and make choices accordingly to perform the strategy to handle missing values. For employee salary prediction, we can safely remove missing values in the Gender, Senior Management and Team fields as the classes are more or less equally distributed and imputing it with literal mode will not be of our favorable interest. Moreover, the numeric attributes like Salary and Bonus percentage contains quite a few missing values which can hence be eliminated.

Handling missing values using Smarten

We have to learn to interrogate our data collection process, not just our algorithms! With too little data, we won’t be able to make any conclusions that can be trusted. Making replacements in the data without understanding it, will again provide us with information approaching false decision making. Hence a healthy trade-off between these two as well as understanding the reasons why data are missing is important for handling the remaining data correctly!

Note: This article is based on Smarten Version 5.2. This may or may not be relevant to the Smarten version you may be using.

Original Post : Handling Missing Values using Smarten Augmented Analytics!

As a Fintech Company, it is extremely important for the Client to track, evaluate, and monitor project success through robust analytics, flexible views and access rights management. The Smarten solution allows users to interact with data to identify overall profitability at various levels in the organization. It also allows users to measure tactical and operational results at a summary level, and at a detail level, for an individual task or group workflow.

With the help of the Smarten solution and team, the Client has achieved its goal of creating a centralized analytics system at all levels of the organization. The Smarten intuitive interface allows users to make the most out of available data and to effectively manage their resources, revenue, procurement, business operations, manpower allocation etc. Smarten helps the Client to track organizational performance, and to reduce cost and increase profitability of each department without compromising on the quality standards.

If your business wants to commit to self-serve BI and augmented analytics, it is important to recognize the challenge of user adoption. You can provide the best solution on the market but, if you do not deploy these initiatives in the right way; if you do not make the right choice for solutions and the right approach to improving data literacy, your investment will be for naught. A Gartner Analytics and BI Magic Quadrant customer reference survey found that the average user adoption rate for modern analytics and BI Adoption was estimated at 35%. Among the reasons for poor user adoption were the absence of self-serve BI capabilities, dependence on IT team, inflexibility of data silos, and lack of access to intuitive BI tools for deep dive, predictive and descriptive features.

In this article, we discuss several considerations and important factors that can and will improve user adoption of augmented analytics:

Technology And Features

Embedded BI and Integration APIs

If your business wants to leverage analytics and ensure user adoption rate, lower TCO and improve ROI, it is wise to include Embedded BI and Augmented Analytics in your requirements. Integration APIs provide intuitive, self-serve BI tools from within enterprise applications and public websites, so you can put the power of facts, data and business insight in the hands of business users. With access to self-serve analytics from within familiar enterprise apps, BI adoption and use increases exponentially, so you can leverage all the benefits and advantages of augmented analytics.

Natural Language Processing (NLP)

Solutions that incorporate Natural Language Processing (NLP) allow business users to leverage an analytical tool in an augmented analytics environment where questions can be entered using natural language, BUT NLP without context-capability can still miss the mark. Remember that very team member is also a consumer outside of work. In that capacity, they have learned how to search for something on Google and get the results they need. The tools are designed for human interaction. You ask a question and get an answer. Providing NLP in augmented analytics tools allows team members to use familiar concepts and features to find and analyze data, thereby improving user adoption.

Business Processes And Culture

Committing to Culture Change

The enterprise must be prepared to support user adoption and empowerment. Just teaching the basics of data analytics and the use of tools is not good enough and no matter how simple the solution is to use, your team members will need encouragement to change processes and to commit to the change. Focus on users and managers and build an understanding of the context of data within a particular team or department. Mentor and support users as they make the transition from being data dependent to becoming more autonomous and data literate. To make the transition to self-serve augmented analytics, the business should find and nominate champions within each area of the business and look for opportunities to suggest and support projects that entail data analysis and presentation with the goal of creating actionable outcomes that will encourage the team and individuals to embrace data analytics and use it as part of the process on a daily basis.

Metrics and Evaluation

Tie metrics and data analytics to goals and objectives to encourage analytical deliverables and insight. Courage the collaboration of IT, Citizen Data Scientists and analysts or data scientists to further solidify the organization. Review evaluation criteria and include team assessments based on the consistent use of data to make recommendations and decisions. Managers should routinely ask if team members have used augmented analytics to test theories and hypotheses to improve the validation of business decisions and to get the best outcomes.

These are just a few of the critical considerations and factors your business should include in its solution selection and implementation planning process in order to ensure successful implementation of analytics and to support data democratization and/or a Citizen Data Scientist initiatives. With the right planning and approach, there is no reason to be discouraged by the reported history of poor user adoption. With Embedded BI, Integration APIs, Natural Language Processing and culture, process and metrics transformation, your business can succeed in its implementation of augmented analytics and meet its goals for ROI, TCO and user adoption.

For more information about how Augmented Analytics can support your initiatives, explore our white paper: ‘Integrate Augmented Analytics And Digital Transformation To Achieve Continuous Business Improvement’, and the features of Embedded BI And Integration APIs,  Clickless Analytics And Natural Language Processing (NLP).

Original Post : How Can I Encourage My Team to Adopt and Use BI Tools and Augmented Analytics?

Recognize and Address Recent Market Changes with Citizen Data Scientists!

While many of you may follow the research and market analytics provided by Gartner, you may sometimes find yourselves wondering if their predictions and market analysis are correct. When it comes to the predicted transformation of business users into Citizen Data Scientists, that particular transition has been happening for a while now. If anything, the global pandemic has simply made the prediction more pressing than ever.

New issues driven by the pandemic include:

• Rapid market changes, evolving from the economic impact of the pandemic
• A shortage of qualified workers, causing competition among businesses for professional workers
• The ongoing need to work remotely and to allow available workers to work in a more flexible environment

These compounding factors highlight the greater need for businesses to support a Citizen Data Scientist environment, one where business users can optimize their value to the organization with fact-based decisions; one where the organization can provide mobile tools for business users, including easy-to-use analytics that allow every team member to leverage sophisticated tools without the experience of a data scientist.

If we consider recent Gartner strategic planning assumptions, we can see that these assumptions are made even more relevant by the pressures of a pandemic-stressed market.

• By 2023, 30% of organizations will harness the collective intelligence of their analytics communities, outperforming competitors that rely solely on centralized analytics or self-service.
• By 2023, 60% of organizations will compose components from three or more analytics solutions to build business applications infused with analytics that connect insights to actions.
• By 2023, overall analytics adoption will increase from 35% to 50%, driven by vertical and domain specific augmented analytics solutions.

Whether your management team had already planned for a digital transformation, improved data literacy and data democratization, or your senior team is just now considering it, there is no time like the present. Being able to leverage your precious resources and knowledge and add perspective and insight, will position you well in the market to be competitive and to make more timely, effective decisions.

Making a swift change can help you gain an advantage. Online Citizen Data Scientist training can provide a foundation by helping candidates to understand the role, to gain insight into how augmented analytics solutions can be used in their own business use cases and how analytical techniques can be leveraged to support decisions, approvals, recommendations and workflow. If your organization wants to position itself for growth and stability now and in the future, it is time to explore the possibilities of the Citizen Data Scientist approach and Online Training Options.

Original Post : Citizen Data Scientists Help You Leverage Limited Resources!

Predictive Analytics That is Easy Enough for Any Business User!

Predictive analytics may seem too complex for business users but with advanced technology like machine learning and features like assisted predictive modeling users can dive into the process without the skills of an IT professional or a data scientist. Assisted predictive modeling frees the user by providing system recommendations that will suggest the right analytical technique and achieve the best fit for what the user wants to do, ensuring that they use the most appropriate algorithm for the data they wish to analyze.

With these tools, users can explore patterns in data and receive suggestions to help them gain insight on their own without dependence on IT or data scientists. The enterprise can provide the tools needed at every level of the organization with tools and data science for business users that are sophisticated in functionality and easy-to-use for users at every skill level.

These augmented analytics tools allow the organization to apply predictive analytics to any use case using forecasting, regression, clustering and other methods to analyze an infinite number of use cases including customer churn, and planning for and target customers for acquisition, identify cross-sales opportunities, optimize pricing and promotional targets and analyze and predict customer preferences and buying behaviors.

If you are considering an augmented analytics solution, your requirements should include assisted predictive modeling. The benefits of this approach include:

• No complex algorithms or data manipulation
• System generated auto-recommendations for algorithms to explore underlying data
• No advanced data scientist or IT skills required
• Users can analyze, share and optimize business potential and productivity
• Users can prototype and hypothesize without professional assistance

If your business wants to gain insight and perspective and achieve a competitive advantage, using simple, Assisted Predictive Modeling and Augmented Analytics tools, Contact Us today to get started.

Original Post : Can I Really Expect My Business Users to Adopt Predictive Analytics?

This article discusses four (4) examples of insight gleaned from adding built-in reporting and augmented analytics to the business accounting and finance software solution.

Banking and Cash Management

This report allows users to search for and understand trends and patterns in banking and cashflow. Business users can search for a particular time period and compare that time period to comparable historical periods. Identifying trends and patterns in cashflow and banking can provide valuable information and alert the business to issues that may affect the ability to apply for funding, the capacity of the business to make investments, fund new projects, etc.

Sales and Purchasing

Business users can explore sales to date, and examine monthly, quarterly and yearly trends and key performance indicators (KPIs). The business can analyze sales, identify top customers and detail sales registers. These trends can help sales managers identify top sales staff and techniques, where to market and which customers to target. Purchasing managers can identify trends and anticipate the need for supplies to satisfy demand.

Payables and Receivables

Accountants routinely use payables and receivables to highlight business issues. With built-in reports to analyze payables and receivables, accountants can take analysis to the next level, break down payables and receivables by creditors and debtors, by product, by service and/or components and look for trends for overdue collections, invoicing issues, potential customer or client defaults based on previous payment history, etc.

 
Inventory Management

Inventory management is crucial to business success. Carrying and warehousing an overage of inventory costs money. Running short on inventory of supplies or products costs the business in prospective sales. Built-in reports for Inventory Management allow business users to analyze inventory to identity current shortages or overages and to use trends to anticipate where future issues may arise. Users can explore overstock and understock to look for wholesale opportunities or identity targets for product discounts to move inventory, and they can explore issues and opportunities for products, shipping and distribution.

In this article, we explored four of the many benefits and features the business will enjoy by adding integrated augmented analytics and built-in reporting for business and professional use.

These are just a few of the reasons for integrating augmented analytics with Tally ERP. If you want to get more value out of your Tally ERP solution and optimize your resources and professional efforts, Contact Us for more information on SmartenApps For Tally.  For more information about integrating Augmented Analytics with Tally ERP, visit our Blog.

Original Post : 4 BI Reporting Insights Achieved with Tally Analytics!

If You Work with Numbers, You Need Analytics!

When you tell someone you work in a finance-related position, their eyes might glaze over. They picture you ‘counting beans’. Whether you work in inventory management, purchasing, accounting, enterprise finance or any other related position, your job can seem mysterious (and even boring) to many people. But, yours is the lifeblood of the organization.

If the business does not understand its expenses, where and how it generates revenue, who its most important customers are, where it can save money on suppliers and supply chain, how to manage inventory, how to avoid expensive tax issues and messy statutory and regulatory reporting mistakes – well, all of those things relate to money, don’t they? And money is what makes the organization run (or fail).

As a numbers and money manager, you will doubtless use a software solution like Tally ERP. These solutions manage finance-related, accounting and other functions by enabling data entry and reporting. But, what if you could go beyond this simple day-to-day workflow, take all that data contained in the system and analyze it to spot trends, issues and opportunities and to truly understand what is going on, what if you could report across modules and do so in a way that produces insightful information rather than columns of data you have to explain to your clients and colleagues?

What true nuggets of information are hidden in that data, beneath the surface, or on the other side of the organization? What if you could add value to your organization, and to your own role in the enterprise by providing advice and counsel instead of numbers?

With the right integrated analytical tools, you CAN do all of that and more with key performance indicators (KPIs), ledger, shipping and distribution, cost center, and banking support and more. If you are a Tally user, you can leverage powerful analytical tools to add value to your organization and take a proactive role in results. AND, your business can evaluate the solution for free. Find out more about SmartenApps For Tally analytics. Contact Us to today to find out how SmartenApps for Tally can help you achieve your goals.

Original Post : Analytics Can Take Tally ERP to the Next Level!

The Client is the leading private sector bank in India, and the largest private sector bank in India by assets and by market capitalisation. The Client offers Online Net Banking Services and Personal Banking Services like Accounts and Deposits, Cards, Loans, etc. and its wide range of financial products in hundreds of Indian cities.

The Smarten analytics solution allows users to analyze important data and to identify and monitor the audit compliance section, and to measure tactical and operational results at a summary and detailed level to derive alerts and status.

Why Democratize Business Intelligence? Lots of Reasons!

Perhaps you have resisted the temptation to democratize data in your organization. Your resistance may come from in-house, in the form of those who tell you that data governance is impossible in an environment where you spread your data far and wide. Perhaps you believe that the average business user cannot and will not use business intelligence tools, so any expense or time to implement such a solution would be wasteful. Perhaps you feel that the value of such a solution and of user adoption of these tools is overrated, and that ROI and TCO would not be worth the time and effort.

No matter the reason for your resistance, I can tell you that the value of a self-serve business intelligence solution is, if anything, underrated!  Well-chosen BI tools can democratize data, provide the tools your users need to make fact-based decisions and ensure that work product is timely, that recommendations are based on clear, concise data rather than guesswork and opinion, and that business users who adopt and use these tools can better leverage their own professional knowledge and skill and combine that skill with data to gain insight, collaborate and share data and perform their individual roles more effectively.

Here are just a few reasons to consider democratizing data and the use of business intelligence tools:

• Improve Productivity and Collaboration
• Gain Clarity and Improve Accuracy of Decisions and Work Product
• Improve Data Literacy
• Optimize Data Scientist and Business Analyst Resources
• Increase Insight and Problem Solving
• Capitalize on Opportunities

As they say, information is power, and business users and even analysts can miss critical trends, struggle to solve problems and lose crucial time and energy trying to sift through data and information spread across the enterprise. By bringing this data together in a self-serve environment, business users can test theories and identify patterns, trends and anomalies, without waiting for IT or data scientists to deliver reports.

If your business wants a Business Intelligence Solution that provides out-of-the-box functionality based on your industry or business function, and application integration capability, you can start here: Self-Serve Business Intelligence In Action.

When thinking about business environments, how they are established and how they evolve, it is often helpful to use an analogy to which everyone can relate. In this case, we are changing the business environment to establish a more democratized approach to data and we might think of the existing business environment as the four walls of a house.

‘When an enterprise-wide change is contemplated, the business must acknowledge the very real existence of a culture within the organization and it must address that culture and understand how it works. That is the only way this type of enterprise-wide change will succeed.’

Whether you built your home (or business) yourself, or you are living in that house and dealing with the structural decisions made by others, you have established a way of working and living that incorporates the strengths and the shortcomings of the structure. If you don’t have enough closet space, perhaps you purchased a wardrobe to accommodate your clothing. If you don’t have a large space in which to entertain, you may have your parties in the back yard or even rent a space to get together with family and friends. If you have a lot of stairs in your home, the chances are good that you gather your laundry into a basket over a period of days before you take it down to the laundry room – just to save yourself some steps. Over time, the flow of your life and the processes you use to accomplish tasks will morph to accommodate the reality of the house structure.

And, so it is with workflow and business processes. Over time, a business establishes teams, processes and workflow to accomplish tasks and the people within each department and division further alter these workflows and processes to create shortcuts or to get the work done in a way that makes more sense to them.

When an enterprise-wide change is contemplated, the business must acknowledge the very real existence of a culture within the organization and it must address that culture and understand how it works. That is the only way this type of enterprise-wide change will succeed.

You wouldn’t begin a house renovation without drawing up plans, would you? Of course not. Consider the evolution of structural design over the past few decades. Today, architects and designers consider function (how the space will be used) and then design the form or structure, and decide how the space will flow and where closets, cabinets, stairwells and other features will be placed to make the structure as effective as possible.

Think of your business environment in the same way and remember that whatever new process or workflow you put in place will be altered by team members if it doesn’t work for them. So, include those team members in the planning phase.

The following factors should be included in your Data Democratization initiative. Integrating these issues and roles into the planning process will ensure that you can build an organization that will improve data literacy across the enterprise and support the transformation of business users into Citizen Data Scientists – team members that are comfortable using data to make decisions, present findings and make recommendations and share and collaborate using data.

Build a Comprehensive Set of Requirements

Think of this as sitting down with the family to discuss what changes should be made to your existing home or to make a list of those things you want so you can search for a new home. What is working, what is not working. Without a comprehensive understanding of how and when you currently use data AND where there are gaps or restrictions that prevent business users from accessing and analyzing data, you are not likely to accomplish your goals for data democratization. To democratize data within the enterprise, one needs access, easy-to-use tools and a basic understanding of how and when data should and will be used to make decisions and where and when it must be shared across roles and departments.

What are your business metrics? Do these need to change? Are you measuring the right things? If you provide access to analytical tools for business users, what metrics will they use to know if they are meeting their goals and achieving the business vision?

Ask how broad access to data can improve business results. How can it make your team more productive?

Your requirements must, by the very nature of the project, include a review of your data systems and repositories. To integrate data and make it easily accessible you will need to build a strategy with your IT team, data scientists or analysts and/or a consultant. But, you will also need to understand what type of training or access your individual team members and teams will need, and at what level the access should be provided, so that you can design appropriate security and data governance policies.

Build a Data Access and Collaborative Strategy

Once you have that list of features and functional concerns from your ‘family’, you can begin to design the home renovation or, in this case, the data democratization plan.

Your project team should engage business users, present the data democratization rationale and work with the team members to examine existing workflows and gaps. Be honest about what is working and what is not working. This is no time for your team members to hold back. What kinds of issues do they struggle to solve? Where are they missing data that would help them make better decisions? What technical or analytical skills do they have and what do they need to be confident in their use of new tools or processes?

Build business use cases that will help you sketch out the actual flow and outcomes to achieve your goals and reveal where there may be gaps or roadblocks.

Your plan must also include ongoing reviews and continuous improvement so that when the initiative is rolled out, you have a way of measuring, monitoring and adapting to ensure that these changes take hold within the enterprise and that every manager, team member, IT professional, and analyst understands their role, collaborates and uses data to make decisions.

Use the detailed requirements, use cases and business process and workflow assessments to begin a search for your ‘architect’ or technical consultant. You will be looking for services and tools that will fit your requirements and training and assistance to get you to your goals.

Implement and Monitor

As with any change, the change must be embraced at every level or it will not work. Once the data democratization initiative is in place, the management team must support the use of these new tools and business processes and encourage their use by adapting team evaluations, creating expectations of data use in staff meetings and reporting and asking thoughtful questions during interaction to ensure that team members are bringing in others and collaborating appropriately to get the right outcomes. If the team does not believe you are invested in the changes, they will not adopt new tools or they will find workarounds that more closely align with what is familiar to them.

Find and leverage champions within each business unit and department. These people can become mentors to those who may be less comfortable with technology or with the new analytics tools and techniques. Create systems of reward and compensation, and change job descriptions and written goals and objectives to ensure that all systems support the new initiative.

Schedule periodic meetings to discuss what is working and where there may be a need for changes. During these sessions, you may also wish to solicit creative ideas for how to continue the evolution. As team members get comfortable with the tools, the techniques and the changes, they will often come up with great ideas to continue the growth of the concept within the enterprise.

Establish and Maintain a Data-Driven Culture

Change is hard and it must be monitored and supported at every step if it is to succeed. Habits are hard to break and people sometimes feel threatened if they perceive that their role might be in jeopardy. Establish a culture that clearly states and supports the idea of data-driven decisions, reporting, collaboration, sharing and team results and metrics. When you receive a report, ask questions about the data and where it originated, how it was gathered, etc.

Ask what techniques were used. The first time you ask, you may get a blank stare but the second time you ask, the team member will know what is expected and will have done their homework. Use team meetings and presentations to provide your own metrics and analytics on things so you can role model these changes and tell your team members that if they need help preparing a report or analyzing an issue, there are resources that are ready to help. Depending on the size of the team and the resource demands, analysts, data scientists and IT may be assigned these mentoring tasks, or you may use champions and power users within each department. The latter is the preferred method as these people are typically more familiar to the team and it is likely they will feel more comfortable seeking them out and will take the time to talk to them because they know them well.

A simpler way to think about creating this data-driven approach and implementing in on a daily basis is to think of your products and services as being comprised of materials, pieces, steps in a process AND data. Every product or service should be built on the foundation of data – research about changing customer needs and buying behaviors, analysis of risk, mitigation of downtime, resource requirements, investment needs, etc.

Much has been written about the benefits and future of data democratization in business but, to get there, an enterprise must understand its need for data, who is and will be using that data, how teams work today and how they will work in the future, and how to change the culture and sustain the use of these tools and this philosophy within the enterprise. If a business does not do the hard work of preparing for and planning its strategy for this change, it is not likely to succeed.

Like a home renovation, data democratization does not miraculously happen on its own, simply because someone decides it is a good idea. There is a lot of demolition, hammering and hard work. But, when the dust settles, you’ll be glad you put in the effort!

Original Post : Data Democratization Think of it as Home Renovation!

What Does Becoming a Citizen Data Scientist Get Me?

When your enterprise turns to you to inhabit the Citizen Data Scientist role, it may (or may not) provide information on what that role is, why it is important for business users to transform into the role and exactly how the transformation will work. Online training programs, like the one mentioned in the closing lines of this article, provide information on the role, its purpose, how to collaborate with data scientists and IT, how augmented analytics solutions work and the types of analytical techniques you will be using.

This article is not meant to cover those topics but, rather, to provide a bit of information on why you might want to explore and embrace this role, what it can do for your career and your visibility and other factors to consider. So when someone says, ‘I hereby pronounce you a Citizen Data Scientist’, you are more likely to look at the pronouncement as a positive thing!

Adding to Your Resume – Using a self-serve augmented analytics solution may not come naturally to you, but with the right solution the tasks you will perform will become second nature in no time. In the meantime, you can explore, create, test theories and dive into the system to truly understand how it will support you in your role, and how you can take your knowledge and use it to ask the right questions and analyze data to make fact-based decisions. Adding ‘analytics’ and knowledge of analytical techniques to your resume is not a bad thing. Whether you are angling for a promotion or looking for a position in another company, these are skills you can use. Every business today needs to optimize productivity and resources, and a knowledge and use of analytics will job the job done faster and with better results!

Gaining Visibility – Rather than pushing for things to stay the way they are, embrace the change. Learn the solution and learn how to use augmented analytics and your role as Citizen Data Scientist to gain visibility. Be the one in the room who produces reports and information based on facts. Make observations, recommendations and plans based on the data contained within the enterprise, and use that information to your benefit. Make suggestions to your manager or team leader and show them the data to back it up. They will remember your contribution!

Having a Voice for Future Changes – If you are actively involved in using analytics and analytical solutions, you are likely to be on the team that is asked for suggestions for upgrades, future technology support and ways in which the organization can engage with and use this data and augmented analytics solutions and techniques to improve results. Where and how will the new solution be rolled out to have the greatest impact? Instead of waiting for someone to make an arbitrary decision, a business user acting as a Citizen Data Scientist has the experience and skill to provide advice and contribute to the plan.

Being a Champion – Flex your mentoring muscles and show that you are a leader. If you are actively using augmented analytics, natural language processing (NLP) tools, search analytics, smart data visualization, predictive analytics and self-serve data preparation to do your job you are well-positioned to become a champion, to explain the benefits to other, more skeptical users, and to lend a helping hand when someone has a question. Being a champion positions you to show your leadership skills!

These are just a few of the ways the Citizen Data Scientist role can benefit you. For more information on Citizen Data Scientist initiatives and how to successfully implement this type of initiative in your business, explore these Citizen Data Scientist Blog Publications.

If you are a prospective Citizen Data Scientist, you don’t have to do this alone! Contact Us to today or Click Here to explore training for Citizen Data Scientists, designed to help you succeed on your Citizen Data Scientist journey.

Original Post : I’m a Citizen Data Scientist! But Do I Want to Be?

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Knowledgebase Articles

1. LDAP/AD : AD Integration in Smarten
2. Geomaps: Workflow to create Default geomap

Forum Topics

1. Email Settings : Can I use two factor SMTP account for outgoing emails from Smarten server?
2. LDAP/AD : How to configure AD in Smarten

Predictive Usecases

1. Handling Missing Values using Smarten Augmented Analytics

If you don’t find what you need in the Support Portal, we hope you will contact us with your questions, comments or suggestions. We are here to help and to support your business goals and success!

URL: Smarten Customer and Partner Community
Email: support@Smarten.com

Original Post : Smarten Support Portal Updates – December – 2021!

The SI Partner has a Client that is a wholly owned agency of the Government of India, and was created under the Ministries of Finance, to act as a common trustee company for multiple credit guarantee funds. The Partner’s Client required IT consulting for augmented analytics services and solutions, and the SI Partner requested assistance in delivering services to its Client.

The services and solution provided by the Smarten team ensured rapid access to information for the SI Partner team so that the SI Partner team was able to provide the necessary MIS service to governing authorities and effectively serve its internal MIS needs without downtime or a gap in services. The resulting analytical integration provided crucial, timely and clear data for fact-based decisions and supports flexible growth and scalability.

Smarten supported the SI Partner team throughout the project lifecycle as it served its Client and end users and the Client MIS needs and ensured that the team could leverage technology to help its governing authorities with required analytics. The solution provides adaptive and flexible augmented analytics to allow the Client to easily change processes and adapt to business and market changes. The Smarten solution is web-based, and provides a self-serve system that is affordable, dependable and scalable. The solution provides a comprehensive fit for this public sector Client and allows users to optimize data sources and centralize access to information at a reduced cost and time so users can easily and quickly deliver and use analytics for monitoring disbursement of loans and enable meaningful insight and decision support related to various schemes, loans and transactions.