Tag: Ross

What is Ross EPM? Our 2nd video in the series.

Posted on November 7, 2014 by - Blog, Ross

Are you confused as to where things are going with your Ross EPM (Enterprise Performance Management) Business Intelligence solution?  If you have second guessed what you own with Aptean’s Ross EPM, what value you currently have with the solution, and what the future holds for EPM, watch the second video in the series as Business Impact breaks down the components, defines what you have, and lays out what is valuable within your  current EPM solution.

Watch this short video to learn some of the critical items you should know about EPM.

A few things you’ll learn in the second video in the series:

  • Clarification on BI terms.  ETL, WhereScape, TARGIT, Cubes – what is all this stuff?
  • What have I licensed with Ross EPM?  Is this a tool that I should keep? We think so, and let us walk through what you own and what your investment is worth.
  • What am I paying maintenance for? And what am I getting? Should I continue?
  • Do I have anything worth saving? Of course you do, and we’ll explain what and how to get the most out of it.

By the way, if you missed the introductory video… check out the first video in the series here!

Aptean Edge Review – From Behind the Sign

Posted on May 21, 2014 by - Blog, Conferences, Ross

Roughly 1000 customers from a dozen computer systems have come to Aptean Edge at the MGM Grand hotel in Las Vegas, most happy to be out of the office and eager to hear the Aptean updates. Like most user conferences, Aptean Edge has sessions to lay out their road map, changes, updates and all the things that you do at a user show. In the keynote, it was the standard stuff on where they’re going, how much they value listening to the customers, the continued investment into each of their products, along with stuff on the cloud, mobility, changes in the world, etc. The facility is nice and food is reasonably good. The beers are expensive ($12 each) in the restaurants, but it is Vegas, so…Aptean Edge Booth

For us at Business Impact, we’re a first time exhibitor. We’ve gotten to see several of our customers in business intelligence, and that’s always nice. In addition it’s a back to my roots feel as I once worked for Ross Systems, which is one of the ERP systems under the Aptean umbrella. My old friends still working there have been very welcoming and cordial.

The big news from Aptean Edge has been the selection of a corporate wide BI tool – QlikView. The teams have pre-integrated six systems including Ross. There has been little word about the current BI like EPM at Ross and where that will lead other than to QlikView. There is a session on Analytics Strategy that we’ll attend and get more info out to Ross customers interested.

The show wraps up on Thursday afternoon. We are raffling off a fantastic bottle of Far Niente Cabernet Sauvignon 2009 at 5:30 pm on Wednesday evening – TONIGHT. Stop by and say hello “without a care” and enter to win a bottle of one of our client’s remarkable wines.

ViewPoints Business Intelligence Event was a Success!

Posted on July 1, 2013 by - Blog, Conferences, General, Targit

We want to thank all of our clients and partners that made ViewPoints business intelligence event a success in 2013. With so much changing in the business intelligence world, the day was spent discussing, presenting and learning new concepts in BI.  A few highlights from the ViewPoints event:[quote align=”right” color=”#999999″]”You put on a great venue. I like your presentation style, Doug! You find a way to make BI and data fun and relevant to non-geeks.”  Jean Sperlak – Olap Office [/quote]

Doug Hoogervorst, with all his humor, kicked off the ViewPoints event with a very popular topic – Master Data Management.  A challenge all organizations face because data resides in multiple systems.  How do we keep “item” from one system equal to “product” from another and “part code” from a third? MDM is the hot topic in business intelligence because it is not easy. For a limited time, you can access his presentation materials here! 
  

Many of our clients participated in presentations throughout the day.  Ava Jones, Enterprise BI Manager for AdvancePierre Foods presented with Doug in “PC: Not Politically Correct – but Product Contribution”. She discussed how APF’s Business Intelligence solution takes their data from 10 different data sources and applies that information to the actual product cost. Providing this information to Sales and the Management Team was crucial. Not to mention, the solution saved APF $50,000+ in the first six months in man hours alone.

Neal Cram, Don Sebastiani & Sons, was kind enough to present with the TARGIT Team during “Making Beautiful Dashboards: How to create the best dashboards for you organization.” A very popular session from the surveyed attendees commenting that, “creating dashboards, gauges, and “out of the box” data displays were a highlight to the event.”

Our Partners, TARGIT and OLAP Office held widely attended breakout sessions in the afternoon. TARGIT demonstrated their new release TARGIT 2013, which is expected to be available the beginning of July 2013. Howard Taylor, from OLAP Office, gave a informative presentation on budgeting for multiple reasons (financial, sales, depletions, production, reforecast) all in one tool! [quote align=”right” color=”#999999″]”Well done! I thoroughly enjoyed Dan’s 201 training session.” Colleen Gettle – Don Sebastiani & Sons[/quote]

Francis Smith, Senior Consultant, and Dan Cowan, VP of Consulting, led engaging TARGIT Training 101 and 201 courses the day before the event. The participants were thrilled that we added the courses to the event, learning more advanced views and calculations with the TARGIT tool.

Just before we finished the event, the Business Impact Consultants were available for Advisory Time, where we answered client specific one-on-one questions, recapped any of the sessions, and helped anyone with further training.

Winding up the event, we had a wine tasting and networking hour for all attendees. The wine was phenomenal, as our clients shared a few bottles from their wineries with the group.  The tasting was a great way to recap the day, network, and learn from each other on how to benefit further from BI.

We are looking forward to our next ViewPoints event. Thank you again customers, partners and Business Impact’s employees for making the event a great success!