December, 2006

APOS BI Tools Suite

Custom Development for Unique Requirements

Business Objects becomes an APOS Global Reseller *Press Release

Webcast - Wed, Dec 13 at 10 am PST (1 pm EST)

Join us for this webcast overview of the APOS BI Tools suite for the BusinessObjects XI platform.

The main purpose of the webinar is to provide high level information to help you better assess the range of solutions available. Learn how APOS BI Tools can help you leverage and extend the value of your business intelligence investment.

APOS BI Tools Feature Comparison *Compare features
Check out these new aids designed to allow you to:

1) review the list of features included in specific APOS BI Tools solutions

2) review how the features for each APOS BI Tool compare between:

• BusinessObjects XI R2

• BusinessObjects XI

• Crystal Enterprise v.10

These feature comparison charts are available for:

• Bursting Manager
• InfoScheduler
• Instance Manager
• KPI
• Object Manager

To download the full comparison matrix reports, please visit here.

Case Study - Columbia Gas Transmission, a NiSource Company  *Cool customer

"When we reviewed the APOS InfoScheduler tool, there was no question that we would achieve return on investment within a couple of months. It saves us about 16-20 hours a month," stated Brendan Bell, Work Management Consultant, Columbia Gas Transmission, a NiSource company.

APOS BI Tools Used:
APOS InfoScheduler for BusinessObjects XI R2

Background:
NiSource’s natural gas transmission companies operate nearly 17,000 miles of strategically positioned interstate natural gas pipelines, integrated with one of the nation’s largest underground storage systems.

Challenge:
NiSource pipeline companies needed a centralized data warehouse system for various financial tools that provided on demand budgeting data on a month to month basis. Brendan was responsible for the delivery of these reports to the various internal departments. He immediately looked to APOS to efficiently accomplish this task.

Solution:
Based on a freeware tool that Brendan had previously downloaded from the APOS web site, he was familiar with the APOS reputation as a well respected company with a variety of good quality tools. It wasn’t long after he started his research – he found the InfoScheduler tool. It provided Columbia Gas Transmission with the report scheduling functions that they were looking for. The InfoScheduler tool cut down on the time required to schedule 3,000 monthly reports that needed to be rescheduled every month.

Columbia Gas Transmission uses InfoScheduler for internal tracking of capital and expenditure reports. It is used to distribute information within the NiSource pipeline companies. "Because we are still working through new processes – data issues crop up and we have to reschedule reports; InfoScheduler allows us to do this easily. It is improving productivity and providing a common access point for our monthly budget reporting," Brendan continued. "Implementation was a piece of cake and very straight forward." Brendan set up a database of report schedules that is placed into a spreadsheet; there are about 20 or 30 reports each with different parameters. InfoScheduler allows them to generate these reports very quickly. The main features of the InfoScheduler are time savings and cost effectiveness. "There were no disruptions to our business processes with the implementation and it solved the business issues we were trying to solve."

Visit here to view this case study in full and other APOS case studies.

APOS BI Tools Suite *Extend BusinessObjects XI and Crystal Enterprise

One of our challenges is keeping our customers and colleagues current on the APOS BI Tools suite as it grows. Visit here to request demo download instructions and our current price list.

System Integration . . .

Integration Kit for ESRI - integration between Business Objects and ESRI GIS

Administration - System Monitoring . . .

Instance Monitor - email notification of failed instances

RealTime Monitor - powerful SNMP monitoring & control of servers, with alerts

KPI - creates metadata for analysis - who is viewing which reports, license usage analysis, server activity monitoring and more

Administration - Scheduling . . .

Bursting Manager - burst a large instance into small ones, burst one report to many

InfoScheduler - power batch scheduling from Microsoft Excel

Administration - Instance Administration . . .

Archive Manager - report instance archiving with business rules, with restore capability!

Instance Manager - administrator power tool for managing large instance systems

Administration - System Administration . . .

Object Manager - report promotion, object management, security maintenance

Extending the User Interface . . .

Dynamic Parameters - SQL-based, user-specific pick lists, cascading parameters

Extending Distribution . . .

Processing Extension RAD - fast track processing extension development

Add-In Wrapper for BusinessObjects XI Release 2 - Crystal Reports Add-In menu fast track integration

Custom Development for Unique Requirements

If you have a unique reporting system requirement, let us know. We love to work on special projects and regularly save our customers a lot of time and money by using APOS BI Tools as a fast-track foundation for a specific customized solution.