Consultants' Q&A
I'm a consultant, what's in for me? Viney@rd is a simple and versatile tool to implement Business Intelligence projects for your customers. It provides easy dimensional modeling, automated database creation, a set of transformations to work on data and move them around. It has a very low footprint on customer's systems; it is based on the Office/SQL server stack so the chances that it will be rejected for technical or configuration issues are very low. The moderate price level let a larger customer's budget share be devoted to the project itself. What's the ideal Viney@ard customer? It does not depend on company size.It does not depend on the subject being analyzed. It depends on the information flow and users' attitude. If the users suffer from the spreadsheet hell, AKA spreadmarting, Viney@rd is an easy way out. If they need to manage classifications or to enrich data with other unstructured content, it gives them a powerful yet easy tool to do that. So any business can benefit someway from Viney@rd. It can be the only BI and spreadsheet automation system or it can be deployed side by side with other systems, enriching the user with an unique freedom. Many large business, more, have processes unmonitored by classical BI.
Functions like cleanup management, office boys or stationary management, in large companies, are often neglected but are complex enough to require a proper analysis. Viney@rd offers a viable solution without involving large enterprise systems. But, how it works, from a technical perspective? Viney@rd is based on the Excel/SQL server stack. It is developed in VBA. The architecture is classical client-server. Upon installation, the user's PC will host an Excel macro file and an Excel Add-in. The macro file is called Masterbook: it provides the administrative interface to create dimensions, models (aka datamarts), load data and run transformations. The Model Doc Excel Add-in adds a toolbar to query data and creating pivot tables on Viney@ard models. Queries are saved together with the Excel file but can be transferred from file to file. The resulting database has few dictionary tables containing site metadata, two tables for each dimension and a table for each model. This structure is simple enough to be easyly loaded with data. What about education and partnership? Viney@rd is so new that no structured program is available yet. None the less, in few months, a partner program will be set up featuring: - Technical documentation on application internals
- Modeling and report design tips & use cases
- Fast lane for support requests
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