Year: 2022

Hire MEAN Programmers and Enjoy all the Benefits of MEAN!

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October 31, 2022

What is MEAN, and Why Should I Hire MEAN Programmers to Get the Most Out of the Components?

In its review of the MEAN stack development suite, TechTarget.com states that, ‘(The MEAN) stack of development tools helps to eliminate the language barriers often experienced in software development.’ There is, perhaps, no better way to explain why the MEAN stack of tools and services has gained such popularity. Developers know their job and their tools but, when these tools are combined to provide more ease-of-use and to help developers navigate and leverage the various features, the development process is much simpler and quicker.

Continue reading “Hire MEAN Programmers and Enjoy all the Benefits of MEAN!”

Embedded BI & Integration APIs Ensure User Adoption!

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October 31, 2022

Business Users Can and Will Use Embedded BI to Improve Performance!

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.

Ensure User Adoption of Analytics with Embedded BI

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 : Embedded BI & Integration APIs Ensure User Adoption!

Digital Transformation (Dx) is Crucial To Your Success!

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October 18, 2022

Trying to Decide if Digital Transformation is Important? Here’s Some Facts and Figures!

If your business is considering a Digital Transformation (Dx) initiative, these statistics may be of interest you:

Continue reading “Digital Transformation (Dx) is Crucial To Your Success!”

The Efficacy of Citizen Data Scientists is Proven!

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October 13, 2022

Listen to the Experts: Citizen Data Scientist Results are Real!

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.

The Results Are In: Citizen Data Scientists ARE Beneficial

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 Efficacy of Citizen Data Scientists is Proven!

Users Love Self-Serve BI and Cross-Tab Analytics!

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October 11, 2022

Ensure Business Users Will Adopt BI Tools with Self-Serve BI and Cross-Tab Analytics!

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.

Enable User Adoption with Self-Serve BI and Cross-Tab Analytics

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.

Original Post : Enable User Adoption with Self-Serve BI and Cross-Tab Analytics!

Build Your Software Team for Cross-Platform Apps Projects!

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October 10, 2022

Cross-Platform Apps Are Exploding. Hire Experts To Ensure That YOURS Is Successful!

A recent Statista report reveals that the popularity of cross-platform applications is growing by leaps and bounds with 3.5 million apps available on Google Play, 2.2 million in the Apple App Store and nearly 500,000 in the Amazon AppStore. The popularity of cross-platform applications is not surprising. Today’s consumers and business users want access to their favorite apps from all of their devices, whether those devices be based on iOS or on Android. Developers and service providers must satisfy these expectations by offering seamless access and navigation on all types of devices.

Continue reading “Build Your Software Team for Cross-Platform Apps Projects!”

Will My Business Benefit from Mobile Analytics for Tally ERP?

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October 4, 2022

How Do I Know if I Need to Integrate Analytics with My Tally ERP Solution?

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.’

Should I Add Integrated, Mobile Analytics to Tally ERP?

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.

How Do I Know if I Need to Integrate Analytics with My Tally ERP Solution?

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

Smarten Support Portal Updates – September – 2022!

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October 3, 2022

We invite you to explore our latest knowledgebase articles and to join the Smarten user community on Smarten Support Portal.

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

Knowledgebase Articles

  1. Log-in & Profile Management : Unable to Change the Password
  2. Working with Tabular : Serial number column in Tabular
  3. Working with Dashboard : Improve dashboard loading performance for dashboards with multiple objects

Predictive Use cases

  1. Handling Missing Values using Smarten Augmented Analytics
  2. Handling Multicollinearity using Smarten Augmented Analytics
  3. Sampling Data using Smarten Augmented Analytics

Forum Topics

  1. Dashboard : How to improve the dashboard loading time in Smarten?
  2. My user list is empty while publishing any object.

Manuals and Technical Guides

  1. Smarten-Concept-Manual-SSDP
  2. Smarten-Working-with-GeoMaps

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 – September – 2022!

Predictive Analytics Business Use Cases Ensure Results!

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September 27, 2022

Apply Predictive Analytics to Specific Business Use Cases for Real Results!

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.

Minimum Viable Products (MVP) Produces Better Business Start-Up Results

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 : Predictive Analytics Business Use Cases Ensure Results!

What to Know to Choose the Right Mobile BI Solution!

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September 23, 2022

What Should My Business Consider When Selecting a Mobile BI Solution?

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.

What You Need to Know Before You Select a Mobile BI Solution

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 to Know to Choose the Right Mobile BI Solution!