InfoAssist: Past, Present, and Future
Brian Carter
September 16, 2010
What we’ll cover…
Technology Overview
Functional Overview
Product walk-through
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Introduced:
June 2008
Release 7.6.7
http://www.eweek-digital.com/eweek/20090119/?pg=38
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InfoAssist: One Tool for Business!
WEB 2.0 MEETS BI
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What is Web 2.0?
According to Tim O'Reilly: “Web 2.0 is the
business revolution in the computer industry
caused by the move to the Internet as a platform…”
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Benefits of a Web 2.0 architecture
 Rich – robust and intuitive
 Responsive – quickly updates
 Look and feel similar to desktop
 Zero footprint
 Lower Total Cost of Ownership
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InfoAssist: One Tool for Business!
KEY TO SUCCESS?
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Keys to user adoption
 Familiar
 Flexible
 Easy
 Power
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InfoAssist: One Tool for Business!
AD HOC REPORTING
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Ad hoc reporting defined
Wikipedia:
"ad hoc" reporting systems allow the users
themselves to create specific,
customized queries. Typically this
would be via a user-friendly
GUI-based system without the
need for the in-depth knowledge
of SQL, or database schema
that a programmer would have.
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InfoAssist: One Tool for Business!
COMPARISON
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Ad hoc Reporting with WebFOCUS
 Guided ad hoc and InfoAssist
 Application versus a tool
 Applications can be rolled out to millions of users
 Customer Facing, Scalable, No training required
 Tools are better suited for “power users”
 Much more flexible and powerful
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Comparison: InfoAssist to Dev Studio
Function
Developer Studio
InfoAssist
Installation
Desktop install
Zero footprint
Creating metadata
Can create or change
metadata
No metadata management
Data access
Access any data source
Access any data source
Manipulating, joining data
Join, Hold, Match, and Modify
data
Join Data
Query, report, chart
Reports, charts, compound
reporting with access to 4GL
query language
Reports, Charts, and compound
documents/dashboards
Calculations, virtual fields
Yes, plus inter-row financial
calculations
Yes
Filtering/prompting
Yes, plus creation of ad hoc
launch pages
Yes
All output formats
All basic output formats
Publishing
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Comparison: InfoAssist to Dev Studio
Developer Studio
InfoAssist
Developer: application based
Business User: query based with
getting started wizard
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Comparison: InfoAssist to Dev Studio
Developer Studio
InfoAssist
Drag and drop report creation
Office 2007 look and feel with
WYSISWYG drag and drop
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Comparison: InfoAssist to Dev Studio
InfoAssist: intelligent
ribbon based options
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InfoAssist: One Tool for Business!
FEATURES!
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Key Feature Highlights
Now Shipping
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Flex Charts
Active Dashboards
Coordinated Documents
Recent Items
Active Preview Charts
Use Existing Reports in
Documents
• Use Reporting Objects in
Documents
• Excel 2007 Reports
Coming Soon
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InfoMini
Slicers Tab
Active Dashboard Prompts
Active Dashboard Templates
Save and Publish
A Brand New Look
Cube Browser
Create Files & Sub-queries
Advanced Charting
Capabilities
• Multi Fact Table Support
• Metadata Creation
• Security Based
Personalization
Flex Charts
Flex Charts
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Active Dashboards Flex
Active Dashboards Flex
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Active Dashboards HTML
Active Dashboards HTML
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Coordinate Documents
Coordinated Documents
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Recent Queries
Recent Items
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Active Preview Charts
Active Preview Charts
Solid border
indicates currently
selected element
Dashed border
indicates the item
you are currently
hovering over
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Coming Soon
WebFOCUS 7.7.02 &
WebFOCUS 8 Features
InfoMini
InfoMini
Filters Tab
SlicersTab
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Filters Tab
Active Dashboard Prompts
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Filters Tab
Save and Publish
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A brand new look
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Cube Browser
Cube Browser
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Hold Files
Set the Destination
to File
Create Files
& Subqueries
To create a
subquery click
here
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Create Files
& Subqueries
Hold Files
Fields from file
Original request
and subquery
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Advanced Charting Capabilities
Advanced Charting
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Demonstration