The Indicee Blog

Reflecting upon Sage Insights 2010

by Scott Pledger on May 22nd, 2010

I am back in the office after a whirlwind trip to Denver for the annual Sage Insights conference. This 2010 edition was my first as a Sage alumnus and I came away with a feeling that not only is Sage, and its ecosystem of partners, world-class in business but also as people. I guess I knew this all along, but sometimes it takes time away to truly appreciate it.

Here are a few of my conference observations:

Cloud computing is moving to the forefront of the Sage product strategy. In his keynote presentation, Himanshu Palsule, EVP of product strategy and marketing, called cloud computing one of two major trends to capitalize upon and introduced Sage North America’s cloud-based “connected services” as a key product strategy pillar. Connected services take “the richness of on-premise applications and connect to the reach of cloud-based services.” The launches of Sage SalesLogix Cloud and Sage Fundraising Online are examples of Sage dipping a toe in the “cloud” water (does that make it “rain”?)

Visitors at Indicee's booth at Sage Insights keenly interested in Cloud BI....or maybe Craig was sharing another uproarious story from trade shows past.

Business intelligence continues to gain in prominence within the Sage community. This year’s conference featured an entire presentation track dedicated to business intelligence, analysis, and reporting. And if the buzz at the Indicee booth was any indication, the opportunities for cloud-based analysis and reporting solutions are immense. Business partners outlined the challenges that clients are facing when it comes to creating and updating reports especially when the data resides in multiple systems such as Sage ERP MAS or Sage ERP Accpac and SageCRM. Conversations also revealed that the complexity and costs of typical on-premise BI solutions are often barriers to adoption.

Sage ERP Accpac – still near and dear to me – continues to garner much attention as the ERP of the future (very near future with Version 6 beta just around the corner); the slick user interface and improved workflow continue to impress. Kudos to the product team under the leadership of Scott Zandbergen, Erik Kaas, Alok Tyagi, and others.

The Simply Accounting group under the stewardship of Jamie Sutherland continues to be one of the most innovative teams in the Sage family. They have followed up on the success of Billing Boss, the online invoicing tool, with a mobile payment processing solution called Payment Boss.

Sage continues to be the “partner’s choice” for top vendor–forthrightness, integrity, and accessibility are a few of the words that come to mind to describe Sage. Speaking with fellow attendees and trolling the online forums, common themes are the positive feeling about the Sage team and a real bullishness about the Sage strategy.

A big shout-out to the entire Sage team for pulling off another successful Insights conference. Can’t wait until Sage Summit 2011 in DC.

Keep dialed into this channel for more Indicee news including the upcoming launch of our iPhone & iPad mobile reporting application (incidentally, Himanshu indicated that mobility was the other key trend influencing Sage product direction).

Scott Pledger

  • Share/Bookmark
Filed under: Accounting, Analysts, Asking questions, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Company News, Events, Indicee Product, Industry, Industry Insights, Marketing, SAAS, software as a service
Tags:

Road Warriors

by Craig Todd on May 18th, 2010

What is it about life in a startup that is so compelling? Certainly not the coffee. We have amazing developers in our company, none of whom left a promising career as a barrista to join our team.

For me, it’s the opportunity to have impact. The ability to go out on a limb. The chance to come up with ridiculously creative ways to save a buck.

Attending Sage Insights 2010 conference in Denver this week. Hanging with old friends and making new ones in the Mile High City. For those of us that have done time as the “booth babe” or “demo dolly”, traipsing our laptops, banners, flags, t-shirts, business cards and promotional literature around the country, we recognize the high cost of shipping all of our wares from show to show. After 10 years and over 100 shows, someone suggested I try taking my booth on the airplane with me. Ok, it’s hardly carry-on luggage. The pilot never comes on to suggest that anyone wheeling aboard a trade show booth should please place it in the overhead bins wheels first. I took it anyway. It’s about $800 to ship one of these things, not to mention, for us Canadians, the pain and suffering of dealing with customs brokers while cross-border shipping.

So, away I went, booth in hand. If you’ve never shipped one, they’re not exactly teensy. About 65lbs and over 3 feet tall. Basically, it’s like shipping an 8 year old. A really wide 8 year old with wheels on the bottom. I expected it to take a while for everyone to figure out what to do with my over-sized package, so I made sure I arrived very early for my flight. Much to my surprise, they’ve handled this sort of thing before. No problem. 25 bucks and a baggage tag later, I was dropping the booth off at the oversize bag check-in.

Of course, arriving in Denver, I fully expected to deal with lost luggage, my booth bound for Spain. Nope. There it was, in all its glory, already unloaded from the belt when I arrived by the carousel, and as fast as I could wheel it over to the regular luggage offload area, there was my suitcase. Now, of course, I’m expecting the worst. Nothing goes this well for me when traveling. Must be a hassle waiting for me with the cab, the hotel, the delivery of the new shirts, something. Wheeling out the big black case, the suitcase and the laptop bag, I head for the taxi stand, fully expecting a negotiation with a mini-van driver on the oversize nature of my belongings. Instead, I’m greeted enthusiastically by a driver who insists he can fit everything into his car. And he does. Flat rate to city, just like everyone else. Tipped well.

Checking in? Everything is ready Mr. Todd (note, they actually used my real last name and got it right. Interchangeable first and last names are a curse, but that’s a whole other story.) Oh, and there’s a package waiting for you – must be those shirts you ordered. Wow. At this point, I’m waiting for the Apocalypse. Nothing goes this well on the road.

The point of the story? None really. The next step was to get ourselves to the store and buy some monitors to give away at the booth. Renting ANYTHING for a trade show is outrageously expensive. $1400 for internet service, $1000 for carpeting and vacuuming, $300 to rent a monitor, $3.50 for a bad cup of coffee – you get the idea. So, instead, I buy brand new monitors and give them away. Makes me happy – no waste. Instead of renting at inflated rates and wasting money, I get to make 2 people really happy as they wing home with their new monitors.

We head down to the local Office Depot store and find the monitors we want. “We’ll take two”, we say. “Sorry, I can only sell you one”, is the reply. Apparently, “one to show and one to go” is their stocking policy and they refuse to sell their display monitors. Fortunately, the store manager arranges for us to pick up a second one at the other store. We hop on Denver’s free tram service (really cool service that runs the length of the 16th Street mall) and a short 3 or 4 or 6 or 7 blocks away – depending on which story you believe – we pick up our second monitor and we’re away to the races. Oh ya, stopped by the Capitol Building for a photo opp with monitor – I think we’re making this a tradition.

Keynote session has just let out. People to meet, coffee to be had. 7 hours at the booth ahead. No sweat, I’m wearing comfortable shoes.

  • Share/Bookmark
Filed under: Company News, Industry, Marketing, culture, stories

F5 Expo to host Cloud Computing panel April 7, 2010

by Geoff Devereux on March 26th, 2010

The Massive Technology Show, a Vancouver tradition, has been reinvented this year as F5 Expo.  The meaning behind the name comes from the “Refresh” function the F5 key represents on a computer keyboard.  The rationale is, “in the face of rapid change, who wouldn’t need to hit the refresh button?!”

The one-day conference is aimed at business executives interested in the latest trends in the online space.  This year’s focus is social media, search marketing, mobile applications, and (our favourite) cloud computing.

Our CEO, Mark Cunningham, will be joining a panel of local “digerati” in the cloud space to share insights into where cloud computing came from and where it’s going!

Tickets are still available! You can check out the Tradeshow, the Sessions, or the Full Meal Deal that includes taking in the Keynote Address on Innovation by Canada’s own Malcolm Gladwell!

Register here.

Enjoy!

  • Share/Bookmark
Filed under: Cloud Computing, Company News, Events, Industry Insights
Tags: , , , , ,

Automate your data uploads

by Graham Ross on March 4th, 2010

New feature lets Indicee do the uploading

We have received lots of feedback about how easy (and cost effective) it is to get up and running with Indicee compared to traditional BI tools.  Why is it so much easier?  Because Indicee does not require a direct connection to your data base.  Instead, with Indicee you simply upload the reports or data export files from your applications.

Manual uploads work really well for small deployments and make a huge difference in how fast our customers can get up and running. However, once users see the benefit of easy access to information they inevitably want more data and want it updated more frequently. Up until now, the only way to get data into Indicee was to save a report or data file to your computer and then upload the file to Indicee.  Uploading a single file once a week is easy, uploading 10 files every day starts to take a lot of time.

Uploading reports – hands free

Indicee users have asked for an auto uploader.  We have added it, and more. Indicee (with your permission), can now be set up to grab data files from your computer.  Here are some examples of how it works:

  • Schedule your reports to a folder. Lots of applications allow you to schedule reports to a folder on your computer.  You schedule the reports to run every hour or day and schedule Indicee to grab the reports from that folder and upload them to your data mart
  • Schedule your queries.  Some customers have set up queries to grab data. You can use a program like Windows scheduler to automatically run the queries and have Indicee grab the data files and upload them to your data mart
  • Direct database connection. For more complex BI requirements, it is not always possible to find reports that contain all the data needed to answer your questions.  Indicee now has the option of connecting directly to common business applications or running custom SQL queries and then uploading the resulting data

Want to try it?

We are looking for early adopters.  For existing customers,  contact support@indicee.com and we can add the auto uploader to your Indicee solution.  New customers can take advantage our our Free48 team who will get your up and running within 48 hours. Contact our Free48 team to get started.

  • Share/Bookmark
Filed under: Company News, Indicee Product

Indicee for 2010 : New look, New product, New offerings

by Mark Cunningham on January 27th, 2010

One of the great things about a Software as a Service (SaaS) application like Indicee is the ability to update features and capabilities in near real-time. If you have been watching over the past few months you will have noticed that Indicee has been changing almost weekly based on usage patterns and direct user feedback.

We are excited to announce that we have released a major update of our service based primarily on YOUR feedback. The one thing we can never say enough….WE WANT YOUR FEEDBACK. Good or bad we really want to hear what is working or not working in Indicee.

So let’s take a look at what our users have asked for in Indicee.

The Entry Point – Indicee.com

The main goal of our website has been to quickly communicate what Indicee does, how it works and how you can get going in 10 minutes or less. We have been focused on doing this in fewer and fewer clicks without losing some of the detail that new users want. Getting users into our application quickly is critical so we added a few key “on boarding” capabilities including:

Free48 – if you are not a Do It Yourself (DIY) type person. Let us get you started in 48 hours for free

Live Chat Support – You will see links to live chat all over Indicee.com. Take advantage of talking to Todd, our friendly support dude, live and in person to help you use Indicee more quickly and effectively.

Online Discussion Forums – our forums are new so we don’t have alot of action in there yet but we are monitoring them regularly. So jump in and start posting.

New Quickstarts

I don’t know anyone that doesn’t like to make things happen fast. Indicee QuickStarts have been designed to provide users with pre-packaged solutions for the most common Small Medium Business (SMB) accounting products on the market. A Quickstart is a pre-built reporting database (we call this a data mart) and a bunch of canned reports that you can use immediately.  If you use applications like Intuit Quickbooks, Sage Accpac, Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains or Softrak Adagio using a QuickStart is one of the best ways to get up and running with Indicee. Simply grab the existing output from your accounting application, load it into the QuickStart Wizard and you will have reports and dashboards that you can view, analyze, share and collaborate on in less than 10 minutes.

What if you don’t have one of these accounting applications? No problem….you can build a solution from scratch yourself or you can give us a call and we can get you started with our Free48. Building something from scratch doesn’t take days. It can be done in minutes or, at the most, hours.

My Stuff Overview

When you login into the Indicee application the first thing you see is the My Stuff tab. This is the main landing page of the application. If you have used our previous version you will see a major user interface redesign to enable greater usability. Here are a few of the changes:

  • Replaced the drop down navigation box in favor of a sub-navigation menu.
  • Added a “Tips” section that you can toggle between “show” and “hide.” We have created a bunch of videos and FAQ tips that will give you greater self-guidance when using Indicee.
  • Improved graphics and layout to highlight “Latest Dashboard and Reports,” “Latest Data,” and “Latest Comments.”

my stuff screen shot

Dashboards

If there is one “big ticket” item that we have added to this release it is Indicee Dashboards. So what is a dashboard? A dashboard allows at-a-glance visualization of company’s health and monitoring of key performance indicators. Simple to understand and high in ROI, dashboards are becoming “must-haves” for all businesses. Indicee Dashboards are simple to create and use. Traditional Business Intelligence tools usually require technical consultants or IT people to create the dashboard. Not Indicee Dashboards….mere mortals can create them.

Indicee Dashboards will display anywhere from 1-4 key visualizations that are generated by your Indicee Reports. You can share dashboards into private or public groups and users can drill down from a dashboard into a more detailed report. Keep your eye out for a more detailed post on “How to Create a Dashboard.”

dashboard sreenshot


Reportsquestion editor

Indicee’s core capability is to easily create ad-hoc reports, using our unique “Intelligent Question” interface, from the data you have loaded . We have added a number of key enhancements in our new release to provide greater usability and functionality when creating reports.

A few key additions are:

  • Improved user interface when selecting report elements in the What, How and Filter sections
  • “Is Not” filters enable you to select things like “all states EXCEPT for Alaska”

Visualizations

Indicee has increased the number of chart types that you can choose from and has incorporated additional features such as data point pop-up bubbles, stacked charts and a table view.

stacked bar with data bubble

Data marts

First of all let’s just be clear on what a “data mart” is. In a nutshell, a data mart is the “bucket” where we load the data that you upload to Indicee. When you upload your sales data from your accounting system and your customer data from your customer relationship management system, we pile this data into “bucket” and “munge” it all together. During this munging process we create relationships and connections between your sales and customer data. The final result is what we call a “data mart.” It is your supermarket full of data ready for you to browse and create reports.

If you create a data mart, then you need a way to monitor, manage and administer it. We have created a data mart interface where you can manage all aspects of  your data mart, from uploading data to sharing.


I hope you find the usability and functionality enhancements in this new version of Indicee useful. Give it a try and let us know what you think.

Mark

  • Share/Bookmark
Filed under: Company News, Product News
Older Posts »

© 2010 Indicee Inc. All Rights Reserved

RSS Twitter