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.”
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.”
Reports
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.
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
