Newsletter Vol. 15 - Introduction

Softengine News is dedicated to keeping you up to date with the latest information regarding SAP Business One systems, Softengine solutions and Best Business Practices.

What’s New?

Spotlight on Product – Crystal Reports 2008

With Crystal Reports 2008 you can design, format and deliver reports that allow you to explore report data interactively with compelling visualizations.

Interactive report viewing experience: End users can sort, filter, and reformat reports dynamically within the report viewers, all without forcing a database refresh—and answer more business questions with fewer report files.

On-report scenario modeling: Access a powerful, dynamic decision support tool when you integrate SWF content files from Xcelsius (not included) into your Crystal Reports web applications.

Operational reporting: Make your reports actionable by integrating FlexBuilder applications that provide business-user UI widgets to perform tasks such as database write-back and workflow integration.

Advanced report publishing: Publish personalized reports such as invoices, statements, and other marketing materials to thousands of recipients in a single publishing session. Create multiple reports based on different data sources, loaded with data, personalized for each recipient, combined into a single file (such as PDF), then distributed to a dynamic list of recipients – all with a single action. Content can be optionally archived, printed, or emailed.

Report design: Use the visual report designer for rapid data access and creation of highly formatted reports. New crosstab formulas reduce report design time by supporting custom calculations for rows and columns.

Application integration: Crystal Reports 2008 for Visual Studio (included) makes it easy to add reports to your application. You can drag and drop viewer components into your .NET Winform or Webform projects and use the SDKs to control report viewing, printing, exporting, plus programming report creation and modification. Deploy your application with the Crystal Reports 2008 runtime using either merge modules (MSMs) or a separate standalone MSI setup file.

Are You a Best-Run Business?

Business Intelligence Reveals Opportunities for Success

The SAP Business One application includes rich business intelligence (BI) capabilities that give you a 360-degree picture of your business, so you can make quick, informed decisions. See how you can visualize your success with the BI capabilities of SAP Business One.

Businesses that are successful are highly effective at eliminating error or reducing wasted effort. They've developed rock-solid processes, and they continuously monitor them to respond quickly to change. This level of performance depends on access to a variety of information – from the big picture to the smallest detail of operations. Business intelligence solutions from SAP® can help deliver the information needed for effective, strategic operations.

More Than Decision Support
Business Intelligence (BI) has the deserved reputation of being an approach to "decision support," the gathering of relevant data to determine the most favorable course of action. Making fast and accurate decisions is the goal of BI, but BI can also offer your business so much more. BI solutions from SAP can help you:

• Monitor operations – Provide access to data in real time, which allows your managers and executives to see how the business is performing and to take action if performance thresholds – positive or negative – are met.
• Oversee execution – Notify individuals responsible for meeting objectives, as well as their managers and executives, so that deadlines don't slip and milestones are met.
• Prioritize initiatives and plan operations – Determine timelines for operations based on business priorities and key performance indicators.
• Analyze historical data – Improve the accuracy of forecasting with the ability to utilize real data from the past to predict outcomes in the future.
• Create what-if scenarios – Explore alternative scenarios and courses of action by changing data inputs to alter the predicted output of key performance indicators.
• Develop and communicate strategies – Create comprehensive plans for the entire business, as well as strategies for departments and even individual employees, and then share those plans with dynamic, visually compelling reports.

Integrated Organization
There are many benefits of a BI solution – one that is fully integrated with comprehensive business management software, including financials, production, customer relationship management, and other areas. Most importantly, BI increases the visibility and understanding of your company's financial situation, operational activities, and long-term strategy. SAP BI solutions feature rich reporting capabilities that take data from anywhere in the organization and present it in ways that support smart decisions.

Empowered Employees
BI can improve individual employee productivity by offering your employees role-based reports specific to their area of responsibility, yet also allowing them to see where their efforts contribute to the broader objectives of the business.
Your business can also use BI to foster greater collaboration by showing employees timelines, milestones, and connections among areas of responsibility, thereby improving communication. Automated alerts can be sent to supervisors and executive decision makers quickly, before small problems turn into bigger ones. You have greater accountability and oversight, allowing you to see who is on target for objectives, and you can even eliminate unprofitable customers or lines of business.

Relieved IT Resources
BI solutions from SAP are designed to make better use of your IT resources. They're designed to be used by everyday business people, allowing them to use existing reporting templates or create ad hoc reports without requesting assistance from IT. The interfaces are easy to use and can be tailored to an individual's role.
BI solutions from SAP are powerful tools for managing your business. You can access accurate, up-to-the-minute knowledge about how your business is performing and where to take steps to improve effectiveness. With this knowledge, you can make better decisions that drive success.

For more information about how SAP solutions for business intelligence can help you be more effective and successful, call or email Barry Lederman for additional details: 818.704.7000 – blederman@softengineusa.com.