Jedox platform release 2023.2 elevates comparison
Paul Meresanu, Director Product Management, Jedox
The core of performance management is comparison. Many finance professionals are skilled at comparison via reviews of Excel spreadsheets, tabular data, or even formatted balance sheets. For professionals in other departments within an organization who lack proficiency in Excel, evaluating performance, understanding trends, and gaining insights is often an insurmountable task. Historically, Jedox model and report builders construct dashboards as a visual representation of data that helps business users track and monitor key performance indicators (KPIs). The 2023.2 release just made the process of creating dashboards and generating insights remarkably simple.
Dashboards built with no-code, drag-and-drop Canvas technology can be used to compare all the data that matters over different time periods, and against different benchmarks.
Rapidly produce dashboards to compare key indicators with KPI Cards, Labels, and ComboBox elements
In general, Jedox dashboards based on Canvas technology:
- Provide a visual representation of data, which makes it easier to understand and interpret
- Track and monitor data over time, which helps identify trends, patterns, insights
- Compare data from various sources to identify gaps in performance or illuminate inconsistencies for further exploration
The 2023.2 Jedox platform release simplifies the process of comparing expected and actual performance through the following enhancements.
Adding KPI card to Canvas dashboard
KPI Cards speed insight publishing
Quickly define the primary and comparison measure by choosing the appropriate Jedox Cube and configuring the dimension values. Users no longer need complex formulas.
- Maximize information clarity by formatting size, colors, and information density
- Highlight the most important KPIs by pinning KPI Cards to the top of the dashboard
- Search for measures via their label to identify the exact data to compare
KPI Card examples
ComboBoxes provide quick access to frequently used data
Empower users to select different data sources or time periods to compare performance.
- Select data sources including options for simple data selection, formulas, subsets, and open database connectivity (ODBC) queries
- Specify databases, dimensions, and elements to populate your ComboBox element
Labels ensure consistency in reporting
Provide critical context to reports by reusing labels without having to update settings every time a report or dashboard is created.
- Display dynamic text by using variables and expressions
- Format labels to create highly visual reports to share with internal and external stakeholders
Integrate all the data that matters for seamless operations
Jedox Integrator which manages extract, transform, load (ETL) process and the Cloud Console, which helps administrators manage configurations of the Jedox platform, both received upgrades with the 2023.2 release.
Cloud Console improves communication and transparency
Through Cloud Console, organizations can now diagnose and resolve VPN connection issues efficiently. This streamlines configuration, uncovers root causes, and expedites troubleshooting, minimizing reliance on external support and maintaining high business user satisfaction.
With this new release, notifications can be centrally managed, removing any limitations to automating important updates coming from the Jedox platform.
Forget long communication threads with support staff to duplicate environments in the Application Lifecycle Management process. With Instance Synchronization, model builders and administrators can duplicate environments including jobs data, configuration data, and reports.
Jedox Integrator streamlines financial operations at scale
Jedox Integrator extends support through connections to Microsoft SharePoint. Users can extract data housed within SharePoint and model builders can also unzip password-protected files with ease. The FILE.unzip method provides hassle-free extraction during the ETL process, all while maintaining compliance, making data ingestion at scale more efficient for financial controllers, aiming to streamline financial operations at scale.
2023.2 in action — the decision to hire additional engineers
Within “ACME, Inc.,” the chief financial officer (CFO) and head of people operations review a human resources (HR) performance dashboard with standard KPIs for headcount, salary, insurance, and benefits, as well as organization-specific KPI Cards, including one labeled “engineering utilization.” This KPI Card is fed by data integrated weekly via an ETL process with Jedox Integrator, which pulls data from ACME’s project management software.
This week, the engineering utilization card was red, meaning the rate had climbed to an unsustainable level. If this continued, and engineering resources continued to be stretched thin, it would negatively impact workforce satisfaction rates and, potentially, employee retention.
For insight into upcoming projects and demand, the team was able to quickly add a new KPI Card, which used the Jedox connection to Salesforce to show actual deals in the “contracting phase.” This was compared with the Jedox AIssisted™ forecast to demonstrate actual demand. The CFO saw this comparison as slightly exceeding the forecast. This comparison, based on accurate data, provided the confidence necessary to hire additional engineers.
A Jedox workflow was then initiated to inform the engineering line manager to start the hiring process. The line manager input expected salaries for a few senior engineers needed to meet future demand. Unfortunately for the line manager, a connection to their human capital management (HCM) system via Jedox’s Microsoft Power Automate capability returned a notification that the salary values were outside the accepted range for these positions.
The line manager needed to add comments to the plan, and the CFO had to approve the exception to the salary. The CFO was reluctant to approve the exception, but she eventually agreed after the line manager explained the situation. The positions were approved, and final updates to the workforce planning model flowed through to ACME’s integrated business plan powered by Jedox.
Conclusion
Platform release 2023.2 enables cross-organizational teams to gain insights and identify trends with highly visual dashboards and easy comparisons.
It continues our commitment to deliver incremental value. If you want to see how Jedox can drive a culture of decisiveness in your organization, and empower you to realize a vision for financial and digital transformation, please request a demo today.
