Turning data into information

Eureka Solutions is awarded Sage Platinum Partner status

February 3rd, 2012

Software specialist Eureka Solutions based in East Kilbride, near Glasgow has been selected as a Platinum Partner for Sage 50 Accounts and Sage ACT! by the leading business software and services provider Sage UK. Launched in January, Sage’s Platinum Partners Scheme recognises and rewards those leading Business Partners that provide outstanding customer service, adopt a fully collaborative approach to joint business planning and achieve strong sales performance. As a Platinum Partner, Eureka Solutions will benefit from new levels of support from Sage in the form of access to valuable sales and marketing tools and assets, dedicated account management support, as well as marketing advice and guidance, which will empower the company to achieve business growth and deliver an improved experience to its customers.

Emphasising the value that FTSE 100 company Sage puts on its relationship with its business partners Steve Attwell, General Manager for Sage’s Lower Mid Market and Channel Division commented: “Our Business Partners are immensely important to us and companies such as Eureka Solutions are leading the way in their field.  The launch of our Sage Platinum Partners programme is testimony to our continued commitment to delivering value add and we are confident that it will deliver significant mutual benefit for Sage, our Business Partners and ultimately our customers too.”

Alistair Livingstone, Managing Director at Eureka Solutions said: “At Eureka Solutions our focus is on delivering outstanding customer service and technical expertise. Being awarded Platinum Partner status is further testament to our commitment in these areas and we are delighted to gain this level of recognition from Sage.”  

Sage ACT! is the number one selling Contact and Customer Manager with over 3 million users worldwide.  It is a business productivity tool that’s more powerful than e-mail systems and spreadsheets, but easier to use, faster to get up and running, and less costly than a CRM solution. To help make the most of this information, Sage ACT! integrates with social media sites, such as LinkedIn®, Facebook, Google Maps™, to build a richer picture of customers and prospects.  Sage ACT! helps to develop long-lasting, profitable relationships so existing customers keep coming back and new customer referrals keep coming in.

Sage 50 Accounts empowers small businesses to effectively manage every aspect of their finances, enabling them to accurately keep track of cash flow, invoice customers, pay suppliers, submit VAT returns and prepare year end accounts. It contains a host of inbuilt measures designed to reduce human error and allow businesses to gain an instant view of their accounts information on a minute by minute basis and take greater control of their finances.

Sage’s Platinum Partner programme will continue to evolve following its launch this month, and over time it will develop further to incorporate a range of new and timely benefits for member partners.

Google-Type Reporting with Business Discovery

February 2nd, 2012

By Alistair Livingstone

Having been in the business of implementing Business/CRM/ERP Systems for many years, reporting has always been the poor relation of implementation. Basically once the system is in, attention turns to reports. It is usually defined as ‘What reports do you want’, i.e. they are created reactively by the client telling us what reports they want.

 

Wouldn’t it be great if the client could ‘create/discover’ their own reports?

Consider Google or indeed any search engine – how successful would they be if the end user had to be prescriptive about where/what sites they wanted to search?

How often have you started looking for something on a Google search and before you know it you’ve shot off at a tangent, reading about the latest video game/holiday park, football transfer? You end up somewhere you never intended to go.

How about a reporting tool that allows you to do the same?

As a business we have recently become involved in QlikView for utilisation in Business Intelligence (BI). Although I was impressed with the product before I took it on I didn’t realise how powerful a tool it really is! The term “Business Discovery” really means something! (See our recent blog, Traditional BI versus Data Discovery)

All ERP/Business systems come with some form of reporting or the ability to utilise Crystal. So what’s different about Business Discovery? Is it really the Business Discovery element that has knocked my socks off?

I have above average skill sets in Excel and often use SQL queries to connect data to Excel and then utilise pivot table/Power Pivot to create, what I thought, were pretty snazzy reporting tools. However I have now realised how difficult they are to use, and indeed limiting. Don’t get me wrong, they are very good and give me the information I want, but I would end up with multitudes of spreadsheets and pages within spreadsheets to get the analysis I need.

Business Discovery is where the reporting tool allows you to meander through data much in the same way as we use Google – you start off somewhere but the model allows you to go places and ask questions that weren’t on the list at the start of the reporting session. Traditionally most reports are static i.e. run the aged debtors every Monday; give me the weekly sales figures etc. A Qlikview model allows you to start with the weekly sales figures, but then go on a journey:

  • What happened to sales in that product area?
  • Let me see the sales by geographical area?
  • Why does area 1 sell more of product 1 than area 2

This is not a traditional drill down of your pivot tables but instead a platform that allows you to meander through the data without rebuilding data cubes or running reports with different parameters. With Business Discvoery it’s the immediacy of the results that matter – the user gets amazingly quick results. Imagine if Google made you wait 10 minutes to open a new browser window!

 

Is it as simple as loading the tool and getting on with it?

No! Qlikview provides a free, fully functioning version of their product to work in standalone environments. It has only been transparent to us after working on models for a few months and completing technical training courses that the biggest drawback is our own, historical, inbuilt mentality on reports. We have been trained to create reports that are prescriptive and reactive – Business Discovery requires a different mind-set.

After two months of working on Qlikview the penny dropped. All we had been doing was recreating what we had in Excel as pivot tables etc. – we weren’t using the real benefits of business discovery. Once we did, we saw the dramatic difference.

 

About the Author

Alistair Livingstone is Managing Director at Eureka Solutions and has over 16 years experience in the business software industry, focusing on ERP, CRM & BI soluions.

Spindle Professional and Credit Hound Webinars

January 19th, 2012

Richard Haywood of Draycir hosts webinars on the award winning  systems Spindle Professional and Credit Hound.  Sign up for either or both webinars and see what Eureka Solutions and Draycir can do for you!

Spindle Professional integrates with Sage 200 and Sage 50, in order to to send out all your documents to multiple locations by email, fax and print. Spindle stores these documents for easy access, freeing up your time and saving your business money.

Credit Hound also integrates with Sage 200, giving the user credit control within their business. Credit Hound helps the user to manage their credit control procedures and reduce bad debts quickly.

Sign up today to find out how to make your business more efficient.

Business Discovery: The Next Generation of BI

January 11th, 2012

By Anna Young, Marketing Assistant

Following on from our recent post, Traditional BI versus Data Discovery, I came across this video featuring Donald Farmer, Product Advocate for QlikView. In the video, Farmer goes into greater detail on Data Discovery.

2012. Is it a year of change for IT Professionals?

January 10th, 2012

Anna Young – Marketing Assistant

The next generation of business users might just agree with that.

Having recently read an article that looked into the changing roles of IT professionals in 2012, I began to think that perhaps the old complexity of Business Intelligence has begun to disappear.

Gone are the days when IT had complete control over enterprise technology and budgets, the days when an employee came to IT in order to analysis sales figures or create a report on an important matter. The role of an IT professional has changed from analysing and delivering information, into support and enablement.

Business Intelligence within the workplace is no longer littered with complex words and hard to understand data. Advancements in Business Intelligence software now make it a tool that not only an IT wiz would understand. Instead business users at all ends are able to use and enjoy BI. Laptops, Android phones and tablets have meant that people are not only analysing data in the office, but anywhere at any time.

‘Data Discovery’, as it is now named by Gartner, has given control back to every user giving them an easy means to visualise and use their data in a productive manner. The in memory and associative analysis of data has meant that business users are able to answer questions and solve their business problems at the click of a button.

Business Intelligence has changed its role from an information delivery system into a vital tool in decision making. For more information on this check out our recent blog post, Tradtional Business Intelligence Processess Versus Data Discovery.

Traditional BI versus Data Discovery

January 4th, 2012

Traditional BI Process

Historically, Business Intelligence (BI) has been about a report-centric architecture that’s IT-driven and highly controlled. IT departments take operational data, create data models and build reports for end users. Traditional business intelligence delivers predefined reports and queries and pre-configured dashboards.

Let’s look at what’s involved in a traditional business intelligence process. Initially, a data warehouse would be set up to consolidate data from many sources. Data warehouses are designed to run analysis on large volumes of historical data. To get the data into the data warehouse there is then an ETL – Extract, Transform and Load process that it needs to go through. The transform step can include multiple data manipulations such as splitting, translating, merging, sorting & pivoting. The final Load step involves loading the transformed data into the data warehouse.

So in traditional BI, data warehouse and ETL tools support “back end” processes. The next step is usually to use an Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) tool to support the presentation layer or “front end” processes such as querying, analysis and reporting. OLAP tools allow multi-dimensional data analysis & the capability to present this in a visual interface with charts, tables and graphs. Cubes are the core components of OLAP systems; they aggregate facts from the data at multiple levels.

With traditional BI, data sources are normally pre-determined by IT.  End users don’t get to interact with the data in the systems. The analysis and reporting is generally conducted by IT. The analysis and reporting  is hard-wired into the data warehouse and cube structure. Each time data changes are required, the data has to go back through the time consuming ETL process described above, which could involve analysis across networked databases and hard drives. This can be a very slow process.

Business Discovery Process

With Business Discovery Tools like QlikView, this process is very different and much faster. QlikView takes all of your data from virtually any source and consolidates it into a single data pool. Next, QlikView loads the entire data pool into memory. Users don’t have to pre-process data and organise it into cubes and there are no hard disks involved like in traditional BI. Accessing data in memory is much faster than accessing data from disk.

With QlikView users get to search and analyse all of their data in one place. As the data is in memory, there is no need to wait on data refreshing with each new data selection. Users can instantly select data they are interested in, make associations and see relationships between data residing in different applications. They can perform ad hoc queries on the data and ask ‘what if’ type questions all within the one application. Business discovery tools like QlikView are fast, intuitive and simple to use. They give users the data that they need at their fingertips.

Business Discovery is about self-service Business Intelligence. It enables business users to customize and change analysis to address their exact business problems. Business users get access to the data they need when they need it and they get it fast!

 

Article by Carolyn ClarkCarolyn Clark is Business Intelligence Account Manager at Eureka Solutions and specialises on QlikView Business Intelligence software. Carolyn has a degree in Management Science and has many years’ experience in the software industry focussing on business process management & business insight products.

To get in touch with Carolyn, email carolyn.clark@eurekasolutions.co.uk or call 01355 581 960.

SO Plus now even better!!

December 14th, 2011

Utility bar & rapid grid now added to the Quotes Screen

Our developers have made some fantastic updates to our Sage 200 Sales Order Plus module. Sales Order Plus has been created from various customer requests to make Sage 200 order entry as fast as possible.

The utility bar and rapid grid are now available in the Quotes Screen as well as in the Sales Order Screen. This means users now have great functionality such as Add Preferred Items and Amend Stock Item Prices available when entering a quote, improving the user experience as well as being a considerable time saver!

Download the latest version here.

For more information please call our head office on 01355 581 960 or email development@eurekasolutions.co.uk.

Eureka Solutions wins 3rd Sage Developer of the Year Award in a Row

December 12th, 2011

Independent software company, Eureka Solutions based in East Kilbride, near Glasgow, has again been awarded the Sage Custom Solutions Partner of the Year at the company’s annual Developer of the Year ceremony. Launched in 2010, Sage’s Custom Solutions Partner award recognises and rewards its leading developer that demonstrates expertise in translating the requirements of Sage customers into value added solutions.

Out of over 900 Sage developers in the UK, Eureka Solutions is the only one to have been recognised by Sage for 3 years running, winning the same prize in 2010 and Sage Developer of the Year in 2009.

On presenting the award to Eureka Solutions, Darren Liddell, Manager of the Sage Developers Programme states, “We are delighted to present this award to Eureka Solutions and my congratulations go to all involved.  They have shown excellent growth by meeting their customer needs and delivering innovative solutions efficiently and effectively. Our developers are immensely important to us and companies such as Eureka are leading the way in their field.  We look forward to working together with them in the future for mutual benefit and growth.”

Eureka Solutions Managing Director, Alistair Livingstone says, “We are delighted to win this award, the 3rd in a row for us.  Not only is it recognition of all the hard work the team has put in, but it is great to receive this type of endorsement from Sage. Our team have done well, but we won’t stop there. We already have our eye on next year with some really exciting developments coming in 2012. We look forward to building upon this success in the future.”  

About Eureka Solutions

Eureka Solutions is a software company working with leading ERP, Business Intelligence and CRM software solutions. The company has over 15 years’ experience in supporting & delivering business projects in a range of industries throughout the UK.

The company has a range of modules that enhance the Sage 200 Suite including retail, telesales and e-commerce integration.

 

About Eureka Solutions

Eureka Solutions is a software company working with leading ERP, Business Intelligence and CRM software solutions. The company has over 15 years’ experience in supporting & delivering business projects in a range of industries throughout the UK.

The company has a range of modules that enhance the Sage 200 Suite including retail, telesales and e-commerce integration.

New Development: Requisition System

December 2nd, 2011

By Shaun Gourlay, Sage Developer, Eureka Solutions

One of our clients required an internal requisition system for their Sage 200 system which would eliminate the need for staff to move around the building searching for items. On request, they would be delivered by the Stores/Shipping department instead. On an internal requisition, the client required an email of the requisition to be sent to a generic store address and a copy to the user who submitted the request. It should also be possible to store a status against a request so the user can check its current status. The status should be requested, allocated, picked and despatched. It was also required for the system to hold a collection of departments so the request could be submitted against the correct department.

 

Solution

The solution developed by Eureka Solutions was to create the new screen below which is similar to our sales order entry screen in the Sales Order Plus. It allows users to enter the relevant details for the header of the requisition to a member of staff or department. The department is populated by default from the collection associated with the user making the request. However, it is possible to manually change the department and a “priority” can be selected from a drop down of predefined values.

A grid has been provided to allow quick entry of the stock items and quantity required. It shows the free stock in the main warehouse regardless of bin locations. It is then possible to either save the requisition or to save and request. If only saved, it can be amended at a later date and then requested. On selecting the save and request button, a standard sage report is produced which can then be emailed or printed as a requisition.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The second screen below was created to show any outstanding requisitions. Each requisition is given a status which is set to “requested” on creation. Once requested, the main store can then allocate the goods. This forces an internal allocation and sets the line status to be either “Part Allocated” or “Allocated” depending on the quantity allocated.

The staff in the main warehouse can then print a pick list for a requisition by clicking the “Print Pick List” button which provides details of all the goods to be picked and the amount required. The option to “Despatch” is then available and this will set the picked goods to be dispatched. Only once the total quantity on the requisition matches the quantity required, the requisition can be marked as completed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To find out more our bespoke customisation for Sage, please call 01355 581 960 or email development@eurekasolutions.co.uk.

Eureka Solutions secures two key partnerships with leading business software providers

December 1st, 2011

Press Release

Eureka Solutions, the leading independent IT company, has secured two key partnerships that will help it to deliver market-leading Business Intelligence (BI) and information distribution services to its clients.

The deals were cemented at the successful recent business event, Eureka360, attended by dozens of Scottish small and medium sized enterprises as well as public sector agencies at East Kilbride, Lanarkshire, on 27th October 2011.

Eureka is acknowledged to be one of the UK’s leading Sage software vendors, with a long record of implementation and support for Sage products such as Sage 200 and Sage CRM. The new partnerships – with fast-growing international business QlikTech and Dublin-based Inspired Software & Services – allow Eureka to expand its range of services as client needs become increasingly sophisticated.

“At Eureka we have built a considerable reputation for providing reliable business control systems for a range of clients in the SME sector, as well as the public sector,” explained Eureka Solutions’ managing director Alistair Livingstone.

“These partnerships with QlikTech and Inspired have been agreed so that we can build on that success by ensuring that we stay ahead of the market in being able to provide the latest Business Intelligence and collaboration tools to our clients across Scotland.”

The deal with Inspired enables Eureka to add a key capability in Microsoft SharePoint to its range of IT services, currently led by Sage.

”Inspired is a key provider of Microsoft SharePoint, which is an excellent media for displaying and distributing information across an organisation’s network. SharePoint works well alongside our existing capabilities in Sage, so with this partnership we can deliver a solution to clients within a few days,” added Alistair Livingstone.

QlikTech, founded in Sweden and listed on the US NASDAQ market, is a fast-growing global software business whose Business Discovery platform, QlikView, provides fast business analysis to support decision making. “QlikView is extremely well placed in its market. BI will dominate the marketplace over the next four or five years. Companies need to get really good quality information from their existing enterprise systems,” explained Alistair Livingstone.  “QlikView links to SharePoint, as well as all the Sage products, so that completes a vital ‘triangle for us at Eureka.”

Inspired, formed in Dublin in 2008, has grown across the UK and Ireland by developing partnerships such as this latest one with Eureka. “The fit with Eureka made sense as soon as we began talking to each other,” commented co-founder William Connor. “We have a network of partners and we have no doubt that we will have something to offer Eureka’s very high quality range of clients in Scotland, as well as to new customers seeking integrated support of this kind.”

For QlikTech, Pre-Sales Team Leader John Sands believes their technology will enhance Eureka’s service offering. “QlikView allows the combination of data from numerous sources, such as Sage, Excel and Access. Users can view data in a really meaningful way as a result. BI analysis tools are no longer for the chosen few. The technology gives access to all those users within an organisation who need the best quality data in order to make better business decisions.”

Both Inspired and QlikTech attended the recent Eureka360 event, alongside various Eureka partners including Datalinx, Draycir and Energise2.0. “We have received very positive feedback from those attending the various seminars, which covered everything from BI to the use of social media in business. There’s a real hunger for this sort of information,” observed Alistair Livingstone.

 

About Inspired Software & Services

Inspired was created in 2008 by a group of Microsoft managers who saw an opportunity to take their knowledge and experience to  deliver business productivity solutions based on the Microsoft technology that are affordable, quick to implement and easy to use. Inspired has created a number of business solutions to help organisations to improve organisational and individual productivity. It helps organisations improve business process, reduce cost, improve decision making and help maintain or improve competitiveness.
The Inspired team has a wealth of Application Development, Business Management and Channel Sales Management experience.

About QlikTech

QlikTech (NASDAQ: QLIK) is a leader in Business Discovery — user-driven Business Intelligence (BI). QlikTech’s powerful, accessible Business Discovery solution bridges the gap between traditional business intelligence solutions and standalone office productivity applications. Its QlikView Business Discovery platform enables intuitive user-driven analysis that can be implemented in days or weeks rather than months, years, or not at all. The in-memory associative search technology it pioneered allows users to explore information freely rather than being confined to a predefined path of questions. QlikView Business Discovery works with existing BI applications and adds new capabilities: insight for everyone, zero-wait analysis, mobility, an app–like model, remixability and reassembly, and a social and collaborative experience. Headquartered in Radnor, Pennsylvania, QlikTech has offices around the world serving more approximately 22,000 customers in over 100 countries.

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Sage Business Partner QlikView Microsoft Sharepoint 2010