How to find the right business intelligence solution

Panintelligence CEO Zandra Moore talks the need for business intelligence, the benefits it provides and what to look for in a BI solution.

Business intelligence has gone from being a "nice-to-have" to a "must-have" for companies wanting to utilise their data, whether this is for reporting purposes or to leverage new insights.

A business intelligence application often has a central dashboard and connects to multiple sources of data. Users can self-service their own tables, charts, graphs, and more, which presents the data in a more workable format, making it easier to identify trends and take action.

The advantages of BI software go beyond data visualisation. Applications can offer KPI Alerts – whereby users are notified when they hit targets – as well as analytical capabilities, which allows for greater data analysis than ever before.

What to look for in a suitable BI solution

A business intelligence platform should satisfy many criteria. It should be easy to set up and integrate, offer a 360-view of the business, save time on reporting, and allow everyone in the company to access real-time data.

These are the criteria that we recommend considering when assessing a business intelligence tool:

• Easy to implement: The tool should integrate with your existing software, and should allow users to self-serve their own data.
  
• Real-time data display: The dashboard should show data in real-time, so staff can trust what they’re viewing, and act if issues arise.
  
• GDPR and PCI compliant: It’s critical that data is secure to comply with the latest regulations.
  
• Scalability: As reporting requirements change over time, the tool must be able to scale alongside these needs.
  
• Connect to any data source: The software must be able to access data stored in different places, and display them side by side in the dashboard.
  
• Accessibility: The software should work on tablet and mobile, so staff can access it remotely when working in the field.

Panintelligence for Sage

One solution currently helping many of our Sage 200 customers is Panintelligence, a flexible BI reporting dashboard specifically designed for Sage.

Pi for Sage is a business intelligence and analytics tool, which is compatible with Sage 200, Sage 50, and Sage CRM. Critically, Panintelligence allows users to revamp reporting in their businesses, by giving them access to real-time data to monitor KPIs.

The Pi Dashboard is fully browser-based, where users can create charts and graphs using a very intuitive user interface. As it’s built in HTML, the dashboard is fully responsive on tablet and mobile, enabling remote working.

The platform is fully GDPR-compliant, as the data is all stored at source, and the availability of different access privileges ensures that sensitive data is only visible to authorised users, allowing KPIs and SLAs to be monitored at individual, departmental, or company levels.

The data connections to Sage 50, Sage 200, and Sage CRM are all prebuilt into the dashboard, and it comes with an out-of-the-box set of charts. It’s very intuitive, and creating new charts can be done by users with no technical knowledge.

Discover what a business intelligence solution can do for your business

If you’d like more information about Panintelligence or other business intelligence solutions, get in touch with the team at Datel on 0844 417 0749.

Panintelligence

Panintelligence is a small, values-driven UK company with a big heart and a great product – the Pi Dashboard. Our sole focus is supporting our Channel Partners in taking our BI software to market. Our vision is to be the BI Partner of choice for technology providers. Our mission – which is Building Remarkable Partnerships – underpins this.