Embedded reports are a standard requirement of most applications. But users are increasingly demanding more sophisticated reporting from applications - seeking such features as custom report design, ad hoc report creation and analytics. Developers that want to embed business intelligence (BI) and reporting features into applications must find a balance among requirements, cost and development time.
Today visionary software vendors and developers are blurring the lines between analytical and operational processes by embedding BI software into their applications. They understand the benefits of process-driven BI, operational dashboards, and ad hoc reporting from transactional systems. They also realise that their applications are the source of organisational information and that embedded BI is a key requirement to meeting their client’s management information needs.
Embedded BI is an integral part of a business application or process, not a separate application. It is typically a major component of the core application adding tremendous value for the customer. In some cases it becomes the face of the application for users who only need read access to the data.
As customers seek embedded reporting in their applications vendors that do so will develop competitive advantage, build customer loyalty and extend the life of their product within their existing customer base.
To achieve the competitive benefits of embedded BI, application developers need to select underlying technology that will support the basic requirements of the environment. These requirements are:
- Real Time BI - Embedded BI acts on real time data, not time delayed data stored in a separate warehouse or OLAP cube. A key factor in this is the source of the data - it comes from the application (or uses the same source as the application), not a data warehouse or data mart.
- Seamless Integration – Users do not want to switch applications between undertaking operational and reporting activities. Integrated security and look and feel assist create a seamless integration between the host application and reporting.
- End User Centric – Embedded BI is much more end-user focused than traditional BI. With embedded BI you cannot assume that your users has knowledge of both the BI application and the data set being analysed. Embedded BI needs to be significantly easier to use without training.
Traditional BI vendors have spent years building monolithic standalone applications. Their approach to embedded BI has been to create extensions to their core standalone application, and these extensions allow you to integrate their solution with yours, not embed. An additional hurdle is that these systems work best doing after-the-fact analysis against a data warehouse and are aimed at the power user, not the average user. Yellowfin has stepped in to fill this void.
Yellowfin has been designed from the ground up to be embedded inside other systems. With Yellowfin you can bring ease of use and real-time data analysis to business users that need to make rapid decisions. Yellowfin supports embedded BI by being:
Designed for the end user
Yellowfin has been designed to enable end users to author their own reports – the report designer is not a technical tool for developers. It is so easy to use and requires no understanding of the underlying database being queried. As a result it requires less user education and is less of a drain on your end user support team. Your clients will be thrilled with Yellowfin capability embedded in your application.
Delivering real time reporting
Yellowfin has been architected to ensure efficiency and low impact on OLTP databases. We understand that your application is critical to your business users and performance must be compromised. With Yellowfin you have the flexibility to report from both relational data sources, through ROLAP, as well as cubes. You choose how you wish to report from your application.
Easy to integrate
Yellowfin can easily integrate into your application. Look and Feel, Security and authentication, and Web Services allow you to achieve the level of integration that you desire. The Yellowfin integration roadmap will assist you to embed Yellowfin into your application within days not weeks.
Unlike other Reporting and Business Intelligence products there is no proliferation of different applications on various servers talking inefficiently to each other - it’s all self-contained as a single web application for all purposes – administration, design, report development and report delivery. In many cases Yellowfin will be only an incremental addition to your application resource requirements rather than a whole other application system.
Flexible in Licensing and Pricing
At Yellowfin we understand that you are embedding Yellowfin into your application not the other way round. As such our approach is to work with you to understand your licensing and pricing model and develop a mutually agreeable go to market strategy.
Find out more
Contact Yellowfin and ask for our proven roadmap to assist you to successfully embed Yellowfin into your application.
