How Panorama Keeps Business Intelligence Reports Fresh for Google Apps

Panorama Software, which makes business intelligence software delivered via the Internet, has added a feature that lets users share current reports inside and outside the firewall through Google's Docs spreadsheets application.

Panorama Dec. 2 said it has added a SharedViews tool to its NovaView 5.5 business intelligence suite, which lets users create BI reports, analytics, dashboards, scorecards and visualization tools to track the health of their business processes.

The problem Panorama aims to solve is simple. Traditional BI software apps let users export reports to spreadsheets so that users can share the reports with colleagues, partners or other collaborators.

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However, once these spreadsheets are created and sent around, users modify the data, generating multiple versions of the document. Also, if unmodified, the content languishes and becomes stale. This is antithetical to the notion of BI, which aims to let users make better decisions based on current information.

The SharedViews feature, available free in the latest NovaView 5.5 service pack, leverages the Web to keep the content lively and active.

Beginning Dec. 2, NovaView users can share reports with internal or external users by opening a report and clicking on the SharedView button. NovaView rebuilds the report and pushes it into the cloud, making it available in the Docs spreadsheet app in Google Apps.

While initially offered as a cloud-based solution, NovaView has been available as both an on-premises and SAAS (software-as-a-service) suite since July 15 with the launch of NovaView 5.5, which lets users retain their data warehouse in-house while leveraging the Web to collaborate on BI data.

Panorama is clinging fast to Google, and eWEEK has long believed the company is angling to get acquired by its large, collaboration-hungry partner a decade after selling its OLAP technology to Microsoft.

In March, Panorama adapted its analysis and reporting applications to support the hosted spreadsheet application in Google Docs. Panorama Analytics for Google Docs lets users run collaborative analysis in Google spreadsheets in a live browser session. This software lets programmers build custom reports from within Google Apps.

What remains to be seen is whether Google will go shopping for cash-strapped partners, or even companies it has no relationship with, during this recession.

In the meantime, Panorama and other SAAS BI vendors, such as newly minted Good Data, continue to make a run at providing an alternative to entrenched BI solutions from Microsoft, Business Objects, Oracle's Hyperion unit and other venerable players.