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Midmarket enterprise resource planning developer Lawson Software Inc. announced Wednesday the next iteration of its namesake Business Intelligence software.
Lawson Business Intelligence 9.0 is geared toward helping users—executives and managers—make better decisions based on relevant and timely information (pretty much the promise of BI).
What 9.0 brings to the table specifically is focused insight into both structured and unstructured data, from Lawsons applications as well as outside systems.
A new report “bursting” feature helps users to format reports based on various data, then create rules that authorize portions of the report to be automatically sent to different individuals or groups.
The idea behind bursting reports out to various users is that it will reduce the amount of time users spend creating and distributing, for example, quarterly and monthly reports and copies of reports.
The 9.0 upgrade also adds automated workflow controls and proactive notifications. An analytic architecture tool helps users complete a specific set of parameters within a report.
It also populates many more than a dozen different data marts that include information, for example, from human resources, financial and supply chain applications. The Architect tool transforms the data into OLAP (online analytical processing) formats that can be viewed in a Lawson scorecard.
The 9.0 BI suite is an adjunct to Lawsons Hackett World-Class Passport program, a benchmarking and road map program.