Business Analytics experiences

NPS

Hi

I need some general information on the Business Analysis solution.
My customer is using Nav 4.0 sp2 with Native database.

• If analyzing on transaction tables (GL entries, item ledger entries) is it then possible just to retrieve new entries since the last update of the cubes. If yes, how is it done?
• Is it possible to retrieve aggregated data? I mean, is it possible to get a total pr. Job nr. pr. month from the GL entries? The customer doesn’t need the information pr transaction.
• Is it possible to take cubes with you for off-line use?
• How is performance when you use Native DB? My experience with NODBC is not the best when it comes to performance.
• Is it possible to use the BA solution on data from other systems than NAV?

Any comments/experiences with BA are welcome…

Best regards
Jesper

kine

NPS wrote:

Hi
• If analyzing on transaction tables (GL entries, item ledger entries) is it then possible just to retrieve new entries since the last update of the cubes. If yes, how is it done?

Part of the cube creation process is setting DTS package which update the cube on given schedule. But I am not sure, if that DTS just fill the cube again or update the cube.

• Is it possible to retrieve aggregated data? I mean, is it possible to get a total pr. Job nr. pr. month from the GL entries? The customer doesn’t need the information pr transaction.

No, you do not have tools how to set that in BA Basic.

• Is it possible to take cubes with you for off-line use?

Yes, if you copy the Analysis services database and you will have all what you need (MS SQL + AS, the AS DB ...)

• How is performance when you use Native DB? My experience with NODBC is not the best when it comes to performance.

I do not know, but I assume that it will be not fast

• Is it possible to use the BA solution on data from other systems than NAV?

Original ANTServer (the BA Server) is generic and can be used with any source of data you want. See the page of company which created the BA used by Microsoft: http://www.targit.com/

Miklos_Hollender

SP3 is just out (in the downloads) - featuring documentation at last for BA and hopefully repairs. I think yoy can safely import the BA objects into an older database as well, I don't think anybody would customized it. I hope they also updated the EXE - that's where the most problems were.