SwiftKnowledge, LLC, a global provider of web-based business intelligence (BI) software, recently released Version 9 of its 100 percent web-based BI and business analytics technology. Version 9 builds upon SwiftKnowledge’s enduring mission and philosophy of extending easy-to-use yet powerful reporting and analysis tools to non-technical, frontline workers, so they can gain more insight into information and make better decisions.

The company’s technology offers breakthrough usability and robust analytic capabilities via an integrated, single-product code base; patented performance and a data packet engine that accelerate queries and promote self-service BI; and patented, cell-based security that provides true data and feature/functionality granularity without sacrificing control or performance. Version 9 highlights include:

• New user interface and dashboard/report layout designer for greater flexibility, finer security granularity, and streamlined report and dashboard creation
• New content search capabilities to quickly identify and locate relevant information
• Integration of structured and unstructured data, including web pages, Web 2.0 content and YouTube videos, a byproduct of SwiftKnowledge’s acquisition by Stellent founder Robert Olson in 2009

“Only 10 percent of business analysts at a typical enterprise employ the potential of BI tools to generate business value,” said Joseph Bugajski, principal analyst for Burton Group Research (recently acquired by Gartner, Inc.). “BI is riding a tsunami wave of dissatisfaction because every organization wants more value from its data assets, yet complex and expensive BI tools appeal to few business analysts. Therefore, enterprises want and need new, more readily accessible analytical tools that produce intuitively clear analysis results and that easily integrate into the business’s culture.”

“Today’s BI solutions must reach a broad set of users who span all levels of an organization and are involved in a spectrum of strategic, operational and tactical decision-making,” said Dan Vesset, research vice president of business analytics at IDC. “As a result, design quality has emerged as one of the five key factors having the strongest influence on increasing the pervasiveness of BI throughout organizations and to external stakeholders. To provide the most business value and gain the widest adoption, BI solution flexibility becomes paramount. The tools must be easy-to-use, intuitive, visually dynamic, and adapt to users’ tendencies and needs, rather than the other way around.”

“In an age of information overload, managers today need tools that provide them with the information they need on demand,” said Jonathan B. Spira, chief analyst at Basex and author of a soon-to-be published book on information overload. “Tools such as SwiftKnowledge allow knowledge workers to customize their information views that, in turn, make them more efficient and effective at their tasks.”

Enprecis, an information services company focused on the automotive industry and SwiftKnowledge customer since 2007, is planning to upgrade its Continuous Quality Insight (CQI) platform to Version 9.

“We’re excited about Version 9, and the additional ease-of-use and functionality it will bring to CQI,” said Viktor Grabner, senior vice president of engineering and operations for Enprecis. “Our customers are global automotive manufacturers with a gamut of business users spanning quality assurance, marketing and engineering departments who leverage CQI and its embedded SwiftKnowledge technology to save themselves from data overload. We’re excited about the new functionality in Version 9, and we will continue to work closely with SwiftKnowledge to adopt these new features for the benefit of our customers.”

Proformance, a document management solution provider for the financial services industry, is integrating SwiftKnowledge Version 9 into its INFO-ACCESS loan automation application.

“Our customers – primarily loan, credit and risk officers – need daily and real-time access to information in a concise and easy-to-understand manner, all with the ability to drill deeper when needed,” said Rudy Hollenbach, product technology manager for Proformance. “SwiftKnowledge fulfills these requirements, and helps us deliver a visually appealing solution that features augmented reporting and analytic capabilities. Gone are the days of sifting through endless reports or struggling with complex, technical relationships. SwiftKnowledge’s 100 percent web-based platform and inherent ease-of-use also will help us avoid potential deployment issues with our own customers as they roll out INFO-ACCESS technology to an expanded group of business users.”

“SwiftKnowledge gives users a 100 percent web-based platform that includes web authoring, web access and web administration,” said Matt Connon, chief operations officer for SwiftKnowledge. “Many web-based BI applications still require client-side software downloads or plug-ins, so they aren’t truly 100 percent web-based. This approach may be adequate in a legacy BI environment where only a limited number of select power users or business analysts use the application, but it quickly becomes unwieldy and a maintenance nightmare when deployed out to a wide audience of users or mobile devices. SwiftKnowledge overcomes this hurdle by offering a BI application that is 100 percent web-based – we require zero client-side downloads because all of our technology is completely browser-based.”

Easily Accessible User Benefits: Performance, Scalability and Security

SwiftKnowledge Version 9 leverages a Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services data infrastructure to power a new era of BI applications that deliver an ad-hoc analysis experience to users in web time via a zero-footprint web deployment. With its patented Interactive Data Streaming (IDS) and Component-Level Security (CLS), the SwiftKnowledge platform provides a breakthrough BI user experience featuring superior performance, scalability and security.

With SwiftKnowledge, technical report writers or business analysts as well as non-technical, frontline users can securely access unified information that may be located across multiple repositories and data systems. They then can easily configure custom analytical views, threshold-driven alerts and visually appealing executive dashboards that simplify their unique reporting and analysis needs – all with minimal IT or developer assistance.

In addition, users can easily share configurable views and analyses they create with other employees, without needing additional downloads or software licenses. They also can utilize SwiftKnowledge’s advanced predictive modeling and data mining capabilities to develop advanced BI applications, such as a product recommendation engine based upon customer profiles or a model for understanding the impact of different market variables on financial outcomes.

SOURCE: SwiftKnowledge Releases Version 9 of its Web-Based BI and Analytics Technology