Information Builders Releases Active Dashboards
Portable BI solution enables visualization on mobile devices
Information Builders announced that WebFOCUS Active Reports now supports interconnected components available in a dashboard setting and can create active dashboards and receive Active Reports on Blackberrys that contain the Opera Mini 4 browser.
Thanks to its new application programming interface (API) for Active Reports, users can now create Active Dashboards that contain multiple interactive charts and tables and distribute them via e-mail. Furthermore, users can “develop, view, and interact with dashboards, similar to FLEX/Flash applications, without requiring any coding or browser plug-ins,” according to the company. Active reports and dashboards can also be encrypted.
According to Information Builders, the key obstacle to mass adoption of dashboards is that “the current model is privilege-based. Users are given access to the BI dashboard through a portal, which has to be set up, and user management and training is required.” That’s costly and the approach must take into account the system’s technical constraints, which may impact deployment in the enterprise. The company’s Active Dashboards technology allows distribution of dashboards to all within the organization; in fact, you can deploy and distribute dashboards to anyone inside or outside the organization.
Other key benefits include:
Requires no specialized software: Data and interactive capabilities are bound together in a single file that you can manage and display without installing additional software
Easy access outside the firewall: External customers and partners can access dashboards
Improved user experience and decision-making: Multiple reports are consolidated into a single interactive view so you can view information and perform data analysis more quickly and with greater ease
No connection needed: Users without a network connection can access Active Dashboards anywhere
Supports an unlimited numbers of users
Easy interface: Place many Active Reports on a page and select whether the report should be displayed as a table, chart, pivot table, etc.
"With this latest release, we have taken Active Reports and turned it into a platform for delivering interactive analytic applications, with its own API, components, security and analytic engine,” according to Gerald Cohen, CEO and founder of Information Builders, in a statement.
More information is available at http://www.informationbuilders.com.