Microsoft Business Intelligence Blog : Dundas

Dundas Dashboard v1.0 now available

Patrick Husting — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:00:00 GMT

We have been playing around with the beta version with some VERY limited success and now they have rolled out the v1.0 product just a few weeks later. I really like the concept of using SilverLight for BI dashboards, we have built a couple custom SL dashboards/BI tools over the past 6 months. I am really interested in this product, but I just couldnâ€™t get it to work well in beta so I gave up. I guess I better go through the videos to see how to actually use it. Check it out and let me know your thoughts.

Dear Dundas Dashboard beta tester

Thank you for participating in the beta program for Dundas Dashboard. We are excited to announce that Dundas Dashboard v1.0 is now available.
Some updated links you should be aware of for v1.0.

Dashboard Gallery â€“ See some dashboards we have built with Dundas Dashboard
Video Tutorials â€“ Let us walk you through some important steps in building dashboards.
Online Demo â€“ See the product in action, and actually view existing dashboards online.
Download a full evaluation copy â€“ Download a full evaluation copy of Dundas Dashboard.

Dundas and The Art of Dashboarding

Patrick Husting — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 21:04:00 GMT

I'm sure you may have seen this or maybe you haven't. But Dundas has a really nice whitepaper on the "The Art of Dashboarding". I enjoyed the whitepaper and totally agree with just about everything in it. Also, I believe Dundas just does a great job making their solution very shiny and it presents very well. Enjoy the read.

Link to the PDF document

Extended Analytics 2008 for use with QuickBooks

Patrick Husting — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:03:00 GMT

It has been a REALLY busy year at Extended Results our consulting company. We have had some tremendous growth in regards to customers and employees along with generating some new and interesting intellectual property. I have been using QuickBooks for years for my different companies and I found it to be a great program for managing my ERP needs on a small/mid scale. But this year with all the growth, we had a need for some business intelligence functionality to run the business better. Since there is nothing on the market for QuickBooks for BI, we decided to write it ourselves and start marketing it. It is called Extended Analytics 2008 and you can find out more at http://www.ExtendedAnalytics.com.

We just got it all approved through the QuickBooks licensing/developer program and have begun marketing it to QuickBooks ProAdvisors. We have been surpised with the response and purchases since the release. Very exciting. The solution is totally drag and drop and meant to be brain dead easy to use...

The following screenshot is an example of a Scorecard you can drag and drop right onto your dashboard along with some rich Dundas charts showing your revenue vs. expenses.

You can have multiple analytic charts that can be dragged and dropped into different zones.

Lots of screenshots and feature lists can be found at the product web site which can be visited at http://www.ExtendedAnalytics.com

Dundas Charts for SharePoint. Very cool and useful!

Patrick Husting — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 13:11:00 GMT

I got to particpate in the Dundas Chart for SharePoint beta recently and have a few screens to show you. SharePoint has generally lacked a good charting component that is not only feature rich, but LOOKS GOOD. I have a few screenshots of what it takes to setup a chart within SharePoint and I didn't even need to go to the HELP manual! Rock on!

Note: For the Microsoft people that read this blog, would you take a little piece of that $50 billion and go buy this company? You really need to embed this in all your Reporting and Business Intelligence applications.

1. The first thing you need to do is setup a data connection. Now I didn't look around the application, but I didn't see the ability to setup just one data connection and use it throughout the SPS site. I'm sure this feature exists, but I didn't look for it. The only thing is you need to know how to TYPE a data connection. So if you are like me, you'll have some spelling errors but it the application points them out to you.

2. Next you need to input your SQL Query, Stored Procedure, View, etc. So you do need to be good at the old query designer. This is not end-user friendly, but when you are doing BI, sometimes you just need to have a sql developer involved. Just cut and paste and hit the next button.

3. If you click the PREVIEW DATA button, it will run the query so you can make sure you are returning the correct data.

4. Here you put the data on the correct axis and you are set to display your chart. Note, you create the chart first and then once you FINISH, you can edit it to apply styles, etc.

5. See how pretty my charts look?! Much better than good old OWC chart controls...

6. Now if you edit the existing chart, you can choose Customize Your Chart and you can change the chart type, colors, 3d, etc. This part is really good because Dundas has just a TON of great looking web chart for you to choose from.

7; See, I chose a funky donut chart.

Basically for the Mid and Enterprise space, this is a must have chart control if you are using SharePoint within your organization. Hope you find this preview article useful.

Regards

Patrick