Knowledge is Power. This adage holds true now more than ever. Everyone is looking for fast and reliable information to help them make timely informed decisions. In the olden days information was filtered down to masses in a gradual manner. It took time for information, good or bad, to propagate.

Fast forward to today, the progress in information technology is nothing short of a revolution. People are exposed to the 24 Hour Cycle. It takes only a few minutes for an event happening in a particular part of the World to appear on TV screens and Web Pages across the World. 2

‘Analytics’ has been defined as the ’science of analysis’. In the Corporate World, Information has itself become ‘commoditized’. Big bucks are spent to gather and ‘buy’ Information. Fast and reliable information is scarce. Insight out of the information is even scarcer. Big retail firms spend millions on market research of not only their own Products but those of their competitors as well. The research firms gather the data and present their results back to the Managers to ‘Analyze’ and act upon. Crude oil and oil futures are traded publicly. The daily output from OPEC is limited and is public knowledge. The Refining capacity for each country is generally flat. So why does an investor pay more for a future contract of Crude Oil than others? Maybe he knows more than the other investors, or maybe even less. A number of Energy Analysts look at all sorts of data related to the Production, Transportation, Refining and Consumption of Oil. They look at everything from delays in shipping lanes and unrest in Oil producing regions to weather patterns around rigs and consumption trends. Their job is to gather, refine and deliver the data to the investors to help them make an intelligent and informed decision in a timely manner.

The decision makers do not necessarily want all the minute details. What they need is the ‘Analytics’ support provided by the Analysts. They need the insight from all the data and information. It is this fast and accurate access to this actionable insight that helps companies and investors out maneuver and beat their competitors. 2

Business leaders have started to realize the benefits of automated software based Business Analytics in gathering information on their operations, production and transactional activities. Businesses are deploying Analytics applications that automate the information gathering and presentation. There has been increasing demand for Analytics support in a number of additional areas. One of the areas is Project Management. For more information visit Hyperion

A number of Enterprise resource planning ‘ERP’ Systems offer applications related to Project Management. Each ERP system offers a handful of tools in their Project Management application that differentiate them from each other. An increasing number of mid-size to large and even some small companies are deploying Project Management Applications.

ERP systems at the core help the company manage their assets, resources and most importantly their finances. As Project Management evolved and standardized in the last decade thanks to professionals and organizations like the PMI, the Industry realized the benefits of managing the progress and finances of their individual projects separately from their production /day to day management. For more information visit Hyperion Software

The Project Management modules in the ERP systems provide the functionality to itemize, track and manage the Project Related transactions for the company. As the Project Management module is tied to the Financials Module, the Project Manager can easily manage the Funding, Invoices, Journals, Revenue recognition and the costs associated with each individual project. The reporting and analytics capabilities in these Business Applications are however limited. For more information visit Hyperion Solutions

Oracle is first major software company to release a comprehensive Project Analytics suite. They have released Project Analytics as part of their Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 7.9.6 Release. The Project Analytics Module sources raw Project Data from Oracle EBS and PeopleSoft Enterprise Project Management Applications. It extracts and refines the data into reports and presents the refined data on the Analytics Dashboard. The web based Dashboards provide graphical and tabular representation of customizable data. Oracle Project Analytics displays Project reports related to Project cost, revenue, budget and billing among other things.

In Today’s recessionary environment the CIOs and CEOs are actively looking at ways of reducing costs and maximizing the revenue with limited resources. Oracle Project Analytics provides essential project based metrics on web based dashboards. The information is clearly laid out and gives fast fact based visibility into the Project Performance.

Anyone having access to the Dashboard, from Developers to Project Managers to the CEO can look at the insight provided by Oracle Project Analytics and act quickly and decisively to adjust resources, reduce costs and increase profitability. This comes with a prebuilt Dashboard and Data Warehouse, but the users have the ability to create custom reports and metrics in the Dashboard.

The Dashboards have role based access. The Administrators have the capability to grant access to users based on their roles within the organization. The level of access can also be controlled. A Project member can have Read access only while the Project Manager may have full edit access to the same report or dashboard.

After login the CEO may be taken to the Executive Dashboard with high level metrics for active Projects across his Organization. The Executive can go through the metrics, quickly identify the areas needing his attention and drill down to the detail level for further information.

Other individuals may be denied access to the Executive Dashboard and taken to their customized dashboard. This is extremely important because it gives the users only the information that they need very quickly. The managers do not have to sift through data and turn over pages to get what they want. The Project manager can quickly identify and address the cost variance issue in the project while the Organization Director is in a better position to move resources between projects after going through the Dashboard metrics. It helps the user make informed decisions in a timely manner.

Typically the Project financial data and status is entered into the Project Management ERP Applications by Project Managers, project team members and accountants. Working with these applications requires a level of expertise that a typical management team does not have. These applications provide a good mechanism of project management but lack the reporting flexibility. Reports are generally created though the ERP applications at the Project or Organization level. Management feeds these numbers in their spreadsheets for management review. There are a few problems with this approach. Firstly there is quite a bit of manual work and calculation required which may be prone to human errors. Secondly by the time the report filters up to the Executives it might already be too late to act.

Since the warehouse behind the dashboard is sourced from the same ERP application that the Project Team enters data into, the executives can access their favorite reports on the dashboard promptly and not worry about the accuracy of the data. This is the fundamental benefit of the fast fact based Analytics.

The Project Analytics data is currently sourced from Oracle E-Business Suite and the Oracle’s PeopleSoft Enterprise ERP Applications. A universal adapter is also provided which can be used by the administrators to fetch and display Project data from other Source Systems.

The data in Project Analytics is tightly coupled with General Ledger and Financials data from the Source System. The users can view the Key Progress Indicators for the Projects against the General Ledger, Accounts receivables and Accounts Payables data.

One big incentive to the Managers is the implementation and maintenance cost associated with Oracle Project analytics. The Warehouse and Dashboard associated with Oracle Project Analytics is tightly integrated with existing Oracle EBS and PeopleSoft Enterprise Applications. The Warehouse is supported on multiple Databases and can be hosted on an existing Databases Server having sufficient space and memory.

The setup and administration is not overly complicated. Anyone having Database administration expertise and some web administration experience should be able to manage the administration. This helps keep the training costs in check while also leveraging the skills of the existing workforce.

Creating the custom reports and graphs using the Dashboard seems intuitive. The primary users of the Analytics dashboards are Company managers with limited SQL skills. The Project Analytics dashboard was designed with this in mind. The users can create their own custom reports and graphs with relative ease. They save these metrics on their dashboard and even make them available for others to view.

Project Analytics gives the Management team the ability to view the historical Project data. They can thus make better informed decisions and can browse the metrics for trending and forecasting.

Alerts are another useful feature of the Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition that Project Analytics can leverage. The users can add custom alerts on metrics. Let’s say that a Manager wants to be notified whenever a threshold on cost variance or unrealized Revenue has reached. The manager can set the value on the appropriate report and an Alert will show up at his next login after the alert condition is met. Furthermore, the Alert system can also be configured to send an email to the user whenever the alert condition is met. He can receive the alert notification on his personal computer or the handheld device and take the necessary action.

Although the data in the Warehouse may be sourced from one or more ERP systems at the back end, the front end i.e. the Dashboard is hosted as web interface. So there is no bulky install required on the end user’s machine and more importantly the metrics are available on any device with internet browser support. Typically anyone with access to the corporate Intranet can access the metrics on the personal computing device of their choice. A General Manager in Brussels can access the Project metrics for the big construction project in Boston just before his big meeting with the Board.

Oracle is the first major software firm to provide Project Analytics support for their Business Applications. Judging by effectiveness of the software and the demand in the industry, it won’t be the last.

Article done by FARAZ A. SIDDIQUIE Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Faraz_Siddiquie

As a translation worker, you probably wish several times a week that your day could be 30-hours long. An extra seven hours in the day might allow you to bring home a larger paycheck because you will be able to complete more jobs, for more customers and maybe even take on some larger and higher paying projects. In these crazy time, it is difficult to find the time to get to the gym to exercise, run a marathon, meet with friends or your church group, participate in the neighborhood association, reply to messages left by friends and simply relax. But would a thirty-hour day really solve the problems that translation workers like you and I face? In fact, my guess is that we would be just as frustrated with longer days as we are now. That’s why we have to keep things in perspective and realize that as Medical Translator workers, we are just as stressed out as everyone else in the world.

We often hear the analogy of the iceberg and 90-percent of the problem being below the water. The same is true in our lives. The problem that we have is not a shortage of time, instead it is a need to set better priorities. Let’s face it, working harder isn’t working smarter and doesn’t help us out in the long run. If you run your body at 100-miles per hour every day then you can count on eventually burning out or having a breakdown of some sort. Keep in mind that disbelief and uncertainty are the evils that produce anxiety and they will degrade your energy and well-being. I can remember back twenty years ago when a former Miami Translation company owner took the time to explain the importance of setting priorities and differentiating between what is really important While he probably thought I was just a young kid that didn’t know any better, I actually took what he had to say as being very serious. It often returns to haunt and rebuke me by raising the serious problem of priorities.

We live in constant nervousness between the critical and the essential. The problem is that the important task rarely must be done today, or even this week. Unfortunately, this way of thinking creates stress because it generates a constant cycle of high demands, high pressure, new high pressure. Even a home is no longer a castle; no longer a place away from urgent tasks because the telephone breaches the walls with imperious demands. We might as well give into the fact that no place is free from the stressors of everyday life that often prevent us from enjoying a moment of silence. But because we fear the loss of precious time, we must push aside any moment of peace in order to get back to our important translation projects. The value of our life now boils down the quantity of work that we can produce in an hour of time.

What does this mean to Atlanta Translation workers like you and I? It means that we need to place a value on our time and prioritize those things that are really important. You are your own master and you control your destiny. Someone or something will always make demands. However, everyone has some control-and probably more than they realize.

Usually the views towards free stuff are extremely controversial. There are many people who do not approve of getting a free stuff. The reasons for that are common. Some have tried before and got something that did not satisfy them and they were disappointed. Also they may have got caught in some scan in the result of which a lot of money has been wasted. However there are a lot of advantages which you should take into account. It is better to look at the bright side of the case.

Can you even imagine that you obtain something you would like to have very much but cannot afford without spending a penny? It is completely possible and you do not have to pay for it. Also there are a lot of other great reasons for getting free stuff. Let’s figure out why it is worth looking for the free stuff.

Do not trust those who are trying to convince you that looking for the free stuff is nothing but wasting of your time. Do you feel luck of time? I am sure that there are a lot of hours which you spend watching TV or doing nothing. That is why it is better to devote this time to carrying out a little search and to get advantage of the time you really waste when you do noting. Also any activity is not wasting of the time. When you look for something on the internet you get chance to get to know a lot of various information which may serve you right sometime in the future.

In case you need something without which you cannot live, for example a laptop for your studying, you should definitely look for it on the internet. It is possible to find the thing you are in need of. You should not spend your last money on laptop as there are a lot of free laptops on the internet. Also in case you find a computer free of charge you will get a chance to spend your money on something else that you need. There are many options which you are not aware of. All you have to do it to start looking for them on the internet.

If you still doubt I would like to recommend you to try on your own. However you should be ready that it is not an easy task to do. In case you would like to be successful in this activity you should be patient and determined because sometimes it takes a great deal of time to find something really worth your attention.

No matter what you have decided I wish you luck and patience. If you would like to browse internet do not forget to look for something you need. There are all chances that you will find it for free.

The current situation is teaching us that being frugal is not something bad. And on this wave of frugality the free stuff online projects get the real attention from the online audience. Please visit this site to find cool free stuff online. You deserve to know the place where free stuff is really nice.

Right now we live in the world where information quickly enhances the quality of our life.

Due to this if you are properly armed with the information in your topic you can rest assured that you will in any case find the way out from any bad situation. So, please make sure to get back to this blog on a regular basis or - the least time consuming way of doing it - sign up to its RSS feed. Thus you will have your hand on the pulse of the freshest informational updates here. Blogging can be helpful, you just need to understand how to use them.