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In the Data Visualisation Rush

Data volumes which can be easily produced and accumulated nowadays are enormous but revealing their advantages is harder than ever. What we still need is complex and erratic information to be presented with clarity, efficiency and precision. For this purpose, we have a variety of data visualisation tools at our disposal, but in a rush, we can easily slip into vivid visualisation effects and lose benefits of the systematic approach of working with data.

Therefore in anticipation of lifting Flexmonster Pivot Table Component to a new level, we start a series of weekly blogs about data visualisation. We will go all the way through often neglected basics to everyday tips for making your visual communication better. Let us start with a quick review of three key principles of the qualitative data visualisation.

Flexmonster Licenses: Which One to Choose?

After the Component evaluation you could probably face the question: which license to choose? With this blog post we will help you to make the right decision when you are trying to get the most suitable license for your project.

There are two key licenses for Flexmonster Component usage:

Flexmonster 2.3 Version Roadmap: So, What's The Plan?

Along with our minor releases that come every 2 weeks as the improvements to 2.2 version, our team is also working non-stop on the new major release. The work on 2.3 version is already underway and we think it would be fair to share our plans with you.

The direction we chose is based on our customers requests, support cases that we have received and also the new trends on the analytics market today.

Сertainly, it’s just a small part of all improvements that will be included in 2.3. release but still the noteworthy ones.

New features in 2.3 version are coming this autumn:

Flexmonster 2.2 Release: Show Your Data 10 Times Faster!

Flexmonster Team is pleased to announce that Flexmonster 2.2 version is released. This release is packed out of new powerful instruments that allow to increase the static and multidimensional data load speed tenfold for both server and client-side solutions.

It’s all about SPEED! In this release our team fully focused on the data transfer.

Observe Your Business Goals With Flexmonster KPIs

One of the most important tools that analytical experts use for analyzing data is key performance indicators (KPIs). Flexmonster constantly monitors the latest trends and couldn’t help adding this feature to the Component. Usually a company needs to observe conditions of sales, profits, expenses, sold units etc. For such analysis they need KPIs - measurable or comparable metrics that are used to define and grade performance of a given measure. Indicators are determined based on company goals. It gives organizations the opportunity to assess their state and helps in forming development strategies, allows to control a business activity in real time.

Flexmonster presents a new "Questions & Answers" section on the website to make our communication even more productive!

We have great news for you! We receive a huge number of your questions all the time and always try to respond as soon as possible to answer these or to solve any of the issues that you may experience while using our component. Our team is always ready to help, whether you are only reviewing and testing or already doing an integration within your solution. Responsiveness and responsibility are the primary principles of our company. Now Flexmonster has become even closer to our valuable customers.

We present a new  section on our website. This service is designed to make our website more convenient for users and to provide the ability to get the product information that you need even faster than before.

How does it work?

Flexmonster to Stop Releasing Flash Version: Focusing on HTML5

Flexmonster will completely focus on the development of HTML5 version of Pivot Component and is going to STOP releasing new Flash and Flex versions in the nearest time. The new release 2.2, the last one with the Flash version, is expected this autumn!

Flexmonster keeps moving with the times and tries to meet new needs and requirements our customers demand that often requires using the latest available technologies and tools. Over the years we have managed to create high-quality Pivot Table & Charts Flash component for our clients. It's no news that every day Flash is becoming less popular among users while HTML5 is spread on majority of modern devices, is more secure and opens more opportunities for visualizing data for end users. That is why a year ago we released a new version of Flexmonster that included not only updated Flash/Flex web-component but also HTML5 version. Still, we continued applying development efforts to both versions, thus we were simultaneously enhancing them both.

Flexmonster 2.1: Release Overview

For Flexmonster team 2014 has become a year of bringing our web pivot table component to the new level. Announced in spring release of version 2.1 has become not only one of the most expected by our partners and leads but also one of the most advanced in terms of functionality extension. We continue focusing on making Flexmonster pivot table component more Excel-like and thus we add a number of cool features as well as bring HTML5 version to the same level as Flash/Flex one (by features and performance).

The full list of new features and improvements includes over 20 items but we would like you to pay your attention to the most spectacular of them:

  • Classic (not-grouped) view or Classic mode - widespread way of pivoted data presentation. Classic view helps end users see hierarchies one beside another - just like they are accustomed to in Excel;
  • Drill-through - clicking on a cell gives user an outstanding opportunity to dig deeper into data and see its constituents;
  • Editing cells for CSV data sources - lets end user change values in the grid on-the-fly;
  • Drag and drop fields on the grid - changing filters/columns/rows location on the grid without opening field list (configurator);
  • Speed up CSV parsing - updated loading algorithm allowing.

Case study: Pivot Component for SolvAxis Web-Based ERP-Solution

Company Profile
Name: SolvAxis
Region: Switzerland
Industry: IT solutions
Function: ERP’s Development and Services Solutions

Challenges
SolvAxis came to Flexmonster team with the task of completing their ERP functionality with pivot table and charts component. The company required a datagrid with high rendering capabilities as their customers needed millions of rows of data to be visualized. Moreover, fast response was highly important in case of synchronous Gridview and Chartview in SolvAxis ERP product.

The Year After Tomorrow. Top BI Trends in 2013

We have already seen a lot of the big data and self-service hypes this year. The BI tools are becoming user and experience-centered, diminishing the importance of the IT departments. Solutions are becoming more user-friendly on tablet and mobile devices and everyone had their chance to yell “me too!” at the Big Data buzzword of the year. All of the above happened in a ravishing 2012, but what is expecting us in next year 2013. Let us have a look.

According to Gartner reports, next year technologies will completely converge around social data, mobile platforms and cloud solutions. In order to boost business performance, companies will closely analyse social networks facts to measure particular decision success as they started to do in the recent years.

Simple BI Self-Reporting Pivot Table Tools Simplify Collaborative Decision Making

Imagine you walk into the room full of sales people doing unstopping “cold calls”. Every one of them features their own call list designed in Excel with marks, notices and statuses for each calling lead. Their manager has his own calling list of leads as well and sometimes reviews performance of his sales team.

As you go, you see people unaware of their own performance against others as well as their manager not knowing performance of his team as well. He tries to pull up some call list sheets from his mates, but the raw figures talk nothing to him as he needs to open numerous attachments for each of his sales reps. He prints out number of pages, then a moment later throws them out in a desperate attempt to answer sole question - what’s going on.

3 Best Practices for Successful Web Pivot Report

No doubts pivot reports provide better insight on multidimensional data with their ability to provide basic operations like slicing, dicing and pivoting OLAP data interactively. Rather than having such data separated into flat reports for dashboard tables, gauges and charts, pivot table report is still a tool where analysts can interactively gain more visibility.

While traditional pivot table report tools like Excel or PowerPivot provide a number of instruments to accomplish the above, the web report should be more robust to meet expectations and usability of common users. From manager to CIO, web pivot table reports should be a straight and easy self-service reporting tool to answer questions with little (or better without) any lengthy trainings or education.