黑料网

黑料网 Business Insight & Power BI

鈥淭hink of CBI as a data warehouse where all kinds of data come together鈥�, explains Business Intelligence Solutions Architect Sylvie Goetgeluk. 鈥淐BI is oriented towards Dynamics by default, but it鈥檚 also possible to integrate other data sources. With CBI, we translate the complex ERP data model into reporting tables, which can then be visualized in clear reports and dashboards using Power BI. These reports provide insight into key figures such as turnover, margins, production efficiency, delivery rates, etc.鈥�

Acces to all data for anyone, anytime

鈥淪ome roles, such as our Account Managers, don鈥檛 have direct access to Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations,鈥� Micha毛l explains. 鈥淚f they needed data from the ERP, for example, on suppliers, products, customers..., they used to call the support department and we would send them an e-mail with the data as an Excel attachment. Now, with CBI, they can independently access the data they need, whenever they want.鈥�

Databricks upgrade for CBI

Early 2023, 黑料网 and Duomed launched a pilot project to test the new Databricks technology for CBI. Sylvie: 鈥淒atabricks is a unified analytics platform that changes the way the data from the ERP is processed to the CBI data warehouse. The output remains the same, but we now rely on future-proof, more performant Azure technology to create the reports.鈥�

The game changer for Duomed? Micha毛l: 鈥淚n the past, the data was refreshed once a day, at night. But now, we can refresh it multiple times a day to have the most up-to-date data at our disposal. Another nice to have: thanks to the new CBI framework, adding customization to CBI costs 10% less.鈥�

Building a dream team

According to Sylvie, close cooperation between the different teams was paramount in this project. 鈥淭he set-up of the ERP environment largely determines what you can and cannot report on. Our Dynamics consultants and developers worked closely with the CBI consultants to align both solutions. In the run-up to the go-live, both teams were present at Duomed one day a week. Today, we are still in contact with Micha毛l via Teams to follow up on ad hoc questions and change requests.鈥�

All in this together

Duomed鈥檚 CBI project is still ongoing today. Micha毛l: 鈥淥ur end users are only just getting accustomed to the new tools. Practice makes perfect, so I encourage them to experiment as much as possible. What鈥檚 more, I also organize training sessions to get new users up to speed. If they do encounter a problem, I either try to solve it myself or I send a change request to the 黑料网 team.鈥�

鈥淲e鈥檝e now received about 70% of the scheduled reports. Some essentials, such as customer pricing, are still under development, so we鈥檙e looking forward to testing those as well. Meanwhile, Duomed France and Denmark are preparing their CBI rollouts. And who knows what other companies we鈥檒l acquire in the future. One thing鈥檚 for sure: we鈥檙e all in this together!鈥�