Business Intelligence on iDempiere ERP: dashboards, KPIs and sales analysis
A company running iDempiere ERP works with Labinf Sistemi to integrate INFO BI Business Intelligence on Knowage, turning its data into dashboards and KPIs.
The client
An Italian company using iDempiere as its ERP system, and therefore holding a growing body of data generated every day by its business processes.
Orders, customers, products and sales are a valuable basis for understanding business performance, but operational data alone does not always allow trends to be read at a glance.
Key results
- ERP data turned into interpretable information
- Business Intelligence integrated directly with iDempiere
- Centralised sales analysis
The starting point
iDempiere already held the information needed for day-to-day management. The next step was to use it as a basis for sales analysis and decision support as well.
The project set out to install and configure Knowage, making views available in INFO BI that retrieve data directly from iDempiere and present it through pivot tables and a standard dashboard. Business Intelligence is not an isolated system, but an analysis layer connected to the information system.
Key challenges
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01
Hard-to-read operational data
ERP data needs to be aggregated, compared and presented more immediately than by looking up individual transactions.
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02
Analysis disconnected from the ERP
BI must use the ERP’s information, keeping a direct link with the data source.
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03
Sales from several perspectives
A static report is not enough: data must be explored across different dimensions and levels of detail.
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04
Users with different roles
Management and other users need to see different information depending on their assigned permissions.
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05
Immediate visual tools
Dashboards, charts and KPIs must help identify trends, anomalies and deviations quickly.
The solution
Labinf Sistemi integrated INFO BI, a solution based on the open-source Knowage platform, with the company’s iDempiere ERP. The first area of analysis is sales, providing a structured base on which to build new analyses over time.
Dedicated views retrieve data from iDempiere and make it available in INFO BI: data originates in business processes and is then collected, organised, aggregated, analysed and presented, without building an analysis environment disconnected from the ERP.
The project includes
- Platform installation
- Environment configuration
- Views on iDempiere data
- Sales statistics cube
- Customised views
- Pivot tables and standard dashboard
- User training
- Start-up support
The standard sales statistics cube applies multidimensional logic: OLAP tools define dimensions, hierarchies, measures and levels of detail, and users navigate data with drill-down, drill-across, slice-and-dice and drill-through, moving from the aggregated view to the detail. Unlike a static report, data can be queried while changing perspective during the analysis.
Dashboards, KPIs and custom analysis
INFO BI allows interactive dashboards to be built that bring together reports, charts, indicators, KPIs, summary data and detailed views. KPIs are defined with target values and thresholds, and the system can generate alerts when results are anomalous or out of range.
Charts (bar, line, area, pie, scatter, bubble) can be placed in reports and dashboards; reports can be sent to users on a set schedule and exported to Excel, PDF and Word. The platform is accessible via web browser, including from mobile devices, with users, roles and permissions configured according to confidentiality requirements.
- Pivot tables
- Custom queries
- OLAP analysis
- Scenario analysis
- Geo-referenced statistics
- Budget scenario simulations
The benefits
- ERP data turned into interpretable information
- Business Intelligence integrated directly with iDempiere
- Centralised sales analysis
- OLAP multidimensional analysis and pivot tables
- Interactive dashboards with KPIs and thresholds
- From aggregated data down to the detail
- Custom queries and analysis
- Export to Excel, PDF and Word
- Configurable users, roles and permissions
- Reports and analysis areas expandable over time
Built on Knowage, the platform grows step by step: after the sales cube, new views, reports and customisations can be added.
In short
With Business Intelligence integrated with iDempiere, the data produced every day by the ERP becomes dashboards, KPIs and multidimensional analysis: a dedicated analysis layer in which information is aggregated, explored and presented for those who monitor business performance and make decisions.
