Reporting in eTrack is powerful, extensive, intuitive and customisable.   

All the standard types of statistical, financial, accounting, scheduling and resource reports are included and also advanced ones for example showing trends and potential problem areas.

Users can define their own reports either using the built in user interface or using third party packages accessing a ‘reporting database’ that comes complementary with eTrack.   These can be combined with the standard reports to create dashboards.

 

The eTrack Business Intelligence Reporting module is powered by q4bis that is a whole product in itself with very powerful data analysis that compares with the most advanced systems in the world.  It works on a SQL Database ‘cube’ that is created from the eTrack Reporting Database.

The following sections give an overview of the various eTrack reporting capabilities.

The eTrack Dashboard brings together standard and user defined reports into a concise summary for management review.   

1.        Select a tree branch in the main eTrack tree such as a project, team, client, department etc.

2.        Select a predefined Dashboard or create and save a new one.

3.        Select the layout and optionally make first quadrant rich text to record project status.

4.        Select Date Range.

5.        For each quadrant, select a Report from a list of standard reports.  Create and add your own User Defined Reports (see section below) to the list.

6.        Each report can be shown in tabular as well as graphical representation.

7.  Select from 44 different graphical types in 2D or 3D.

8.         Select from a myriad of report options.

eTrack includes a complete User Defined Reporting user interface allowing the customer to:

c)       create many types of graphs for each report and labels axis etc.

The screen below is used to create a user defined report.  Right clicking on a Search Criteria at the top pops up a dialog that the user can select any field and a comparison.  Multiple rows and columns can be ‘AND’ed and ‘OR’ed together to create complicated SQL Queries.  Right clicking on a result column pops up another dialog from which to select result columns from any field in eTrack.

The User Defined Reports are named and can be edited at any time (protected by security permissions).   Personal, department or system wide etc reports can be created.

There are currently over 30 Standard Reports.  Each can be run from any branch of the business hierarchy and each has multiple selection criteria thus allowing 1000’s of standard reports to be generated.      These include your weekly timesheet report, accounting and invoice reports, schedule and resource management reports, financial indicator reports and many more.   

Also, working with ING Bank, eTrack has developed ‘trend’ reports.    Many projects may appear to be on time and on budget from typical financial reports but schedule deviation and potential problem area reports may show a different story, for example where more tasks are started whenever a problem is encountered and tasks are not closed indicating multiple critical paths are not being followed.

Below is one of the report menus with an example of the selection criteria of the Activity Report.  This one report can be run for a project, program, client, department, team, current staff or an individual etc. showing the power and flexibility of the standard reports.

The eTrack Business Intelligence module is powered by q4bis, a powerful product in itself that is supplied by PST Software and sold throughout the USA.  

Multi-Dimensional reports allow business data to be viewed dynamically from a variety of different business perspectives.   These multi-dimensional reports allow the user to drill down and combine various aspects of the business together and manipulate them to discover business information.

Using the eTrack BI interface, complex and powerful analysis can be performed on large quantities of data quickly and with a minimum of training or technical expertise.   The result is an intuitive view of the business that is instantly understood by senior management.

The two key principles of multi-dimensional reporting are Dimensions and Measures.

a)       Dimensions are a way of looking at a business.  For example, a ‘Product’ Dimension can be used to analyse development costs and effort by product.

The power of multi-dimensional reporting comes from combining Dimensions to analyse the relationships between different aspects of the business.   For example, combining a ‘Product’ Dimension with a ‘Project Dimension’.  Dimensions can have multiple levels to allow analysis at different aggregations of data.   For example, the Product Dimension can be aggregated to Components or the Project Dimension to Phases, Releases or Tasks.

b)       Measures are the ‘measures’ of business performance – the numbers that are reported.
The Measures are aggregated depending on the combination of Dimensions selected in a multi-dimensional report.  These can contain several measures for each Dimension combination.  For example, the Dimension combination of ‘Product’ and ‘Project’ could report the ‘Cost’, ‘Time’, ‘Average Rate’, ‘Utilisation’ or ‘Profit’.

eTrack recognises that companies may wish to make use of existing reports developed in third party reporting and business intelligence products.   These reports may combine outputs from multiple tracking products across different areas of the business and staff may have expertise in other products.

To support this scenario, eTrack has a ‘Reporting Database’ that comes as complementary.   The user can configure multiple flat SQL tables to be created by the eTrack Maintenance Utility that can then be easily accessed by other products.    

This means you have full access to the complete eTrack database without having to have knowledge of the eTrack architecture or database structure.

Local Australian eTrack staff know all of the product inside out and in many cases can reduce costs and time further by suggesting adding options to an existing report to achieve what you need.  A core development team that have been with the company since conception has resulted in maximum reuse and efficient code which means the customer can get fast and accurate designs, quotes and results.