Enterprise

ERI Toolkit

The Grey Sparling ERI Toolkit extends your ERP/CRM application environment by automatically linking together multiple reporting technologies without requiring you to modify your existing application.

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The ERI Toolkit shares context between ERP, Reporting, and BI tools with an innovative method that works with any web-based user/report interface. Essentially, a virtual navigator that "just-in-time" maps pages to reports, reports to reports, and reports to pages. However, what makes this approach unique, is that it is efficient, non-intrusive and automatic. It only maps what it needs when it needs it, and changes are automatically recognized. In essence, each page of your application (and each report) is turned into an implicit portal automatically, and puts BI/Reporting right inside your workflow.

What does it do for my Users?

Upon installation, users will instantly be able to navigate with a single click to & from systems as part of a single business process flow. By simply hovering over any field on any application web page, the user sees a popup menu of all logically related reports (across any of the supported enterprise BI/reporting products). By selecting a choice from the menu, the user is immediately transferred into that specific report and the specific page/field/value context is transferred to the report automatically. Conversely, the user is able to just as easily hover over report fields and popup the logically related application pages (or even other reports), and once again be transferred seemlessly back and forth without loosing context. It is as easy to navigate application pages and reports as it is to navigate the web. More importantly, it turns static pages and reports into an interactive part of the workflow, thus increases user productivity by eliminating the need to go "in-and-out" of the application environment. Since the context is preserved, there is no need to re-key or copy/paste field values.

PeopleSoft Example

A user looking at a purchase order page, within the PeopleSoft enterprise application, can hover over the vendor name field (specifically vendor: ABC) and popup the reports logically related to vendors. By selecting a report from the menu (e.g. Crystal Enterprise, PS/nVision, Search Engine, etc.), the user is transferred into the desired report, automatically supplied with the context of vendor: ABC. From inside this report, the vendor can likewise hover over any report field and once again see a popup of logically related application pages or other reports. Once again by selecting from the menu, the user can navigate at will without losing the context. No manual coding, no application changes, and no report changes necessary. This translates into immediate productivity for both the user as well as IT.

The ERI Toolkit consists of the following components:

ERI Framework

The ERI framework is the core of the ERI Toolkit. The goal for the ERI Framework is to minimize the impact to the corporate environment. The benefit is that there are no required customizations to the applications. The ERI Framework extends the ERP/CRM application tools for report creation and execution without touching the actual application vendor’s delivered objects. This ensures that standard Upgrades and Maintenance can be applied to the enterprise application environment without impact to either the delivered application or to the added extensions.

ERI Context Layers

The ERI architecture tracks a multi-layered set of metadata that builds bottom-up from the set of context relationships derived in the foundation. Current BPM technologies work top-down from domain and functional models and require a vast amount of expertise and effort to achieve results. Since the foundational layer in ERI is automated, benefits can be realized by layering value-added services on top of the derived context, and less time on actually creating and maintaining the BPM structures.

The diagram can summarized as follows (from bottom-up):

Level-0 Foundation: The Foundation can be automatically derived by the assets already existing in the enterprise (pages/forms, reports, users, rules, data, etc.). The set of relationships constitutes a defacto view of the enterprise and its interdependencies. This foundation determines the context for each asset and for each relationship. Once created, the maintenance can likewise be automated to occur in real-time. This greatly alleviates the burden from IT.
Level-1 Navigation: Once the foundation is automatically created, we instantly see the benefits of contextual navigation. No longer does a user have to "hunt & peck" for the desired report, and no longer does the user have to copy/paste/re-key data from one page to the next, or keep track of where they came from. In fact, the operational reporting is now seamlessly integrated within the transactional workflow since the contextual menus and popups now work from inside the application pages. Additionally, when one navigates from one place to another, the context is passed along for the ride. The best part is that this capability is a result of our unique "virtualization" technology. In other words, the existing application pages and reports do not have to be modified, yet they instantly acquire this new functionality the next time you view the page. Not only does this provide instant benefit without effort from your IT staff, but it means you do not alter the upgrade process for your applications. The first two layers provide true locational and contextual transparency.
Level-2 Collaboration: Not only have we linked the operational and reporting aspects of the same system together, but true enterprise integration spans multiple systems across the enterprise. Level-2 takes advantage of the other layered integration by providing a way to collaborate across diverse portions of the enterprise that are linked by a common context. For example, if a vendor is determined to be a potential fraud candidate by one department, then how is this "warning" communicated across the organizations of the enterprise? Some may use email, some may have a site to post the list, and some may even have controls in place at logical choke points to stop potentially risky transactions. However, with Level-2 collaboration the way information is shared is dramatically and instantly altered. At the point the vendor is determined to be a risk, a user can insert a notice (from whatever application or report they happen to be viewing) and that notice will now flag instantly on any application page or any report(across the enterprise) that has a field where that vendor could be selected or is currently displayed. All without changing the existing application or the existing reports.
Level-3 Personalization: For many years now, portal technology has been used to allow portal administrators and users to pull together related content and link it together for easier access. This is still a good idea, but Portal technology was never designed to handle a pre-existing application with thousands of pages, forms, and reports. Additionally, Portal tools were designed like development tools, requiring manual design, coding, and maintenance. Once again, the idea was good, but the implementation was lacking. Level-3 Personalization builds on the previous layers to provide a means to easily pull related content together and link it to create personal application pages for both users and administrators. How is this different than current portal building? First, most of the work is already done since the related assets are already mapped. By starting out on any web page, the user already sees the related linkages via the contextual popups and menus, and can easily select a related link and drop it into the current page to create a personalized view of that application page. Second, the context is automatically passed from one page to another, so the technology automatically maps the required parameters from the first page to the other report/page. The Level-3 Personalization layer even allows different users who work in the same application pages to create their own personalized menus and set favorites for those application pages.
Level-4 BPM/BAM: This layer is where most people start their business process and policy enforcement design. Our Level-4 tracks information about the usage of informational and operational "assets". In a nutshell, Level-4 monitors the "workstream". Probably, the biggest advantage of Level-4 is in the area of business process improvement. By tracking: where users spend their time, where they navigate to, what reports they read (or don't read), Level-4 provides the recency, frequency, and monetary value for each asset in the enterprise. Level-4 BPM Workflow interfaces with conventional BPM to provide bottom-up, defacto informational and operational needs (and usage). This layer allows you to report against the BPM linkages to help find where your business processes are ineffective and which steps should be added and or modified to make them more efficient. The reporting against the processes also creates a view into the process that is unavailable in standard tools.

ERI Repository: Context and Annotation Database

This database will support the solution, and will be independent of the ERP/CRM data structures to ensure that it does not impact them. It will support the storage and management of context relationships, as well as, the capture and storage of annotations and comments about the content. Because the enterprise applications are the systems of record, the ERI Framework will automatically extract the needed information from the enterprise system and augment it with information from the ERI repository. This minimizes data movement and synchronization issues.

Contextual Navigation Framework

The Contextual Navigation Framework supports the bi-directional communication between application and tool adapters that link the enterprise application business processes and all reporting technologies (that come with the enterprise application product). The framework also includes Web-enabled user interfaces to capture optional control information and annotations.

Enterprise Application Reporting Technologies

The ERI Toolkit will leverage existing enterprise reporting tools already included with the ERP/CRM applications thus requiring no additional licensing.

How does the ERI Framework communicate with other BI and Reporting Technologies?

The key to the ERI Framework is that it works with any web-based application, BI and reporting technology by means of non-intrusive ERI adapters. An ERI adapter utilizes web standards to efficiently (and securely) allow navigation between applications as well as transferring metadata relationships between web-based assets and the ERI framework.

The following ERI adapters are currently available: