A one-size-fits-all, out-of-the-box approach to BI just doesn’t cut it in 2022. Businesses want to make laser-focused, data-driven strategy decisions. But you can only achieve this when you combine a strong, trustworthy data source with the ability to drill down, analyze, and create a crystal-clear business picture.
Forecast is all you need to plan, run, and track projects from start to finish in one intelligent automation platform - so you can trust the data you’re seeing on your screen. But what about that next challenge: the capability to analyze this strong data and make it talk?
Well, today is an exciting day; we are pleased to be giving you that next piece of the puzzle!
Our newest feature, Advanced Analytics (AvA), is now live. AvA is our brand new analytics tool that will allow you to do more with your data in Forecast. By giving you the ability to create customized reporting dashboards, this powerful analytics add-on will give you what you need to shift your decision-making approach from reactive to proactive.
Whether you’re puzzling over how to grow your business sustainably in a volatile market, looking to boost profitability across your project portfolio, or aiming to identify and overhaul costly processes - whatever your business goal, AvA is going to help you get there. Or, as Forecast CEO Dennis Kayser put it:
“Introducing AvA is the logical next step for us, to help generate maximum value for our customers. Leveraging AvA, it’s now possible to build specific reports and dashboards to serve any need, utilizing data from any system connected to Forecast, and thus providing a full 360-degree view of their entire company.”
Let’s dive into the benefits that AvA will bring to your Forecast experience.
Embedded, Intelligent Analytics
Drill Down into Critical Data Points
Embedded, Intelligent Analytics
How long do you want to spend on reporting? For professional services organizations, the answer will surely be “As little time as possible.” But how much time do you actually spend, currently?
Creating reports and cleaning data can be a massive time-sink and a huge contributor to administrative overheads. There’s no way around it though - in order to operate strategically and build a business that is resilient in the long term, you absolutely need the insights that only data can bring you.
But now, with AvA, detailed reporting no longer means hours of number-crunching and data manipulation. In-depth dashboards and beautiful data visualizations are at your fingertips. AvA is a connected part of your Forecast workspace, automatically populating your dashboards with your Forecast data. And as your team members work away and input new data into Forecast - time entries, task estimates, new or changed rate cards - AvA updates your dashboards, giving you a real-world, dynamic picture of your entire company operations.
Transitioning to new ways of tracking and analyzing data is a known change management challenge for businesses. But, as AvA is already embedded into your existing platform, using the data that’s already there, incorporating AvA into your workflow will be seamless. The at-a-glance, visual nature of AvA’s dashboards means that your reports will always be as user-friendly as possible. Whether they are being accessed on a self-serve basis by people within your organization, or whether they are being sent to clients, you can be confident that your AvA dashboards will be helpful and clear - shedding light, rather than muddying the waters!
Self-Service Customization
AvA gets you started with four pre-built dashboards: insights into when you need to hire, what you need to do to optimize revenue, how you can maximize profitability, and how your project portfolio is performing. But AvA doesn’t stop there. In fact, these dashboards are just the starting point. The real power in AvA comes when you build your own, custom reporting dashboards.
By tailoring the dashboards to answer the most important questions facing your business, you cut through the noise and address challenges that are unique to your company. As you illuminate elements of your data that you had never considered before, AvA will become your go-to for answering tricky business questions. “It’s going to give you the power to answer critical business questions in the way that you see fit,” says Amalie Kaysen, Forecast’s VP of Product.
Once you’ve built a custom dashboard, it remains in your dashboard library for as long as you need it. This means that once a report is built, there’s no need to regenerate or create that report again. It will update with real-time data, meaning that every time you return to it, the visualizations capture a picture of what is happening at your organization right now.
There’s no limit to the number of custom dashboards that you can create. Indeed, you might say that the only limit is your imagination. “For companies that have sophisticated reporting requirements and want to get the most out of their data,” says Dennis, “It’s just the perfect solution.” We can’t wait to see our amazing Forecast users getting inventive and using custom dashboards to generate all kinds of insights into their business operations!
The best news is that you don’t need to be a Data Scientist to wrap your head around AvA’s customizable capacities. When you onboard with AvA, your nominated Dashboard Designer will get all the training and support they need to build the robust dashboards that will become the cornerstone of your company’s reporting.
Drill Down into Critical Data Points
Are you trying to identify which retained client relationship is the most profitable for your business? Or perhaps you need to know which roles are consistently overutilized within your design team? These are the kinds of insights that can really help support strategic decision-making. And, with AvA, accessing highly specific insights like these will take seconds.
Leverage the inherent customization of AvA to take a truly forensic approach to your data, filtering, splicing, and segmenting in countless ways. As Damantha Boteju, Forecast’s Chief Technical Officer, says, “The best analytics tools generate more questions than they answer," and AvA’s ability to surface granular insights will inspire investigation and ideation as you seek to solve the issues that you uncover.
If you want to see the full extent of AvA’s custom reporting capabilities, book a demo and bring high expectations with you. We know that you’ll be impressed by what you see. The real question is: what are you going to achieve with AvA?
Want to learn more about how BI can help solve the challenges facing your business? Join us for our Webinar, From Flagging to Flying: How to Boost Your Business with Advanced Analytics, where we will be digging into this topic and answering audience questions!
