Beyond 20/20 Releases Vista 2.1

Beyond 20/20 released Vista version 2.1 on May 25. Beyond 20/20 Vista is a software solution that leverages the power of industry standard technologies for Web-based analysis and visualization of data. Vista is designed to enable users to access and analyze multidimensional data on the Web, view descriptive metadata to fully understand the meaning behind the numbers, and to drillthrough to record-level data. With an intuitive user interface, users are able to view their data in a tabular report or in a variety of chart types.

Whichever database your data resides in, either Oracle, SQL Server, Sybase or other relational databases, Vista can use it to build cubes. Better yet, with Vista there are effectively no cube size limitations.

Some of Vista 2.1’s new features and enhancements include:

• Time Series Functionality - Calculate and save reports with growth rates and year-to-date aggregations.
• Cell-Level Footnotes and Missing Values - In addition to summaries and footnotes at the cube, dimension and member level, Vista 2.1 supports footnotes and multiple missing values at the cell level.
• Export from Drillthrough - Once in the drillthrough view, users can download record- level data to CSV/SSV/XLS.
• Support for Windows 2003 Server - In addition to Windows 2000 Server (SP4) and Windows 2000 Advanced Server, Vista 2.1 now runs on Windows 2003 Server.
• Automation Functionality - Vista Extended Builder allows data providers to add extended features such as multilingualism and advanced metadata to a Microsoft Analysis Services OLAP cube. New automation functionality uses a scripting file to rebuild or update an existing extended cube - automatically adding the multilingualism and metadata required.

Vista 2.2 will be released in 3rd Qtr and it will have many more new and exciting features such as a new charting solution. The new charting will be done with Dundas Software, a leading firm in the development of advanced Charting, Diagramming and Data Visualization solutions. Make sure to look out for the announcement of the next release, there are so many more great features coming up!

Announcing Beyond 20/20 Builder/Browser 7.0

Beyond 20/20 Builder/Browser 7.0 was released at the end of June 2004. There are many performance enhancements in this new release. It includes the following new features:

Improved Footnote Loader: Footnote loader speed and stability has been greatly improved to allow for the fast loading of up to millions of footnotes into an IVT.

Updated User Interface: The Builder and Browser interface has been updated with new icons (including metadata icons) and a new colour palette for tables, charts and mapping.

New Online Help: The help is now in an HTML format which makes it easier to find the required information.

Ryerson University will use Beyond 20/20 to disseminate institutional research data

Ryerson University has just become Beyond 20/20's newest customer. Ryerson will disseminate institutional research data on their Web site using Beyond 20/20 Web Data Server. The University's Planning Office and senior administrators will be accessing this data for internal analysis.

Previously, Ryerson disseminated the data in PDF and HTML formats. They found that this did not give their users any tools to analyze the data. They noticed that Beyond 20/20 has become the product of choice for organizations like themselves who have data to disseminate, and so they decided to use Beyond 20/20. Its intuitive user interface for end users made it an easy decision for Ryerson.

Ryerson University has already started using Beyond 20/20 internally and in Fall 2004 selected data will be available to the public on their Web site using the Beyond 20/20 Web Data Server.

Tip of the Month

Did you know when you are in the Beyond 20/20 Vista report view, all of the underlined data can be drilled into? By selecting an underlined value the drillthrough screen comes up with the record level data associated to that value. You are then able to further analyze this value.

If you have any questions about this tip, please contact us at insights@beyond2020.com.

Beyond 20/20 would like to wish everyone a great summer!