Dell Software Simplifies Business Intelligence and Improves Operational Efficiency for Kennesaw State University


Date : 11/12/2013
Round Rock, Texas

Implementing Toad Business Intelligence Suite saves university 20 hours a week on data provisioning and validation, and increases reporting productivity three fold while empowering administrators to make faster, more informed decisions

Dell Software today announced that Georgia’s Kennesaw State University has successfully leveraged its Toad Business Intelligence Suite to transform HR processes and better enable university leaders to make timely, accurate decisions. As the third-largest and fastest-growing university in Georgia, Kennesaw State University needed a business intelligence solution that would make it fast and easy to compile and analyze payroll, benefits, employment, and academic information from diverse data sources to ensure accuracy and prevent financial loss. The university also needed a secure way to easily extend that information to non-technical users to facilitate correct and timely decision-making.

“We needed a single solution that made it possible for us tie together all of our various sources of data and information,” said Brad Smith, Director of Payroll Services and Human Resource Information Systems. “We wanted something that was easy to administer and enabled us to deliver data and data analysis tools to users’ desktops. Toad Business Intelligence Suite gave us all of that and more.”

An integrated self-service BI solution, Toad Business Intelligence Suite allows users to easily access, prepare, analyze, and share data from any source, without sacrificing IT governance, and also dramatically simplifies and accelerates reporting. The suite includes Toad Intelligence Central, which allows users to combine data across multiple sources, locations and formats and then collaborate on logical data views through two desktop tools: Toad Data Point for analytic data provisioners and Toad Decision Point for business analysts.

With Toad Business Intelligence Suite implemented, Kennesaw’s HR department not only saved 20 hours a week previously spent correcting manual reporting errors, it also went from being able to produce only 12 automated reports a year to developing and delivering 50 automated reports within two months.

Empowering University Leaders to Proactively Take Informed Action
In addition, because Toad Business Intelligence Suite allows technical users to make data readily accessible to non-technical line of business users, university leaders such as the provost and academic affairs officers can proactively pull reports featuring years of enrollment, tuition, attendance and expense data to further aid decision-making. This has proven particularly useful during the summer session, when it’s critical for the university to proactively predict whether classes will incur cost, break even, or be profitable.

“For three years, I’ve manually created reports for the provost and academic affairs officers, but now I’m able to put that data into Toad Intelligence Central and give them the ability to pull reports themselves — much earlier than before,” said Smith . “Toad BI Suite will enable them to be more proactive in their planning.” The university also turned to Toad Business Intelligence Suite when it needed to use analytics to review salaries and employee turnover. Smith’s team used Toad Business Intelligence Suite to extract data for salary surveys ─ collecting, filtering and pulling out average salaries by employee position and educational background, and matching the information against state and national numbers.

“Organizations are all striving to be more data driven and make better, smarter, more informed business decisions, and that has created a pressing need to be able to connect all types of data, regardless of location or type,” said Matt Wolken, general manager, Information Management, Dell Software. “As we’ve seen with Kennesaw State University, this is especially crucial for colleges and universities, where multiple, disparate sources of both historical and real-time data need to be connected so that decision-makers can make determine the best course of action in a given situation.”

Access and extract meaningful data from both traditional and non-traditional sources
The flagship business intelligence software solution within Dell Software’s information management portfolio, Toad Business Intelligence Suite allows users to rapidly combine data across multiple sources, locations and formats — including relational databases, BI platforms, Salesforce.com, and Big Data sources like Hadoop. Users then can synthesize this information through Toad Business Intelligence Suite’s customized BI tools, designed specifically for both business and IT users. Key features include:

Expanded heterogeneous data connectivity – Toad Business Intelligence Suite delivers complete support for relational databases like Oracle and SQL Server, and business intelligence platforms like Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition, SAP BusinessObjects, and Microsoft Analysis Services, as well as connectivity to leading data warehouses like Teradata, Netezza and Greenplum. Unlike traditional BI tools that address siloed data sources, Dell Software’s data-agnostic approach provides one tool that works across all data sources to reduce complexity and improve business analysis and self-service BI.
Optimized data access and desktop self-service integration – Fast, agile, desktop self-service data integration accelerates the ability to share data and queries in real time, while streamlining collaboration and analysis.
Data transformation and cleansing – With Toad Business Intelligence Suite, users can seamlessly manipulate, transform and cleanse data, while delivering consistent and accurate data sets. Users also enjoy the ability to easily embellish data sets with additional columns, calculations and groupings.

A Complete End-to-End Information Management Solution
Toad Business Intelligence Suite is part of Dell’s Software’s Information Management portfolio, which makes it possible for organizations to simplify complex data environments and unlock the power of information. Supported by one of the industry’s largest user communities, Dell’s one vendor–one tool chain–all data approach enables organizations to easily manage, integrate and analyze data to inform business decisions, increase innovation and drive new revenue streams.

Delivering Complete and Connected Software Solutions
Dell Software empowers companies of all sizes to experience Dell’s “Power to Do More” by delivering scalable yet simple-to-use solutions that can increase productivity, responsiveness and efficiency. Dell Software is uniquely positioned to address today’s most pressing business and IT challenges with holistic, connected software offerings across five core solution areas, encompassing data center and cloud management, information management, mobile workforce management, security and data protection. This software, when combined with Dell hardware and services, helps customers simplify IT, mitigate risk and accelerate business results.

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About Dell
Dell Inc. listens to customers and delivers innovative technology and services that give them the power to do more. For more information, visit www.dell.com.

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http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/uscorp1/secure/2013-11-12-dell-software-business-intelligence-customer-kennesaw

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