What problem does Visual Interactions solve?
Visual Interactions relieves the frustration with the speed, cost, and complexity of viewing and analyzing existing business data. Visual Interactions provides a Business Intelligence solution that is simple to buy, simple to implement, and simple to use.
How does it solve the problem?
Through Visual Interrogator™, Visual Interactions provides customers with an intuitive user interface and analysis tool that customers can use to analyze and share information. Visual Interactions provides ready-to-use content specifically for commonly used business applications like Microsoft® Business Solutions-Great Plains®, Microsoft® Business Solutions-Solomon®, ACCPAC® Advantage Series™ and ACCPAC Pro Series™. Visual Mapper™ connects Visual Interrogator to any relational database using a sophisticated, low-cost mapping engine. Business benefit to the customer is enhanced by partners' and consultants' knowledge of the customer and their data.
What software packages do Visual Interactions products work with best?
Visual Interactions products can work with any system that uses relational databases, but are available in packages created especially for common software packages such as Microsoft® Business Solutions-Great Plains®, Microsoft® Business Solutions-Solomon®, ACCPAC® Advantage Series™ and ACCPAC Pro Series™.
How are license agreements structured for Visual Interaction's software?
One license for Visual Interrogator or Visual Mapper allows our customers to install and use it anywhere in their organization.
What types of companies benefit most from Visual Interactions software?
All companies can benefit from Visual Interactions software, but it is especially valuable to companies that have a lot of data in their systems that they need to monitor and act on.
How many additional PCs or servers will I need to buy to run the software?
None. Visual Interactions can be installed on existing PCs and servers without significantly affecting the performance of other applications using those computers.
What are the technical requirements?
SERVER HARDWARE
- Pentium II processor or higher
- 256 MB RAM
- 10 MB of available hard disk space.
SERVER SOFTWARE
- Windows NT, Windows 2000 or Windows XP.
CLIENT HARDWARE
- Pentium II or higher processor
- 256 MB RAM
- 10 MB of available hard disk space (Additional hard disk space may be needed based on the number of saved queries.)
CLIENT SOFTWARE
- Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, or Windows XP.
Why does Visual Interactions cost so much less than other solutions with such powerful capabilities?
Visual Interactions solutions cost less because they have a superior design to be simple and lightweight. In order to implement Visual Interactions products, you don't need to duplicate data or add servers. Our software is designed to fit seamlessly into your existing systems, and is modular enough to be configured with minimal time and expense.
Can Visual Interactions software really analyze data from any relational database?
Yes. With Visual Mapper, a dictionary can be created to retrieve data from any relational database. Visual Mapper is used to map the key attributes of the database for Visual Interrogator - then all of your data will be available for quick, simple, powerful analysis using Visual Interrogator.
Can Visual Interactions software analyze data from two separate data sources in one analysis?
Yes. With the release of a new product in 2004, customers will be able to get an integrated view of all their data across multiple data sources inside and outside of their core software packages.
Do I have to pay extra for upgrades?
No. All upgrades of existing products are covered in the 20% annual maintenance fee. New products and product extensions will be sold separately.
Who sells Visual Interactions software?
Solution partners with a commitment to using technology to improving their clients' businesses.
How, exactly, does Visual Interrogator work?
Visual Interrogator is a tool for users to view and analyze their data to answer important business questions. Through a simple, visual interface, Visual Interrogator simplifies the process of accessing and analyzing data so that the users do not need to know any technical detail about where the data is, how it is named, or how it is connected to data in the database. Visual Interrogator does all this by converting technical information about a company's data into easy-to-use menus and wizards.
How, exactly, does Visual Mapper work?
Visual Mapper translates all of the technical details about an organization's data so that users can access it easily through Visual Interrogator. Among other things, Visual Mapper interprets all of the metadata from target databases and creates a dictionary of the connections between the databases and the characteristics of the data they contain. In this way, Visual Mapper can map any relational database for so it can be accessed using Visual Interrogator and its data can be related to data from many other databases to provide powerful, integrated analysis of business performance.
Does Visual Interactions duplicate my data?
No. Visual Interactions software efficiently accesses your existing databases. It does not create data cubes, data warehouses, or new databases.
How much integration and services are required?
As a rule, services cost about 50% of software cost. This is substantially less than the industry standard of 1:1 software to services ratio.
My application software already has built-in reports, and my programmers can create custom reports if I need them. Why do I need another reporting tool?
It is true that most businesses have a partial - but painful - solution to the problem of accessing data. But businesses need something both more powerful and more simple than reporting.
Visual Interactions software can do a lot more than create static reports. Visual Interrogator provides a complete solution for accessing and analyzing your data in a matter of minutes--not days--and removes the high labor cost and headaches of planning and programming reports.
How many people within my organization can use Visual Interactions to do their work?
Visual Interactions licenses cover the whole organization.
Who in my organization can benefit from the software?
All leaders and decision-makers can benefit from accessing their data using Visual Interactions.
Typically, Visual Interactions software is used first by company presidents, CFOs and line-of-business managers and their support staff who are responsible for tracking and managing company performance.
Because Visual Interactions software is easy to use, however, it can be used to make decisions and answer questions throughout the organization. Some Visual Interactions customers even use the software to answer customer-service questions that they can't otherwise answer in real-time.
Who will support Visual Interactions software and answer my questions? Will it be the solution partner or will I speak with VI?
Both Visual Interactions and the solution partner will work together to answer customer questions and provide the broadest level of support possible. Solution partners have more knowledge of their customer's data and businesses, and will usually be the best contact for customer questions. However, Visual Interactions will support its products fully and will be available to answer questions and direct resolution of problems should they arise.
What solutions does Visual Interactions have for specific industries?
Some Visual Interactions solution partners have expertise in specific industries, and they can help clients analyze their data and create company-specific analyses for those industries using Visual Interactions software.
How will Visual Interactions solutions change the way my company makes decisions?
Visual Interactions software puts decision-makers in closer contact with important data. The first improvement will be that important decisions can be made faster because no programming delay is required to get at important data. The second improvement is that decision-makers will start to use Visual Interactions software to proactively monitor their businesses' performance, and Visual Interactions software will help them structure and track the performance of key areas of the business.
Why is Visual Interactions better than report writers (like Crystal ReportsR)?
Reporting solutions have significant shortcomings:
- Creating reports takes a lot of time and costs a lot of money (especially in programming labor).
- Reports are static-it's a real headache and very slow to drill-down on something you see in a report and get more information.
- Reports are poor analytic tools. If you want to analyze data to see trends and make decisions, you have to take the time and effort to find some other way to analyze the data.
Visual Interactions software solves all of these problems with reporting solutions: analysis is easier, faster, better and cheaper, so decisions can be made faster based on better information.
As well, Visual Interactions solutions are more technically flexible and can incorporate more
fields from more databases.
Why is Visual Interactions better than a data cube (like WebHouse)?
Cubes cost a lot more to provide the same benefits with more headaches. Also, cubes do not use real-time data.
These are the additional costs of cubes as compared to a Visual Interactions solution:
- Higher up-front license cost
- Higher up-front services cost
- Higher up-front hardware cost
- Higher continuing maintenance costs, including dedicated servers and costs of regularly pulling data into the cube.
Why is Visual Interactions better than using spreadsheets to analyze data?
Using spreadsheets has a lot of hidden costs. Spreadsheets are time-consuming because it is difficult to pull the relevant data from your existing systems and structure it in the spreadsheet to enable analysis. Spreadsheets don't stay connected to your data as it changes, so you must repeatedly import data over time, and that costs time and money.
What are Visual Interactions' plans for future products?
Visual Interactions regularly enriches its products and product lines based on feedback from its customers and solution partners. In the near term, planned enhancements include:
- Additional analyses and business views
- Broader mapping capabilities to access multiple data sources
- End-user functions such as scheduled analysis distribution and an available web-based interface
Will Visual Interactions interfere with my transaction processing?
No. Although Visual Interactions does access information from your production databases, it is designed not to interfere with their use in production.
What security features does Visual Interactions have to control access to data?
You can give people the power of Visual Interactions without worrying about them accessing sensitive information. Visual Interactions lets you control access to information in multiple ways:
- Restricting data access is managed through the business view assignment as well as down to the table and field level through customizable security profiles.
- Restricting functional access to features with Visual Interactions software is controlled by assigning user types.
What can you tell me about Visual Interactions?
Visual Interactions is a proven provider of software that simplifies business intelligence. Our software eliminates the hassle and frustration that businesses have in using their data to make informed decisions. Our customers see immediate benefits from our software because of its low cost, powerful analytics, and incredible ease-of-use.
Visual Interactions is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota and sells through partners nationwide who have shown a commitment to using technology to improve their clients' business performance.
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