publication of the International Legal Technology Association
Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/395170
8. An Integrated, Cube-Based BI Solution: Can you have a BI/dashboard solution without cubes? Absolutely. But if you don't have cubes, you are going to miss out on a major BI deliverable: empowering your financial analysts to perform ad hoc analyses. Once your financial analysts have access to a robust cube and their trusty copy of Microsoft Excel, they will never go back to writing T-SQL queries against the practice management system database — results are available in seconds, instead of minutes or hours. 9. Receive Excellent Value for Your Maintenance Fees: All vendors collect either subscription fees or software maintenance fees from their clients. You have the right to learn what you can expect to get in exchange for your ongoing vendor payments. If you are paying maintenance, you are entitled to ongoing software releases with significant new functionality. Note that this should be a key line of questioning when doing reference checks. 10. Excellent Support: When your BI solution is down, you need to get it running again quickly. When you have a question on how to build an ad hoc query, you need an answer right away. If you have a great BI solution with slow or poor quality support, your BI implementation will not be successful. ILTA WHITE PAPER: OCTOBER 2014 WWW.ILTANET.ORG 52 A BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE BILL OF RIGHTS: 20 CRITICAL FACTORS FOR SELECTING YOUR BI SOLUTION TOUGH QUESTIONS FOR VENDORS: • What is your ad hoc query solution? Is it cube-based? • What is the response time for a typical query? • What is your recommended ad hoc query tool? TOUGH QUESTIONS FOR VENDORS/ REFERENCES: • What are the procedures for logging issues? • What is the average response time? • What are the qualifications of the support personnel? • Are metrics tracked for client satisfaction with support? TOUGH QUESTIONS FOR REFERENCES: • How many updates/releases did the vendor put out last year? • Was there significant new functionality? • Were the updates easy to install? • Were there services fees required for the installation of the updates? 11. Profitability That Works: One area in which we have all heard about failed BI implementations is profitability. Profitability is tricky. Each firm has its own unique requirements for both allocations and reporting, and the granularity of the expense allocations can lead to massive data sets and performance bottlenecks. The two basic issues are whether the vendor can implement your firm's profitability requirements in a timely manner and whether the resulting solution offers adequate performance for your reporting needs. To ensure your rights are respected for profitability, come prepared with thorough