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I was at an archeological conference last week promoting the InfoBurst Squirrel no-code application development solution. This is the same solution that many BusinessObjects customers are using to provide write back, AI and what if scenarios in Web Intelligence.
It is also an excellent solution for the archeology community because their main constraint is budget. InfoBurst Squirrel allows them to build their own custom apps for data collection and analysis quickly and inexpensively.
In conversations with many BusinessObjects customers this year, I am also seeing the same constraint on budget in terms of training and staying up to date and leveraging the latest features.
Many organizations have minimal training budget and not much services budget for upgrades and consulting this year as cost containment remains a top priority for most of them.
However, upgrades to BI 4.3 SP5 or BI 2025 along with training on the new features can be achieved on a very low budget.
There have been several security vulnerabilities reported in BusinessObjects versions already this year that have been addressed and fixed in only the latest versions, namely BI 4.3 SP05 and BI 2025. The upgrade to BI 4.3 SP05 is reasonably straightforward for customers on earlier service packs of BI 4.3 and can be performed “in place” meaning it is not necessary to create new VM’s/server and move content. Most BI 4.3 “in place” upgrades can be completed between 4 to 10 hours per deployment depending on the complexity of the deployment. This means that even if you use external consulting, the cost can be kept low.
The upgrade to BI 2025 can also be executed “in place” but it is recommended that the new release should be installed on new VM’s/servers since there is a lot more new code and further enhancements and changes to Web Intelligence and its user interface. It is therefore better to bring up this new release alongside the old release and allow more time for testing and learning to avoid any potential business disruption. Even so, a typical upgrade can be achieved in 25 to 40 hours per environment.
Training always seems to be the first thing to be eliminated when budgets are tight. This is rarely a smart strategy as users end up spending a lot of time on lost productivity trying to figure out the new version and often get stuck and frustrated.
Formal training can be expensive, whether on-site or virtual, and is not always the best way to teach experienced users the new functionality and visibility changes. We have found that short hands-on knowledge transfer sessions (1 to 2 hours at a time) or short video training tutorials are often more effective and a lot less costly.
The SpeakBO EXTRA forum annual subscription has proven to be an excellent low-cost solution for many BusinessObjects users. With a slew of 8 to 12 minute video training tutorials on both Webi 4.3 and BI 2025 that can be viewed and replayed 7 by 24 along with walkthrough articles and access to over 150 training webinars on BusinessObjects, it’s a great way to both get trained and stay up to date with all the new features in BusinessObjects. In addition, lots of new content is added each month. When you consider the annual subscription to be just $299, it makes training on BusinessObjects affordable to all.
Staying current on BusinessObjects when it runs mission-critical operational reporting to your organization is essential and not something that should be pushed out. Outages and downtime caused by out-of-date software can be a lot more costly than software upgrades and training.
Are you willing to take that risk?
