CorVu Products

CorBusiness — A suite of powerful, Windows client, data analysis tools for power users. The primary tool in this suite, Graphical Analysis, enables business users to create and customize corporate database queries, organize and compare data graphically, perform multi-dimensional (OLAP) analysis and drill-down operations, and format results for easier comprehension by others. In this way, users are empowered to find and analyze trends, patterns, and correlations in corporate data on their own for faster, better decision-making based on facts. These capabilities are extended in CorBusiness with Executive Alerts, a component that allows key measures of business performance to be compared to business objectives and displayed as a “dashboard” of meters. This gives users a quick snapshot of performance and allows them to “drill down” to examine the data underlying the meters. CorBusiness is further extended with the Report Writer component, which allows the results of user queries and analysis to be highly formatted for electronic or printed report distribution. In addition to the ad hoc analysis capabilities of CorBusiness, business intelligence “applications” consisting of pre-defined queries, analysis scenarios, and reports can be defined for use by others who do not have the time or skill for raw analysis. These BI applications can be accessed by other CorVu applications or published to web servers and accessed over the Web via a browser.

CorBusiness Personal/Web Edition — Contains all the components and functionality of the full CorBusiness product, except that users cannot define their own database queries nor develop pre-defined analysis scenarios or applications. Personal/Web Edition users can freely analyze data within result sets (“DynaMarts”) generated from pre-defined queries, or they can utilize pre-defined analysis scenarios (i.e. drill paths), generate pre-defined reports or utilize other applications objects prepared for them by CorBusiness users. The Personal/Web Edition is intended for users who prefer quick access to commonly needed information over investing the time to learn and create their own ad hoc data analysis. The CorBusiness Personal/Web Edition can be deployed as a client/server application or as an ActiveX extension, which is distributed to standard browsers via the worldwide web.

CorManage — Includes all the components and functionality of CorBusiness, plus three additional ones that help users understand the reasons behind company performance and plan for future performance. The most significant of these components is the Balanced Scorecard. The Balanced Scorecard enables companies to assign weighted values to key measures of business performance and associate them into categories that provide a “balanced” look at company health. For example, the Balanced Scorecard approach advanced by its inventors at the Harvard Business School weights key performance indicators (KPIs) around four distinct areas: financials, customers, internal processes, and product innovation. Executives are presented with a summarized “score” for each of these areas and can “drill down” through any score to see the KPIs underlying the score, and drill through the KPIs to see data that may expose the underlying reasons for each KPI value. CorManage also includes Forecasting, allowing users to project future performance, and Impact Analysis, allowing users to create “what if” scenarios and see how changes in underlying data would impact KPIs and Balanced Scorecards. These components assist in isolating key variables for predicting and improving future performance.

CorManage Personal/Web Edition — Contains all the modules and functionality of the full CorManage product, except that users cannot define their own database queries nor develop objects or applications, such as Balanced Scorecards, forecasts, or impact analysis scenarios. However, Personal/Web Edition users can freely utilize and interact with pre-defined objects, such as Balanced Scorecards, that were defined for them by CorManage users. The Personal/Web Edition is intended for users who prefer quick access to frequently requested performance summaries, rather than learning and creating their own performance measurement system. The CorManage Personal/Web Edition can be deployed as a client/server application or as an ActiveX extension, which is distributed to standard browsers via the worldwide web.

CorVu Server (3-tier) — Provides a three-tier architecture for process-intensive CorVu operations, including calculations on query results, such as drill downs, and scheduling of report generation. It also allows multi-user access to commonly used DynaMarts. Running on either NT and UNIX platforms, the CorVu Server is transparent to users of CorVu applications, off-loading process intensive operations to the server automatically. The CorVu Server is recommended for users working with very large query result sets (“DynaMarts”), where the performance gains are significant.

CorVu Administrator — Contains several components for setting up, configuring, and managing a CorVu installation, including Knowledge Library, Security Administration, Scheduler, and the CorVu Gateway. One CorVu Administrator license is needed per CorVu installation (local network or server site) and typically used by database administrators. The Knowledge Library allows creation of a simplified “view” of the database for business users. Cryptic database tables and fields can be renamed or hidden. Summary fields can be added, and joins can be defined. In this way, CorVu users see only the data that is appropriate for them and in a way they can understand. They can create database queries without worrying about SQL statements and joins. The CorVu Administrator also allows access to specific tables and columns in the database to be restricted to specific users or groups of users. The Scheduler can be deployed on any client machine for scheduling queries, report generation, or printing. The CorVu Gateway is a reliable, high performance, native interface to the Progress RDBMS.

RapidApps — A series of pre-defined templates or sample BI applications designed specifically for use with a particular Progress application or database. RapidApp 1000 is specifically designed for use with the QAD MFG/PRO application. RapidApps may include a predefined Knowledge Library, and many predefined reports, queries, drill down scenarios, or Balanced Scorecards designed for customer of a particular application. RapidApps can show off the value CorVu brings right away and allows users to derive value from their CorVu investment almost immediately. While a CorVu RapidApp is already a complete and powerful BI application, it also can serve as a great starting point or example for rapid development of other BI applications with CorVu.


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