Solutions used: APOS ADMINISTRATOR, APOS PUBLISHER, APOS INSIGHT
Product Components Used: AddressBook Gateway, APOS Professional Services, Dynamic Parameters, InfoScheduler, Instance Manager, RunTime Manager
Background:
Movado Group, Inc. designs, manufactures, and distributes Movado, Ebel, Concord, ESQ, Coach, Tommy Hilfiger and Hugo Boss watches worldwide, and operates Movado boutiques and company stores in the United States.
Challenge:
Movado Group was migrating from Seagate Info to Crystal Enterprise 10. They were looking forward to utilizing the web-based reporting platform but required functions that were not available with the ’out of the box’ Crystal Enterprise 10. Such features included: rescheduling scheduled reports, maintaining server availability, quickly identifying and correcting failed reports, and providing dynamic drop down lists for parameter values and the ability to centrally manage report prompting text. Movado Group contacted APOS Systems for a solution. "The APOS extensions and services were critical toward helping Movado Group go live in a timely manner." said Kate Moore, Manager of Business Intelligence.
Solution:
The APOS InfoScheduler tool permits easy rescheduling of reports in bulk after changes are made; such as, the addition of new fields or additional parameters. InfoScheduler enables Movado Group to release heavily scheduled report updates more quickly.
Movado Group also uses the APOS Instance Manager tool daily to monitor system performance. It enables quick and easy identification of the number of reports currently running, completed successfully, failed or pending. It identifies the name of the report and its location, how long the report took to run, and reason for failure. Groups of reports can be held, released, deleted or rescheduled in bulk.
The APOS RunTime Manager tool enables Movado Group to easily manage the availability of Crystal Enterprise services according to worldwide data availability with no manual intervention. This saved time because Movado Group’s Information Services personnel didn’t need to write and schedule its own sc ripts. More importantly, it provides a user-friendly interface making it possible for anyone in the group to easily maintain server availability.
The APOS AddressBook Gateway tool provides users the ability to select email addresses from a drop down list saving them time when scheduling while reducing the number of reports scheduled with inaccurate email addresses.
The APOS Dynamic Parameters tool provides users with dynamic drop down lists of parameter values. It also enables Movado Group’s Information Services personnel to centrally manage parameter prompting text rather than entering it into every report file. Through the use of global parameters, a parameter is created once and used by any report that contains that parameter. It also facilitates moving parameters from one implementation to another. This feature is considered a ‘must have’ by Movado Group users. The ability to centrally manage report prompting text saves Movado Group approximately 25-50 hours a year.
APOS Professional Services were utilized to enhance Movado Group’s user interface, extending the functionality to meet the high expectations of Movado Group’s user community. "Movado Group chose APOS consulting services to enhance its custom user interface based on the positive experience it had in implementing the APOS add-on tools. APOS consulting was able to quickly and effectively address system issues. APOS has consistently delivered valuable solutions for Movado Group in a timely and cost effective manner" said Kate Moore, Manager of Business Intelligence, Movado Group, Inc.
Why APOS?
Movado Group could not go live with Crystal Enterprise v.10 ‘out of the box’ because functions deemed necessary were not available. APOS BI Tools filled in the gaps, enabling Movado Group to migrate successfully to Crystal Enterprise v.10
APOS Systems Inc. is an SAP BusinessObjects software solution provider in the SAP PartnerEdge program. Named SAP BusinessObjects Technology Partner of the Year for the past three years, APOS has been a Crystal partner since 1996. APOS has acknowledged a key SAP BusinessObjects XI and Crystal Enterprise strength - its open architecture - and has designed and developed a variety of add-on solutions that offer customers additional capabilities within the SAP BusinessObjects XI infrastructure.
For more information:
Allan Pym, VP Sales and Chief Operating Officer
519.666.2020 or apym@apos.com