Noetix Views: BBBi is similar to Noetix in that we both offer database views that simplify complex relational database structures into simple business meaningful views that end users can easily understand and use without SQL knowledge. However, our solution is designed to be a complete Book to Bill revenue reporting solution. It provides ready to use reports, so no other software knowledge is necessary. Where Noetix provides a broad range of views spread horizontally across all the Applications, we provide a more vertical and comprehensive focus on Sales Order and Revenue Data. We also provide Sales Order Audit History, where we actually capture and report changes to sales orders in our transaction table. You can’t calculate accurate historical bookings and backlog without it!

Oracle Discoverer: Discoverer is a query tool. It requires implementation, SQL programming and setup by experienced technical staff. It is often used with database views, so that end users can access and run queries. It does not provide any intelligence as far as how to write, access or interpret the complex relational structures that exist in the database. For this reason, some of our customers use our pre-defined BBB views with Discoverer to provide their end users with a flexible way to access accurate BBB data. It only takes a few minutes to import and begin to use our views with Discoverer.

Business Objects: Business Objects is like a combination of Noetix and Discoverer. It’s a user friendly query tool that also provides general views for business purposes, but does not provide comprehensive BBB data or Sales Order Audit History. Users and IT staff will typically have to write and/or modify the base Business Objects views to meet their requirements.

Essbase: This is a data warehouse with an OLAP front end. It’s a powerful analysis tool if you plan to build your own interfaces and logic from Oracle, you don’t need real time data, and you have a large budget and 6 months or more to deliver a solution.

Brio: A reporting/query tool that facilitates building SQL queries using a GUI, drop and drop front end. It provides no transformation logic and no Order Audit History capabilities.