Jaspersoft Expands Pre-Integrated, Self-Service BI for Partners, Devs 
Open Source BI provider Jaspersoft continues this summer to focus on integrating its business intelligence solutions with other applications and solutions providers, and has also released a self-service portal to provide Jaspersoft devs a rich set of resources.
Open Source BI provider Jaspersoft continues this summer to focus on integrating its business intelligence solutions with other applications and solutions providers, and has also released a self-service portal to provide Jaspersoft devs a rich set of resources.
This month, Jaspersoft revealed that eBuilder, a provider of cloud-based supply management solutions is using Jaspersoft BI Suite to provide customers more insight into the flows of product shipments across worldwide distribution networks. The solution also empowers end users to produce self-service access to management reports that would enable clients to benchmark performance of all parties in a multi-enterprise supply chain, for example.
eBuilder seamlessly integrated the Jaspersoft BI Suite into its order fulfillment and after sales cloud-based process, according to Roger Wallentin, eBuilder’s supply chain product manger.
As a result, eBuilder can enable clients to
- Boost efficiency and reduce costs through fact-based supply chain measurement
- Rapidly access tactical and strategic volumes and KPI (Key Performance Indicators) across all stakeholders
- Assimilate large amounts of formerly scattered information to standardized reports and flexible data extracts
- Tailor BI functionality to various roles: strategic, tactical, and operational so clients’ users can gain actionable insights and then respond
- Use embedded technology to make more informed decisions, harnessing the power of Jaspersoft’s easy-to-use reports and visualization dashboards
Jaspersoft’s single-view performance dashboard provides new levels of supply chain visibility and control, allowing eBuilder to place greater focus on managing its supply chain performance and proactively identifying bottlenecks in their international network before they impact the customer and the bottom line, Wallentin noted.
“Our IT team found the Jaspersoft technology to be stable, high-performing and robust, delivering powerful reports to our clients enabling them to make critical business decisions,” he added.
Jaspersoft Launches Self-Service BI Knowledge Base for Community Users
News of the eBuilder project follows by just a few week’s Jaspersoft’s launch of its Self-Service Express, a new subscription service for members of the open source community who want premium, professional-grade BI documentation and knowledge base articles.
Self-Service Express provides JasperSoft community users with documentation, tips and tricks, code samples, best practices and other technical information, according to Matt Geise, Senior Director of Community Development at Jaspersoft. Members of the Jaspersoft community can also search for resources across Jaspersoft.com and JasperForge.org.
The customer knowledge base also include sa wiki that offers tips for getting started, “How To” articles, examples and sample code and troubleshooting information.
In an annual survey taken in 2011, over 80% of the JasperForge community requested such a service, Geise added.
Jay Lyman, senior analyst with The 451 Group, said if Jaspersoft caters more broadly to its community users, including large enterprises, the company could possible tap new and unique commercial opportunities from open source. “Open source users have indicated a demand and willingness to pay for these types of commercial offerings, which include documentation, knowledge base access and search in the case of Jaspersoft’s Self-Service Express,” Lyman said in a statement.
Early reaction is positive. Ben Uphoff, a Jaspersoft community user, said, “Self-Service Express will help me and my team become more productive as we build reports and dashboards for our users. The enterprise search capability means we can quickly find what we are looking for and the rich documentation and customer knowledge base provide us with a lot of useful and practical how-to information.”
Self Service Express starts at $99 per month or $399 per year for a single user. In addition to offering Self-Service Express, Jaspersoft will still offer free, peer-created and Jaspersoft-created support content on JasperForge.org.
