Epicor iScala 2.2 includes many tools and features that enable businesses to get just the right balance of information. Standard reports can be created to reflect routine needs and these can be printed, faxed or published over the internet. Printing can easily be scheduled for larger runs. This is complemented by tools to analyze the overall picture and drill down to business activity, based on business level statistics, financial information etc. The Epicor iScala reporting and business intelligence tools are fully integrated with all other Epicor iScala processes.

With the iScala BI Server, you can easily:

• Create New queries or reports on a regular or ad-hoc basis

• Enquiry & Report drill down

• Reports web deployment

• Multi-channels of output: Excel, HTML, PDF, RTF, RPT etc.

SCENARIO 1 - CRYSTAL REPORT
If a company has complex reporting requirements or wants to combine data from multiple data sources into one single report, Crystal Report is an excellent tool. They may also want to have rules defining how this should be published to different end users, Crystal Report has a nice and intuitive report designer and also a very powerful development environment for doing more or less whatever you want.

SCENARIO 2 - EPICOR ISCALA WEB REPORTER
If you create multiple reports and want to make them available to your entire organization, want to give your sales staff an updated report every day or create individual, localized, reports for each regional office, then you can use Epicor iScala Web Reporter. Epicor iScala Web Reporter is an excellent viewer and print engine for Epicor iScala Crystal Reports and Epicor iScala Crystal Analysis. It has very good scheduling and security features. This is a" zero client deployment" solution so maintenance is only needed at one location, where you have the Web Server.

SCENARIO 3 - EPICOR ISCALA QUERY DESIGNER
If a company has complex reporting, but not necessarily static reports, their requirement could be to produce and maintain reports which structure tend to change all the time. The finance department may also want to be able to drilldown in to details of customized queries, e.g. from the Income Statement down to the individual invoice details. Epicor iScala Query Designer is the ideal tool, it has an intuitive interface for selecting information and adding data to a query. The out put format can be either just for viewing it online or take it further, by for example exporting it to Excel to allow for a more detailed analysis.

SCENARIO 4 - EPICOR ISCALA CRYSTAL ANALYSIS
Your company has complex business workflow. You want to uncover why business performance has varied from predictions by viewing significant points of interest modelled on your business process. You can explore complex data using guided workflows in Epicor iScala Crystal Analysis. With the help of Epicor iScala Cystal Analyisis, you can o Improve insight into your business,

• Increase productivity,
• Collaborate with other users.

You can also explore trends, compare information and view points of interest in your organization’s data using guided workflows to help you make better decisions. If you are most comfortable in Excel, you can analyze your data in its familiar environment powerfully and easily while still ensuring the validity of your data. You can easily share your analytic reports with Epicor iScala Web Reporter in a secure environment. Integrate analytic reports into existing business workflows to allow deeper investigation.

SCENARIO 5 - EPICOR ISCALA BI WEB PARTS
When you have issues in how you should find the information that really need to follow up. If you get a sales report every week that contains all details but you will not see instantly if something is good or bad until you read the full report. With BI Webparts and a Trend arrow you can create nice graphical presentation of the same report but on a lot higher level and still give you access to the details of something is wrong.

Features

Information Sharing

BASIC REPORTING
All Epicor iScala Servers support four basic reporting technologies. In many businesses this is sufficient to provide management with the information needed to run their business. The different reporting technologies are controlled from the Epicor iScala Global System Administration Console and can thus be managed remotely for Epicor iScala Enterprise users. Reports, once created, can be sent to one or more targets, for example printer, fax, email or database, as required.

• Embedded Crystal Reports. The Crystal Report engine is embedded into the Epicor iScala Servers and can be used to run RPT based reports. This provides end users with a graphically rich environment, WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) print preview and all the other features that users of the stand-alone Crystal Report products are familiar with.
• Rich Text Format Reports. RTF based reports are useful for integrating into Microsoft Office and other RTF supporting applications.
• Document Definition Files. The original Scala DDF based format is still supported to provide backwards compatibility and enable existing users to re-use their documents with minimal upgrade effort.
• Built-in Reports. Epicor iScala is shipped with a number of standard reports, for example trial balance. As with all other Epicor iScala reports, these are available in all licensed languages.

Automated Reporting Support

Often businesses require additional automation to further process and distribute reports, either internally or externally. For example, invoices may need to be faxed to customers late at night, when the fax machine is idle, or duplicated reports created within an electronic document archive.

• Visual Basic for Automation (VBA). The Epicor iScala VBA Runtime includes support for the automation of almost any reporting activity, for example to send copies of all reports to an electronic archive or to create context sensitive documents, for example send an invoice by email, fax or paper depending on the setting in the customer file.
• Post Processing. For large or complex reports, or high volume printing, it is often useful to pass the basic report to a separate computer or program for further processing. Using the post processing option this is as easy to do as sending a report to a printer or fax.
• Web Publishing. Reports often need to be securely published to users outside of the company for use by head office and sister companies, or to communicate with business partners and off-site staff. The Epicor iScala Web Reporter can be used to publish any reports or output created in Crystal Report and Crystal Analysis or, with appropriate security, even let users create their own reports over the web. The Epicor iScala Web Reporter can also be used to schedule and distribute regular reports so that the published information is up-todate. For example, cash flow reports can for example be created nightly and automatically sent to by head office treasurers via e-mail.

Querying and Drill down Support

Some businesses and people within organizations really need to have customized information either as a query or as reports. What the Epicor iScala BI tools can provide you with is a very easy way to create new queries, drilldown trees or Key Performance Indicators without any technical knowledge.

• General tool for add-hock reporting and querying
• Simple real-time analyzing tool
• Easy distribution of standard queries, reports and Excel spreadsheets
• Simple analytical tool that requires no prior knowledge about the Scala database structure

Business Intelligence

Business intelligence (BI) is a broad category of applications and technologies for gathering, storing, analyzing, and providing access to data to help enterprise users make better business decisions. BI applications include the activities of decision support systems, query and reporting, online analytical processing (OLAP), statistical analysis, forecasting, and data mining, Key performance indicators (KPIs), balanced scorecards and other techniques are then often used to further summarize the information and provide meaningful assistance to managers in their dayto- day activities. Epicor iScala users have a number of ways to obtain whatever BI information they require. It can normally be used in different situations like

• Mission-critical and integral to an enterprise’s operations or occasional to meet a special requirement
• Enterprise-wide or local to one division, department, or project
• Centrally initiated or driven by user demand

Our solution to these demands are in multiple areas, you can gather data from Epicor iScala, OLAP cubes and other data warehouses which can be used for reporting, analyzing or querying.

• Built in Statistics. As part of the basic Epicor iScala processes key information can be captured about sales, purchase, manufacturing, service management, project management and payroll. This information can be reported using any of the reporting tools listed above.
• OLAP. All Epicor iScala Servers run on Microsoft SQL databases that include as part of the Microsoft environment the ability to create and maintain OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) cubes. Once created these OLAP cubes can be exported into most BI analysis engines for consolidating at an enterprise level or for more detailed analysis.
• Web Reporting with Epicor iScala Crystal Analysis. The Epicor iScala Web Reporter is powered by Crystal Analysis. This is a powerful business intelligence and reporting engine and can be used to create and publish KPIs, balanced scorecards, and other OLAP cube based BI information.