DISTINCTIVES: VDDW Distinctives   >   Ease Of Use

  • Ease of Use refers to how quickly a user can navigate to the answer they’re looking for, how well the system facilitates data visualization, and how much additional manual data handling the user must perform to get the answer they need.
  • How Ease of Use relates to the other sectors of comparison

    Ease of use is heavily impacted by:

    1. The depth of analysis that can be performed, particularly how well the system allows a user to navigate back and forth between summary level performance numbers and the root causes that are deeper down, even down to the transaction level

    2. The accuracy of the system, and how much the user must venture beyond it (implying swivel-chair/spreadsheet data integration) to verify that the numbers are right

    3. The degree of integration between operational, financial, and process data, and how tightly those elements are wed in the system’s underlying schema. Loose or non-existent integration of these elements will result in tedious spreadsheet jockeying, if such manual integration is even possible.

    In turn, Ease of Use also affects broader organizational buy-in.


  • Why the VDDW rates well for Ease of Use

    1. Because of the tight, schematic integration of corporate financials, operational data, and processes, with supporting drivers, most if not all of the data that the business needs is simply “right there” so as to understand the what and why behind performance for any particular slice of the enterprise

    2. It is dimensionally designed, which is more intuitive for users, and lends itself to staging within a cube with high-grade data visualization tools on the front end

    3. Using cubes as the end-user delivery mechanism makes the system extremely fast to query, enabling quick, iterative analysis up and down the various business dimensions until root causes are isolated