DPA and Information Advantage Team to Package Metadata Channel in DecisionSuite Eureka!
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DP Applications, Inc., (DPA), a leading provider of packaged data warehouses for ERP systems, and Information Advantage Inc., a leading provider of Web-based Business Intelligence software, have announced that they have teamed to create the DPA DecisionPoint Warehouse metadata channel within Information Advantage's DecisionSuite Eureka!, a Web portal to Business Intelligence.

The DecisionPoint Warehouse channel integrates the DecisionPoint Warehouse's mission critical enterprise metadata information into the Eurkea! portal to proactively deliver reports from the metadata repository to business and technical users alike. For example, these reports could indicate any abnormalities in the data movement process between ERP applications (i.e., Oracle, PeopleSoft, and SAP) and the data warehouse for users to better evaluate the timeliness and accuracy of their Business Intelligence systems.

Eureka! applies the concepts of customized Internet portal sites, such as My Yahoo! or Excite, to offer users a personalized view of their organization's decision making information. As with these consumer portals, Eureka! offers users the opportunity to subscribe to channels that pertain to an individual's role or interests, and meet their security profile. The DecisionPoint channel within Eureka! may be used to access and analyze metadata reports focusing on items such as data quality, security, changes in the Business Intelligence data repository and system performance. Through Eureka!, users can interact with these live reports to view more detailed or summarized information from the DecisionPoint repository.

"ERP systems contain the fiduciary data set for the enterprise, but by their very nature cannot respond to ad hoc requests for that data from decision-makers within the organization," said Larry Scheurich, DPA's chief technology officer."The DecisionPoint Warehouse extracts those data sets from the ERP environment, and reschematizes them for use by business analysts. By incorporating DecisionPoint Warehouse metadata into Information Advantage's Eureka! environment, we equip business and IT users alike to examine and respond to the dynamic changes within their ERP and Business Intelligence environments. Through Eureka! and the DecisionPoint channel, we can integrate mission-critical metadata with other business information to deliver more comprehensive, accurate reports that provide the foundation for improved decision making. Information Advantage's Eureka! portal offers significant business value to our market."

"Information from ERP solutions often provides the majority of Business Intelligence information with our customers' data warehousing environment," said Larry Ford, president and CEO of Information Advantage. "With the DecisionPoint Warehouse channel within Eureka!, users can become more confident of the information coming from their data warehouse(s) and data marts; and combine it with other relevant corporate information. Metadata is no longer important to IT professionals alone. Business users want to not only understand and use the information they find from these systems, they must investigate its reliability, timeliness and source before taking action."

For more information, contact Information Advantage at 612-833-3700.