Opal Enterprises

How to increase the success of your reporting project

Getting report data from a common database increases the chances of a successful project for a number of reasons:

1. Reports are less likely to contradict each other.
2. Reports are more likely to come from the same point in time.
3. Assumptions in the meaning and structure of data are consistent.
4. When a change or a 'fix' to the data occurs, it only has to be done in one place (not across multiple systems which, potentially might require aq different type of fix and result).
5. Effort is saved as it is focused on maintaining one dataset.
6. Different systems exist in the first place usually because they have different requirements. With different requirements, assumptions are also likely to be different.
7. A revenue forecast report of $450,000,000 is not essentially different from $460,000,000 (because both are estimates), but if two reports differ in this way, both are often mistrusted.
8. There is a basis for a reconciliation between reports.
9. Report data has integrity.
10. There is less likelihood of there being redundant data.
11. In larger organizations particularly,

Microsoft SharePoint supports Single Version of the Truth solutions by delivering a scalable, secure, seamless user experience to large numbers of related information workers.