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The Reporting and Analytics Livestream Thread πŸ“ˆ

  • 1.  The Reporting and Analytics Livestream Thread

    Posted 03-22-2022 11:39
    Hello everyone!

    Today's the day, The Reporting and Analytics LivestreamΒ is happening from 12 - 3PM (EST)! It'll be hosted by our very own @Truman Tang. If you haven't RSVP'ed yet, it's not too late to do so! Join us as this Livestream will have:
    βœ… Industry leaders discussing methodologies and best practices for financial reporting and operational insights - "the new standard"!
    βœ… For those Power BI fans out there, be among the first to see Vena with Power BI Embedded in action through a deep dive demo
    βœ… Oh yeah, did I mention this Livestream is eligible for 3 CPE/CPD credits

    ➑️ If you're unable to attend the Livestream, regularly check into this thread (and get those engagement points for the contest ) as I'll be posting some of my takeaways after each of the sessions! Would love to hear your comments as well!

    πŸ“ This thread will discuss anything and everything reporting and analytics, so if you're attending the session, let me know in the thread ⬇️ and feel free to post your comments and questions here too!

    πŸ‘ And the final cherry on top - after the event, continue to come back here as this will be the thread πŸ‘€ where other attendees will post their takeaways, ask their questions, and network with one another!

    🧦Also, as promised in the Livestream, attendees who post their takeaway by Friday, March 25th (11:59PM EST) will get a pair of Vena socks!! 🧦

    Hope to see you at the Livestream or right here in the Forums!

    Thanks all!

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    Irene Tang
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  • 2.  RE: The Reporting and Analytics Livestream Thread

    Posted 03-22-2022 12:59
    New Standard in AI-Powered Business Performance Takeaways!
    • For a successful Digital Transformation Journey in the Office of Finance, it must have: centralized and clear tone from the top (management cascading the vision to the organization) and the initial investment in technologies
    • Centralize processes within finance by outsourcing "low value work" so that the core finance team can focus on analysis and insights
    • Some areas of transformation through Machine Learning (ML) and AI:
      • Revenue Forecasting (ML looks at historical data and what's in the pipeline that can be estimated to create a forecast)
      • Balance Sheet Reconciliation (Recon Intelligence can monitor transactions that impacts Balance Sheet accounts and help financial decision-making)
      • Compliance (aids in flagging data that are outliers for auditors to investigate further)


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    Irene Tang
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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: The Reporting and Analytics Livestream Thread

    Posted 03-22-2022 13:41
    Value of Vena With Power BI Embedded Discussion Takeaways
    • Decisions need to be based on data and insights
    • To get started with data visualization:
      • Have buy-in with leadership and the organization (budget owners and department heads is critical)
      • Ensure data integrity/hygiene/strategy/governance to allow for the data visualization to be useful 
    • Data visualization tools today helps with linking the plan to actuals, shorten the cycle, and helps creates a data-driven organization
    • One tip that was shared to use the data to drive actionable insight is to compare vs. different scenarios (examples: last year, industry, business scenarios, and economic scenarios)


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    Irene Tang
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: The Reporting and Analytics Livestream Thread

    Posted 03-22-2022 14:44
    Powering Your Growth with Embedded BI Takeaways
    • The trigger to start the Power BI/data visualization journey can vary: events (i.e. the pandemic), business need, or keep up with changes in an organization
    • Collaboration and transparency is key to help create the single source of truth in the data and to build trust within an organization
    • Tips on communicating across departments: present data relevant to the key stakeholder first, hold status calls or standing meetings to create a space to ask questions, and don't be afraid to call and ask questions!
    • Power BI Embedded is exciting as it's a continued evolution of a seamless experience for end users, and to create an ecosystem of tools to help make decisions and improve performance. It makes data more accessible, even for those who aren't spreadsheet savvy! 


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    Irene Tang
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    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: The Reporting and Analytics Livestream Thread

    Posted 03-22-2022 15:34
    Hello,

    We just signed up and started using Vena a few months ago. We are still currently in the process of fully setting it up with some people from Fluence. Since we use Power Bi a lot in the company, we wanted to have the connector between Power Bi and Vena to create and prepare reports/dashboards for our managers and executives.

    After watching the demo for the Vena embedded with Power BI, I'm just wondering when will this feature be released, and if this feature will be an additional charge. I think this feature will be better than having the connector.

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    Vicente Balmoja
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    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: The Reporting and Analytics Livestream Thread

    Posted 03-22-2022 16:40
    My biggest take away from the session was the change management tips and recommendations. "Think big, start small - find quick wins" amongΒ  others. We are in the final stages of a very long payroll system implementation and recognized some of the challenges we are facing and how we might tweak our process to get better results. I did not expect to hear so many transferrable ideas / tips for our current situation which is unrelated to Vena.Β  We are a small non profit and have been using Vena since 2019 but feel we are not utilizing the full functionality and plan to review in the next 6-9 months after the current project is completed. The Power BI functionality is something we are looking into.

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    Diana Byskov
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    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: The Reporting and Analytics Livestream Thread

    Posted 03-23-2022 14:21
    That's a great takeaway, and I couldn't agree more! Thanks for sharing Diana πŸ‘! I'm glad the livestream was able to provide ideas and tips to help with your implementation! And I'm sure other members in the forums would be more than happy to share their best practices.

    If you're interested in doing some more reading and connecting with other individuals in the Non Profit/Not For Profit space and Power BI, I invite you to peruse these threads:
    ➑️ Not For Profit Thread
    ➑️ Power BI Thread

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    Irene Tang
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    Original Message


  • 8.  RE: The Reporting and Analytics Livestream Thread

    Venanite
    Posted 03-23-2022 15:50

    Love it Diana and thank you for spending time with us yesterday!

    Double love your comment! Not just for reporting but for life in general!

    Please do let us know how we can help you along your Power BI journey. We really love this stuff!



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    Truman Tang
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    Original Message


  • 9.  RE: The Reporting and Analytics Livestream Thread

    Venanite
    Posted 03-23-2022 14:29
    My most memorable moment from the Livestream: when every panelist synchronously nodded as Dominic said, "Not everyone is a spreadsheet person"

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    Jimmy Huynh
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    Original Message


  • 10.  RE: The Reporting and Analytics Livestream Thread

    Venanite
    Posted 03-23-2022 15:45
    Really great to see so many new voices here!

    Now as for key takeaways, where does one start?

    Be relentless on the user experience - have the mindset of creating reports that look good and help guide the reader through the information.

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    Truman Tang
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    Original Message


  • 11.  RE: The Reporting and Analytics Livestream Thread

    Posted 03-23-2022 16:51
    I would say my biggest takeaway was how the new office of finance is thinking differently, with business partnering and insights top of mind. Whereas, in the past, the expertise was in transactional work and accounting. Removing this obstacle unlocks a world of opportunity and the chance to get this analysis out of the box through embedded is really exciting!

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    Liliana Godoy-Smirnova
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    Original Message


  • 12.  RE: The Reporting and Analytics Livestream Thread

    Founding Member
    Posted 03-24-2022 11:23
    Irene,

    Was this recorded and saved somewhere accessible in VENA ?

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    Christopher Rivera
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    Original Message


  • 13.  RE: The Reporting and Analytics Livestream Thread

    Posted 03-24-2022 13:40
    Hi Christopher!
    Yes, the Livestream was recorded and will be available on Plan To Grow (you'll need to log in to access the recording library) on Monday 😊.

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    Irene Tang
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    Original Message


  • 14.  RE: The Reporting and Analytics Livestream Thread

    Founding Member
    Posted 03-25-2022 09:40
    Hi Irene,

    Unfortunately I was only able to attend about half of the Livestream session, but my biggest takeaway was how Power BI can be used to add more value to the data that we use for our performance metrics and help in centralizing the data that gets used by our leaders in different markets, all in one common location.

    We are not currently using Power BI but are interested in learning more about how the embedded version can be used within our organization to take our performance tracking to a new level.

    Thanks,
    Juan

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    Juan Bravo
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    Original Message


  • 15.  RE: The Reporting and Analytics Livestream Thread

    Posted 03-25-2022 10:02
    That's a great insight, Juan! I couldn't agree more, Power BI is such a powerful tool to help utilize data to drive decision making! πŸ’ͺ

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    Irene Tang
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    Original Message


  • 16.  RE: The Reporting and Analytics Livestream Thread

    Posted 03-28-2022 16:40
    For anyone who's looking, the recordings are live on Plan To Grow πŸ‘€πŸŒ±! Login to your account and view the sessions from the livestream, there's lots of great content to view! πŸ’ͺ

    Thanks everyone!

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    Irene Tang
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    Original Message


  • 17.  RE: The Reporting and Analytics Livestream Thread

    Venanite
    Posted 03-28-2022 16:55
    My biggest takeaway from the event was the importance of stakeholders trusting data. It's essential for finance and operations teams bring stakeholders in as part of the data requirements process and to share visualizations that are most important to them, while distilling the information down into bite size pieces. Without this, there is a lack of trust in the process, as well as the data itself.

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    Andrew Roth
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    Original Message


  • 18.  RE: The Reporting and Analytics Livestream Thread

    Founding Member
    Posted 03-29-2022 17:03

    I agree with Andrew that trust is the most important thing for stakeholders. At PIH, we spent many years building out a data warehouse and it took many requirements gathering and then training sessions to get end users to use and rely on the data that was being produced. Many were still doing manual exports from source systems to double check the accuracy of the data, but we accompanied them throughout those checks to ensure that they understood what transformations and calculations were being done in the data warehouse so that they could have trust that the data was accurate and timely.Β 

    We also found that when multiple departments rely on the same data, centralizing the data and it's related transformations helped to build more trust across those departments because they were looking at data that was formatted in the same way. If those teams are manually exporting and applying their own filters or logic, they're often going to create discrepancies, so getting both teams together to build a common understanding of what logic is needed and why, helps us to have one source of truth and a shared understanding of what the data is telling us, rather than wasted time questioning why two reports are showing different totals.



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    Brendan Eger
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    Original Message