by David Crowther
I joined Cadline in November 2014 and I was soon asked to ‘jump in at the deep end’ by configuring our flexible web based GIS solution ‘MapThat’ to connect to our business intelligence data within SAP. I have used many business intelligence tools in the past, however SAP was completely new to me. Luckily, MapThat does the hard work for you, by utilising a form based administration tool you don’t need to be a database expert to configure your data and within very little time MapThat was visualising the company’s Business Partners, Contracts and Sales Opportunities. The data is accessed in real time and with a trigger-based geocoding tool positional accuracy of your data is maintained whenever data in SAP is edited.
MapThat is accessed via a web browser and is therefore available to all staff within the organisation. Our Marketing team utilise its geospatial functionality, including the ‘Area Search’ tool, to ensure that event planning is based not only knowing who our customers are but more importantly where they are. Our Resourcing team can now book more meetings by optimising journey planning; saving time and mileage costs. While Sales staff can utilise the Open Source version to plan ad-hoc customer visits using their tablets or smartphones while in the field; thus maximising their time away from the office.
Business intelligence tools allow you to access data that you’ve spent time and money accruing over many years, however to maximsie your return on its value and to make that data and your business processes work more intelligently you need to visualise your data geographically. MapThat has all the core GIS functionality, including ‘Where’s my Nearest’, ‘Location Finding’, ‘Thematic Styling’, as well as highly accurate data creation tools and its flexibility and interoperability allow you to connect to all your business information no matter what the data source.