Vendors Reissue Business Intelligence App for J.D. Edwards ERP

by Alex Woodie

GSS Marketing and Coglin Mill announced the immediate availability of their joint OS/400 business intelligence solution for J.D. Edwards' enterprise applications last week at the ERP giant's annual user group conference. The two software vendors each contributed portions of software to create the GSS Vigilance Financial Reporting and Analysis application, which works equally well in WorldSoftware and OneWorld environments.

GSS Marketing is a Toronto, Canada, company that specializes in OS/400 business intelligence software, although it also resells high availability software from Vision Solutions and IBM iSeries hardware. Its sells several versions of its Vigilance business intelligence solution, for analyzing portions of J.D. Edwards ERP software, including the Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Sales Reporting, and Financial Reporting versions. The company also says it is planning to deliver versions of Vigilance designed for ERP systems from other vendors, including Infinium Software and SSA Global Technologies.

Financial Reporting and Analysis is a collection of tools designed to improve the way users access and make decisions based on data generated by J.D. Edwards General Ledger applications. The software allows users to collect the relevant General Ledger data into data warehouses, then sift through that data using a combination of predefined, custom, query, and ad hoc reporting mechanisms. GSS says Vigilance users see how their business is performing according to their own business rules, structures, and hierarchies. Users can work with the reports from Web browsers.

Patrick Gleeson, a director at GSS Marketing, says Vigilance gives business users and financial professionals the tools they need to analyze performance, measure compliance to strategy, and improve the overall performance of the business. Specifically, the software can help financial professionals to streamline monthly, quarterly, and annual reports, to improve the quality and availability of the information used for financial analysis and reporting, and to enhance the flexibility, integrity, timing, and distribution of financial reports and information, he says.

GSS has OEM agreements with two vendors for its Vigilance applications. For generating OS/400 data warehouses out of J.D. Edwards data stores, GSS uses the RODIN extract, transformation, and load software from Rochester, Minnesota, based Coglin Mill. It also uses the WebFocus query tool from Information Builders.

Companies can start using Vigilance Financial Reporting and Analysis software with a straight purchase, rental model, rent-to-own, or through an application service provider. Rental costs typically range from $5,600 to $8,000 per month, and license fees for buying the software depend on the AS/400 or iSeries processor and start at $75,000. For more information, visit GSS Marketing's Web site, at www.gssmarketing.com.

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