Mike Urbonas
September 24th, 2008, 12:48 PM
<TABLE style="FONT: 12px arial; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #fff" width=880 align=center border=0> </tr><tr><td colspan="2"><H1 align=center> <img src="http://www.monarchforums.com/images/Monarch_Report.gif" alt="The Monarch Report"></H1></td><tr> <TD width=540> <STRONG>September 2008<BR><BR>The Monarch Report</STRONG> informs users of our Monarch-powered solutions of the latest product news, tips, user stories, upcoming events and more. This newsletter is sent to our online subscribers and anyone who has purchased or expressed interest in Datawatch products.<BR><BR></TD> <TD style="PADDING-LEFT: 10px; VERTICAL-ALIGN: top" rowSpan=14><SPAN style="COLOR: #f00; TEXT-ALIGN: center"><STRONG>Read More About our Solutions...</STRONG></SPAN><BR> <P><A href="http://www.datawatch.com/_products/monarch_overview.php" target=_blank>Monarch</A> <SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10px">is the de facto standard in Report Mining, trusted by over 400,000 users to easily mine data from reports, PDFs and more into live, actionable data without programming and without IT help.</SPAN></P> <P> <A href="http://www.datawatch.com/_products/monarch_data_pump.php" target=_blank>Monarch Data Pump</A> <SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10px">is a server-based enterprise reporting and data ETL solution, creating and delivering customized data across your organization, at a fraction of the cost and time of alternative solutions, with no new database programming.</SPAN></P> <P><A href="http://www.datawatch.com/_products/monarch_rms.php" target=_blank>Monarch|RMS</A> <SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10px"> (Report Mining Server) turns any traditional COLD report archive or existing document management system into a powerful source for business intelligence. </SPAN></P> <P><A href="http://www.datawatch.com/_products/datawatch_es.php" target=_blank>Datawatch|ES</A> <SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10px">uniquely leverages existing reports as a source of web-enabled enterprise business intelligence, providing enterprise report management, online data analysis, MS Excel integration and more, at a fraction of the complexity and cost of other solutions.</SPAN></P><P><A href="http://www.datawatch.com/_products/datawatch_bds.php" target=_blank>Datawatch|BDS</A> <SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10px">(Business Document Server) is a high speed, high volume document archive system, archiving text, images, intelligent data streams and unstructured content, complete with file compression. Unlike other document archive systems, Datawatch|BDS also offers advanced business benefits, including optional automatic email notification to end users of newly archived documents, as well as optional web-enabled transformation of reports and PDF files, into customized data using Monarch|RMS.</SPAN></P> <P><A href="http://www.datawatch.com/_products/datawatch_mailmanager.php" target=_blank>Datawatch|MailManager</A> <SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10px">is a highly scalable e-mail management solution that provides complete lifecycle, compliance, and storage management for Microsoft Exchange environments. Datawatch|MailManager captures internal, outgoing and incoming email correspondence, indexing it and managing its retention based on your corporate policies. In the case of audit or legal discovery, related e-mail can be instantly and accurately retrieved for rapid response.</SPAN></p>
</TD> </TR> <TR> <TD style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #f00"> </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD> <H3 style="COLOR: #f00">Datawatch Unveils Monarch BI Server</SPAN></H3> <P>Datawatch recently announced the release of <b>Monarch BI Server</b>, a web-based Business Intelligence (BI) solution built specifically to address the unique needs of small-to-medium sized businesses (SMBs) and department-level users.</P>
<P>Monarch BI Server is a web-based BI solution for daily decision-making by everyone in your organization, not just the “technology power-users”. Now, you can solve operational issues without the time and expense of building data marts or struggling with complex data analysis tools.</P>
<a href="#article1"><b>Read More...</b></a></P><BR> </TD> </TR>
<TD style="background-color: #ccc; border: 1px solid #000; padding: 0 10px 0 10px;">
<p><strong>Don't miss our Tuesday, Sept. 30, 4PM EDT Monarch BI Server live webinar! </strong>
</p><p>Join Datawatch SVP and CMO John Kitchen and Senior Sales Engineer Phil Lafond for a complimentary webcast where you'll learn how Monarch BI Server addresses the unique BI needs of small-to-medium sized businesses (SMBs) and departmental users. You'll also see a live demo about how Monarch BI Server offers web-enabled BI - free from programming or data marts!
<br>
<a href="http://www.datawatch.com/emailers/biserver_webcast/index.html" target="_blank"><b>Complete Details</b></a><br>
<a href="http://www.datawatch.com/_solutions/form_Monarch_BI_Server_Webinar.php" target="_blank"><b>Register now to secure your space!</b></a>
</td></tr>
<TR> <TD style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #f00"> </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD> <H3 style="COLOR: #f00">XPS, Anyone?</SPAN></H3> <p>
Datawatch would like to hear from anyone using the Microsoft XPS document format. XML Paper Specification (XPS) is a document format developed by Microsoft, designed to preserve document fidelity so that documents look the same and as they are intended on any device.<br>XPS is platform independent, openly published, and available royalty-free. Unlike the Adobe PDF format, the XPS format is based on the open standard of XML.
<br>
All users of Microsoft Vista already have the ability to direct print output (such as existing reports) in XPS format using the Microsoft XPS Document Writer and look at them using the XPS viewer. The XPS Document Writer and viewer are also available to Windows XP users when they download the .NET Framework 3.0, free from the Microsoft website.
<br>
More information about the XPS format and getting started with creating and viewing XPS documents is available on the <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/default.mspx" target=_blank>Microsoft XPS website.</a>
<br>
Anyone already using the XPS format is urged to contact us via email at: newsletter_at_Datawatch_dot_com, so we can understand how you are using this new and very useful output format. We look forward to hearing from you!
</P> </TD> </TR>
<TR> <TD style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #f00"> </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD> <H3 style="COLOR: #f00">Monarch Data Pump Ensures Global Financial Insight for World Vision International</H3><b>Global Excel-Based Financial Reporting Made Easy</b><br>
World Vision International is a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice. A staff of over 31,000 people provides emergency and hunger relief, long-term community development programs, agricultural development assistance and leadership training throughout Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the Americas.
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The World Vision Global Financial Reporting Service Center, established in 2007, selected Monarch and Monarch Data Pump to enable consolidation and automate the creation and delivery of Excel-enabled global financial data with no programming.
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</P><P> <a href="#article2"><b>Read More...</b></a></P><BR> </TD> </TR><TR> <TD style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #f00"> </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD> <H3 style="COLOR: #f00">Monarch Tip: A Clever Trick to Rank Subsets of Data</H3> <p>Monarch forums member Karen_VB recently posted a challenging Monarch question on how to create a calculated field that will rank detail data by group. Kudos to Gerhard Wasser of German Monarch distributor JoloData, for the answer...a clever Monarch trick!
</P><P> <a href="#article3"><b>Read More...</b></a></P><BR> </TD> </TR>
<TR> <TD style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #f00"> </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD> <H3 style="COLOR: #f00">Still Rockin' After All These Years: Why Monarch Remains Successful</H3> <p>Monarch (for DOS!) first hit the market in early 1991, on a 5 1/4" floppy disk, plus a 3 1/2" diskette for those PC users on the cutting edge of technology! Who would have imagined, seventeen years later, Monarch is not only still 'alive,' but still thriving?
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Certainly one reason is traditional BI solutions remain very complex for non-technical workers and managers to use in a genuine self-service manner. But why does Monarch <i>in particular</i> remain successful?
</P><P> <a href="http://www.monarchforums.com/blog.php?b=19" target=_blank><b>Keep reading - from our Monarch Blog...</b></a></P><BR>
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<TR> <TD style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #f00"> </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD> <H3 style="COLOR: #f00">Monarch Training: The Perfect Class is Waiting for You!</H3>
<P><i>"Believe me, if you have only learned Monarch on your own, and have never been to a class given by Datawatch, you have only touched the tip of the iceberg. There is so much you can do with Monarch that you never knew existed!" </i>
<br>-- Linda Philipp, Radiology Imaging Associates
<br>
<i>After using Monarch since the DOS days, I have finally attended a Monarch class. Even though I felt that I was a pretty good and experienced user, I found new and better ways to use Monarch. Like the product itself, Monarch classes are worth every penny of the cost!</i>
<br>-- Dale Fakes, Activant Solutions/CarQuest
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Experience for yourself a two-day Monarch training class, organized by your Monarch skill level:
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Our flagship <b>Monarch</b> class is beneficial for Monarch users of almost any skill level. Even users who have already gotten going on Monarch on their own will gain clarity and gain improved Monarch performance. We also recommend beginners start their training with this course.
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Our <b>Monarch Intermediate</b> class lets users take their skills beyond the basics. Some familiar topics will be re-explored and combined with new techniques to achieve exciting new Monarch results.
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You will discover challenging content and class exercises in our <b>Monarch Advanced</b> class. Push your Monarch skills even higher, to deal with the finer points of data extraction, manipulation and presentation that only truly advanced users know!
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Finally for a quick start intro to Monarch, our <b>Web-Based Monarch Training</b> offers you a two-hour, live Internet-based introduction to Monarch or Monarch Data Pump, led by a Datawatch trainer. You can schedule a class at your convenience and get up and running right away, right at your own PC!
<br><a href="http://www.datawatch.com/_services/training_overview.php" target=_blank><b>Visit our Monarch Training homepage</b></a> for full details and to find a Monarch class near you!<BR>
Please contact our Monarch Training team with questions, either via email at training_at_Datawatch_dot_com, or by phone: (800) 445-3311 or +1-978-441-2200.<br>
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<TR> <TD style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #f00"> </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD> <H3 style="COLOR: #f00">Datawatch Unveils Monarch BI Server</SPAN></H3>
<p>
Datawatch recently announced the release of Monarch BI Server, a web-based Business Intelligence (BI) solution built specifically to address the unique needs of small-to-medium sized businesses (SMBs) and department-level users.
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Monarch BI Server is a web-based BI solution for daily decision-making by everyone in your organization, not just the "technology power-users." Now, you can solve operational issues without the time and expense of building data marts or struggling with complex data analysis tools.
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Traditional BI solutions often require an expensive, seemingly endless implementation. Plus, they’re often loaded with custom programming tools that the average user doesn’t need or want. Monarch BI Server avoids the unnecessary headaches inherent in traditional BI because it transforms existing reports into actionable, customizable data.
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Unlike traditional BI solutions that seek to replace the reports already produced by your enterprise systems (such as ERP, legacy/mainframe systems, industry-specific solutions for healthcare, banking, etc.); Monarch BI Server leverages report output as a new, web-enabled source of live, actionable data.
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Monarch BI Server begins by building a centralized, password-protected report archive. Reports are easily accessed anytime using a web browser.
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Monarch BI Server then automatically mines and customizes data from these stored reports as a live web-based data. Unlike traditional BI solutions, Monarch BI Server integrates customized enterprise data with Excel without programming and without the need to connect to live databases. With just one click of the mouse, you can export desired data to Excel and aggregate data to produce BI-rich summary views of the data, with subtotals, grand totals and other calculations.
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<b>Monarch BI Server in Action: St. Joseph's Medical Center
</b><br>
"We are very excited about the programming-free, web-enabled analytics Monarch BI Server provides," said Steve Breitenbach, applications analyst for St. Joseph Medical Center in Maryland recently told Datawatch. "The solution was so simple to install; we had it up and running in one day. With just a few minutes of end user training, our clinicians and managers were able to proactively analyze data from our Meditech system to research patient trends and identify diabetes patients who need closer attention to better manage their conditions."
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<a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/business_intelligence/analytics/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=210002805"target=_blank>InformationWeek magazine recently reported on St. Joseph's success with Monarch BI Server</a>, noting two especially successful projects. Breitenbach told IW how existing lab reports have been archived into Monarch BI Server. Analysts mine data from these lab reports to proactively identify high glucose readings in tests done on patients who might not have been identified as diabetic. Another Monarch BI Server project mines data from existing PDF based reports -- some 4,000 pages in length -- to analyze nurse response times when patients push their bedside call buttons. In both projects, Monarch BI Server has helped improve patient care.
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"This is just the beginning of the value we anticipate from Monarch BI Server," added Breitenbach. "We are now adding information sourced from our Kronos time and attendance system to Monarch BI Server to facilitate staff productivity analysis for web delivery to more than 60 managers across our organization. We are pleased by how quickly and easily Monarch BI Server is getting everyone in our organization the information they need to do their jobs more effectively."
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Monarch BI Server not only leverages system output from any existing application such as ERP, CRM or accounting, but it also allows users with literally a few minutes of training to access and analyze the data they need via a web browser to make better business decisions. An optional Monarch BI Server module allows for the storage, mining and delivery of PDFs. Monarch BI Server is also suited for defined vertical functions within an organization such as auditing, claims management, supply chain management and more.
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"To remain competitive in this turbulent economy, SMBs need tools that allow them to make effective decisions, yet are affordable, simple to install and maintain, and easy for everyone from managers to front line employees to use," said John Kitchen, Datawatch’s senior vice president and CMO. "A solution that meets this set of needs will give SMBs the ROI they’re seeking from a BI tool, and this is exactly what we’re delivering with Monarch BI Server."
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<b>
Learn more about Monarch BI Server now:</b>
<br>
<a href="http://www.datawatch.com/_solutions/form_Monarch_BI_Server_Webinar.php" target=_blank>Register NOW</a> to attend our live Tuesday, Sept. 30, 4PM EDT / 1PM PDT <a href="http://www.datawatch.com/emailers/biserver_webcast/index.html" target=_blank>Monarch BI Server webinar.</a>
<br>
During this 45 minute webinar, you'll learn how to:<ul>
<li>Transform your reports on demand into a powerful self-service BI source on demand
<li>Easily access and transform existing reports into the format you want, such as Excel or web-based spreadsheets - without programming
<li>Speed report delivery time from hours to minutes
<li>Deploy in hours not weeks or months
<li>Extend your Monarch investment throughout your organization
<li>Reduce IT burden
</ul>
<b><a href="http://www.datawatch.com/_solutions/form_Monarch_BI_Server_Webinar.php" target=_blank>Space is limited - Register today!</a></b>
<br><b><a href="http://www.datawatch.com/_products/monarch_bi_server.php" target=_blank>Visit our Monarch BI Server homepage.</a></b>
<br>
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<TR> <TD style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #f00"> </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD> <H3 style="COLOR: #f00">Monarch Data Pump Ensures Global Financial Insight for World Vision International</SPAN></H3><b>Global Excel-Based Financial Reporting Made Easy</b>
<p>World Vision International is a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice. A staff of over 31,000 people provides emergency and hunger relief, long-term community development programs, agricultural development assistance and leadership training throughout Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the Americas.
<br>
The World Vision Global Financial Reporting Service Center, established in 2007, selected Monarch and Monarch Data Pump to enable consolidation and automate the creation and delivery of Excel-enabled global financial data with no programming.
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"Before Monarch Pro and Monarch Data Pump, we used to manually manipulate all reports coming from our SunSystems' Ledger Accounting and PBAS (Partnership Budget and Actuals System) in MS Excel," says Rhoda Cruz, IT Finance Specialist for World Vision, working within the organization's Global Centre in the Philippines. "It's a long and tedious process doing all the custom filtering, subtotals and lookup in Excel."
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"The distribution of our worldwide Excel financial reporting was being done manually via individual emails or manually posting of Excel files to Lotus Notes databases. Also, we previously were not able to do consolidations and global reporting of our data from over 70 countries. We only had individual country reports stored as text files."
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"That has all changed thanks to Monarch and Monarch Data Pump," Rhoda says. "The flexible functionality of Monarch and Monarch Data Pump makes our financial reporting much more detailed, complete and informative, as well as automated, meaning dramatically less required work."
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Larry Johnson, Finance Director for World Vision Global Operations and Reporting, was first within World Vision to learn about report mining with Monarch. Larry made the decision to acquire Monarch Pro and Monarch Data Pump right at the same time as the World Vision Global Finance Operations and Reporting Group was established. This group was formed at the end of World Vision's 2007 fiscal year to integrate the functions within the World Vision's Global Centre that support the organization's field programs.
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One key component of this group is the Financial Reporting Service Center (FRSC), which focuses on all financial reporting and analysis for national offices. The FRSC has also recently taken on internal financial reporting and analysis for its support offices, grants and for the Global Centre itself. "We aim to be able to do much of the World Vision global 'number crunching' and finance compliance and analysis as possible," says Rhoda. "We find Monarch a very powerful and versatile tool for this critical work."
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"We stepped up from Monarch to Monarch Data Pump to fully automate our global financial reporting processes. We need to issue Excel reporting packages to our offices in 70 countries. Monarch Data Pump allows for programming-free automation of these reports and allows automatic email distribution to these offices as well as other benefits."
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"Monarch Data Pump enables us to produce global consolidations of our financial data. We can also easily and quickly generate consolidated and individual Excel-based reports through Monarch and Monarch Data Pump."
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World Vision uses Monarch Data Pump to automate the processing of a number of recurring global finance reporting projects. "Monarch Data Pump makes it easy for us to automatically generate various financial reporting in Excel which we distribute to different offices across the World Vision organization," Rhoda explains. "We generate various management reports for monitoring spending against our budgets as well as balance sheet account tracking."
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"One of the key analyses we use Monarch Data Pump for is tracking the spending against budget in the over 5,000 projects where World Vision is helping communities around the world and then communicating this back to various stakeholders within the organization."
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"We make strong use of Monarch formula-based calculated fields and data lookup capabilities. These Monarch features make it easy for us to compute budget variances and roll up values, as well as design and export standardized datasets suitable for consolidation, all without programming.
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"We also actively use Monarch to create different summary views of our finance data. This feature allows us to generate multi-sheet Excel workbooks from just one input report or data source. We create multiple summary views, such as carryforward requests for resources or approved expenditures, sorted by different key fields, such as the funding office, national office, by region or other combinations."
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<img src=http://www.monarchforums.com/images/Sept-2008-Monarch-Data-Pump-Case-Study-001.jpg>
<p><small>World Vision creates a series of Excel workbooks, each containing multiple Monarch summary views of financial data, filtered by country...</small></p>
<img src=http://www.monarchforums.com/images/Sept-2008-Monarch-Data-Pump-Case-Study-002.jpg>
<p><small>...which are set up for automatic email delivery using Monarch Data Pump.</small></p>
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"Our final Excel-based financial reports are then automatically distributed using Monarch Data Pump by office and by region through email delivery. We have created filters for each of the offices and regions," Rhoda adds. "It’s a good thing that Monarch Data Pump is capable of importing filters from our Monarch models as we normally use the same set of filters. This saves us a lot of time in setting up Data Pump processes, as we have more than 80 offices we want to send Excel reporting packages to.
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"We create a data filter for each office. We then export the financial data individually to an Excel workbook using the file naming macro based on the filter names; in this case based on the office or region names. Each Excel file is emailed to its respective mailing groups for their viewing and further analysis."
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"We define a Monarch Data Pump process that we run monthly, quarterly or depending on our particular financial data needs. The projects and models were set up one time only, then we just post the monthly/quarterly input [report] files to a certain folder, whereupon Monarch Data Pump will start processing."
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"As a new user," Rhoda says, "I have found Monarch Data Pump user-friendly interface easy to navigate with minimum training. Our field offices and the partnership can now receive the financial reports and analysis results on time. With Monarch Pro, it is also possible for us to provide ad-hoc reports to other finance and audit groups right away. We have developed more than 500 model and project files that we actively use in providing a vast variety of financial information to management."
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Summing up the business benefits provided to World Vision by Monarch and Monarch Data Pump, Rhoda says, "Our Finance Analysts are enjoying the huge benefits of faster and accurate reporting. We have experienced significant savings in terms of time and effort, as it no longer takes hours and hours for our Finance Analysts to build final Excel financial reports. This also means they have much more time to analyze and review data."
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"Monarch and Monarch Data Pump definitely have streamlined our global finance reporting processes," Rhoda concludes, "and we plan to continue improving our processes even further still with Monarch and Monarch Data Pump, our primary global financial reporting and information delivery solution."
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<a href="http://www.datawatch.com/case_studies/case_studies.php" target=_blank>Read more Monarch Data Pump case studies.</a>
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Read our Monarch Data Pump white paper:</a> <i><a href="http://www.datawatch.com/_solutions/whitepapers.php#right_info" target=_blank>The Right Information to the Right Person at the Right Time: Making it a Reality.</i></a> Discover how Monarch Data Pump can provide automated delivery of customized information across your enterprise, at a fraction of the cost and time of alternative solutions.
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<a name="article3"></a>
<TR> <TD style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #f00"> </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD> <H3 style="COLOR: #f00">Monarch Tip: A Clever Trick to Rank Subsets of Data</SPAN></H3>
<p>Monarch forums member Karen_VB recently posted a challenging Monarch question on how to create a calculated field that will rank detail data by group. Kudos to Gerhard Wasser of German Monarch distributor JoloData, for the answer…a clever Monarch trick!
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The sample report data Karen posted on the forum looked similar to this (simplified and edited slightly to more easily present the solution - Fig. 1):
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<img src=http://www.monarchforums.com/images/Sept-2008-Monarch-Tip-Report.jpg>
<p><small>Fig. 1</small></p>
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The mining of the data itself is easy, but in addition to the diagnoses codes and Patient IDs, Karen needs an extra column ranking the diagnoses in the order they appear in the file, starting over counting at 1 upon the occurrence of the next Patient ID (Fig. 2):
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<img src=http://www.monarchforums.com/images/Sept-2008-Monarch-Tip-001.jpg>
<p><small>Fig. 2</small></p>
<br>In the past, such a ranking value that resets back to 1 upon a change in another column (here, based on Patient ID) would have to be manually created in Excel, after exporting the first two columns shown above. That's certainly one possible solution, but Gerhard's clever solution enables the creation of the desired results right in the Monarch model, with no manual Excel work.
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The first step of the Monarch trick is to trap the Patient ID data as a Page Header trap, <b>not</b> as an Append trap (Fig. 3):
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<img src=http://www.monarchforums.com/images/Sept-2008-Monarch-Tip-002.jpg>
<p><small>Fig. 3</small></p>
<br>Now, in our Monarch table, we create the following calculated field:
<br><p style="font-family:courier">
LINE()-4</p>
<br>The LINE function returns the line number on the report page of the last detail line for a record.
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Notice that by trapping the Patient ID as a Page Header trap, Monarch inserted page breaks. Now the value returned by the LINE function <b>resets</b> with each new report page!
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Notice also the above calculated field formula takes the result of the LINE function, and then we subtract 4. Why? Counting the number of lines on each report page, we see there are always four lines prior to the first detail line (the line with the Patient ID, one blank line, another line beginning with "ICD-9-CM", and another blank line ; 4 lines in all). By subtracting 4 from the result provided by the LINE() function, the result yields a 1 upon each new Patient ID. The result ticks up to 2, 3, and so on, until a new Patient ID is found and the result resets to 1. Of course, this "offset" number will vary depending on the layout of your particular report.
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You can create such a calculated field that ranks subsets of detail data, as long as the grouping (here, the Patient ID) is trapped as a Page Header!
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</TD> </TR> <TR> <TD style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #f00"> </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD> <H3 style="COLOR: #f00">Datawatch Unveils Monarch BI Server</SPAN></H3> <P>Datawatch recently announced the release of <b>Monarch BI Server</b>, a web-based Business Intelligence (BI) solution built specifically to address the unique needs of small-to-medium sized businesses (SMBs) and department-level users.</P>
<P>Monarch BI Server is a web-based BI solution for daily decision-making by everyone in your organization, not just the “technology power-users”. Now, you can solve operational issues without the time and expense of building data marts or struggling with complex data analysis tools.</P>
<a href="#article1"><b>Read More...</b></a></P><BR> </TD> </TR>
<TD style="background-color: #ccc; border: 1px solid #000; padding: 0 10px 0 10px;">
<p><strong>Don't miss our Tuesday, Sept. 30, 4PM EDT Monarch BI Server live webinar! </strong>
</p><p>Join Datawatch SVP and CMO John Kitchen and Senior Sales Engineer Phil Lafond for a complimentary webcast where you'll learn how Monarch BI Server addresses the unique BI needs of small-to-medium sized businesses (SMBs) and departmental users. You'll also see a live demo about how Monarch BI Server offers web-enabled BI - free from programming or data marts!
<br>
<a href="http://www.datawatch.com/emailers/biserver_webcast/index.html" target="_blank"><b>Complete Details</b></a><br>
<a href="http://www.datawatch.com/_solutions/form_Monarch_BI_Server_Webinar.php" target="_blank"><b>Register now to secure your space!</b></a>
</td></tr>
<TR> <TD style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #f00"> </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD> <H3 style="COLOR: #f00">XPS, Anyone?</SPAN></H3> <p>
Datawatch would like to hear from anyone using the Microsoft XPS document format. XML Paper Specification (XPS) is a document format developed by Microsoft, designed to preserve document fidelity so that documents look the same and as they are intended on any device.<br>XPS is platform independent, openly published, and available royalty-free. Unlike the Adobe PDF format, the XPS format is based on the open standard of XML.
<br>
All users of Microsoft Vista already have the ability to direct print output (such as existing reports) in XPS format using the Microsoft XPS Document Writer and look at them using the XPS viewer. The XPS Document Writer and viewer are also available to Windows XP users when they download the .NET Framework 3.0, free from the Microsoft website.
<br>
More information about the XPS format and getting started with creating and viewing XPS documents is available on the <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/default.mspx" target=_blank>Microsoft XPS website.</a>
<br>
Anyone already using the XPS format is urged to contact us via email at: newsletter_at_Datawatch_dot_com, so we can understand how you are using this new and very useful output format. We look forward to hearing from you!
</P> </TD> </TR>
<TR> <TD style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #f00"> </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD> <H3 style="COLOR: #f00">Monarch Data Pump Ensures Global Financial Insight for World Vision International</H3><b>Global Excel-Based Financial Reporting Made Easy</b><br>
World Vision International is a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice. A staff of over 31,000 people provides emergency and hunger relief, long-term community development programs, agricultural development assistance and leadership training throughout Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the Americas.
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The World Vision Global Financial Reporting Service Center, established in 2007, selected Monarch and Monarch Data Pump to enable consolidation and automate the creation and delivery of Excel-enabled global financial data with no programming.
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</P><P> <a href="#article2"><b>Read More...</b></a></P><BR> </TD> </TR><TR> <TD style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #f00"> </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD> <H3 style="COLOR: #f00">Monarch Tip: A Clever Trick to Rank Subsets of Data</H3> <p>Monarch forums member Karen_VB recently posted a challenging Monarch question on how to create a calculated field that will rank detail data by group. Kudos to Gerhard Wasser of German Monarch distributor JoloData, for the answer...a clever Monarch trick!
</P><P> <a href="#article3"><b>Read More...</b></a></P><BR> </TD> </TR>
<TR> <TD style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #f00"> </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD> <H3 style="COLOR: #f00">Still Rockin' After All These Years: Why Monarch Remains Successful</H3> <p>Monarch (for DOS!) first hit the market in early 1991, on a 5 1/4" floppy disk, plus a 3 1/2" diskette for those PC users on the cutting edge of technology! Who would have imagined, seventeen years later, Monarch is not only still 'alive,' but still thriving?
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Certainly one reason is traditional BI solutions remain very complex for non-technical workers and managers to use in a genuine self-service manner. But why does Monarch <i>in particular</i> remain successful?
</P><P> <a href="http://www.monarchforums.com/blog.php?b=19" target=_blank><b>Keep reading - from our Monarch Blog...</b></a></P><BR>
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<TR> <TD style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #f00"> </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD> <H3 style="COLOR: #f00">Monarch Training: The Perfect Class is Waiting for You!</H3>
<P><i>"Believe me, if you have only learned Monarch on your own, and have never been to a class given by Datawatch, you have only touched the tip of the iceberg. There is so much you can do with Monarch that you never knew existed!" </i>
<br>-- Linda Philipp, Radiology Imaging Associates
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<i>After using Monarch since the DOS days, I have finally attended a Monarch class. Even though I felt that I was a pretty good and experienced user, I found new and better ways to use Monarch. Like the product itself, Monarch classes are worth every penny of the cost!</i>
<br>-- Dale Fakes, Activant Solutions/CarQuest
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Experience for yourself a two-day Monarch training class, organized by your Monarch skill level:
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Our flagship <b>Monarch</b> class is beneficial for Monarch users of almost any skill level. Even users who have already gotten going on Monarch on their own will gain clarity and gain improved Monarch performance. We also recommend beginners start their training with this course.
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Our <b>Monarch Intermediate</b> class lets users take their skills beyond the basics. Some familiar topics will be re-explored and combined with new techniques to achieve exciting new Monarch results.
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You will discover challenging content and class exercises in our <b>Monarch Advanced</b> class. Push your Monarch skills even higher, to deal with the finer points of data extraction, manipulation and presentation that only truly advanced users know!
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Finally for a quick start intro to Monarch, our <b>Web-Based Monarch Training</b> offers you a two-hour, live Internet-based introduction to Monarch or Monarch Data Pump, led by a Datawatch trainer. You can schedule a class at your convenience and get up and running right away, right at your own PC!
<br><a href="http://www.datawatch.com/_services/training_overview.php" target=_blank><b>Visit our Monarch Training homepage</b></a> for full details and to find a Monarch class near you!<BR>
Please contact our Monarch Training team with questions, either via email at training_at_Datawatch_dot_com, or by phone: (800) 445-3311 or +1-978-441-2200.<br>
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<TR> <TD style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #f00"> </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD> <H3 style="COLOR: #f00">Datawatch Unveils Monarch BI Server</SPAN></H3>
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Datawatch recently announced the release of Monarch BI Server, a web-based Business Intelligence (BI) solution built specifically to address the unique needs of small-to-medium sized businesses (SMBs) and department-level users.
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Monarch BI Server is a web-based BI solution for daily decision-making by everyone in your organization, not just the "technology power-users." Now, you can solve operational issues without the time and expense of building data marts or struggling with complex data analysis tools.
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Traditional BI solutions often require an expensive, seemingly endless implementation. Plus, they’re often loaded with custom programming tools that the average user doesn’t need or want. Monarch BI Server avoids the unnecessary headaches inherent in traditional BI because it transforms existing reports into actionable, customizable data.
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Unlike traditional BI solutions that seek to replace the reports already produced by your enterprise systems (such as ERP, legacy/mainframe systems, industry-specific solutions for healthcare, banking, etc.); Monarch BI Server leverages report output as a new, web-enabled source of live, actionable data.
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Monarch BI Server begins by building a centralized, password-protected report archive. Reports are easily accessed anytime using a web browser.
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Monarch BI Server then automatically mines and customizes data from these stored reports as a live web-based data. Unlike traditional BI solutions, Monarch BI Server integrates customized enterprise data with Excel without programming and without the need to connect to live databases. With just one click of the mouse, you can export desired data to Excel and aggregate data to produce BI-rich summary views of the data, with subtotals, grand totals and other calculations.
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<b>Monarch BI Server in Action: St. Joseph's Medical Center
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"We are very excited about the programming-free, web-enabled analytics Monarch BI Server provides," said Steve Breitenbach, applications analyst for St. Joseph Medical Center in Maryland recently told Datawatch. "The solution was so simple to install; we had it up and running in one day. With just a few minutes of end user training, our clinicians and managers were able to proactively analyze data from our Meditech system to research patient trends and identify diabetes patients who need closer attention to better manage their conditions."
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<a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/business_intelligence/analytics/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=210002805"target=_blank>InformationWeek magazine recently reported on St. Joseph's success with Monarch BI Server</a>, noting two especially successful projects. Breitenbach told IW how existing lab reports have been archived into Monarch BI Server. Analysts mine data from these lab reports to proactively identify high glucose readings in tests done on patients who might not have been identified as diabetic. Another Monarch BI Server project mines data from existing PDF based reports -- some 4,000 pages in length -- to analyze nurse response times when patients push their bedside call buttons. In both projects, Monarch BI Server has helped improve patient care.
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"This is just the beginning of the value we anticipate from Monarch BI Server," added Breitenbach. "We are now adding information sourced from our Kronos time and attendance system to Monarch BI Server to facilitate staff productivity analysis for web delivery to more than 60 managers across our organization. We are pleased by how quickly and easily Monarch BI Server is getting everyone in our organization the information they need to do their jobs more effectively."
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Monarch BI Server not only leverages system output from any existing application such as ERP, CRM or accounting, but it also allows users with literally a few minutes of training to access and analyze the data they need via a web browser to make better business decisions. An optional Monarch BI Server module allows for the storage, mining and delivery of PDFs. Monarch BI Server is also suited for defined vertical functions within an organization such as auditing, claims management, supply chain management and more.
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"To remain competitive in this turbulent economy, SMBs need tools that allow them to make effective decisions, yet are affordable, simple to install and maintain, and easy for everyone from managers to front line employees to use," said John Kitchen, Datawatch’s senior vice president and CMO. "A solution that meets this set of needs will give SMBs the ROI they’re seeking from a BI tool, and this is exactly what we’re delivering with Monarch BI Server."
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<b>
Learn more about Monarch BI Server now:</b>
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<a href="http://www.datawatch.com/_solutions/form_Monarch_BI_Server_Webinar.php" target=_blank>Register NOW</a> to attend our live Tuesday, Sept. 30, 4PM EDT / 1PM PDT <a href="http://www.datawatch.com/emailers/biserver_webcast/index.html" target=_blank>Monarch BI Server webinar.</a>
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During this 45 minute webinar, you'll learn how to:<ul>
<li>Transform your reports on demand into a powerful self-service BI source on demand
<li>Easily access and transform existing reports into the format you want, such as Excel or web-based spreadsheets - without programming
<li>Speed report delivery time from hours to minutes
<li>Deploy in hours not weeks or months
<li>Extend your Monarch investment throughout your organization
<li>Reduce IT burden
</ul>
<b><a href="http://www.datawatch.com/_solutions/form_Monarch_BI_Server_Webinar.php" target=_blank>Space is limited - Register today!</a></b>
<br><b><a href="http://www.datawatch.com/_products/monarch_bi_server.php" target=_blank>Visit our Monarch BI Server homepage.</a></b>
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<TR> <TD style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #f00"> </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD> <H3 style="COLOR: #f00">Monarch Data Pump Ensures Global Financial Insight for World Vision International</SPAN></H3><b>Global Excel-Based Financial Reporting Made Easy</b>
<p>World Vision International is a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice. A staff of over 31,000 people provides emergency and hunger relief, long-term community development programs, agricultural development assistance and leadership training throughout Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the Americas.
<br>
The World Vision Global Financial Reporting Service Center, established in 2007, selected Monarch and Monarch Data Pump to enable consolidation and automate the creation and delivery of Excel-enabled global financial data with no programming.
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"Before Monarch Pro and Monarch Data Pump, we used to manually manipulate all reports coming from our SunSystems' Ledger Accounting and PBAS (Partnership Budget and Actuals System) in MS Excel," says Rhoda Cruz, IT Finance Specialist for World Vision, working within the organization's Global Centre in the Philippines. "It's a long and tedious process doing all the custom filtering, subtotals and lookup in Excel."
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"The distribution of our worldwide Excel financial reporting was being done manually via individual emails or manually posting of Excel files to Lotus Notes databases. Also, we previously were not able to do consolidations and global reporting of our data from over 70 countries. We only had individual country reports stored as text files."
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"That has all changed thanks to Monarch and Monarch Data Pump," Rhoda says. "The flexible functionality of Monarch and Monarch Data Pump makes our financial reporting much more detailed, complete and informative, as well as automated, meaning dramatically less required work."
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Larry Johnson, Finance Director for World Vision Global Operations and Reporting, was first within World Vision to learn about report mining with Monarch. Larry made the decision to acquire Monarch Pro and Monarch Data Pump right at the same time as the World Vision Global Finance Operations and Reporting Group was established. This group was formed at the end of World Vision's 2007 fiscal year to integrate the functions within the World Vision's Global Centre that support the organization's field programs.
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One key component of this group is the Financial Reporting Service Center (FRSC), which focuses on all financial reporting and analysis for national offices. The FRSC has also recently taken on internal financial reporting and analysis for its support offices, grants and for the Global Centre itself. "We aim to be able to do much of the World Vision global 'number crunching' and finance compliance and analysis as possible," says Rhoda. "We find Monarch a very powerful and versatile tool for this critical work."
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"We stepped up from Monarch to Monarch Data Pump to fully automate our global financial reporting processes. We need to issue Excel reporting packages to our offices in 70 countries. Monarch Data Pump allows for programming-free automation of these reports and allows automatic email distribution to these offices as well as other benefits."
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"Monarch Data Pump enables us to produce global consolidations of our financial data. We can also easily and quickly generate consolidated and individual Excel-based reports through Monarch and Monarch Data Pump."
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World Vision uses Monarch Data Pump to automate the processing of a number of recurring global finance reporting projects. "Monarch Data Pump makes it easy for us to automatically generate various financial reporting in Excel which we distribute to different offices across the World Vision organization," Rhoda explains. "We generate various management reports for monitoring spending against our budgets as well as balance sheet account tracking."
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"One of the key analyses we use Monarch Data Pump for is tracking the spending against budget in the over 5,000 projects where World Vision is helping communities around the world and then communicating this back to various stakeholders within the organization."
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"We make strong use of Monarch formula-based calculated fields and data lookup capabilities. These Monarch features make it easy for us to compute budget variances and roll up values, as well as design and export standardized datasets suitable for consolidation, all without programming.
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"We also actively use Monarch to create different summary views of our finance data. This feature allows us to generate multi-sheet Excel workbooks from just one input report or data source. We create multiple summary views, such as carryforward requests for resources or approved expenditures, sorted by different key fields, such as the funding office, national office, by region or other combinations."
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<img src=http://www.monarchforums.com/images/Sept-2008-Monarch-Data-Pump-Case-Study-001.jpg>
<p><small>World Vision creates a series of Excel workbooks, each containing multiple Monarch summary views of financial data, filtered by country...</small></p>
<img src=http://www.monarchforums.com/images/Sept-2008-Monarch-Data-Pump-Case-Study-002.jpg>
<p><small>...which are set up for automatic email delivery using Monarch Data Pump.</small></p>
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"Our final Excel-based financial reports are then automatically distributed using Monarch Data Pump by office and by region through email delivery. We have created filters for each of the offices and regions," Rhoda adds. "It’s a good thing that Monarch Data Pump is capable of importing filters from our Monarch models as we normally use the same set of filters. This saves us a lot of time in setting up Data Pump processes, as we have more than 80 offices we want to send Excel reporting packages to.
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"We create a data filter for each office. We then export the financial data individually to an Excel workbook using the file naming macro based on the filter names; in this case based on the office or region names. Each Excel file is emailed to its respective mailing groups for their viewing and further analysis."
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"We define a Monarch Data Pump process that we run monthly, quarterly or depending on our particular financial data needs. The projects and models were set up one time only, then we just post the monthly/quarterly input [report] files to a certain folder, whereupon Monarch Data Pump will start processing."
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"As a new user," Rhoda says, "I have found Monarch Data Pump user-friendly interface easy to navigate with minimum training. Our field offices and the partnership can now receive the financial reports and analysis results on time. With Monarch Pro, it is also possible for us to provide ad-hoc reports to other finance and audit groups right away. We have developed more than 500 model and project files that we actively use in providing a vast variety of financial information to management."
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Summing up the business benefits provided to World Vision by Monarch and Monarch Data Pump, Rhoda says, "Our Finance Analysts are enjoying the huge benefits of faster and accurate reporting. We have experienced significant savings in terms of time and effort, as it no longer takes hours and hours for our Finance Analysts to build final Excel financial reports. This also means they have much more time to analyze and review data."
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"Monarch and Monarch Data Pump definitely have streamlined our global finance reporting processes," Rhoda concludes, "and we plan to continue improving our processes even further still with Monarch and Monarch Data Pump, our primary global financial reporting and information delivery solution."
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<a href="http://www.datawatch.com/case_studies/case_studies.php" target=_blank>Read more Monarch Data Pump case studies.</a>
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Read our Monarch Data Pump white paper:</a> <i><a href="http://www.datawatch.com/_solutions/whitepapers.php#right_info" target=_blank>The Right Information to the Right Person at the Right Time: Making it a Reality.</i></a> Discover how Monarch Data Pump can provide automated delivery of customized information across your enterprise, at a fraction of the cost and time of alternative solutions.
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<TR> <TD style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #f00"> </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD> <H3 style="COLOR: #f00">Monarch Tip: A Clever Trick to Rank Subsets of Data</SPAN></H3>
<p>Monarch forums member Karen_VB recently posted a challenging Monarch question on how to create a calculated field that will rank detail data by group. Kudos to Gerhard Wasser of German Monarch distributor JoloData, for the answer…a clever Monarch trick!
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The sample report data Karen posted on the forum looked similar to this (simplified and edited slightly to more easily present the solution - Fig. 1):
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<img src=http://www.monarchforums.com/images/Sept-2008-Monarch-Tip-Report.jpg>
<p><small>Fig. 1</small></p>
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The mining of the data itself is easy, but in addition to the diagnoses codes and Patient IDs, Karen needs an extra column ranking the diagnoses in the order they appear in the file, starting over counting at 1 upon the occurrence of the next Patient ID (Fig. 2):
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<img src=http://www.monarchforums.com/images/Sept-2008-Monarch-Tip-001.jpg>
<p><small>Fig. 2</small></p>
<br>In the past, such a ranking value that resets back to 1 upon a change in another column (here, based on Patient ID) would have to be manually created in Excel, after exporting the first two columns shown above. That's certainly one possible solution, but Gerhard's clever solution enables the creation of the desired results right in the Monarch model, with no manual Excel work.
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The first step of the Monarch trick is to trap the Patient ID data as a Page Header trap, <b>not</b> as an Append trap (Fig. 3):
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<img src=http://www.monarchforums.com/images/Sept-2008-Monarch-Tip-002.jpg>
<p><small>Fig. 3</small></p>
<br>Now, in our Monarch table, we create the following calculated field:
<br><p style="font-family:courier">
LINE()-4</p>
<br>The LINE function returns the line number on the report page of the last detail line for a record.
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Notice that by trapping the Patient ID as a Page Header trap, Monarch inserted page breaks. Now the value returned by the LINE function <b>resets</b> with each new report page!
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Notice also the above calculated field formula takes the result of the LINE function, and then we subtract 4. Why? Counting the number of lines on each report page, we see there are always four lines prior to the first detail line (the line with the Patient ID, one blank line, another line beginning with "ICD-9-CM", and another blank line ; 4 lines in all). By subtracting 4 from the result provided by the LINE() function, the result yields a 1 upon each new Patient ID. The result ticks up to 2, 3, and so on, until a new Patient ID is found and the result resets to 1. Of course, this "offset" number will vary depending on the layout of your particular report.
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You can create such a calculated field that ranks subsets of detail data, as long as the grouping (here, the Patient ID) is trapped as a Page Header!
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