Deltek Embrace A Major Reengineering Project
When Deltek acquired C/S Solutions in 2006, I was quietly optimistic that they would spruce wInsight up a bit and perhaps even deal with a few of its more quirky interaction functions. As good as wInsight is today it’s long been due for an overhaul. I’ve had customers comment on the dated look of the graphs and user screens, and frankly it’s hard to argue with them. Of course this fact hasn’t been lost on Deltek either and my patient optimism has finally paid off.
Before we say goodbye…
wInsight’s longevity and widespread install base has been thanks to its unique ability to capture each period of earned value data and make it easy to report on any period with informative graphics, trend analysis tools and not forgetting the ever popular AI (Artificial Intelligence) report, that has been a novelty and talking point in all corners of the EVM universe.
Alas though, wInsight’s underlying technology has carried it just about as far as it can go. This is particularly noticeable with embracing newer technologies such as supporting web and mobile platforms and being able to provide the same end user desktop experience across these platforms. So I am pleased, as I’m sure are the entire wInsight community, that Deltek are investing in this exciting new paradigm for wInsight.
The Announcement
At this year’s Insight conference in Nashville, Deltek announced a major new project to completely re-write wInsight from the ground up. The internal name for the project is Eagle.
The project has already been through the proof of concept and approval process and the last quarter of this year will see architecture and design finalized, with development work starting early in Q1 of 2013.
Scope and Functionality
The overall objective for this project is to match feature parity with the existing wInsight program. To that end we can expect to see all our old favorites including the Bull’s eye charts, CPI, SPI and so on. Schedule integration C/S Glue style will be there along with the briefing wizard for PowerPoint charts, CPR formats 1 – 5 and IPMR formats 1 – 5 and 7, narrative input for those ever popular variance reports, XML input and output and mobile support to boot. It will also support UN/CEFACT the new adopted standard for transferring IPMR data. The UN/CEFACT standard will be a requirement for all new government contracts.
The reporting engine back of all this will be QlikView, a technology that has been providing excellent Business Intelligence graphics to a worldwide audience since it was founded in Lund, Sweden in 1993 and headquartered in Radnor, PA. QlikView is a Business Discovery tool, which is emerging as an important Business Intelligence technology to easily analyze and take action quickly on complex data and metrics. This Business Discovery platform really delivers true self-service Business Intelligence in a form that is very easy to use. This technology was selected after Deltek undertook an extensive proof of concept and found QlikView to exceed their expectation and promises to deliver unrivaled interactive analysis capabilities.
Update November 2022: QlikView is no longer available to new users. The new platform is called Qlik Sense.
Image courtesy of Deltek, Inc.
Summary
This will be an exciting and well overdue new product to hit the market next year. Of course it’s way too early to speculate about any release dates, but Ten Six will be keeping our eye on the ball and will hopefully get an opportunity to look at an early beta sometime next year.
To read more Deltek articles click here