Software provides corporate performance management.
Press Release Summary:
Leveraging relational technology, CONTROL v8.8 unites critical financial and operational data, delivering cohesive and transparent view necessary to align strategy and action. Users can disseminate CONTROL content in variety of forms, including XML and PDF files as well as Excel workbooks for collaboration and visibility. In addition to sparse data handling and just-in-time recalculations, program speeds execution of data transformations, mappings, and allocations.
Original Press Release:
KCI Announces General Availability of CONTROL Version 8.8
Latest Version Provides Enhanced Excel Integration and Boosted Performance for Enterprise Caliber Corporate Performance Management
TORRANCE, Calif., Sept. 12 / -- KCI Computing, Inc. today announced the availability of CONTROL version 8.8, the latest release of its unified, dynamic, corporate performance management (CPM) solution. The newest version delivers on the vision of a corporate performance management system, combining high-performance with comprehensive functionality that is flexible, simple to use, and easy to manage and deploy.
CONTROL is a holistic solution that leverages relational technology to unite critical financial and operational data, delivering the cohesive and transparent view necessary to align strategy and action. The software enables companies of all sizes to master the challenge of unifying all financial functions, processes and data for consistent insights and improved decision-making.
CONTROL version 8.8 pushes more of the computations onto the relational database management system, providing shorter waits for data-intensive views and quicker execution of data transformations, mappings and allocations. Additionally, CONTROL version 8.8 includes enhanced sparse data handling and 'just-in-time' recalculations ensuring breakthrough performance as applications grow in scope, complexity and extend to thousands of users.
The latest version represents the next leap forward in ease of use and flexibility by providing even tighter integration with Excel. It also makes it simpler to distribute CONTROL data to non-CONTROL users so that more stakeholders throughout an organization can engage in managing and measuring enterprise performance -- and do so without any additional licensing expense. A major new feature lets users automatically disseminate CONTROL content in a variety of forms, including XML and PDF files as well as Excel workbooks for improved collaboration and visibility.
"We are revolutionizing the way users interact with our application. With each new release, we raise the bar in terms of flexibility, speed, extensibility and ease of management so that organizations of all sizes can derive maximum value from our solution," said Max Kay, CEO of KCI Computing. "CONTROL version 8.8 is no different. The latest version opens up a whole new world of possibilities to cut through the clutter, proactively drive improvement and achieve desired performance throughout the enterprise. It supports the cross-process and cross-functional transparency that is a prerequisite for 'a single version of the truth' and realistic forecasts."
Key enhancements include:
o Just-in-time Recalculation
Version 8.8 extends the notion of 'just-in-time' recalculations to work with any depth of dynamically mapped models. Now, for even better performance, CONTROL automatically tracks which blocks of stored calculated values are affected by updates and only recalculates outdated data.
o Enhanced Data Validation
CONTROL version 8.8 includes new functionality designed to improve budget and forecast data quality by detecting and reporting unexpected and invalid data conditions at time of entry. Conditional validation can be defined as view exceptions to either issue a warning or completely reject user entered data which triggers the exception, both issuing a warning message and highlighting the offending data.
o Scratchpads
Version 8.8 now supports the embedding of any Excel formula and the data computed by these Excel formulas in a CONTROL application and conversely allows CONTROL View data to be included easily and naturally into native Excel applications. Moreover, Scratchpads provide unprecedented control over formatting, facilitate the integration of data collection (both on-line to CONTROL and off-line, away from CONTROL) and make it easy to use Excel worksheets to create and maintain CONTROL models. Scratchpads can be managed within the CONTROL database, putting an end to problems of tracking unstructured spreadsheet data.
o Publish
Publish is a new and comprehensive script action that allows users to share and disseminate CONTROL content in many different forms and connect people and goals across operations and management functions. It enables end users to easily publish a CONTROL book, view, sheet, or form, or an Excel workbook as a printed report, Excel workbook, template, or alternatively as an XML, PDF, HTML, or CSV (comma separated values) text file and readily circulate it to a CONTROL user, group, or global e-mail distribution list. It also provides the flexibility to publish content as an attachment, e-mail link, or document in a Microsoft SharePoint website.
o Improved Currency Translation
CONTROL's already powerful currency translation features have been enhanced to be even more flexible in analytical applications. It is now simple to translate all data in a View according to a specified scenario or time frame. The unique year-to-date averaging process can now be performed over multi-year time frames. Other improvements make it even easier to administer large scale multi-currency applications so every user sees data in their own preferred currency.
o Private and Shared Members
Users can now add private or shared members to a hierarchy for their own speculative analyses of common data sets without requiring the intervention of a system administrator. The new members can be shared by all users, a group of users, or by a single user providing ample self-service functionality and flexibility while maintaining centralized management and consistency.
"An effective performance management solution helps organizations bridge strategy with end-to-end tactics, strengthening financial and operational decision-making and promoting optimal action through the enterprise," notes Craig Schiff, president and CEO of BPM Partners, an independent advisory services firm that focuses exclusively on performance management solutions. "It is imperative for companies to make real-time sense of complex volumes of data and then deliver that information to stakeholders, regardless of their technical proficiency. KCI has succeeded in helping its customer's meet these objectives cost effectively."
About KCI Computing
Building on more than 25 years of domain expertise, KCI provides a powerful, cost-effective corporate performance management (CPM) solution that offers organizations of all sizes the real-time insight needed to plan, assess and drive corporate performance. KCI's hallmark product, CONTROL, leverages relational technology to unite critical financial and operational data to deliver the cohesive and transparent view necessary to align strategy and action. CONTROL is built on the concept of "ONE": one closed loop software, one user interface, one point of maintenance, one centralized repository, and one version of the "truth" across the enterprise. Headquartered in Torrance, California, KCI has a diverse customer base that includes industry-leading companies in a variety of markets. For more information, please visit www.kcicorp.com.
