Global Leader in Data Management Turns to Logi Symphony to Help Customers Unlock Powerful Insights from Archived Data

About Informatica

Informatica is a leading independent software provider focused on delivering transformative innovation for the future of all things data. Organizations around the world rely on Informatica to realize their information potential and drive top business imperatives. More than 5,800 enterprises depend on Informatica to fully leverage their information assets residing on-premises, in the Cloud, and on the internet, including social networks.

www.informatica.com

OVERVIEW

Challenges

• Providing customers with the ability to report on archived data from any database
• Sourcing and embedding a third-party reporting application into existing applications
• Delivering self-service reporting to customers at every level of an enterprise

Solution

• Informatica uses Logi Symphony to provide customers with self-service reporting from within the Data Archive product and to create pre-built report packages that can be sold separately to accelerate user adoption and drive additional revenue

Benefits

• Enabled customers in all industries to report on archived data, regardless of database
• Provided end users with an intuitive self-service reporting tool for faster time-to-value of archived data
• Increased report generation adoption by as much as 80%
• Developed an entry-level reporting product that created new revenue streams and up-selling opportunities

ARCHIVED DATA STILL MATTERS

When it comes to extracting maximum value from their enterprise data, smart companies turn to Informatica. The software company’s comprehensive suite of solutions has been supporting the data integration, governance, and nextgen analytics needs of global customers for more than two decades.

During that time, the company also introduced Data Archive, a transitional repository for moving inactive data from production databases and enterprise applications to another database, data warehouse, or to a secure, highly compressed, immutable file. While the software improves the performance of production databases and helps companies maintain compliance, customers still need the information readily accessible for reporting activities.

“Non-production data is still essential to our customers’ daily operations and they needed a way to remain consistent with their reporting even after changing databases,” says Mukesh Marodia, Informatica’s Principal Product Manager. “We wanted to provide an intuitive tool that enabled customers to bring archived data to life.”

Empowering Users with Streamlined Reporting

Figuring out how to provide reporting capabilities on archived data was just one of the primary challenges Marodia’s team faced. The other—and more complex—one was making data reporting accessible and intuitive for a diverse group of users. Informatica customers span virtually every industry, and each company’s user base has its application for reporting.

“It’s not uncommon for our customers to have many unique user groups that need reporting capabilities on archived data,” he says. “Making requests through traditional channels is time-consuming, resource-intensive, and not the most efficient way to meet the reporting demands of the business.”

While most of the companies have their legacy reporting tools, Marodia notes that report generation often requires assistance from a dedicated report department. Relying on one resource or department to fulfill the reporting needs of every business user across an enterprise can create production bottlenecks, which can delay access to essential information for days—even weeks—and potentially stymie productivity and create unwanted inefficiencies.

For example, business users such as physicians in a healthcare company setting or a business analyst in HR rely on archived data for daily use in their roles. Going through a formal report request process means waiting for the results and limits their ability to make important decisions. At the same time, other users like report administrators, designers, and reporting managers may need more advanced functionality such as the ability to create ad hoc reports for different business units or customers.

“We recognized an opportunity to build more value into our customer relationships by providing additional capabilities to help them get the most out of their data,” Marodia says. “We wanted to empower users with an intuitive self-service reporting tool with the flexibility to enable any business user or employee to run the reports they needed on demand.”

Integrated, Intuitive Report Building

After an extensive evaluation process involving several vendors, Informatica chose to build out its new reporting features with Logi Symphony. Rather than building a new proprietary reporting solution from scratch, Informatica can use Logi Symphony’s APIs to embed the reporting capabilities right into its existing environment.

Logi Symphony is database agnostic, so any Informatica customer can leverage the wide-ranging reporting capabilities regardless of their preferred data storage solution. Unlike more complex reporting software, Logi Symphony offers intuitive drag-and-drop functionality, enabling any business user—from daily business users to designated report designers—to effortlessly create a visually compelling report with the touch of a button from within Informatica Data Archive.

The software also features a variety of pre-designed charts, tables, crosstabs, maps, filter components, and other options for users to rapidly create dynamic, interactive reports in a wide range of formats. With Logi Symphony and Report Designer, Informatica can seamlessly blend visualizations of archived data into Data Archive to give users an integrated look and feel for an intuitive user experience.

“Logi Symphony is a lightweight solution that doesn’t require a lot of training or ongoing management,” Marodia says. “It’s an intuitive self-service alternative to other complex reporting solutions that gives our customers more flexibility and agility in their daily work while significantly increasing the value of our products.”

Out With the Old, In with The New

The integration of Logi Symphony into the Informatica portfolio has proven to be a wise decision. The simplicity and convenience of embedded reports have resulted in an immediate and measurable increase in overall report use among Data Archive users.

At the same time, Marodia’s team is capitalizing on the quick adoption of its new tools and leveraging Logi Symphony to create new sales opportunities and revenue streams. In addition to the standard embedded reports in Data Archive, Informatica also offers pre-built, customized reporting packages that simplify end-user reporting and introduce prospective customers to the company’s solutions.

“Logi Symphony has enabled us to create an entry-level reporting product that helps customers understand how our product works and the value it can bring to their business,” Marodia says. “Now, as much as 80% of Data Archive customers have recognized they no longer need a separate reporting solution because they can do so much more with ours.”

The initial success of the pre-built reports has Marodia planning more packages in the future to continue gaining market traction. “Logi Symphony has enhanced the Data Archive value proposition for existing and prospective customers alike,” he says. “Looking ahead, it makes good business sense to continue building on that momentum and begin expanding it to our other products.”