EPA OKs BI

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has turned to business intelligence software to help retrieve and evaluate data. The EPA is deploying an enterprise performance management dashboard from Business Objects to access financial and environmental data, streamline the agency's reporting capabilities, and provide executives with a graphical interface for analyzing key performance indicators.

"We needed a scalable solution that would allow the agency to easily integrate and analyze financial, administrative, program and performance information," says Linda Combs, CFO of the EPA. "Having seen the benefits Business Objects solutions have provided in other areas of the EPA, we were interested in deploying a management dashboard based on their business intelligence software."

For several years, the EPA has been constructing a Financial Data Warehouse (FDW) to provide real-time data regarding financial, payroll, contracts and grants status. The agency plans to leverage the FDW, using the new software, to develop an executive dashboard that will turn time-sensitive data into valuable, decision-making information.

In the past, senior managers were heavily dependent on subject matter experts to develop budget, finance, performance and program reports, using a variety of spreadsheets and graphic tools. Those reports were labor-intensive to prepare and disseminate. The new system will enable managers to focus on the analytical side of their work instead of on report development.

Combs says, "Using the dashboard, our managers will have immediate access to the data that is most important to them. This financial and environmental data will be displayed in a highly visual manner, including graphs and alerts."