Business Intelligence (BI) puts together business analytics, data mining, data visualization, technology resources along with the best practices to help companies make more data-driven decisions. Business intelligence can help businesses make better choices by displaying present and historical data in their business context. Analysts can use data visualization to provide performance and competitor benchmarks for a smoother and more efficiently run organization. Analysts can also detect market trends to boost sales or income more quickly. Making sure you are using BI and data visualization properly is important. Let’s look at how you can choose the right data visualizations for your company.

Temporal Visualizations

In the temporal category, data visualizations belong if they satisfy two conditions: they are linear, and they are one-dimensional. Temporal visualizations normally have lines that either stand alone or intersect with each other, with starting and ending time. Some common examples of data visualizations include scatter plots, time series sequences, timelines, line graphs, and polar area diagrams. These visualizations are usually pretty easy to recognize and understand. Picking the right visualization all depends on the kind of story you are trying to tell. When choosing a temporal visualization, your end goal should be comparing one or many value sets. This can help you easily show the low and high values of a data set.

Hierarchical Visualizations

In the hierarchical category, data visualizations are those that organize groups within larger groups. These are best used to display clusters of information, especially if they flow from one point to another. Typical hierarchical visualizations are tree diagrams, ring charts, and sunburst diagrams. Just like any type of data visualization, it is important that you are effectively telling a story with the graphics that you use. For this type, showing levels of importance coming from a single source is the main purpose of these visualizations. The only downside is that these graphs tend to be complex and sometimes difficult to read. The tree diagram is used most frequently because of its easy-to-follow linear path.

Multidimensional Visualizations

While linear data is easier to understand, sometimes you have the need to capture your audience’s attention. Multidimensional displays two or more different variables to create a 3D data visualization. These types of visualizations are scatter plots, pie charts, Venn diagrams, stacked bar graphs, and histograms. These visuals can break down a ton of data into key takeaways, making it easier to clearly identify what you are trying to get across. Multidimensional is used to compare data and parts of a whole and show relationships between two variables. With multidimensional data, you are able to choose different colors and shapes to really customize your graphic.

Data Visualization Makes an Impact

Choosing the right visualization for your data directly impacts how it gets across to the viewers. Your main goal should always be to properly tell a story with the graphics that you use. Data visualization allows you to display specific data in an eye-catching way leading to a successful conveyance of important and relevant information.

Business development can be a challenge especially when firms are already busy with day to day activities. Leaders must figure out what is worth putting effort and money into to get the pay-off they want. Fortunately, Deltek and Full Sail Partners offer many different solutions that are technology forward and can help make business development easier for you. Let’s take a look at some of these and see how they support business development.

Deltek Vantagepoint

Deltek has recently revamped Vision, creating a more powerful and user focused system that is designed for professional services firms. Deltek Vantagepoint can be used to improve productivity, increase profitability and make smarter business decisions. It also allows business development teams to quickly put together proposals that will give them an edge over the competition. So, by using Deltek Vantagepoint, you will have a platform that promotes business development with easy to use tools.

Blackbox Connector

Blackbox Connector provides the opportunity to connect Deltek Vision and Vantagepoint to 3^rd party software. For business development purposes, Constant Contact and Mailchimp Blackbox Connectors will help make it easier to nurture relationships with potential new business. What is sent out via Constant Contact or Mailchimp is brought back into Vision or Vantagepoint with the Blackbox Connector making it convenient for you to track your marketing efforts which leads to new business.

Deltek PIM

Efficiency is one of the leading attributes to great business development. Deltek PIM offers your employees one place to access all your files across all aspects of your business. With all emails and documents in one place, it is simple to research and determine where new business might be found saving you a lot of discovery time. This can be an asset when trying to advance your firm’s business development.

Informer

Informer is a business intelligence tool which allows your firm to collect data and analyze it. Business intelligence provides insight you can use to make better business decisions and evaluate areas for business development. Visual options in dashboards can display a variety of charts and graphs which give you vital information. For instance, you can identify which clients have used your services the most and may require further assistance. Informer thus allows you to pinpoint business development potential.

Deltek Learning Zone

Deltek Learning Zone is a great resource to find out more about tools that can help your firm further its business development efforts. DLZ offers virtual live classes, self-paced classes, support videos, infographics, and many more ways to learn. You can find experts that have a lot of knowledge regarding the best way to target business development using Deltek products. This will help your firm plan a course of action for your business development strategy.

Making Business Development Easy

Time is a precious commodity to all firms. With the many offerings from Deltek and Full Sail Partners, your business development efforts can be handled more efficiently and effectively. It is crucial to target business development if you want to set your firm apart from the competition. Use these resources and stay on top of the business development game.

Deltek Insight 2019 is just around the corner, and it is time to start making plans! This year the conference will be held in Orlando, Florida from November 18^th through the 21^st at the Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center. If you have been thinking about attending this year, but are just not sure, let’s take a look at some of the amazing reasons why you should attend.

Expand Your Understanding

Deltek offers so many products that can be beneficial to your business. At Insight, you can customize the events you attend to cater to your specific firm needs. Figuring out which sessions are best related to your firm needs allows you to get the most out of Insight and gain the knowledge required to take your business to the next level using Deltek products.

In addition, our experts from Full Sail Partners will be on-site leading sessions that will get you on the right track with some of the trickier Deltek products. If you are having trouble with configuration planning, Michael Kessler, PMP will be speaking on implementing projects and resource planning. If you want to learn more about implementing the Asset Management Module, join Kelly Duguette as she shows you how to enhance module usability. You can check out everything Full Sail Partners is doing at Insight 2019 here.

Finally, if you need a little more help with a certain area, you can meet with a Deltek expert who can assist you with whatever problem needs attention. You can set up a 1 on 1 meeting with an expert which will last around 45 minutes. These meetings are first come first serve and the slots fill up fast. Getting one on one expert advice provides new insight on your products and is another great reason to attend Deltek Insight.

Mingle to Grow Your Network

With Insight being one of the largest conferences for Deltek users, the opportunity arises to connect and mingle with others in your field of work. You will have the chance to speak with people from around the world that you normally would not be able to meet. There will be plenty of time for learning and growth and collaborating with these people in your industry might help solve a problem you have mutually experienced. The Celebrate Insight event which takes place on Wednesday the 20^th also offers tons of food and socializing with the rest of the Insight attendees. You will surely leave Deltek Insight with new solutions and awesome connections

Have an Experience Packed with Fun

Deltek Insight will kick off Monday, November 18^th with a pre-conference workshop from Deltek University that will boost your knowledge. After that, there will be a general session where attendees will learn the schedule of what’s happening throughout the four days of Insight. In the evening, there will be a welcome reception where you can visit the sponsors’ booths to gather more information. Make sure to stop by the Full Sail Partners’ booth and see what we have been up to this year!

As mentioned before, the annual Deltek customer appreciation event, Celebrate Insight, is always the highlight of the conference. It will once again be a great event featuring dinner and drinks, concerts and games. With the party venue located in Florida, this year is something you are not going to want to miss.

Register Now for Deltek Insight 2019

With so much to look forward to this year at Deltek Insight, you’ll surely want to sign up! From the opportunities to network, to learning from experts, to having fun in Florida, it is worth attending this year! Register now, and we can’t wait see you there!

If you haven’t heard yet, Deltek has reimagined Vision to create a more powerful and user focused ERP system specifically for professional services firms. Deltek Vantagepoint’s 360-degree view of a firm’s projects offers improved productivity, increased profitability and significantly improved strategic business decision making capabilities. Vantagepoint is an incredible upgrade from Vision and is continuing to grow with each new version. The latest release of Vantagepoint has even more enhancements which will allow firms to deliver even better projects. Let’s take a look at what’s new with Deltek Vantagepoint.

New Proposal Builder

With the new Vantagepoint proposal builder, business development teams can quickly put together impressive proposals to stay ahead of the competition. This new visual proposal builder provides a drag and drop option for images, allows project descriptions to be taken directly from project records and offers the ability to easily create resumes. Within the new proposal builder, there are also reusable templates, boilerplates and master elements to ensure your branding is correct. Having the ability to quickly create uniformed proposals allows business development teams to focus on the other activities required to create new business opportunities. 

Combined Opportunities and Projects

Project information is now consolidated into one hub making it easier to create, manage and deliver projects. By combining opportunities and projects, all project details can be monitored in one place. Having one location for project information prevents duplicate records, simplifies project administration and provides complete visibility into projects.

Streamlined Billing and Invoicing

Enhancements have been made to the billing and invoicing processes with the latest Vantagepoint release saving time for accounting teams. Deltek realized that having billing and invoicing in one place will greatly improve the user experience. With Vantagepoint, users can view project details that include billing information in the new Projects hub. As part of this enhanced capability, draft invoices can be reviewed and approved by project managers directly from their projects. Therefore, the overall time from draft to final invoice is cut short with this interactive billing process. Accounting teams and financial managers can analyze financial information and email final invoices more efficiently and improve cash flow.

Improved Dashboards

Without being able to visualize your data in several formats, it is difficult to make fast and actionable decisions. With Vantagepoint, dashboards have been enhanced to provide improved business intelligence and offer more actionable insight. Now there are new chart dashparts and better ways to sort, group and filter data. Multiple dashboards for users can be created and configured to meet specific user needs allowing for even more effective business management.

Get Ready to Upgrade to Deltek Vantagepoint

With all these features offered by the newest release of Deltek Vantagepoint, professional services firms can run their projects even more effectively. Deltek strives to power project success and will continue to seek out more improvements to help project-based firms run at their best. Are you ready to upgrade to Deltek Vantagepoint today? Check the official Deltek Vantagepoint Readiness Portal to learn more about the requirements and when you should start considering upgrading to Vantagepoint.

In the business world, it is vital that your company stays ahead of the competition. Business leaders must consistently evaluate many things from the technology being used to the way the business is organized. While firms tend to spend a lot of money on business development activities, they focus less on technology advancements. This is a costly mistake since technology is rapidly changing and continues to provide solutions to many common business challenges. Let’s see why companies should prioritize digital innovation.

Worth the Cost

Businesses push back on investments in technology because of the cost to upgrade their current systems. However, they don’t consider the cost of their current software being outdated. Choosing to save that money and not invest in new and up-to-date software could lead to more problems down the road like hardware failure.

Even more significant, using outdated systems can be frustrating and lead to less productive employees and slower work production. Using current technology will promote productivity plus allow employees to learn what is new so they can benefit their customers. Keeping up with the growing technology can give companies the edge over others that are still using out-of-date systems.

Reducing Redundancy 

There are many software offerings available to reduce redundancies and improve employee efficiency and productivity. Firms first should find an application that will communicate with other systems they have in place. Employees should have an easy and effective way to get data from one place to another without having to import and export to different systems. Having a system that can interface with a client’s software can make it easier to manage data. Working with current software eliminates duplicate data which results in more work down the line.

Remote Access

As newer technology arises in the business world, mobility becomes an option for more employees. The ability to access corporate data while not in the office is essential to employee productivity. There is an additional impact on your team since data can be updated whenever creating real-time information. Furthermore, being able to work from wherever provides more flexibility to meet customer needs whenever they arise. Only the most current technology allows for these benefits.

Fostering Collaboration

Digital innovation promotes global collaboration. While businesses require collaboration, it is becoming increasingly difficult with more companies going global. By employing collaboration solutions, employees are able to share information real-time instead of storing it. Having the ability to share results instantly can improve employee relationships within teams located around the world.

Make Technology a Priority

Unsupported software and out-of-date hardware can cause data failure, but it also prevents businesses from being as productive as they could be. Pursuing digital innovation, companies can make sure they are on top of their games.  Up-to-date systems offering employee mobility ensures productivity and an exceptional customer experience. Prioritize technology for your firm.

Technology is a huge part of any growing business and leaders are constantly searching for emerging technology trends that can drive their businesses forward. Originally, the A&E industry strayed from embracing new technology because of the time and effort it took to learn and adopt the new trends. However, firms are now identifying technology as a strategic and innovative way to educate staff, identify key initiatives, and implement incremental changes to improve business.

Top Three Technology Trend Challenges

In this year’s Deltek Clarity Survey, firms were asked about their top technology trend challenges. The results presented in the 40^th Clarity Report showed that the top three challenges were the struggles of prioritizing trends, the cost of technology, and the lack of time to learn. Other challenges included client education, lack of leadership, and buy-in from firms.

Emerging Technology Trends

For the second year in a row, firms were asked how important nine emerging technology trends were to their businesses. Lining up with the top four from last year, The Internet of Things (loT) and Geo locations ranked in, closely followed by big data and data science.

The loT is the interconnection of devices embedded in everyday objects, enabling them to send and receive data. It is important because connected devices offer the potential to better manage certain projects. The key is being able to extract and manage actionable data from the loT devices to make informed decisions.

Geo location is more prominent now than ever. Firms can leverage geo location information to make things easier for the employees and clients. Geo locations can be used to determine an employee’s location, to track how long an employee is on a job site or deliver valuable details about the client when you arrive at a project or client office. Firms can use this information to better manage projects and improve client satisfaction giving them a competitive advantage.

Application of Technology Trends

This year, firms were also asked to which areas of their business they apply technology trends. Most firms are looking at implementing these trends into projects themselves through either project management or project execution. Futhermore, more than half of the firms want to apply technology to improve their business development and marketing.

The problem is that not enough firms are seeing the value of technology and how it can improve human capital management. Potential and existing clients are wanting businesses to be tech-savvy, and those that can deliver streamlined services that use up-to-date technology will stand out from the rest. Embracing technology today can create a clear competitive advantage, while those who are not will have to play catch up later.

Top Technology Trend Initiatives

Additionally, firms were asked to identify the top three initiatives they are employing to address technology challenges in the next three years. Two-thirds of the firms identified creating a strategic plan as one of their top three initiatives, followed by educating staff and identifying and developing technology subject matter experts. With these initiatives in mind, how can firms get this information and learn from it and eventually apply it to their work forces?

First, firms just need to know where to start. Industry associations and partners are a great resource they can use to learn more about technology. Firms should not be nervous about integrating new technology into their organization because of the fear of failure. Once they gain an understanding of the technology, developing a budget for implementing these trends will become more manageable.

Learn More From the 40^th Annual Deltek Clarity Report

This is simply a summary of technology trends from this year’s report. For more details, download a copy of the 40^th Annual Deltek Clarity Report today. You may also find other topics of interest to keep your firm ahead of the competition.

Full Sail Partners is honored to have received the Deltek Reseller Award for 2018 at the annual Global Partner Kickoff Event. As a Deltek Partner, Full Sail Partners continues to provide sales, implementation, consulting, hosting and customization services for project-oriented professional services organizations. Our mission is to help businesses integrate their processes into one singular system, better understand and retain current customers, and increase their market share.

“I am very grateful to work with a great team of professionals at Full Sail Partners and for our firm to be recognized by Deltek with this Reseller Award,” said Sarah Gonnella, VP of Marketing and Sales at Full Sail Partners. “We strive to do what is in the best interest of our clients and that approach has and continues to serve us and our clients well. We are excited about the next generation solution, Deltek Vantagepoint, to help project-based firms gain even more actionable insight to their business.”

As a strategic and trusted partner to over 1,000 professional services firms, Full Sail Partners can show clients the value of investing in technology solutions that results in increased productivity and profitability. The Full Sail Partners’ team has over 275 years of combined experience using Deltek products. This experience and our honest, get real approach have allowed us to build long lasting relationships with our clients. 

“It is my pleasure and honor to recognize Full Sail Partners as the Deltek Reseller of the Year. As a strategic Deltek Partner, Full Sail Partners provides their expertise, integrated products and services to continue helping our customers deliver successful projects. I look forward to Full Sail Partners leading the way in bringing Vantagepoint to professional service firms throughout North America,” said Andy Christenson, Senior Director, Global Alliances, Deltek.

Deltek provides leading software and solutions designed for project-based businesses to improve business performance, streamline operations and win new business. Using Deltek Vantagepoint or Deltek Vision, professional services firms can automate their marketing, financial management, planning, tracking and administration of resources and projects. BothVantagepoint and Vision uniquely integrate end-to-end business processes. Additionally, by using the Blackbox Connector offering by Full Sail Partners, Vantagepoint and Vision users can connect their Deltek systems to other third-party software solutions further streamlining business operations.

About Deltek

Better software means better projects. Deltek is the leading global provider of enterprise software and information solutions for project-based businesses. More than 23,000 organizations and millions of users in over 80 countries around the world rely on Deltek for superior levels of project intelligence, management and collaboration. Our industry-focused expertise powers project success by helping firms achieve performance that maximizes productivity and revenue. www.deltek.com

For more information, please contact Full Sail Partners’ Marketing and Communications Department. 

At the annual SAP Concur Fusion Conference in San Diego, Full Sail Partners was honored to receive the 2018 VAR of the Year award for the Solution Provider Program. For the last few years, Full Sail Partners and SAP Concur have successfully been working together to provide a Blackbox Connector solution to their mutual Deltek Vision clients. The Blackbox Connector offering by Full Sail Partners for Deltek Vision is future proofed for Vantagepoint and allows users to connect their systems to other third-party software solutions like SAP Concur to streamline business operations.

“The OCR capability combined with the monitoring and reporting features within the SAP Concur product almost sells itself when I explain it to clients. Now that our team is also SAP Concur Certified Implementation Partner, the implementation and connection process is even easier. It has been another amazing year, and I look forward to continued success with Blackbox Connector and SAP Concur,” stated Amy Balassone, Relationship Manager for Full Sail Partners.

SAP Concur is the world’s leading provider of integrated travel, expense management, and invoice management solutions. Deltek Vision is a leading enterprise software solution designed for project-based professional services firms to improve business performance, streamline operations and win new business.

“Our Blackbox Connector team has established a great relationship with SAP Concur over the last few years. We continue to see how the Blackbox Connector positively impacts our mutual Deltek Vision firms. What is even more exciting is that, after rigorous training and certification by SAP Concur, our own Full Sail Partners’ consultants are now taking lead on implementations,” stated Wes Renfroe, VP of Information Technology with Full Sail Partners.

For more information about SAP Concur Connectors, please visit Full Sail Partners’ Blackbox Connector website http://www.blackboxconnector.com/.

For more information, please contact Full Sail Partners’ Marketing and Communications Department. 

When you are determining what marketing techniques are going to be the best for your company, there are some important things to consider. It’s common for business owners to cast a wide net in their initial marketing plan, throwing everything they can against the wall to see what sticks. However, continuing to throw money at a marketing strategy that is not generating conversation will result in loss of revenue and time. Fortunately, there are ways that you can avoid this by tracking the success of your marketing techniques and being able to adjust the ones not yielding results.

Website Analytics

Let’s start with one of the easiest and most common methods of tracking marketing success: website analytics. Utilizing this method, you can see who is coming to your site and from what sources. This lets you know which marketing tactics are creating the most clicks and how those clicks could be converted into leads or sales. A lot of website analytic tools are easy to setup and simple to use.

Email Outreach

Email marketing is easy to track and measure. Most email marketing platforms offer a host of data that will help you gauge the efficiency of your email campaigns. Your task is to find those metrics that best suit your email marketing goals and to keep an eye on them. There are many different things that are important to look at when it comes to the success of email marketing. Deliverability, open rates, click-through rates, conversation and bounce rates. These all can give you a better idea of how your email marketing campaign is going.

Phone Tracking

Call tracking is one of the most effective ways to evaluate lead generation sources. By taking advantage of call tracking technology, you can see what marketing ventures are generating the highest number of phone calls. This gives you the opportunity to keep track of who is calling from where and gauge where your budget is best spent.

CRM Tracking

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) helps sales staff stay organized and track marketing campaign results. Using a CRM software, sales professionals create profiles for each prospect including name, company, phone number, lead source, and any other relevant information. CRM platforms not only lead the way in tracking initial marketing efforts but continue to serve in following the future of client dealings.

Save Time and Effort by Tracking Marketing Success

Tracking marketing success is quite effective when using the right techniques. You can learn what works and what doesn’t when marketing to contacts to create more business and ultimately generate more income for your firm. Using a tool like the Deltek CRM, you can easily.

In essence, a User Interface (UI) guides users – it is a chain of screens, pages, buttons, forms or any visual element that interacts with a user. It may prompt the user to seek further information, navigate the site, make a registration or purchase decision with a series of clicks. Having a good user interface can ultimately change the way you work and process information for your business. There are many different aspects that a UI can offer to make things more efficient, quicker, and easier to understand.

Clarity 

Clarity is one of the most important elements of a user interface design. The whole purpose of a UI design is to enable people to interact with your system by communicating meaning and function. Clarity throughout the application can make this easier and more efficient. One great way of simplifying an interface is to use whitespace which breaks up the content and allows the user to concentrate on the important areas.

Presentation

An interface that is poorly designed can drive incoming traffic away and leave a bad impression. Features such as attractive branding, color scheme, layout, graphics, tabs and other tools make a great design that users will want to utilize. You want the UI to look good while still having the right features to work well keeping users satisfied.

Easy-to-Decipher

Easy-to-decipher and consistent navigation that is simple to locate and browse through is the basic requirement for a good UI. If the navigation is complex for a user to work with, there is no way they will want to spend more time trying to figure it out. One way to make things better is to make buttons and options more easily recognizable by using the icons the users expect to see. A good example is the trash can as most users will understand what this does without further explanation.

Functional

In the end, it is all worthless if the UI’s functionality is not up to speed. A quality User interface focuses on making the user interactions simple and efficient. Having such a user interface can go a long way in ensuring an exceptional user experience. Every single second a user spends on the interface is directly attributable to the functionality of that UI.

Make Sure Your User Interface is Exceptional

The User experience is tantamount to business success, and the User Interface is the most significant touch point for your users. If your UI is user friendly, it will be used repeatedly increasing your business productivity. Without a quality UI, the opposite is true, and that is why having a good User Interface matters.