[Question] Anyone got a more comprehensive "demo" company?

[michellepace]

Hi there,

I'm playing around swith making reports in PowerBi (connecting directly into the Pastel database at long last!). Does anyone perhaps have a demo company they are will to share with me which has a good number and variety of transactions? I looked at the Demo project which installs with pastel but it's not enough data to give my dashboard a realistic feel.

Thanks in advance,
Michelle

[Kevin Smith]

Hi Michelle

The Demo company is limited to 200 transactions in Pastel, so you won't really get enough information from it to write comprehensive reports.

I think your best bet would be to offer the reports you have written/are testing to the client who is prepared to share their data with you, at no charge. This might encourage someone to give you access to their data.

I can create a dataset for you, using recurring batches/imports, but unless it is "live" data, you generally don't get a feel for what really happens in a business.

What version of Pastel are you using, and what modules are you needing to report on? Is it purely financial information for now, or are you looking at stock reporting, serial number tracking, multi currency, project tracking, etc?

[michellepace]

Goodness Kevin, here I am thinking I'm an expert and there you go saying things like "stock reporting, serial number tracking, multi currency, project tracking..." I didn't even know those things existed in Pastel . Thanks very much for the offer to create a dataset, but not to worry. I've got the below working on a little test project I made so I may as well just try run it on the live database when I get into work this morning. PowerBi cannot change anything in the database so it's safe. I hope

Pastel Partner Version: 19.2.2.

I think your best bet would be to offer the reports you have written/are testing to the client who is prepared to share their data with you

A client?? Oh, no not at all. This is just me trying to make things better at work. I'm not consulting. hahaha, no not at all. Thank you for offering to make me a dataset but not to worry. I've got the below working on a little test company I made. PowerBI is readonly when it comes to the database so I'm going to run it live this morning and see what I get.

[Alec Candiotes]

Hi Michelle

Having a demo set of data available really helps. May I suggest before you go through all this effort thyou have a look at the BI App for Pastel Partner that is a off the shelf:

Dashboard:

Overview:

I believe that all of this that you are doing has already been done.

If this does not help, we do have a proper data demo data set of about 4000 transactions which we might be willing to share with you. Looking forward to chatting to you.

All the best.

[michellepace]

May I suggest before you go through all this effort thyou have a look at the BI App for Pastel Partner that is a off the shelf

Thanks Alec, I had no idea. I'll take a thorough look through the above videos and your website this evening. I am not sure how power bi apps work at all. I have a couple of questions if you don't mind:

1. Privacy. Am I correct that my data is never shared with another party? That is, it remains between my pastel database, my powerbi desktop and my azzure account?
2. Compatibility. Should I get the lifetime license and sage pastel update their software - do you always ensure the app remains compatible? (Pastel Partner v 19.2.2 at the moment)
3. Changeable?. Say I'd like to add a couple of visuals. Like conditional formatting to a column. Or a few interactive graphs. Will the app allow me to do this?
4. Database Views or Table Queries? Does your app depend on views being created in the pastel database, or, are all tables done withing a sql query from within the powerbi datasource?
5. Can I get to these tables? (which I suppose relates to question 3)
6. Combine companies as one? I have 3 companies, is your app able to consolidate everything as if it were one company? And if so, does it depend on the account numbers exactly matching for each matching GL account?

Feel free to reply inline . And thank you, I'd loooove to have a copy of your demo database if it's at all possible

Looking forward to your reply. Thank you.
Michelle

[Alec Candiotes]

Hi Michelle

I am glad you had an opportunity to look into the MyBI App (BI for Pastel). Regarding your questions relating to the MyBI App (response below each question:

1. Privacy: You can view our privacy policy here: https://mybi.co.za/wp-content/upload...y-document.pdf
2 Compatibility. The App remains compatible with future Pastel versions.
3. Changeable?. The Apps offers a very wide range of defaults reports. All values within all reports can be drill into down to transaction level with a simple double click. You have the ability to build your own custom reports and graphs if required.
4. Database Views or Table Queries? Pastel uses a PSQL table format that we port into another data structure combined with our BI insights and our algorithms. These are on a table-to-table basis.
5. Can I get to these tables? You don't have access to the raw tables. However, you get exports in table-formats when you use the drilldown feature.
6. Combine companies as one? We have a MyConsolidate app which combines multiple Pastel databases into a single App environment (single set of BI reports) which is completely slice- and dice-able for the user to view either consolidated or per single entity or a combination off. The only requirement is that year ends of the databases consolidated are the same.

Would love to set up a coffee to show you a demo on our demo database.

Looking forward to hearing from you.
Alec

[michellepace]

Alec, this is really phenomial stuff. I'll give you a call.

[Alec Candiotes]

Cool. Looking forward to discuss the way forward.