Over the years, we’ve worked hard to provide our customers with standardized reporting solutions, and to drive collaboration between different users and reporting teams. Every new CXO Software customer receives 18 standard dashboard templates as part of their licensing package, which we have created based on the best reporting practices of selected users around the world.
Now, with CXO Catalog, we are going one stage further. This new feature of our software, which is free to existing license holders and a central part of the new iteration of CXO Software, 6.4, allows CXO users to directly share their best practice dashboard innovations with other organizations.
CXO Catalog
CXO Catalog website
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CXO Catalog Wizard
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Additional new features
Several new features are introduced in version 6.4 that are not only useful for CXO Catalog, but for CXO use in general!
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Navigate to function for Image control
We see that redirects are often used in our application, but redirects only worked with text. In version 6.4 we introduce redirects that work with images. Simply click on an image and you are redirected to another report or URL. This way we want to make the navigation inside CXO easier.
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Donut Charts
We already have the Pie chart control and we have extended that function with the option to create a Donut chart. Especially when you want to focus on a specific number in your Pie chart, you can use the Donut chart option to display the number in the middle of your Donut.
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Variances in Bars and Lines Chart
We missed the option to show variances as positive / negative colors in Charts. But not anymore in version 6.4! The Variance formula that you normally could only use in tables, can now also be used in charts. Variances can be displayed as bars or as fill area!
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Ranking lists
In this version we also introduce a new list type: Ranking lists. In CXO you can create rankings with MDX lists, but that is often not that easy as you have to know how to write the MDX script. With Ranking lists we now make ranking accessible for all report builders.
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Bugs solved in this release:
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CUSTOMIZABLE WORKFLOWS, WORKFLOW NOTIFICATIONS, AND MORE
CXO version 24.1 offers enhancement to the Workflow functionality for increased ease-of-use and uptake. Additionally, some smaller features from our innovations portal have been addressed.
Highlights of this release include:
More control with Customizable Workflow
Increased ease of use through Workflow Notifications
Improved User Group Management
Productivity gain through Maintenance messages
More Control With Customizable Workflows
What are CXO Workflows?
Since version 22.3.0, CXO has offered Workflows; a feature which allows customers to manage their CXO financial closing process from within CXO. With workflows, you can indicate for reports and storyboards who is responsible for adding and validating data and commentary by which date. This way, you can be more efficient as there is no uncertainty about responsibilities and due dates. Because Workflows provide information about report/storyboard completion, they also enabled the implementation of Status Indicators (see screenshot below). On each report for which the customer has a Workflow, we now show an icon which indicates whether data and commentary are ready or not. This gives end users valuable information whether a report is ready for use or now. Workflows are accessible via the CXO web application in the same way as Reports and Storyboards.
What are CXO Customizable Workflows?
One challenge with the original Workflows is that CXO predefined which five steps every workflow had to go through. Your closing processes may be slightly different than what is described in those steps. Customizable Workflows allow you to adjust the steps in each Workflow to reflect your closing process. The Status Indicator released in the first version of Workflows is compatible with this enhancement, and pre-existing Workflows will continue to work when upgrading to a new version of CXO.
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Increased ease of use through Workflow Notifications
When users are added to Workflows, they already received updates via their own Workflow screen. To avoid users having to browse to workflows to see if actions are available for them, we implemented two notifications which will increase users' awareness of their need to act. Via the already existing notifications menu, a user now gets a notification when they are added to a workflow template, as well as when they have to execute a step in a workflow instance. This way, users are better enabled to meet their deadlines.
Improved User Group Management
In version 24.1.0 we have added a functionality which shows the members of a user group when managing this user group in CXO Designer. This is accessible via the new ‘Users’ tab accessible per user group. As user groups can have many members, it is also possible to export the user list to a csv file for further analysis. Detailed information can be found here: User Groups - Documentation - insightsoftware Confluence (atlassian.net)
Productivity gain through Maintenance messages
It can happen that your EPM source system is down or undergoing maintenance. As a result, you may want your CXO users to not look at the data in CXO at that time. To address that need it is now possible to set a pop-up text under System Announcements. This text will display for 24 hours when users enter CXO. More details can be found here. Please note that this is an addition to existing functionality. If you want to prevent users to look at non-finalized data, we recommend using the Draft Period functionality. Alternatively, you can set up workflows as the status indicator will show whether or not data on a report are finalized or not.
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