How can you use Information OnDemand to Mash-up your Company's Data with Industry Data?

Information OnDemand provides a very compelling solution, but what isn’t evident is one of the most useful features that happens outside of the platform. If you have a Crystal Reports Developer on staff it is easy to create a great report which joins your corporate internal data with industry data from the OnDemand platform.

To do this simply find the report in the Information OnDemand store which you are interested in and subscribe or add it to your InfoManager. Once in your InfoManager download the report to your desktop. You can then open that report in Crystal Reports XI R2 and refresh it. (Note: all parameters have the correct defaults filled in for you except for your OnDemand password.) You can see it is fetching the most current copy of this data. You can now add your internal datasource to this report easily by creating a new connection and simply dropping the data tables into your report.

This feature can be extended even further. Did you know that with every report subscription you have access to the complementary web service for use in our tools? You can access the information for this web service by clicking on the Properties Action of any Report in your InfoManager. For example, you could merge the Revenue by Competitor Report with the Media Coverage Sentiment Analysis Report with your internal data into your own Crystal Report or Xcelsius document.