Power of Report Caching
The value of reporting has become increasingly important for businesses of all sizes. Every organization uses their own process for collecting and analyzing data to gain greater insight and streamline internal processes. The insight into the data is only as good as the process used to generate reports that provide visual representation. At Plains Mobile, we provide reports generated in real time for the most up to date analysis possible. We understand having access to live data is the best way to get valuable and usable information.
Plains Mobile has taken the process of generating reports a step further. The industry challenge with reporting revolves around the time it takes for reports to sift through data and generate valuable feedback. Generation time becomes even more of an issue when dealing with large sets of data. Performance can lag and the report can take too long to display. Plains Mobile uses its’ ezQ automation technology to cache data which helps generate reports faster to get you the information you need quicker.
What is Caching?
First of all, what does it mean to cache data? When you visit a website for the first time it needs to be loaded from scratch. If you leave the site and come back, it will load more quickly. This is because media and data from the site were cached and stored to your device, which allows them to appear without having to reload. This is the same for data needing to be analyzed for reporting. The back-end processor handles the heavy lifting so reports can generate in less time.
How Plains Mobile uses Caching
ezQ technology is an automation service tracking when specific events occur. Plains Mobile uses this feature to recognize data inputs having an impact on reports. When an event is triggered, the system caches the new data on the SQL server. Reports will generate much quicker because the stored data is instantly accessible. This also ensures reports continually include the newest and latest data in their evaluations.
Example
To demonstrate the significance of caching, let’s look at a situation where large sets of data need to be analyzed. In agriculture production, there are numerous different products or inputs that go into each field and crop type. It is necessary to track these costs throughout the year for gauging productivity and profitability. Data is captured for different crop types, fertilizer applied, chemical used, and seed varieties. A farmer needs to record details about acres planted, the quantity of product used, and product cost for each field and crop. Having this much information provides the farmer with valuable insight into their operation, but results in thousands of lines of data to sift through. This causes performance issues and lag time when a report is generated.
Plains Mobile solved this issue by caching data which makes the back-end processor handle the heavy lifting. As different inputs are documented throughout the growing season, our ezQ technology recognizes and caches the details as they occur. When it is time to generate a report, the system can access the cached data to deliver results instead of sifting through the entire set of data. This drastically reduces the amount of time needed for the report to generate results. Below is a responsive report that can be adjusted to include the main input costs (LEFT), or contain all 48 products that were used (Right).
Summary
It is easy to see how complex reports can be timely to generate when dealing with thousands of different records. The value to the user is the ability to generate reports in a fraction of the time. By having data cached, the system doesn’t have to search through every detail to represent information. Plains Mobile provides the user with capabilities to generate fresh reports often. Whenever it is necessary, a detailed report can be produced without the wait time. No more lag time or being timed out, just fast and reliable reports accessible when you need them.