"One-user experience, one design, one server" - the motto of ActuateOne clearly describes the idea which platform's designers have been following. The result is a solution which differs in one meaningful aspect - it's fully integrated within a single environment.

ActuateOne, being a derivative of BIRT (an open source BI suite), turned the primary project into something that is noticeably different. Designers paid a lot of attention to putting all the capabilities into a single environment so that the platform could be better integrated. They attached weight to performance and intuitiveness and the results is what we see now. The - as they call it - effortless Business Intelligence platform which is nothing worse than all the overloaded sets of different and separate tools offered by other vendors under the name of BI platform.

The most important about ActuateOne is its singularity. It doesn't matter how complex or complicated the goal is, it can be achieved with one-user experience (look back to the motto of the platform), within an area of one server, and built with one design. What it results in is no need for learning anything new - it's easy to quickly discover all the functionalities of the interface and, then, use them in practice. They don't need to learn new methods for new tasks nor new designs for new deployments. They learn once and it bears interest later.

But what ActuateOne is from technical point of view, can be referred to as a comprehensive but unified Business Intelligence solution which deepens the idea of BIRT by introducing new products and capabilities into it.

ActuateOne - the main features

ActuateOne is a results of hard works focused on the BIRT base, nonetheless the results are significantly different. Thereupon - for instance - new engine of the platform is responsible for both - data visualization and OLAP analysis. Simultaneously, the two types of data access are provided and, therefore, unified - multi layered and multi sourced. The designers have focused on metadata layer as well as on deployment server architecture and an open API.

The core, though, are 64 bit in memory analytics which guarantee a sufficient pace. What else should be mentioned about are Live Excel export, mobile options, and an interface better than previously. What distinguishes the newest release of ActuateOne from its previous versions is the possibility to export Flash output quickly to Adobe PDF files and then - if needed - print them. The platform provides also an agile access to all data sources and quite a wide set of other capabilities. Meaningful is the fact that changes apply not only to the technical performance of the suite, but also to - so called - enduser experience. Thereupon, ActuateOne customers are provided with a new - more transparent and more intuitive - interface, different mobile capabilities, interactive content in styles, so on and so forth.

ActuateOne - the key tools

It's told that ActuateOne breaks up with the idea of wide sets of different products, but the fact is that it also consists of quite numerous tools which can be easily distinguished. The ones below belong to the most meaningful:

• BIRT Studio - Ad Hoc Reporting. This is the core of ActuateOne reporting, GUI provided to prepare, change, and view the content.
• BIRT Viewer, unlike Ad Hoc Reporting Studio, is provided solely for viewing the content.
• BIRT Interactive Viewer is a presentation interface which allows to prepare and change the content at once.
• BIRT 360 - Dashboards. The tool collects data from different sources, feeds, widgets by Actuate and Google, and other content and - then - allows to turn them into easy to work on dashboards. Simultaneously, BIRT 360 allows to prepare both, analytic and operational dashboards and, then, modify them.
• BIRT Mobile Options is an answer to increasing mobility demands. The tools is responsible for the connection between the Business Intelligence platform and different Smartphone and devices, including iPad, iPhone and others.
• BIRT Data Analyzer and BIRT Data Objects - Analytics are responsible for coordinating the analytics process. High performance in-memory analytics help quickly analyze data from different sources under all required criteria.

The ones listed above are the tools designed for end-users. They need to be as transparent as possible and supplied with an intuitive interface which noone should have any difficulties with. This is the requirement which Actuate tools address very well, but they never are the core of the Business Intelligence platform. What's most important often is hidden down below. In case of ActuateOne platform, it is BIRT Server.

BIRT iServer, being the core of the platform, is prepared to address more and more sophisticated business demands. Once every business evolves growing faster than it's been supposed, BI platform's server needs to be prepared to scale out along. The one in ActuateOne is efficiently scalable and supplied with a wide set of different phased-in services (already prepared for potential needs and requirements in the future). Additionally, there are different ways which the server can be implemented in. The choice depends on the requirements, though. Nevertheless, it's certain that the server doesn't fail in any case of cloud implementation, in premises, phased-in services nor SaaS/PaaS requirements.

Business requirements are difficult to predict and differ in case of every organization. Thereupon, a Business Intelligence platform never is complete. It can always be supplied with the applications created on users' demand. As for that, ActuateOne is provided with BIRT Designer Pro, which - in a very few words - is a developer interface used to create templates, prepare applications, write reports, etc.

The other products of ActuateOne

Besides the key tools and core products, ActuateOne platform wouldn't be as efficient as it currently is without a few additional products which - even if don't impact the performance in the strictest way - happen to be useful and are praised by the end-users.

• BIRT Performance Scorecard - it's a Performance Management solution responsible for different types of performance measuring. It allows to prepare scorecards, strategy maps, and determine and monitor the Key Performance Indicators. What's simultaneously important, BIRT Performance Scorecard is design to address the requirements of business on all the levels in organization hierarchy (it's complex enough to meet the most sophisticated needs and, at once, simple enough to provide users with immediate picture of the situation).
• BIRT Spreadsheet takes the responsibility for spreadsheets across the organization. It helps with producing, archiving, and securing the documents, keeping a virtual eye on their quality.
• e.Report is another tool used for reporting. This one puts the report quality in the middle of interest, therefore the reports prepared with e.Report are often used for presentations.
• Xenos Print Stream and Document Transformation, like its name explains very well, is used for document management. It's used for ensuring the required document accessibility.

The summary

ActuateOne definitely belongs the most interesting Business Intelligence platforms accessible in the market. It distinguishes itself from other platforms with a specific origination which let it be a little bit closer to its endusers. Simultaneously, the idea of integrating all the tools within a one platform isn't anything new. That's what a lot of vendors aspire to. All in all, ActuateOne is a worth considering option, but its best sides may actually be not the ones its vendor praise to be the best.