Tableau for JD Edwards

Cadran has over 25 years of experience with Oracle’s JD Edwards and boasts a team of more than 60 consultants. This extensive expertise ensures a deep understanding of this ERP system and how best to input data. Equally important, however, is the question: How do you extract it? The answer is Tableau, and Cadran Analytics is here to help.

A set of dashboards provides a solid starting point for developing your Business Intelligence on JD Edwards. The most commonly used modules—Finance, Logistics, Manufacturing, and Service Management—as well as the CTRM module for commodity trading, developed by us, are unlocked. Additionally, a number of dashboards have been created for the IT department, focusing on tasks related to the system management of JD Edwards. Each module is represented by a single, powerful dashboard that visually displays key metrics and indicators, capturing the essence of the module.

Finance

Gain insights into outstanding items, payment behavior, balance sheets, profit and loss, and fixed assets, as well as current and future cash flows. What is the payback period for your investments?

Logistics

Understand revenue, sales, and inventory, along with customer behavior forecasts. Which products perform well? Which underperform? How do your suppliers measure up?

System Management

Monitor the performance of JD Edwards as an application. Where are the bottlenecks during batch processing? Which users are active, for how long, and when? What is the status of OMW projects, and how long is their processing time?

ETL

Data from the JD Edwards database is extracted and loaded into Tableau through a process called ETL (Extract, Transform & Load). You can define how frequently this process occurs for each dataset, ensuring the operational database is not directly burdened, resulting in optimal speed and usability. Tableau is used not only by JD Edwards users but also by executives and representatives, with separate configurations for user groups and security settings.

Each dataset includes a timestamp, allowing you to easily track the most recent update. Data can be loaded fully or incrementally, capturing only the changes since the previous load.

Security

Technically, it’s possible to reuse JD Edwards security settings within Tableau. However, our solution opts against this for several reasons. Tableau users often extend beyond back-office employees, such as executives and representatives. Moreover, the administrative segregation of duties essential in an ERP system is not always relevant in a BI solution. For example, while JD Edwards might separate invoice entry from payment execution, Tableau enables both roles to view outstanding invoices and payment behavior seamlessly. Additionally, Tableau allows for granular permissions, such as limiting a representative’s access to only their own client data.

Data structure

A common question is whether JD Edwards’ data structure is used. The answer is no. Data adjustments, such as setting the appropriate number of decimal places, are handled during the loading process. For example, while amounts and prices typically have two or four decimal places, quantities vary. Some JD Edwards environments use three decimals, while others use none. During the loading process, quantities are converted using a configurable factor set once for each environment, ensuring consistent and accurate data representation. We also avoid reusing descriptions, as customers often prefer different labels in their data analysis tool compared to JD Edwards.

Customization

With this approach, we’ve built a robust foundation that makes JD Edwards’ standard functionalities accessible in Tableau. If your system includes custom modifications, these can be quickly and easily added to your analysis environment thanks to this foundation.

It is also possible to integrate and combine data from other systems within your organization with JD Edwards data, creating a single, comprehensive overview.