Case study
One of our first customers suggested that, in addition to the built-in lists and reports, they needed a catalogue that would constantly add new reports whenever the need arose.
We looked at a number of report management applications, but finally decided to build this flexible report manager into the system, as it would also reduce costs and eliminate the need to deal with integration.
In the end, the fixed, built-in lists and reports were almost all removed from the system, giving way to the MIS lists. The importance of the MIS could hardly be overstated, it is such an essential help for users in their daily work.
What is MIS?
The Management Information System (MIS) is a core module of Indecs. Its purpose is to provide both employees and managers or owners with information on debts, immediately and accurately, directly from the database.
What does a MIS query consist of?
- Query: the “heart” of a MIS query is, for simplicity, an SQL expression that collects the required data from the database.
- Columns: the alignment and formatting of the columns that appear in the query can be set. For example, “the amount owed should be right-aligned with a dot every 3 digits”.
- Filters: query parameters that define what the data should be filtered to. For example: debtor name, number of cases, amount of credit, etc.
- Actions: functions that can be launched using the data displayed in the list. For example: “open case record”, based on the case ID displayed in the list.
Filters
The filters for a query can be diverse:
- text field
- logical field
- drop-down list
- date
- date or number interval
When the query is opened, we can also take care of auto-filling the filter parameters using SQL expressions. This way, when you open a query, it will immediately show you the transactions of the day or list the activity of the user who has just entered.
Where are the queries available from?
On one hand, the queries can be found in the MIS catalogue, grouped in folders, and on the other hand, many of them can be launched directly from the Indecs forms by pressing the “Reports” button. When launched from the Indecs form, queries are directly given the parameters according to which the list is built. For example, if you run the accounting report from the case financial data sheet, you will only see the accounting data for the case.
Authorizations
MIS queries are not equally accessible to everyone. Of course, there are lists that anyone can view, but we can also set up restrictions to prevent unauthorised access to important data.
Copying queries
Fortunately, if we want to create a new query, we don’t necessarily have to start everything from scratch. If we already have a similar query in the system, we can make a copy of it in one go, and modify, extend or rename it.
The question may arise how a query can go from the test system to the live system, as it is a lot of work to set up all the properties of a complex query through the Indecs forms. You don’t have to repeat this on every system, do you? The good news is that you don’t. Queries can be exported in XML format from the source system and imported into the target system.
MIS Autoexport
As the amount of data in the debt management system increases, complex reports become slower. Unfortunately, there is not much we can do about this. More data takes more time to process. This is especially true for reports that summarise the results of a period, aggregating a lot of data.
For such reports, we recommend our MIS Autoexport module, which allows you to run a MIS query on a timed basis and save the results in text or Excel format in a preset folder. In this way, we can ensure that long-running queries are run outside working hours and do not interrupt the daily work of the administrator.