Why Do You Need Popdock?

Whether you are in accounting, sales, marketing, or another department, you could greatly benefit from adding Popdock to your toolset. Popdock enables users to view and access information when it is needed most, alleviating bottlenecks and frustration.

In this article, we’re focusing on a few ways Popdock can enhance your capabilities and be used for both reporting and virtual integrations.

Popdock as a Reporting Tool

Any company that has a process to manage can benefit from using Popdock’s user-driven reporting. While users can build their own reports and connect to data, Popdock’s capabilities extend far beyond that.

Most reporting tools require some level of IT involvement. Whether using an IT specialist to help set things up, maintain security, or even build reports, you’re probably going to need their assistance because the average person doesn’t know how to get into SSRS or build reports. This can be an expensive problem to solve.

 Enter Popdock. You can set up, run, and use Popdock without the help of IT. It makes difficult and time-consuming tasks easy and efficient – that’s how simple Popdock is as a tool.

The Different Types of Reporting

In general, reporting tools offer three main categories of reports: Financial reporting, management reporting, and operational reporting.

Financial Reporting:

Financial reports have strict regulatory and formatting requirements. The information on financial reports almost exclusively comes from the general ledger. While some information comes from other modules within the accounting system, it all consists of accounting data that is being pulled based on fiscal periods.

Management Reporting:

While particular industries will include guidelines and specifications on what should be included in a management report, the user getting the report will ultimately drive what’s on it.

Management reporting isn’t meant to report at a granular level. It’s meant to paint a broader picture, and these types of reports are usually comprised of aggregated data.

The board will also look at management reports, and, commonly, management reports are included as a backup to financial reports.

Operational Reporting

Operational reports are similar to management reports, and the key differences are in the details. The people using operational reports care about the individual records in the report, as opposed to the broader scope of management reports.

Typically, these reports aren’t tied to the general ledger. When we look at these types of business reports, we think about the audience – those who care about financial reporting, which includes the board, bank, and tax collector. However, the actual workers who are doing the day-to-day work also care. Not only does this information impact their strategies for daily goals and work, but they need to be able to provide answers when the board, banks, tax man, or managers have questions.

Popdock Meets All Your Reporting Needs

Popdock will meet all your reporting needs. Recently, the ability to embed any website within a Popdock report was added, making reporting faster than ever. Reporting can easily be accomplished in a matter of minutes.

For added communication and efficiency, you can also change the priority level and add comments to tickets, but Popdock is continually adding features to streamline your daily tasks. With Popdock it’s about controlling and simplifying these daunting tasks, so you can get through your day with limited headaches.

Popdock as an Integration Tool      

Any company that has processes to manage and any company where employees have to work in and access information from multiple systems will greatly benefit from using Popdock. Let it become an integral part of your total integration solution strategy.

While we offer many solutions at eOne, our key products are SmartConnect and Popdock. SmartConnect is our move-the-data tool and Popdock is our share-the-data tool. No matter what ERP or CRM you’re working in, the scenario is almost always the same when maintaining two or more applications.

SmartConnect is used when you need to move data from one system to the other, but Popdock enables you to view the data in real time in any system without having to move it over.  And you’ll still be able to edit the data within the system you like working in using both Popdock and SmartConnect.

Utilizing both integration tools, you can easily view and change the data in the source system through the embedded Popdock interface or website without having to change the data in the source system itself. This will save you from additional licensing fees, accessibility issues, and time.

Popdock Integration Scenario Examples

No matter which software or system you use, you can embed a Popdock extension. If you need to see CRM data without going into your CRM, you can use the Popdock interface to view everything you need.

To better illustrate Popdock’s virtual integration abilities, we’ll show you a few examples.

Example 1: Let’s say someone makes an order on a website. That data needs to be pushed to an ERP because the warehouse doesn’t operate inside of the CRM. They need the order so it can be processed. Shipping systems also need to feed data into both the ERP and the CRM because everybody—the customer, the company, and the shipping service—needs to know whether or not this purchased item has been shipped.

With a SmartConnect Integration, you would have to copy the sales order and invoice data to the CRM, but with Popdock, you can just view the data free of moving or copying.

Example 2: A customer wants to push all the invoices and payment records from Dynamics GP into a CRM. However, only moving invoices isn’t as simple of a task as it seems. You also have to integrate customers, items, tax codes, payment terms, other codes, etc.

It’s important to understand why the customer wants their request made. Why do they want to only move invoices and payment records? Because they want their salespeople to know whether or not an item has been invoiced and if it’s been paid.

The good news is, this can easily be accomplished using Popdock – without going to the hassle of moving anything else. When you connect systems with Popdock, you can view and share whatever info you need with whoever needs to view it.

Example 3: Popdock can also be used as a SmartConnect data source. Using both integration tools, you can combine multiple data sources into a single list. You can also compare lists. Popdock is more efficient at combining lists into a single list than other BI tools.

At eOne, we recently built a list where the customer had an API they were connecting to and they needed to get orders into Business Central. We created a compare list that only pulled API orders that weren’t in Business Central.

Example 4: Filtering data inside Popdock is much easier than using the OData commands in web services. OData commands don’t even allow you to request relative dates, whereas Popdock does.

In Popdock, users can select a filter that displays all the orders made on one particular day or within a selected time range. In a couple of seconds, all the data needed is displayed.

Example 5: Popdock works with more than just CRM and ERP systems. With Popdock you can work with support ticketing systems, like Zendesk. You’ll be able to work with and view Zendesk tickets in the Popdock tab, group by priority, add comments, use filters and parameters, view shipping data, and more.

Without having to purchase multiple Zendesk licenses, every member of a team who needs to can see tickets as they come in and participate in that helpdesk process. They can see the data and comment on the data, change it for themselves, how it appears on their list or their dashboard without having to do it all in Zendesk. They can change the data in Zendesk from Popdock.

Popdock enables you to create custom forms with no code, add parameters for ticket IDs, and instruct what it’s supposed to do (e.g., an API executing an action that is running the API for Zendesk). And Actions are fully definable.

Example 6: We just released the ability to custom-define actions. For example, you could be in CRM creating Business Central data. Perhaps you need to alter a price list. You don’t have a BC license, yet you can alter the price list from the CRM system using Popdock. You can keep working on what you need to work on without emailing Betty in billing to get the price list changed.

In many of the examples we illustrated, both Popdock and SmartConnect are necessary to push the revised data back to the source.

There are so many practical, day-to-day use cases that could be mentioned. Having the ability to modify the source data quickly and easily is necessary for efficient processes. To put it simply, every company can benefit from using Popdock. Its virtual integration abilities save time, money, and frustration.

Virtual Integrations: What Can You Accomplish With Popdock

In various ways, Popdock takes daily tasks that need to get done and makes the process fast and easy to accomplish.

Most people want to spend their day in the single tool they use the most. Popdock makes that possible. It’s a huge hassle to have to jump among three, four, or 10 different systems and applications in a day. Popdock reports can give you all the information you need without forcing the user to log into another system or application. Embed Popdock in the main system people like to work in, connect to your other apps and systems, and they will have access to all the data they need.

For even more convenience, Popdock doesn’t have a limit on the number of connectors you can use. If you had three different web services that were only being used as data sources, you could create those lists inside Popdock and only use Popdock as one connector in SmartConnect.

Frustrating accessibility issues can disappear as these Popdock features simplify work processes:

So, How Can You Harness Popdock’s Power?

Popdock offers you the capability to get the information you need when you need it most. As a virtual integration and reporting tool, Popdock displays the data you need to make your job more efficient.

Are you ready to upgrade your reporting, integration, processes, and access the capabilities of Popdock? While this article only covered the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the full functionality built into Popdock, you can learn more by talking with our sales team. Email them at sales@eonesolutions.com or call 888-319-3663 ext. 1.

Would you like to see examples of Popdock’s reporting and integration abilities? Click here to watch the video.