The Hammock Source—based in North Carolina and formerly known as Hatteras Hammocks—is more than just a source of quality hammocks. They redefine relaxation and provide the best in leisure for their customers.
But they had a problem. Their five-person IT department was wearing a lot of hats, and there was no time for manual reporting work.
The Hammock Source needed to find a way to speed up their data reporting processes—and they found it with Sequel Data Access.
Small Staff, Big Data Needs
The small IT staff at The Hammock Source is busy. They support accounting, operations, and business intelligence software; in-house management operations; their supply chain; retail websites; and both business-to-consumer and business-to-business communications, including email.
When it came to business intelligence, data needed to be pulled from IBM i and their HarrisData enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. A data warehouse gave them the ability to extract operational data, transform it into usable data, and load it into an online display (via Extract, Transform, Load processes).
From there, reporting on data used to mean using RPG and physical reports. Every time anyone needed a report with slightly different information, it needed to be created from scratch. That took too much time and considerable manual effort from IT Manager Max Valdman.
It was time for The Hammock Source to find a faster solution that could work with their systems—without being too technical for business users.
What I really like about Sequel is that it lets people help themselves...our users can customize their reports.
Max Valdman, IT Manager, The Hammock Source
Data Reporting Made Easy
With Sequel Data Access, The Hammock Source got all they wanted and so much more.
Sequel was the clear choice, because it could work with their data warehouse and HarrisData ERP system.
“I trialed Sequel and learned what it can do—how easy it is to pull data from DB2 files and make information available to end users. During the trial period, we built a few prototype reports. And, when I gave my executive team a demo, they were sold on the spot.”
—Max Valdman, IT Manager
Plus, Sequel gave The Hammock Source the flexibility to empower users to customize their reports. IT only needs to provide a report once. From there, users can use prompted views and drill-down to get the specific information they need.
Today, users can handle 90 percent of these special report requests on their own—without involving IT. They can look at information by customer type, drill down within a customer type to see all customers. They can even open all of the items sold to the customer. Or, they can start by looking at an item and see every customer who purchased it.
Dashboards helped IT cut down on repeat requests from business users, too. IT can deliver a dashboard with a single spot to display all reports—so they never lose track of a report.
This insight helps everyone do their jobs better and deliver satisfaction to their customers.
Fast Results Helped Everyone Relax
Sequel helped everyone at The Hammock Source be more productive.
IT staff can deliver reports fast. Business users are finally able to help themselves. And executives love the speed-to-insight and ROI offered by Sequel.
Thanks to Sequel, The Hammock Source can produce higher quality products faster and more efficiently. And, that means that everyone gets to spend more time redefining relaxation.
Sequel helps us save money and stay green because we’re not printing reports—we’re doing almost everything online.
Max Valdman, IT Manager, The Hammock Source
Relax. Let Sequel Do the Hard Data Reporting for You.
Sequel makes it easy to report on data from IBM i, ERPs, and more. See for yourself how Sequel will work for you.