One Spend Cube Is Never Enough

It's always humorous to hear spend analysis vendors talk about "The Spending Cube" in capital letters, as if there is only one cube that they'll ever build.

Of course, they're right — there is only one cube that they'll ever build. Their whole architecture is oriented around building a single cube.

We think that's a terrible idea. There are many different ways to look at spend, and there's lots of spend data that can't be organized into a single cube, because it makes no sense to do so. How about a compliance cube, oriented around invoice level data? A purchasing card cube, specific to p-card idiosyncrasies? A T&E cube, built from travel agency data on "best price" versus "actual price," tracking employee travel and the reasons for the discrepancies? Then there's travel agency bookings versus actual credit card charges, that's always an interesting analysis. See On Beyond A/P for more examples.

That's why the BIQ engine supports multiple datasets simultaneously, not just one; and why our BIQ users build dozens of different cubes, sometimes to look at individual pieces of spend or individual datasets that have become available.

When you bring up BIQ, you can choose to load any cube or cubes that you've built. We're sure you'll build plenty of them — (1) because it's easy, and (2) because it makes sense. Switching views between cubes is easy — or bring up several Viewers to look at different cubes simultaneously, whether those cubes are hosted on your local machine or on a distant server or multiple servers.

One cube? You've got to be kidding!