About Flexquery

Retail IQ’s FlexQuery Data Analysis Tool is a unique, substantial, state-of-the-art data mining adjunct to Retail Pro. It is a sophisticated but practical business tool providing speedy, easy, greater access to and intricate analytical evaluation of the wealth of data captured by Retail Pro. FlexQuery is the cure for information overload, and brings advanced data warehouse and data mining technology to the independent retailer. FlexQuery’s emphasis is on the speedy, readily-accessible acquisition of essential, practical, profit-and efficiency-promoting business information.

For Retail Pro 8, FlexQuery uses a PostgreSQL datastore while for Retail Pro 9 the Oracle database is queried directly.

FlexQuery offers the following features:

• OLAP (On Line Analytical Processing) like functionality through the use of Pivot Tables, give the ability to process, analyze and view data from many different viewpoints on screen instantly without having to generate multiple reports.
• A Multi-Dimensional Database. A dimension is a slice of data. For example, FlexQuery can display values (dollars, units, percents, turn rate, etc.) by Store, by Vendor, by Department - each of these is a data dimension. FlexQuery permits on-line analysis of an unlimited number of dimensions including Store, Region, Day, Month, Quarter, Year, Vendor, Department, Class, Style, Size, Color, Season and many others.
• Drill Down. Being able to instantly break out any data dimension into more detail. The dimensions you access when you “drill down” are user definable and results are displayed immediately.
• Pivoting. The ability to switch the hierarchy of how you view data. For example, assume you are looking at the sales of each department from within a vendor or vendors. With a drag of the mouse you can pivot to see the sales of every vendor from within a department or departments. The combinations are almost infinite.
• Ranking can be done instantly by any value. Rank stores, vendors, departments, etc. by sales volume, turn rate, GMROI, profitability, days of supply or any other statistic. Rank and unrank instantly, best to worst or worst to best.

FlexQuery thus:

• Cures information overload.
• Drills down and pivots to any slice of data at any time.
• Ranks by any value instantly on-line.
• Provides insights into your data.

FlexQuery increases the value of a retail system by allowing a manager to quickly view an up-to-the-minute analysis of any product in inventory. Cumbersome searches and reports are unnecessary, as the numbers for Sales History, On Hand, Sell-Through, Turn, Days of Supply and GMROI can be called up with a click or a keystroke. Statistical data can be shown on graphs, exported into Excel, or e-mailed as a graph or spreadsheet.

FlexQuery can accommodate single and large multi-business enterprises. Access to and the nature and extent of FlexQuery reports can be controlled. For example, while a corporate office user can accesse enterprise-wide data for analysis, individual stores or branches can have varying, determined, limited access to specified data and reports.

FlexQuery’s unique design and extensive feature set allow for simple operation and data formatting in a manner that lessens in-store skill levels required for system operation. FlexQuiey also provides flexible output format including exporting to Excel, as well as paper based output which can be configured to fit on a given page size.