You may have previously read here on ExcelWithMonarch.com about the many benefits that Monarch technology provides to the healthcare industry.

photo credit: a.drian

It seems that the potential advantages of utilizing the right BI software are so significant and vital to the healthcare sector in particular that Datawatch Corporation recently appointed Mr. Tom Callahan to better service those important customers.

Today an interview with Mr. Callahan was posted on ITBusinessEdge.com, in which he discusses the many ways that BI technology can be employed by those in healthcare. Among the discussion points are:

• The types of providers that can benefit from BI, and the impact the HITECH Act (Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act) is having on the industry
• Three real-world examples of BI solutions at work in healthcare
• Prioritizing wish-list items and what can be accomplished affordably today

This is Important for You

You may not currently, or ever, work in the healthcare industry, but developments such as these can absolutely have an effect on your personal future. In fact, they may be crucial to your long term success.

As more and more organizations (and even entire industries) recognize the fantastic return on investment and ease of implementation and use that Datawatch’s suite of products built on Monarch technology deliver, the opportunities for you personally will only continue to increase when you excel with Monarch.

We’re in the age of the omnipresent Apple iPod. Portable media players such as Apple’s iconic devices allow many people to now have literally thousands of songs at their fingertips everywhere they go. They can enjoy their favorites and experience new music at their whim. But this ability has fundamentally changed how we listen to the music that we purchase.

photo credit: DerkT

Way back when, the most popular format for recorded music was the vinyl record. As a typical listener, you’d begin with the first song on the first side and listen until you had to flip the record over, and then listen to that side.

Cassette tapes and 8-track cartridges each had their day in the sun, but ultimately didn’t have the staying power of the vinyl record. Along the way, the Sony Walkman cassette player made people realize that listening to recorded music could be a portable experience.

But with the introduction Compact Disc, the entire experience of listening changed. Most CD players offered the ability to skip certain tracks on the CD, or to randomize the order in which the songs were played. Some multi-disc players even randomized the songs on multiple CDs so that they would play a song on one CD and then play a song on a different CD until all of the songs had been played.

People began to get in the habit of listening to only the songs that they liked, or in a different sequence than that which the artist designed.

Can you imagine how some of the biggest selling and most well-known pop and rock albums, for example, of the last 50 years would be different if the order of the songs were different? Maybe the Rolling Stone’s Tattoo You didn’t begin with Start Me Up, or A Day in the Life wasn’t the last song on The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band but was the second song? Or “concept albums” such as The Who’s Tommy, that told a story from beginning to end had jumbled the story? And what of Pink Floyd’s masterpiece Dark Side of the Moon, which is really best enjoyed in an uninterrupted session. Would those have the same impact and success if their stories had been different?

It’s All About the Story

I wonder if this change in listening habits, and how we’re all accustomed to the quick track and the “sound bites”, has actually affected how we use software such as Monarch. If you’re thinking that I’ve been listening to a bit too much Floyd, please give me a moment.

More often than not I see that people want to get going and do a quick data capture and export that data to some other document or database, and that’s it. In. Out. Done. Just like listening to few random tracks on an iPod.

Monarch is of course more than able to support such a work style. But you’ll be missing out on its real potential if you don’t listen to the album all the way through. That is, if you don’t use Monarch as the powerful analysis tool that it is.

Do you regularly add calculated fields to your extractions to not just improve the quality of the extraction but to add further abilities with which to analyze the source data and let it tell its story?

Do you add not just one or two filters to build the correct data set, if there were difficulties in the original template traps due to the layout of the report, but many filters to really find the shining stars in the vast universe that is the entire data set?

Do you build multiple summaries with various combinations of key fields to help your data show you what’s really going on? Do you use summaries in order to reveal well hidden information that could be critical to your organization?

The iPod in the Age of Monarch

Yes, it’s a hectic and fast-paced world today. There’s much to do, and seemingly less time to do it in.

Stop the world for a few extra minutes. Listen to the entire album as it was meant to be heard and you’ll excel with Monarch.

It’s been one heck of a day.

I awoke to discover that I had already performed transactions with my first customers and simultaneously encountered my first problem.

photo credit: erikogan

It seems, despite my best intentions, I’d goofed. Plain and simple, in my first attempt at e-commerce setup and configuration and all that fun stuff, I’d misunderstood the documentation supplied by my new service provider, e-junkie.com. I’d read and re-read it, and then read it once more, but I still managed to get it wrong.

I suppose that it’s good for me, every once in a while, to be a “newbie”. It makes you remember that feeling, the stress and the uncertainty. And why I don’t like it.

I also found out, by testing the waters, trial by fire if you will, that e-junkie.com has prompt and knowledgeable service. I filed a tech support request immediately upon discovering my problem, and they responded promptly by email, indicating that a tech would assist me shortly, but that I could also visit their forum for potentially faster solutions provided by either staff or a community member. That sounded familiar, so I went to the forum as well. In the end, I received accurate replies both on the forum and by email. Color me impressed.

So as much as I wanted my valued FeedBurner subscribers to be able to take advantage of the secret “Subscriber Loyalty Reward” that I’d informed them about, the system didn’t work. For the frustrations that you my friends surely encountered, I apologize.

But it didn’t take too long until I’d sorted it out and got it working, but even that introduced a new wrinkle: the subscribers needed to enter the supplied text on my site and then click the “Buy Now” button. When I added the HTML code to the description of the training package, the button was huge and ugly and there was nothing that I could do about it quickly. (I’m still a student of HMTL/CSS.)

As a temporary measure, I put up a notice requesting that subscribers use the better looking text entry box and button on the Home page.

Finally this evening, I’ve made it a little better, so now the text entry is available on the product description page. Admittedly, it’s not what I’d really like it to look like, but for now it’s functional and much more convenient for you. It won’t win any design awards, but you’ll get what you’re able to get.

One the positive side, I received a number of encouraging comments today which countered the problems nicely. Among them:

“I’m really looking forward to going through this material.”

“Thanks for the great site and your helpful posts on the Datawatch forums!”

“Thank you for your assistance over the weekend helping me make decisions about purchasing Monarch. I purchased [“30 Days to Become a Better Monarch Modeler”].”

“Someday I will look to get my copy signed by the author”.

“Thanks for something I have hoped would be developed – a user guide written by a user.”

Thanks again to all for the wonderful support. I can’t wait to see what tomorrow has in store.

What about you? Will tomorrow be the day that you join those who today took proactive steps to excel with Monarch?

The cover of the 183-page full-color PDF document.

Today is an exciting day.

It’s been almost three years since I first welcomed you to ExcelWithMonarch.com. Since then, I’ve been able to confirm what I’d long suspected about some of the things that people really want to do in their work. I’ve learned about the many challenges that information workers just like you and I (and the organizations that employ us) face every day, and what they’re doing (or more often, what they want to do to) overcome those challenges.

Most people really want to succeed at their jobs, but often the technology that they’re using holds them back and frustrates them. We Monarch users know that Monarch allows you to get what you need and get on with your “real” work.

Specifically relating to Monarch software, I’ve also discovered that for any number of reasons, it’s quite likely you’re stuck in a rut of sorts. You’ve probably developed a working knowledge of Monarch but after you understand the basics, you’ve found that getting the training that you want to take you to the next level, which will allow you to accomplish all of your goals, has become all but impossible.

I now know – thanks to the abundance of feedback that I’ve recently received – for an absolute certainty that right now, right this very minute, there are even absolute Monarch beginners, and people who haven’t used Monarch at all as yet, who are more than ready to fast-track their Monarch skills.

Today I’m pleased to offer the “30 Days to Become a Better Modeler” training package (you can review all of the details about the package and buy it here) to assist with their desire and your need to quickly excel with Monarch.

Today I’m very, very excited to announce that my first Monarch training package will be available for sale on Monday.

Based upon the popular series of posts on this site, the “30 Days to Become a Better Monarch Modeler” package will help you to fast-track your progression with Monarch. I’ve put my years of experience with the software together with assessing real world needs and what I’ve learned by assisting hundreds of Monarch users around the world, and have compiled a definitive guide that I’m guaranteeing will transform you from being a functional Monarch user into someone who truly excels with Monarch.

For those that are unfamiliar with it, the series walks you through the many features of Monarch in a clear and straightforward manner. It also challenges you to undertake tasks and exercises that are designed to help you learn Monarch in an accelerated yet comfortable manner. These are effective ideas that you’ll find exclusively in this training package.

I’ve enhanced the previously published materials in the series by:

• Extending the content of many of the daily topics, including new images and screenshots.
• Adding samples and exercises to work through and learn from.
• Appending three never previously published bonus “days” (chapters) which provide even more information to further improve your Monarch skills, including:

• Day 31. Knowing File Types: Learn the advantages and disadvantages of the various file types that Monarch offers for both importing and exporting data so that you can make the best choice for what you need to accomplish.
• Day 32. Transparent Revisions: Understanding the benefits of Monarch’s audit trail feature, and how to take advantage of it when building Monarch models.
• Day 33. Exploring Automating Monarch: A detailed discussion of the steps required to take the “work” out of your Monarch work, with fully described examples that you find as a single document anywhere else.

The “30 Days to Become a Better Monarch Modeler” package will permit you to learn Monarch at your own pace. Your instantly downloadable package will include:

• The 183 page, full-color PDF file entitled “30 Days to Become a Better Monarch Modeler”.
• 10 self-documented text files and one PDF file to be used as reinforcement exercises.
• Two Excel files, one to be used as a sample database source and one which includes macros and ideas for automating your Monarch work.
• Six model files (xmod format), and two project files (xprj format) that you can review and compare to the models that you build in working with the exercises.
• Generously authorized by Datawatch Corporation, 16 hard-to-find Monarch eNewsletters in PDF format to easily learn from a number of past business cases and tips.

As if that weren’t enough, I’m also including two additional bonus items:

• A 12 page PDF file devoted exclusively to ensuring that you can use the Monarch Utility, which is a separate program installed along with Monarch, to your best advantage.
• A two page PDF file which contains my all-new Monarch Quick Reference on one page and a graphical reference to the “30 Days to Become a Better Monarch Modeler” document on the other.

What’s included on the Quick Reference page? I’m glad you asked. It details:

• Must-know shortcut keys to help you work more efficiently.
• A table to help you understand Boolean logic, which is key to producing expressions that produce the results that you want.
• A description of the operators which can be used in Monarch expressions.
• A selection of what I’ve found to be the most commonly used and useful functions that Monarch offers. Listed by purposes, such as “For Text” and “For Dates”, this includes examples for 22 functions and a list of full expressions for specific purposes, such as ensuring that leading zeros appear when you need them.
• A summary of selected and important technical limitations that exist in Monarch so that you’re aware of them.
• A visual representation of the components of a Monarch summary, and a tip on how you can build great looking summaries consistently and easily.

Look at the graphical reference when you need specific information from within the “30 Days” document. Need to know something about Multi-Column Regions. The picture of the dialog shows that you’ll find that topic in the content for Day 4 on page 23. Quick and easy, it’ll be just the thing to print and keep handy on your desk.

You could spend literally thousands of dollars for such comprehensive Monarch training, by the time you or your staff progressed from the various Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced Monarch courses that are available elsewhere. And that training still wouldn’t include everything that you’ll learn from “30 Days to Become a Better Monarch Modeler”.

Learning anything in a classroom setting is a traditional method that works, and don’t get me wrong, I do recommend it. Having now trained a number of Monarch students, I know that there is a real benefit to learning in a classroom. But it’s not always practical to travel across the country, or the world, to attend such training. Never mind the cost! The travel, accommodation and the courses themselves would add up quickly. And if you couldn’t schedule multiple courses one after another, then you’d be facing multiple trips.

Perhaps you’ve considered online training. Again, that might work for you if you can make your schedule match theirs.

Let’s look at the options. You could pay almost $4,000 for a small group to learn to become functional with Monarch via online courses.

To learn Monarch in a classroom setting and cover the range of the product’s features, you could pay almost $3,000 (per student), just for the tuition.

Given the current market for Monarch training, and taking into consideration what’s included in this new package, I’m confident that it would be a great value at even three times what its price will be.

But I really as many of you as possible to be able to benefit from my lengthy experience with Monarch and get to where you want to be. With the “30 Days to Become a Better Monarch Modeler” package, I GUARANTEE that you’ll learn what it takes to excel with Monarch in 60 days or less or I’ll completely refund your purchase price of only

$97

The “30 Days to Become a Better Monarch Modeler” package will be available for sale on Monday.

I’m absolutely thrilled to inform you now that this training package proudly displays a stamp on the cover which reads “Recommended by Datawatch”. Specifically, permit me to share this with you:

“I’ve known Sandy for years and his depth of knowledge of Monarch is truly amazing. What is even more remarkable is his willingness and ability to help others get the most out of Monarch. Not only is he one of the most active contributors to the Monarch discussion forums, he has his own superb blog, ExcelWithMonarch.com, which is a treasure for any Monarch user. It’s no wonder that Sandy won the Tom Whiteside Award as Monarch Evangelist of the Year in 2008. I have no doubt that anyone who reads his new book will discover new ways to solve daily data challenges and become a much more effective Monarch user.”

John Kitchen, CMO and SVP, Datawatch Corporation

I personally know how rewarding it is to be able to supply great information for an organization with Monarch, and how organizations benefit greatly from what Monarch provides.

Here’s to your many successes as you continue to excel with Monarch.

Finally, after fighting with all kinds of time consuming and cumbersome techniques and approaches to acquiring data, one day you discovered Monarch. Maybe someone pointed it out to you, or maybe you found it on the Internet. Maybe you, like me, started working at a company that was using Monarch to accomplish some basic extracts.

photo credit: recursion_see_recursion

When you found Monarch, you saw that you’d be able to regain control of your data, instead of your data being in control of you. No longer would you need to spend stressful hours just trying to get what you need, only to do it all over again the next day, week, or month. No longer would you have to accept the status quo, being able to only use what little information was supplied and packaged for you. Previously, you’d accomplished much of what you’ve being able to do in a very procedural manner, and Monarch seemed to operate in similar way.

With this new tool you’d be able to supply your organization with actionable data captured from the never ending stream of reports and other data sources. You’d be able to build a few models and then you’d be able to better use your data.

You’ve always been an organized person, and it looked like Monarch would fit nicely with the way that you work, what with its systematic approach to extracting and aggregating data.

In the past you’d worked through complexities and various rules. You’d always been good with the details and technicalities, so you thought that it should be easy to get up to speed quickly on your own with this new Monarch thing.

Did Learning Monarch Become More Challenging than You Anticipated?

So after a little while spent tinkering and experimenting, you started to do some pretty amazing things with the software. As you began to learn how it works, you saw many options and buttons and features that the program offered, but you weren’t certain what they did, or how you could take full advantage of them.

In fact, the longer that you worked with it, the more you realized that while it was easy to get started, it can be quite challenging to learn how to control the full feature set of this tool. With so many options and features, and it didn’t take long for you to believe that its flexibility and reasonably simple interface masks its complexity and a pretty steep learning curve that would, in all likelihood, take some time to master.

Additionally, you might have realized that there was a lot more that you or your company could be doing with it, but nobody, including you, knew how to do it. There was a lot of what was, at first at least, pretty unfamiliar terminology there too if you were new to this sort of thing.

But you knew how to do what you needed to do that day, and the other possibilities could wait for another day. After all, that was good enough.

What happened? Inevitably, “another day” didn’t come around, because you were so busy doing what you needed to do day in and day out that there was no time to learn Monarch completely.

No time to learn how to get to that next level. No time to determine how to use Monarch to get ahead of the game and move ahead from only using it for simple data extractions. There’s certainly no time to take courses, never mind their cost of those courses or the required travel (for either you or your team).

It seems that each time that you got past one brick wall, you encountered another.

So for months, or longer, you ticked along just scratching the surface of what you (or your team) could really have been accomplishing. The worst situation was when you realized what was happening and that it was not going to improve on its own.

But do you ever really settle for “good enough”? I don’t believe that you do, or you wouldn’t be reading this now.

Maximize Your Potential

What if you could learn the about best ways to use Monarch on your own time, anywhere you want, and at a reasonable price?

How would being the “best” in your group to handle any data challenge benefit you? Could your role change? Could other opportunities open up for you? Do you want to be a “staff member”, or an “impact player”?

If you’re looking at from the business’s point of view, did you really make such a significant investment in the software and just have the people who use it, when they do use it, just be “functional”? Was that really the goal when you decided to make Monarch part of your information system and business intelligence solution?

It took me months, really a couple of years, if I’m honest with you, to get a handle on what I could really accomplish with Monarch. That doesn’t have to happen to you, or your organization.

In fact, I’m now prepared to guarantee that you don’t find yourself in the same situation.

Return here tomorrow and learn how, in 30 days or less, to not just be functional, but to really excel with Monarch.

The only thing that you’d really wanted to do was your job.

photo credit: casey.marshall

You know, the one that you were hired to do? That was the job that enabled you to make a difference in your group and your organization. The one that made you feel good, no, great, because you were constantly accomplishing the challenging goals that were set out. They called it work, but it felt like play to you.

You knew what needed to be done and you were willing and able to do it, and nothing, I mean nothing, was going to stand in your way. Ever.

When you made a decision about a task, it was as good as done. They could always count on you.

You weren’t just good at what you did, you were great at it.

But then something happened. It didn’t happen overnight, but instead it rather crept up on you, almost unexpectedly.

In a world where every action relied more and more on a basis of substantiating facts and figures, you found acquiring the data that you needed to convert into information to be a difficult process.

Every time that you turned around, you were asked to be some kind of systems expert, and darn it, much of the work just wasn’t fun anymore.

After years of fighting with programs and operating systems and computers and complexity and programming and query languages and programmers and analysts and managers and endless terminology and finally overcoming all of it one way or another, you discovered a better way.

In that instant, those few seconds, you realized the potential of what could now be. The darkness ended. The war was over.

In that instant your world had already changed and it was evident that you could once again easily create and innovate.

In that instant you knew that you were going to excel with Monarch.

Don’t Forget

Subscribe to the FeedBurner site update service and you’ll get my Monarch programming utility for Excel, which makes the job of automating your Monarch work a whole lot easier. As well, this week I’ll be sending out a document, to FeedBurner subscribers only, which summarizes the feedback that I’ve received in response to my question concerning the two most important things that you wanted to know about using Monarch. Additionally, those subscribers will receive a priority notification concerning the upcoming Monarch training product.

It seems so long ago now, but of course there was a time that I wasn’t aware of the magic that is Monarch software.

photo credit: BlackburnPhoto

It was a dark time that lasted many unfortunate years. It was a time that required detailed knowledge of how many different software programs worked, and how one could access and manipulate the treasured data that those programs contained, locked away in proprietary file formats.

But finally the end of the DOS software era was upon us and the savior was named Windows. While the savior spawned software that facilitated data sharing, early Windows tools were but a flaming torch of bright light in the cold darkness, a hint of what was to come, and they were not the sunny sky and warm days that we wanted and needed.

It was an era in which one needed to know how to export data, if that was even an option, and then struggle with restructuring it yourself, somehow, so that it could be imported, one way or another, into some other program for yet a different purpose.

And those were steps you could take if you were able to get to those secure treasures at all.

But what if you couldn’t? What then?

Use Excel to Acquire and Restructure Data

If you had a report, you could copy the text into Excel and use its Text to Columns feature to isolate the data in to columns and individual cells that you could use for other calculation. But the more lengthy and complex the report, the longer it took it do the work. And if the report had headings on every page, or had names or addresses or anything that had a varying width, then, well, you’d better call home and tell them that you’ll be late for dinner. Again.

OK, time for a show of hands: who, at any point in your working life, spent more than a few minutes trying to copy a text report into Excel and then attempted to separate the actual data from the headings and labels using the Text to Columns feature? Yes, I’ve done it too.

In fact, I was foolish enough to do that several times, if memory serves.

Do It Yourself

Perhaps you’d never even discovered that feature. Then what did you do when you had to develop a list of information into Excel? You probably just started transcribing information from a printed list that you got from someone into Excel, cell by cell. Navigating cell by cell, you tried your best to get it right the first time, because it took so long to find your errors. Errors that you only knew about if you were fortunate enough to have control totals on your source information.

Yes, I’ve done that too.

If you didn’t even have a report to begin with, then you probably instead had a stack of many different documents from which you had to find the information that you needed. Then you’d build a list yourself by re-keying the data into Excel, as Excel was a good tool for developing simple lists and there was no way that you’d be typing so much that you’d use every row in spreadsheet.

Then you found that as you were working away, it was easy to miss a keystroke, and it was easy to get more information in a cell than you’d really intended, and you were constantly fiddling with the arrow and Enter keys, just trying (desperately now) to get what you wanted into the right place.

“There must be a better way,” you thought.

Database Entry

Maybe you’d heard it somewhere before, but this “database” thing sounded just right for what you wanted to do with your list. You’d be working “working smarter, not harder”. Even better, Excel offered a database entry form (did you know that this feature is still available in Excel 2010?), and it populated what you keyed into the form into a regular list. Now this was just a data entry exercise, so long as you paid attention during the long, drawn out and really tedious process. Still, you dutifully sat and entered data for hours.

Yup, I’ve “been there, done that” too.

Import and Export

What of all those times that you attempted, sometimes even successfully, to export data from one program and import it into another, especially if you were saddled with ”legacy” data that you had to acquire from some old DOS-based program? That’s a lot of fun, huh? Hardly ever a smooth process, truth be told, it was often a finicky and ridiculously time consuming process. On top of that, because you figured out how to do it accurately, you were probably assigned the task permanently, which meant that you personally got to experience that particular pleasure every day, week or month. Joy…

Use a Real Database

After working hard enough to develop a list with many hundreds of rows, you finally start working with what you’ve built, and then some well-meaning genius came around, saw what you were up to, and asked why you didn’t use the Access database software. You’d known of it, but honestly with all that terminology and complex query and report building, you thought that for what you really needed to do, you should probably steer clear of that monster.

Then, after struggling with all of these various approaches to “save time and effort”, it was decided that you should learn to use these database systems just like the system administrators do. So in order to stop using Text to Columns, transcribing information cell by cell or via data entry form, or manipulating data across systems that weren’t meant to talk to one another, you learned some kind of data query language like SQL. After several months and years of practice you were able to construct complex queries using INNER and OUTER JOINS. That was time well invested, wasn’t it? Especially since you didn’t work in IT, per se.

After all, you certainly weren’t hired to be a programmer or a software developer. You’re just trying to do your job, which had absolutely nothing to do with being some kind of information systems specialist.

You needed to use a “real” database, but you weren’t about to build one.

Finding Actionable Data

You were one of the lucky ones with access to a real “enterprise resource planning” system that offered many different reports that you could run at your whim. But many of the reports created huge printouts with hundreds or even thousands of pages, and you had to sit and meticulously review them at length, perhaps with a ruler and highlighter in hand, to find the important parts that you’d need to know about so that you could act on them in some fashion.

Worse yet, you’d often find that you needed some information on one report and other related information on another report. If only there were a way to get this stuff together, but the company wasn’t in a position to have programming resources make changes. After all, most of the time these changes and improvements that you’d wish for often had to be developed by contracted consultants, if you could find the required IT specialists at all.

Locked into just “getting it done” you didn’t realize, even back then, that you didn’t need to waste your time, money and effort.

What you really needed to do was excel with Monarch.

I recently asked over a thousand site visitors and subscribers about their Monarch training needs. And I’ve spent countless hours looking at the types of things that Monarch users typically struggle with.

photo credit: Valerie Everett

The good news is that most of the users got the answers to the challenges that they’d encountered. This is definitely good news. In fact, it’s absolutely critical, because with the three years of experience that I now have running ExcelWithMonarch.com, I now know for certain that Monarch users are employed in every level of business around the world, and in every possible industry and every sector. It would be disappointing to think that a great number of businesses aren’t accomplishing what they want, so it’s tremendously encouraging that Monarch plays a key role in their processes. In fact, according to figures from Math Strategies, the developers of Monarch, there are presently over 500,000 Monarch software users in over 40,000 companies around the world.

The news just gets better. As Monarch continues to be adopted by more and more organizations thanks to its advancements and continual marketing, and stories of success with Monarch spread, simple economics will undoubtedly come into play. Your Monarch skills will become much more in demand, and if we’re honest, right now there aren’t great numbers of people with advanced Monarch skills, so while there’s a shortage in the labor supply, the financial value of those individuals supplying those skills (yes, you!) increases.

There is bad news, though, and a lot of it.

“Shelfware” continues to exist in many organizations, and based on what I’ve seen, some of this dust collecting software includes Monarch in some businesses, and that just doesn’t need to be the case.

Now is the time to make Monarch your competitive advantage! Make the most of your company’s investment and ensure that those who are meant to be using it are indeed using it, and to the fullest extent possible.

Also, for those working in larger companies which can capitalize on the enterprise level information systems that Datawatch provides, such as Monarch Data Pump Professional, Monarch BI Enterprise Server and Monarch Report Mining Server, don’t forget that the skills learned and developed by using Monarch are completely portable to those higher level tools as they use Monarch technology as their foundation.

Investing in your staff’s solid Monarch skills now can only pay dividends for your company now and in the future as its information needs increase.

Whether you want to improve your own Monarch skills, or those of your group, you’ll soon see that it’s never been easier to excel with Monarch.

A couple of days ago I asked about the two most important things that you need to know about using Monarch, and I can’t believe the response!

photo credit: Ed Siasoco (aka SC Fiasco)

The emails came pouring into my inbox immediately, and I’m completely thrilled by how many people took the time to write and comment and by the wish list items that have been shared with me. (By the way, if you haven’t written yet, I’d love to hear from you as I still have some time to incorporate the topics that you may want! But I can’t know if you don’t tell me.)

One thing is abundantly clear: there are a lot of Monarch users who recognize that they can get more out of Monarch, or who are incredibly frustrated because they find it difficult to learn what they need to know.

You’d think that with the options available it would be easier to learn this stuff! But it just seems like it takes too long, is too costly or is too inconvenient to be able to progress easily with Monarch.

I know that when I knew that I could have really benefited from it, I practically begged to get Monarch training, but I don’t want to go off on a huge rant about the difficulties that often surround getting approvals for significant expenditures in the corporate world today. That’s not why I’m writing this…

Today I just wanted you to know that I’m reviewing all of the responses that have come in, and I thought it would be interesting to compile a list of the top things that your fellow Monarch users want to learn about, as these are things that we can all learn from.

Once I get this list put together, I’ll put it in a nice document and distribute it for free.

If you want to get the document, please subscribe to the Feedburner service (see the “Keep Up To Date!” section on the right side of the site).

I’ll also treat the list of FeedBurner subscribers as a Priority Notification List. Once the new Monarch training materials are ready, it’ll be worth your while being included in this list.

I look forward to hearing about the additional ways that you want to excel with Monarch.

PS. Thanks again for all of your responses, and if you haven’t yet sent me yours or posted a comment, the question again is: What are the two most important things that you need to know about using Monarch? Please send your email to sandy.cavalaris@excelwithmonarch. Do it now.

PPS. After you do that, be sure to join the Priority Notification List by subscribing to the free FeedBurner service (see the “Keep Up To Date!” section on the right side of the site) so that I’ll be able share the top wish list items that I receive with you.