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.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I have not yet purchased any product from Monarch because I am unclear if I need Monarch or Datapump. Is your “30 Days to Become a Better Monarch Modeler” equally relevant for both products?
Thank you in advance,
Paul Goldstone
paul@goldstonemgmt.com
Hi Paul,
While the focus of the training materials in on the Monarch software, the Monarch Data Pump (MDP) product is built on Monarch technology. That is to say that all of the methods that one would use to teach MDP about how to extract data from reports and add other items such as calculated fields and filters are the same as what one would use in Monarch.
So yes, the lessons and content that you’ll learn from “30 Days to Become a Better Monarch Modeler” are absolutely relevant to not only MDP but also a number of Datawatch’s other enterprise level solutions, such as Monarch BI Server, Monarch BI Enterprise Server, and Monarch Report Mining Server.
Whichever your choice, Monarch or MDP, I’d strongly advise that you opt for the “Pro” edition of the software. In my mind, there’s no question as to which offers the best value.
Thanks for your question, and your interest.
Sandy,
Thank you so much for your input. As I am sure you are aware, most software purchased is driven by an interest to solve a specific problem. In my case it is as follows:
Pacific Gas $ Electric calculates the gas and electric charges for roughly 600 sub-metered tenants every month. They combine these 600 tenant calculation into a single Pdf file. They will not provide this calculation in any other format.
I need to extract the amounts owed and other information for each tenant and then pass it off to our accounting and management system. This system is a Yardi Corporation SQL database. Fortunately it is an open system so we can communicate with it.
Will Monarch both exorcise this information and then export it to an SQL database or do I need to spend a lot more money and purchase Datapump?
Thank you,
Paul Goldstone
As Monarch can read from SQL databases (via ODBC and OLEDB connections only), but write directly to them, I suspect that Monarch Data Pump might be your choice.
However, if there’s a facility within the Yardi to import from .csv files or the other formats that Monarch export to, and you’re comfortable with that being a manual operation, then Monarch will do the job (convert from PDF to csv or what have you) for you.
Perhaps there’s facility that the Yardi system offer that will automatically import data that exist in a particular location at a pre-determined time? Then you could arrange that Monarch automatically runs early enough to prep the file so that it could be Yardi at the right time. Just a thought.