Hyperion Solutions Corp., a leading business intelligence ISV, fired a double volley across the bows of its competitors this week with the launch of Version 8.3 of its Hyperion Business Intelligence Platform and the Hyperion Compliance Management Dashboard.

While executive information systems, or dashboards as they have come to be known, are no longer new, the ability for non-technical staff to create customized dashboards is still in its early stages of deployment.

The capability added to Version 8.3 of Hyperion"s BI suite will allow users to create dashboards through a wizard user interface.

Rather than go into design mode to identify the chart objects, pivots, and the data sources and then attribute methods and properties to objects, a dashboard can be created in eight steps, according to Colin Dover, senior manager product marketing at Hyperion.

"We have taken creation time from a full day to ten to 15 minutes," said Dover.

The major new feature in the dashboard capability is its ability to let its creators reuse components from a centralized store.

"There is a method of storing these functions, like code compiling, debugging, manipulation of templates," said Dover.

Dashboards are becoming the de-facto form for most business information. However, dumbing down the executive office through dashboards that become nothing more than idiot lights on the dash is one of the dangers, according to Josh Greenbaum,   principal analyst at Enterprise Applications Consulting.

"Running a major company is more like flying a 747 than driving down the freeway. I"m more comfortable with that vision of a dashboard," said Greenbaum.

Hyperion"s Compliance Management Dashboard attempts to provide visibility into a company"s Sarbanes-Oxley compliance status by uniting internal controls data with financial data.

Essentially, the offering is a risk management dashboard that brings together compliance initiatives with performance management initiatives, said Jose Santa Ana, senior product marketing manager at Hyperion.

The dashboard pulls together balance sheet information, income statement accounts, and balances along with the internal controls for those accounts, and calculates risk assessments based on the financial data. It also contains query, analysis, and reporting functions from the Hyperion Performance Suite.

Using a data mart and pre-built connectors, the dashboard can gather data from multiple sources, Santa Ana said.

"We have data connectors into Hyperion Financial Management and the data model is open, so if you have other data sources you can map [it] to the data model in the data mart. We have out-of-box connectors and the ability to customize," he said.

Specifically, the dashboard drills into Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley, which requires companies to evaluate and report on internal controls. The initial rush to meet the Section 404 deadline has passed, and the goal now is sustainable compliance, according to Santa Ana.

As opposed to a one-time data gathering to meet a specific deadline, sustainable compliance aims to maintain business processes over the long term.

"People want sustainable compliance so they don"t have to do it over each time," Santa Ana said.