WebFocus Intelligent Search will allow users to enter keywords through a Google-like Web page to access structured data stored in corporate databases, according to officials at New York-based Information Builders. Such structured data was previously inaccessible to the Google search engine.

John Sheridan, manager of business technology and development at human resources outsourcing firm Administaff Inc. in Kingwood, Texas, said he thinks the new tool will be helpful to both BI users and report developers in his company.

The new tool supports Administaff's goal of providing simple data-access techniques so BI users can easily get information they need to make operational decisions, he said.

"We're trying to push a lot more self-service," he said. "Everyone is used to a Google-like search. There is no training, but it gives people a lot of power to go in and look at a variety of information in our systems and pull that information back quickly."

Intelligent Search will also allow report developers to more quickly find the information needed to create reports requested by users, Sheridan said. "When you're building reports, you want to try to leverage off of what is already there rather than starting from scratch," he said.