Infographics with Intelligent Advisor and Easelly

Quick Links to this Easelly series : Part One / Part Two / Part Three

Oracle Policy Automation and Easelly : Once in a while I come across something in the Internet universe that just makes me go “Wow!!!”. And today’s post is like that. I was working on a demonstration the other day of a fairly familiar concept : a  retail audit or “store visit”.

Visits to retailers, whatever product you are selling, are pretty often rushed affairs, probably squeezed in a back room or just hunkering down on the corner of a work surface for a few minutes. It’s in the middle of the day, there are customers coming in and in spite of cordial relations, the retailer would really much rather be doing their job. And chances are, there are another 3 or 4 people coming in later to do the same thing as you.

Oracle Policy Automation is a real benefit in situations like this – you can perform what-ifs, demonstrate how the retailer is performing, simulate new scenarios to encourage and engage with them.

But when you’re fighting to get focus, and the room is airless and hot, you really need to be able to bring your A game. I’ve watched some amazing people doing this job, and they really impress how much they pack into the short time they are on the premises. But when they are gone, their message sometimes gets forgotten, mis-remembered or filed away. I started thinking how  Oracle Policy Automation could really leave a mark.

My first thoughts were to Oracle BI Publisher for a take-away or handout, and there are some excellent demonstrations out there, including in the Sample Projects (Healthy Eating). But I was still left wondering as to what might be a better solution. BI Publisher is in this case let down by it’s basic format and premise – Word. It is too linear, static and inflexible. You don’t use Word to create the most modern, web-friendly and engaging support materials. Then I had a bit of a brainwave.

Stunning Infographics with Oracle Policy Automation and Easelly

For a number of years I have been a user of Easelly – an online Infographics design platform. I’ve had great fun with it, using it to show results of surveys and I use their templates quite a lot when I need a framework for a new graphic. I’m not a designer, but I’m pleased with the easy learning curve and the results.

Recently Easelly have started offering a REST API to their “pro users”. And this allows for the generation of PDF or PNG content on the fly. For example, you have data in Oracle Policy Automation and you insert it on the fly into your best infographic. Send it by mail, print it before you visit – it doesn’t matter how you do it but you will definitely want to get this in front of your customer. Pro accounts are not expensive – $24 US Dollar a year.

Here is an example, with an infographic designed by Easelly. You can see it on the right hand side of the page. I think you would agree that something like that could be done in BI Publisher, but not without a very robust skill set. With Easelly however, a tool built for infographics, it is considerably simpler. Please note : I’ve used the Easelly platform since it was launched, and I like to think I know BI Publisher quite well. So I can compare the two fairly objectively – and for modern infographics, the learning curve and capabilities of Easelly mean I would choose it every time.

Custom Control and REST API Integration

And here is the video that shows it being generated live in Oracle Policy Automation. That’s what I can a showstopper graphic. The great thing is, with the Oracle Policy Automation Custom Control concept , adding this to the Interview is a matter of minutes.

The data, the labels – all that is coming from Oracle Policy Automation much in the same way as for BI Publisher and Forms. Only way better looking!  In the next article in this series I’ll show you how to integrate Oracle Policy Automation with Easelly using, in this case, a PHP-based Custom Label Control.