Getting Started
Go to the Barbour-ABI website (www.barbour-abi.com), go to our services and select Analytics.
You will then be asked for your allocated username and password.
You will then be taken to the start page that briefly introduces the features.
From here you need to click on Analytics, you will then have the choice of Company Analytics and Project Analytics.
Project Analytics
Firstly you will need to set the profiles that you wish to compare. You can do by selecting EDIT A PROFILE at the bottom of the page.
From this page you can set the different criteria that you would like to evaluate such as project location, stage etc… It is a case of putting ticks in boxes like the Interactive service.
Once you have selected all the criteria you can then save the profile for use to generate a chart using the save as box to name the profile. Before you save you can count the number of projects included for that profile using the REFRESH COUNT button at the bottom of the page.
You can return to the main screen at any time using RETURN TO PROJECT ANALYTICS button.
Once you set at least 2 profiles you can start to create the chart.
To create the graph you have to choose the different profiles you wish to compare using the drop down boxes.
Once you have chosen the profiles you can choose the time period you wish to compare data over (up to 5 years historically and up to 2 years in the future.) You can also use a specific date range using the boxes underneath.
Next you can choose the frequency (by month of quarter), the date point (application date, start date, contract awarded date etc..) and then the measure (project value, project count etc..) from the drop down boxes.
To create the chart you then need to click on UPDATE CHART.
Once you have created a chart you can then name and save it using the save chart as box underneath the graph, you can also amend the chart parameters and then use the UPDATE CHART button to change the chart.
You can choose between previously saved charts using the drop down box at the bottom of the screen.
Data used for the chart can also be downloaded in a csv. file to be directly imported into an Excel document. The project data can also be downloaded as a csv. file. To do this click on the either the DOWNLOAD CHART DATA or DOWNLOAD PROJECT DATA in the bottom right. You will then be asked to either open or save the file, you need to save it to your C: drive and then the file can be used from there.
Company Analytics
Company analytics works the same as project analytics apart from you being able to monitor changes in company activity rather than project activity.
In the edit profile screen you are given the option to type in a company name and also choose the role that the company has within a project to analyse.
You can then change the different options on the edit profile screen as in project analytics and save profiles in the same way also.
Trouble shooting
Q. There are no profiles showing in the drop down boxes?
A. It may be that you are not saving the profiles.
Q. The end of the chart doesn’t make sense?
A. The last part of the chart may not be true as the final period may not be entirely over. (e.g. Q4 07 has yet to finish so all the final plotted points will be 0). You can amend this by the from and to date in the chart parameters.
