FirstRain goes with the workflow
Jinfo Blog

By Michelle Manafy

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Whether because the role of the information professional is fading in many organisations or because that role is to empower ever more users in the enterprise with information to get their jobs done, information service providers are increasingly working to broaden the potential user base of their tools. Today's announcement by FirstRain – a business intelligence monitoring engine – takes a tool already aimed at a broad swathe of information end users and strives to further simplify the process of tracking critical developments in the news that may impact business.

According to Ryan Warren, FirstRain's VP of marketing, the changes announced today were in response to customer feedback. He says, "our target customer is not necessarily the professional researcher; professional researchers like the product but they get most excited about how it will help them support the sales, marketing and c-level users in their companies". Previously, to set up monitors one used a wizard interface that offered a multitude of options to fine tune the search, which appeal to many professional searchers but can be daunting to line of business users. Creating effective monitors frequently required the help of FirstRain's sales engineers who worked closely with customers.

Thus when considering how to simplify the process, Warren says, "the challenge was how to take in the assumptions our specialists used when helping customers set up monitors." As he points out, "a product like this is most useful when it aligns closely with the actual workflow of an actual business professional. It should help me do the things I need to do: Don't give me a search box, help me find a reason to call a sales prospect; help me understand what my competitors are doing". The latest iteration of the monitor building tool starts with basic assumptions about what the user should or should not select with role-based monitor wizards. In addition to the existing Custom Business Monitor wizard, users can start with My Portfolio or Stock Watch List, My Competitors and Key Market Influences, or My Customers or Target Account List – each of which pre-populates many of the optional configuration fields and allows users to tune these as they evaluate the effectiveness of their monitors.

Also in keeping with industry trends towards increased content mobility, the company announced the introduction of iPhone and Android Apps as well. Warren points out that with its new role-based monitor building tools and mobile offerings, FirstRain is focused on creating "a seamless extension of a person's workflow" with effective information awareness.

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