| Type | Private company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Executive Dashboard, Dashboard, BI Application |
| Founded | 2001 |
| Headquarters | Ottawa, Canada |
| Area served | Global |
| Key people | Allan Wille (CEO) Peter Matthews (CXO) James Scott (CTO) |
| Products | Klipfolio Dashboard Klipfolio Dashboard Developer Edition Klipfolio Dashboard Manager Klipfolio Publisher |
| Website | http://www.klipfolio.com |
Klipfolio Inc., is a Canadian Software company founded in 2001 and headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario. The company was originally known as Serence Inc., reserving the Klipfolio name for its software dashboard product. With the emergence of XML, RSS, news aggregators and widgets in 2001, the company initially focused on the consumer market, and later moved into the enterprise dashboard and operational business intelligence (OBI) space. Klipfolio has clients today in the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific. Klipfolio Dashboard is now released in version 6.0.
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Klipfolio Dashboard appears on the desktop and uses different Klips to display operational KPIs and other information chosen by the user or organization. |
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| Developer(s) | Klipfolio Inc. |
|---|---|
| Stable release | 6.0 / February 2011 |
| Operating system | Windows 2000, XP, Vista & Windows 7 |
| Type | Executive Dashboard, Dashboard, BI Application |
| License | Proprietary |
| Website | www.klipfolio.com |
Klipfolio Dashboard is a KPI dashboard for Microsoft Windows. The program uses dashboard modules, called Klips to display KPIs (key performance indicators) and information that a user or organization chooses to see at all times.
Klipfolio Dashboard appears as an enterprise widget which can take the form of a top bar, bottom bar, sidebar, or a floating widget. The application installs with a variety of common Klips though many more are available for download.
Klips can be moved, resized, and reordered by the user. Alternatively, enterprise IT departments can "lock down" part or all of the Klips or the look and feel of Klipfolio Dashboard to guarantee that users are presented with the KPIs prioritized by the business.
Klips can present and sort data in columns, bar charts, interactive pie charts, and spark lines. Mousing over any data point triggers additional background information to appear in a fly out and clicking can take a user directly to the underlying enterprise data system with no additional log in required.
Klipfolio Publisher is a secure, hosted, and real-time messaging and alerting system that lets managers and communicators notify colleagues and coworkers without IT intervention. The author can choose both the timing and severity of their published messages. For example, an internal communications user could schedule a notification and link to an important new press release or announcement to arrive at the same time as the news is issued to the market. Depending on how important the announcement is, the alert may appear as passive news within Klipfolio Dashboard or as a highly visible alert on the desktop that requires user acknowledgment.
Klips are XML files that contain markup, styles and JavaScript and provide the Klipfolio Dashboard platform with rules for the retrieval, interpretation, and presentation of arbitrary information sources such as flat file formatted data, XML based data feeds, relational databases and multi-dimensional databases/OLAP, in order to increase the visibility of business critical data.
Klipfolio offers an SDK for developers who wish to write Klips for Klipfolio Dashboard. An official Klipblog and developer section has been created to support Klip developers
Klipfolio Dashboard includes a JavaScript based semantic markup language which creates relationships among disparate bits of data, helps to present these data bits in a consistent manner, and allows a developer to create and modify Klips. Employing a semantic markup language also makes Klipfolio Dashboard portable: appropriate context for the data it presents can be maintained on the desktop, on a mobile device, or even via an automated voice system.
The application is built using proprietary internal systems including an XML parser and HTTP stack along with tailor made image scaling and PNG decoding. These developments were all designed to fit within a core code package that is still less than 500 KB.
Klipfolio Dashboard also includes CSS-based matching architecture to aid in the semantic markup of structured data based on HTML and XML.
Serence is the former name of a Canadian corporation known for its Klipfolio Dashboard KPI dashboards or enterprise dashboards. In 2008, Serence rebranded the company as Klipfolio Inc. to take advantage of the brand recognition of Klipfolio Dashboard in the marketplace. The move reflected an increased emphasis by the firm on the enterprise or business dashboard market.
The story of Serence and Klipfolio begins in 2001 when Allan Wille (CEO) and Peter Matthews (Chief Experience Officer|CXO) pursue their vision of a simple application that assembles current information from multiple sources into a single, consistent, and coherent presentation format. Firms like PointCast pioneered a similar market in the mid 1990s. But the convergence of new technologies like XML, RSS, and ubiquitous broadband along with growing expectations from users in the late ’90s hinted at a future that Allan and Peter were excited to explore. Joined a month later by James Scott (CTO), this trio represents the founding drive behind Serence and the Klipfolio Dashboard community.
The first version of Klipfolio Dashboard appeared later that year. As an early RSS reader[1][2][3], it leveraged this emerging technology to gather the information required to populate its various Klips.
2002 represented a year of busy start-up activity for the company. The application evolved to include a JavaScript-based semantic markup language which created relationships among disparate bits of data, helped to present these data bits in a consistent manner, and allowed a developer to create and modify Klips. Additionally, a strong belief in user interface, and information design excellence, drawing on the work by Edward Tufte and [4], the company has adopted a very responsible and clean design philosophy.
To avoid various integration and performance challenges associated with off-the-shelf code, the research and development team opted for proprietary internal systems including an XML parser, HTTP stack and novel CSS-based matching architecture. These developments were all designed to fit within a core code package that is still less than 500 KB.
At the same time, the public’s prevailing interest in start-up technology stories combined with the firm's interest in media coverage resulted in a unique relationship with The Ottawa Business Journal. As the Serence team grew, pursued investment, research and development, and clients, The Ottawa Business Journal[5] followed the story in a year long series of articles that represented the print equivalent of reality television and wide exposure for a young firm.
For online retailers, publishers, and other e-businesses, Klipfolio Dashboard was among the first branded desktop applications (known today as Rich Internet Applications). These RIAs represented an additional opt-in advertising channel that facilitated two-way interaction with customers rather than passive brand promotion. Over time, household names like Staples, Intel and H&R Block began to take advantage of what Klipfolio Dashboard had to offer for their customers.
By 2007, the company's primary focus had shifted[6] to the operational business intelligence market. For the enterprise, Klipfolio Dashboard is used to increase the visibility of business-critical information of key performance indicators from different corporate databases and applications. To take advantage of these benefits, enterprise clients such as Lufthansa, EMC and IBM have since deployed Klipfolio Dashboard as part of their operational business intelligence strategy.