1 Evolution The ongoing journey of IDEA 10James Loughlin Head of Training & Consultancy AuditWare Systems Ltd
2 Agenda Welcome Recap on IDEA 10 versions What’s coming in version 10.3What’s coming in the Future
3 What is required in a good software release?Existing Users: Stability / Essential Fixes Enhancements New Users: WOW! Factor
4 Recap of IDEA 10 Releases New Look and Feel VisualizationIntelligent Discovery Fuzzy Duplicates SmartAnalyzer Enhancements
5 Roadmap IDEA 10 to Date 10.0 10.1 10.2 VisualizationPie, Bar, Tree map Dashboards Discovery Passport Look and feel -Interface changes Tasks - Fuzzy duplicates 10.2 Visualization Scatter charts Line charts Drill-down/Create scripts Copy to clipboard Compatibility Windows 10 Visualization Multi-series Usability improvements Reuse Dashboard SmartAnalyzer Numerous optimizations Additional features Fuzzy duplicates (Server)
6 Better Access to ResourcesCentralized resources warehouse 87 scripts – 42 custom functions – 65 videos AuditNet® serves the global audit community as the primary communications resource with an online digital network where auditors share resources, tools, and experiences including audit work programs and other audit documentation. Premium AuditNet access subscription included at no charge ($175 value per year)
7 IDEA v10.3 – New Features Character Field Stats Visualization upgradesUncover issues in character fields from Field Stats w/drill-down # of Blanks, # of Categories, # of Duplicates Visualization upgrades Discover Duplicate Key situations in Visualization automatically Zooming ability in most of the Visualization chart types Available for SmartAnalyzer results.
8 Demonstration
9 IDEA v10.3 – New Features Character Field Stats Visualization upgradesUncover issues in character fields from Field Stats w/drill-down # of Blanks, # of Categories Visualization upgrades Discover Duplicate Key situations in Visualization automatically Zooming ability in most of the Visualization chart types Available for SmartAnalyzer results Speed improvements throughout IDEA (especially for large databases) Instant “Summarizations” for Character fields, regardless of database size.
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11 IDEA v10.3 – New Features Character Field Stats Visualization upgradesUncover issues in character fields from Field Stats w/drill-down # of Blanks, # of Categories Visualization upgrades Discover Duplicate Key situations in Visualization automatically Zooming ability in most of the Visualization chart types Available for SmartAnalyzer results Speed improvements throughout IDEA (especially for large databases) Instant “Summarizations” for Character fields, regardless of database size Python integration – Phase I Add new script language to IDEA beyond IDEA Script, to give us more options.
12 What is Python? Python is a widely used high-level programming language for general-purpose programming, created by Guido van Rossum and first released in 1991. Named after the famous surreal comedy group “Monty Python” Used by YouTube, Dropbox, Google, Yahoo among many other organisations Python has a design philosophy which emphasizes code readability (notably using whitespace indentation to delimit code blocks rather than curly brackets or keywords), and a syntax which allows programmers to express concepts in fewer lines of code than possible in languages such as C++ or Java… or even IDEA Script.
13 IDEA and Python – the perfect team!
14 Why Python rather than IDEA Script?Python can be expanded with Packages, including: Math, scientific, 2D and 3D graphics visualization Artificial Intelligence via Machine Learning and much more We have a prototype (“Outliers”) written in Python We included the most common packages for data analytics Over 100,000 Python packages available! IDEA Script no longer being developed as based on older technologies and principles
15 Examples of Python Working With IDEARun Python scripts from macros tab Works just like running IDEA Script Python can access the entire IDEA object model Uses very similar syntax (e.g. Client.CurrentDatabase) Python & IDEA Script co-exist and can call each other with parameters Able to bind Python scripts to Ribbon (new icons) Python in virtual fields @Python (“scriptname”, [arg1], [arg2],…) Like Custom Functions, but able to tap into rich libraries.
16 Outlier Analysis Outlier analysis is a big topic within Data AnalyticsAn outlier is defined as an “observation that is significantly different from the other data in its set”. As auditors, we are always interested in outliers Use the power of Python Leading-edge research on Machine Learning in Python CaseWare researched this body of work for 2 years to give IDEA new capabilities Discovered and created new innovations along the way Outliers are perfect first step in bringing practical “artificial intelligence” to IDEA.
17 What Should an Outlier Analysis Identify?Our purpose was to create a general purpose algorithm which should: Be able to independently find anomalies Be effective on any size data, large or small Work for both Numeric and Character fields or combination of both Run Unsupervised (i.e. requires no training beforehand).
18 Demonstration
19 Outlier Analysis - Other TestsAuditing salaries and data integrity Sample-Employees Outliers at an aggregate level Detailed Sales Transactions – no categories, just numerics General Ledger testing General ledger – (Acct#, AcctDesc, Period, User, Amount) – sort on AcctDesc Accounts Receivable - wrong user Petty Cash - amount Trade Creditors - wrong User Employee Tax Payable - period 6 issue Pension Payable - period 6 issue Wages - amount
20 Outlier Analysis This method should be used together with other functions It doesn’t replace them Think of it like another kind of Bedford's Law Algorithm will become available as optional download from Passport once 10.3 goes live - no plans for being in IDEA IDEA Script will continue to exist in IDEA 10.3 and beyond.
21 IDEA 10.3 – Customer EngagementStarting with 10.3, we are bringing customers deeper into development cycle Three levels of engagement available: Early access (Alpha stage) Beta program (Beta code) Partner program (early adoption) If you are interested in participating, please provide me your contact information after this session Release of IDEA v10.3 in Autumn 2017.
22 Roadmap 2016-2017 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 Visualization Pie, Bar, Tree mapDashboards Discovery Passport Look and feel -Interface changes Tasks - Fuzzy duplicates Visualization Scatter charts Line charts Drill-down/Create scripts Copy to clipboard Compatibility Windows 10 Visualization Multi-series Usability improvements Reuse Dashboard SmartAnalyzer Numerous optimizations Additional features Fuzzy duplicates (Server) Visualization Sequence - Duplicates Zoom Available for SmartAnalyzer New features Character Field Stats Speed increases Integration Python
23 What to Expect in 2017/2018 More Scripts/Apps – More sophisticationUtilities (IDEA ODBC driver) – Integration improvements Already planning for IDEA v10.4 (scope to be determined) Major release end of 2018 – Version 11.
24 Version 11 and beyond… Improving Data acquisition PerformanceCollaboration and Integration Innovation
25 Version 11 and beyond… New engine to speed up processes for IDEA Server and IDEA. Improving Scheduling on IDEA Server for scheduling repeatable Audit work Unicode only (developing migration tools) and 64 bit only
26 Version 11 and beyond… Improving Import processes (different avenues: ETL, CaseWare Import Hub) Partnership with knowledge matter experts specialising in different areas of Audit Analytics Integration with other predictive analytics engines like WEKA Java or H2O, Integration with other programming language – e.g. R for Advanced Statistics (Predictive/Machine learning, cluster analysis,…) More Python Scripts and Artificial Intelligence.
27 Version 11 and beyond… New grid – update of technology… Many, many User Experience enhancements IDEA Cloud Ability for non-IDEA users to consume results created by IDEA. Ability to share IDEA Files and Library items (collaboration) on different platform including Local Network and Cloud (private or public).
28 Thank you for your time.