Community Voices: Krisztina Zappert

Holly Rieke

Welcome to the first 'Community Voices' blog post! In this series, you'll gain insight and inspiration directly from the broad community of active Board users. We’re excited to share stories and thought leadership from those who know Board best to enable everyone to plan smarter, lead transformation, and achieve the insights and outcomes that matter most.

To get started, we’re talking to Krisztina Zappert from Attollo AB, Sweden. You may have seen her last month in Community having conversations and finding solutions in the Platform Forums or sitting on top of the recently-launched Leaderboard on the homepage. Today, Krisztina shares with us her journey to Board and some standout benefits along the way.

Tell us about your background. What experiences led you to your current role as a Partner working with Board?

I had been working with BI for about eight years and with financial planning software for about five years when I was introduced to Board. I have always found the visual capabilities of other planning software somewhat lacking, and as such, Board was immediately a standout product. Furthermore, as a person who had experience in different coding languages, it was also an interesting challenge to build solutions I had gotten used to building while doing next to no coding.

What do you like most about using Board for planning? Do you have a standout moment to share?

As mentioned, the visual capabilities are far ahead of any other planning tool I have had the opportunity to work with. It is always satisfying to be able to build an interface that the users take pleasure in using, and one way Board achieves this is through its strong design capabilities

More than design, Board excels in how easy it is to build and maintain its core objects. Cubes can change structure at a drop of a hat; they can have multiple versions within one cube which respond to different levels of their dimensions’ hierarchies, and adding additional cubes while importing from outside sources is as simple as a drag and drop. I view Board as the ideal planning tool for anyone who doesn’t find joy in writing code and just wants to build a strong planning solution in a graphical interface.

The visual capabilities are far ahead of any other planning tool I have had the opportunity to work with.

Community is central to the success of our members. What are you enjoying most about the new Community experience?

My vote lies with the Platform Forum! It is an excellent way to have quick feedback from Board employees, but also from other partners, as well. No question is too simple or dumb to ask, and it is also a quick way to see if anyone else has had similar issues before. The quick help makes work smoother, and the pool of shared knowledge builds over time.

I also would like to highlight the Best Practice section. It provides us with valuable tips and tricks about the “simple” things (which might seem simple, but always turn tricky!), as well as advanced knowledge (maximizing performance is always a thorn in planning teams’ sides, the knowledge shared on this topic is essential).

Finally, the Idea Exchange section for recommending changes is very appreciated. Being able to recommend future changes to the product gives us a way to get what we want into Board!

Do you have any advice to share for new and/or experienced Board developers?

In my experience (as both a Board developer, and generally a developer and coder), it is important to read and absorb the Best Practice guides as soon as possible. In it, an article I find essential for developers with either four weeks’ or four years’ experience, is the one talking about naming conventions. The topic might seem superficial but is important for long term maintenance of any solution. The same way, there is no such thing as too much commenting (in procedures especially)! Always write down WHY your procedure does what it does – the WHAT can be collected from the setup, but the WHY can get lost in translation.

Board excels in how easy it is to build and maintain its core objects.

You’ve invested in Board as a planning solution. Do you have any tips to share about how best to maximize that investment?

General interaction with other Board partners and employees is what I think is number one. Whether with one’s clients, partners, or colleagues, discussing questions, ideas, use cases and solutions gives opportunity for all participants to learn and develop their Board skills to their full potential.

At Attollo, we also have a shared CoE forum for all Board developers. In it, we always strive to share our latest experiences and discoveries in Board with each other. This way, if one person learns something, everyone else can also learn it and we all have an easier time working and growing together.

About Krisztina: I have been a BI Consultant at Attollo AB, Sweden for the last 2 years. I have been working with BI for about 10 years, most of which has been spent in consultant roles in Hungary and in Sweden. In my free time, I like dancing, and playing both PlayStation and tabletop games.

Find all Community Voices here.

Many thanks to Krisztina for sharing her story and Board highlights in Community! Let us know what stands out the most to you in the comments below. Are you interested in being featured in a future post? Reach out to us directly at community@board.com.

Andries de Vries

Nice post!