Business Intelligence systems integration and consolidation

Business Intelligence systems

According to different reports, today's companies use five or even more Business Intelligence systems at once. And knowing the number of solutions being currently accessible in the market, report findings do not seem overstated. In the age of ubiquitous computerization, some people used to think that the more "IT" they use, the better and modern they are. How wrong this idea can be, prove numerous examples. Lack of moderation in BI solutions implementing leads to overpowering the company IT system and, as a result, slows down the work instead of accelerating it.

As for most of business issues - if well planned - a single BI tool might be sufficient. That's the role of consolidation to ensure that all components work well together leading to faster and more accurate solving the problem. However, it's not as easy as it seems. If a single tool is supposed to work sufficiently, it cannot be the first solution accessible.

Even though there is a lot of different Business Intelligence platforms and tools, not all of them are worth considering. The question, then, is how to distinguish reliable from the ones that manager should avoid.

The role of planning Business Intelligence implementation

Every business guidebook begins with the words "think about what you want to do, then think how you want do reach that". Every business requires tightly specified goals. A manager needs to know which direction to drive the company in. If that is missing, decisions become accidental and it happens to be hardly possible to determine what can help. Before settling a company, think about goals. Before introducing a new direction to already existing firm, think about the goals you want to achieve. Today's Business Intelligence solutions supports their users on each and every stage of planning process to ensure a shorter path to reaching the goals.

The importance of precise and reasonable planning can be noticed on every stage of strategy executing process. If the plan is very well thought and free from logical mistakes, then it's realizing should be easy and trouble-free. Moreover, there no problems with its optimizing should be occurring.

Once the goals are known and described, it comes to preparing and executing the strategy. As for that, the idea of Business Intelligence consolidation is meaningful.

Business Intelligence consolidation in practice

What people often forget about is the fact that the less elements a system consists of, the less can fail. That's crucial in case of BI. Once there are many and differentiated tools and solutions, the thing is to choose only the most usable of them. However, if one decides to implement more than one system, making them work well together becomes important and - in most of cases - truly difficult.

Thereupon, the what more and more managers begin thinking about is consolidation. If the Business Intelligence system is consolidated, most of activities can be performed from within one interface. With no separate databases, complex querying nor plenty of collateral tasks. Thank to better consolidation, managers can focus on what they do instead of how to do it. And the IT departments also are the ones that benefit from consolidated systems. If deprived of a must for struggling with insufficient data compatibility, they can work faster and more efficiently.

The thing that needs to be understood is the fact that time spent on implementing BI system to let it work as efficiently as possible is crucial to future company's performance. Thereupon, one shouldn't hurry up once it hasn't leaded to anything wanted anytime before.

BI Dashboards with XCelsius

Xcelsius Dashboards

Crystal Xcelsius Workgroup is the new standard in visual analytics– and the only interactive visual analytics software to give you these benefits:

• Interactive visual modeling.
Crystal Xcelsius Workgroup has visual modeling, which enables you to develop “forward-looking” visual analytics that let executives plan ahead. They will identify critical data relationships, probe elaborate what-if scenarios, and peer into your company’s possible future performance.
Using visual sliders and dials on the screen, decision-makers can alter underlying assumptions, and immediately see the impact on projected performance indicators directly on the analytics– dramatically shortening their time-to-decision.
• Easy distribution of visual analytics to your workgroup.
Unlock the power of information to others on your team. With Crystal Xcelsius Workgroup you can easily distribute live visual models in Microsoft PowerPoint, Outlook, and PDF so users have easy access to live data to gain deeper insight. Moreover, you can provide your models as visual calculators and dynamic productivity tools over the web, intranets, or portals-any environment that supports Macromedia Flash
Connected analytics to personal or corporate data.
Crystal Xcelsius Workgroup lets you create visual business models from personal or corporate data with point-and-click ease. Flexible data access using Excel or SOAP-based web services means your visual models are live-with up-to-the-minute information.

What are the Features that Make up Xcelsius?

Point-and-click ease. Crystal Xcelsius' intuitive interface, including pre-built components, skins, maps and charts – and one-click export – make it easy for non-technical users to develop.

Stunning presentation. Custom graphics and interactivity allow you to develop and present compelling yet easy-to-understand financial models and business summaries for the Web, intranets, and portals – any environment that supports Flash.

Visual modeling. Sliders, gauges, filters, numerical input tools and other visual components allow you to quickly evaluate multiple “what-if” scenarios, with the click of a mouse.

Platform Independence
Crystal Xcelsius interactive visual analytics can be exported - with one click - to PowerPoint, PDF, Outlook and the Web. They can run on any PC, Mac, handheld or other device with the Macromedia Flash player.

Software Features:

• Dozens of visualization components, optimized for dynamic simulations
• Drilldown charts
• Add-on library capability
• Expanded Excel function support
• Unicode support for non-Western languages
• Many fonts and maps
• Flexible alert functionality for performance measurement
• One click export to Microsoft PowerPoint and Outlook, PDF and the Web
• Ability to import images as well as Macromedia Flash (SWF) files

Top data warehousing links

Business Intelligence, Data Warehousing and ETL are getting more and more popular nowadays. They have become an essential part of not only data management process but also a crucial step of managing the whole enterprise. Below, there is an alphabetical list o Web sites providing relevant and current knowledge, that will help you learn about the subject.

Top sites about data warehousing, business intelligence and ETL

Business Intelligence directory
www.bi-dw.info is an independent business intelligence and data warehousing Web informative platform. It provides reliable and high grade information on subjects such as Business Intelligence, Data Warehousing, ETL process and Data Integration, Enterprise Performance Management and Reporting. The Web site is a collection of Internet resources, which have been manually selected and edited. It also contains revisions and rating on offered materials and is constantly being developed by its authors and visitors. All the resources presented are available for free.

The site contains detailed information on commercially offered software grouped according to its application for Data Warehousing and Databases, Reporting and OLAP, and ETL and Data Integration. It also includes tutorial section with links to tutorial Web sites of commercial vendors and presentations of all data analyzing solutions available on the market, as well as vendor section providing a comprehensive list of software manufacturers. Besides being a complete source of information on commercially available tools, it also offers links to articles and forums on ETL, data warehousing, data management and business intelligence. All the resources come with a short description to facilitate the evaluation of its usefulness. For regular visitors recently updated resource categories are displayed on the homepage.



http://www.daniel-lemire.com/
This is a personal Web site and blog of Daniel Lemiere, a Computer Science Professor at Universite du Quebec a Montreal. His research interests focus on databases, data warehousing and OLAP, recommender systems, collaborative filtering and information retrieval. His Web site was designed for students, teachers and data management professionals. Everyone can contact Daniel Lemire and ask him questions about data management aspects or leave a comment on one of his posts.

In a subdirectory www.daniel-lemire.com/OLAP/ you can find a comprehensive bibliography of Data Warehouse and OLAP papers with links to full papers. There are also useful links and conferences listed. The bibliography is maintained from 1997 and last updated in November 2009. All the available papers are grouped in three sections: Conferences, Journals and Workshops, Data Warehousing, and OLAP. You can easily find the one that is interesting for you by using a detailed table of content. You can also help to update the site by submitting your papers and links.



http://www.dwinfocenter.org/
The Data Warehousing Info Center is a professional Web site geared to people who are new to data warehousing field. It contains a selection of assays that can help to build your knowledge about the topic. For beginners the assays on a definition of data warehousing, the case for data warehousing, the case against data warehousing, aspects of data warehousing architecture, a definition of decision support, and what decision support tools are used for are recommended. Additionally, the site includes many practical items of advice such as books worth reading, free or trial data management software recommended for training, and further learning.



http://www.dwreview.com/
www.dwreview.com is an objective analysis on data warehousing. Its authors have been actively involved in data warehousing for the last fifteen years and have been observing how this field has evolved and become more and more common in business. This resource deals with technologies such as ETL, Meta Data, Data Warehouses/Data Marts and Analytical Tools. All the expertises of the professional tools from commercial vendors (SAP BW, Oracle, Microsoft, PeopleSoft, Cognos, Data Mirror, MicrosStrategy, Crystal Decisions, Business Objects, SAS) discuss financial, manufacturing, services and retail aspects. All the tools described here have been used by the authors in their professional lives.

www.dwreview.com contains four main sections:

Data Warehousing Overview – describes data warehousing infrastructure and data life cycle management. It also provides basic information on pre-data warehouse, data cleansing, data repositories and front-end analysis

Data Warehousing articles – a collection of articles grouped in a few categories such as planning for a data warehouse or data life cycle management

Data mining – this section contains articles, tips and tricks on Data Mining, and description of various aspects of the process

OLAP – a selection of a few articles dealing with Online Analytical Processing



ETL Tools
http://www.etltools.net/ is an independent Web site about Extract Transform Load process. The portal is not affiliated with any of the commercial vendors whose software is described and compared there. All the resources are divided in three sections:

ETL software – provides reliable and approachable information about what ETL is and mentions the steps of which ETL process consist, explains how ETL tools work, describes types of ETL tools and lists commercial and open-source vendors offering ETL tools. In ETL tools comparison you can learn about advantages and disadvantages of the most popular ETL software on the market and become acquainted with comparison criteria. It also gives several pieces of advice on how to choose a suitable tool and how to start with ETL

Commercial ETL vendors – presents commercial vendors and their software in an impartial and neutral way and gives detailed information on ETL tools offered by each vendors. It includes descriptions of data integration platforms offered by Informatica, Information Server, Ab initio. Business Objects, Oracle, Integration Services, Sybase, SAS and Pervasive.

Free ETL tools – delineates open source (freeware) data integration tools, their pros and cons, and possible applications. It also gives more detailed description of free ETL tools provided by Pentaho Data Integration, Talend, Clover.ETL, and KETL. Additionally, it informs about the limitations of the open source license software.



http://www.1keydata.com/
www.1keydata.com is a data warehousing Web site providing reliable information on ETL, databases, OLAP and Business Intelligence. Its aim is to help beginners to develop their knowledge on the topics and to learn how to successfully implement a data warehousing project. The contents of the Web site is mostly information coming from author's personal experience as a business intelligence client and vendor. The site is vendor neutral, although some of the vendors names may be mentioned for informative purposes.

The site contains five sections:

Tools – this section describes all the types of tools used for data management and processing. The site is manufacturer neutral, although some of the names may be mentioned. The tools covered here are: database tools, ETL tools, OLAP, Reporting and Metadata tools. You can also learn about hardware used for data processing and about advantages, disadvantages and technical requirements of building your own data warehousing tools.

Steps – mentions all the most important steps required to conduct a data warehousing project from requirement gathering and query optimization to production rollout as well as author's personal approach and advice

Business Intelligence – discusses the relationship between data warehousing and business intelligence as well as business intelligence on its own

Concepts – explains and discusses main concepts in data warehousing such as dimensional data model, star schema, snowflake schema, slowly changing dimension, conceptual data model, logical data model, physical data model, data integrity, OLAP and its variants.

Glossary – explanation of common terms used in data warehousing



http://www.learndatamodeling.com/
LearnDataModeling.com is a complete tutorial in a form of a collection of articles that provide you with detailed knowledge about data modeling and how the technology fits in Data Warehousing. The Web site is created by professionals who want to share their experience in the field of data modeling and warehouse. It is addressed to both professionals and beginners, so you will not be overwhelmed by the amount of detailed information and specialist terms. LearnDataModeling.com is constantly being developed and the authors are planning to add more examples and tips in topics of data modeling, data warehousing and business intelligence.

All the available articles are divided in eight sections: Business Process and Business Modeling, Data Modeling, database and Data Modeling, Data Warehouse and ETL, Metadata and Business Intelligence, ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and Information Technology – Overview. Each section contains from four to twenty four articles. The articles describe the subject in an approachable but reliable way and many of them contain tables or graphs that makes understanding of the topic easier. After reading a piece of information of your interest you can easily navigate to next article to further enrich your knowledge or simply move to another section.



http://www.rapid-business-intelligence-success.com/
Rapid Business Intelligence Success is a business-addressed Web site describing advantages of application of Business Intelligence tools for successful management. This site offers some answers to common problem occurring during BI implementation but also provides basic knowledge about what actually is Business Intelligence (BI), Data Mining, and Data Warehousing. It uses simple language, avoids technical descriptions and terms, and emphasizes BI role as a tool in management of an enterprise. The directory is subdivided into several sections of which a few are related to BI:

Business Intelligence – gives a short explanation of the term, outlines possible application for improvement of company’s performance and points out the most common obstacles for BI implementation.

Data Warehousing – explains what a data warehouse is and what it is used for from a business point of view, and places it in a process of managing an enterprise. It also shortly describes ETL, the significance of data quality and the importance of application of ETL for successful data managing in a company. The section gives advice on how to structure company’s data (Star and snowflake dimensional data models) and how to correctly develop a data warehouse project.

Data mining – describes simple data mining techniques and depicts typical application for data mining

Software overview – an overview of business intelligence software such as Database Management Software or Systems, Data Extraction and Integration Tools, Querying and Reporting Tools, and Data Visualization or Front End or User Interfaces.



http://www.searchdatamanagement.com/
Search Data Management is a relevant and rich resource base for data management professionals and business leaders. It offers up to date news, advice provided by data management experts, customized research, learning guides and white papers. The site also offers tips on software vendors and products overview.

Search data management is an exhaustive source of knowledge for more advanced users. If you do not know what you are looking for you may easily get lost and overwhelmed by the amount of information offered, but if you are data management professional you can benefit a lot from browsing this Web site. All the topics presented are divides into a several sections, each of which contain a collection of articles, latest news, research and expert advice on the subtopic. Every subsection contains a highlighted list of the most important resources and a “must read” box with essential information on the subject. It also provides a list of useful links for external resources.

One of the biggest advantages of Search data Management is the fact, that you can ask your strategy and implementation questions on-line. They will be answered on a continual basis by some of the leading authorities in the data management field chosen for their professional knowledge. There is also a list of questions asked so far, so you may find a ready answer for your problem.

etl-tools.info

ETL Tools Info is an informative Web site about two main aspects of Business intelligence: ETL and data warehousing. It explains a role of business intelligence in modern business and describes ETL process and Data Warehouse in a more detailed way. It also depicts data warehouse architecture and related components such as data marts, BI reporting, data federation, data warehouse team, metadata, and SCD.
The portal provides tutorials and examples on IBM Infosphere Information Server, Datastage, SAS and Pentaho Open Source.

For users looking for practical knowledge there are ETL and Data Warehousing tutorials. They are organized into lessons illustrating various business intelligence scenarios for typical data warehousing or ETL challenge. All the tutorials constitute a knowledge base with practical examples teaching how to implement and manage a Extract Transform Load process in data warehouse environment. The topics covered are: surrogate key generation, header and trailer processing, loading customers, data allocation for ETL, data masking, data quality testing, XML ETL processing with sample tasks in Pentaho Data Integration, DataStage, SAS, Cognos Power Play and Pentaho Kettle. There are also available tutorials dedicated to certain platforms such as Datastage, SAS ETL and Pentaho for more advanced users who are already familiar with these platforms.