QlikTech’s QlikView reporting and analysis tool is among a new class of Business Intelligence (BI) software tools. As Ben Harden reported in a recent blog post, BI vendors like SAP, Microsoft, and IBM have traditionally sold “to the IT enterprise, but companies like QlikTech and Tableau are targeting the business and bypassing IT. Their tools are quicker to stand up, more intuitive and don’t need the configuration, support, and hardware that the bigger players require.”

A Quick Overview

At first look QlikView is fairly accessible to those experienced with BI tools. A “.qvw” QlikView file contains three classes of user-facing components: a script-based data integration language that runs when the user requests a “reload”, a data modeling component that looks deceptively like a relational data modeling tool, and a familiar array of data visualizations: graphics, charts, lists, etc.

While describing LogiXML’s Logi Info, Brian Cox stated “there is still room for improvement on the development end of things.”  If LogiXML is listening or if my developer peers wish to understand some of the risks, I will describe a few challenges I experienced.

Logi Info Studio is the developers’ tool for creating LogiXML's Logi Info reports.  Since I am working with Logi Info Studio on one project and Microsoft’s Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) (i.e., the developers’ tool for creating SQL Server Reporting Services reports) on another project, comparing the two products is natural for me.  Examples and descriptions from each developer interface are included.

Element Name Proofing
Consider this simple query using the SQL Server AdventureWorks2008R2 database.

BI on SharePoint

Getting reports onto SharePoint is an important step in centralizing knowledge and increasing awareness of a company's available Business Intelligence. Unfortunately, people shy away from taking this step because it seems like something that would require a lot of time, effort and expense. This two part series will illustrate the process of putting BI on SharePoint, remove some of the mystery around it and hopefully encourage further investigation.  Part one will cover the setup and part two will illustrate working with SSRS reports within SharePoint.

Reporting is one of the most utilized functional parts of any Enterprise Applications, and most often business users will rely upon reports to understand their business health through transactional details, Summary reports or dashboard visualization. The primary source for any Report is the data that the enterprise applications hold. The purpose of this blog is to touch upon the key features and usage of Crystal Reports and on how it’s changed over years into being the most versatile reporting tool.

SAP Crystal Reports, part of SAP Business Objects component, is one of the most versatile and flexible Reporting tool that has evolved into a more matured stable product over the years after its acquisition twice, first by Business Objects and then Business Objects acquisition by SAP. It can be seamlessly integrated with any application database.

Most operational areas have a dedicated team of analysts who crunch numbers and produce a plethora of reports. They work feverishly each reporting cycle to deal with regular report production and a seemingly endless supply of ad-hoc requests from front line managers and executives. Commonly, there is a ‘new crisis’ in which a strategic imperative is not being met and a subsequent scramble to produce a new metric to spotlight the cause. In the end, the number of metrics produced grows and very little time remains to study, identify and refine those functions that are key to improving the business.

Take a Step Back and Study the Business

Consultants bring a unique characteristic to an engagement – they are not directly involved in the details of what an organization does or with the technology behind how they do it.  To learn, they conduct stakeholder interviews, read available documentation, and create process flows.

I had the honor and pleasure of speaking at and attending the PASS Summit in Seattle this year.  CapTech Consulting sponsored my trip to participate in the event, where I presented on two topics: creating a healthcare payer data model and administering SQL Server Reporting Services.

The PASS Summit is an annual conference put on by the Professional Association for SQL Server.  The conference brings together a mix of community speakers, Microsoft employees, and many eager-to-learn attendees.  Located at the Seattle Convention Center, there were two days of pre-conference sessions and three days of community and spotlight sessions.  The 2011 Summit drew a record 5000 registrations.

The summit was even more exciting than usual this year due to many announcements made by both Microsoft and PASS.  Some of the business intelligence highlights are listed here:

In the past I've never understood what people really mean they say "think outside the box" but Jim Harris, in a recent OCDQ blog post, helped me figure it out.

Mr. Harris ends with this provocative line: "the bottom line is Google and Facebook have socialized data in order to capitalize data as a true corporate asset."  The post starts with a cold war analogy and proceeds to describe how Facebook and Google have made big money as "internet advertising agencies:" offering free services with which users (like us) serve up personal data in return for use of the service, then selling advertising space based on our data (hopefully anonymized).

Many things need to happen to have a successful migration from a legacy application to a new system.  There are difficult data mapping decisions that need to be made and data quality concerns to be addressed.  There are the typical challenges of change management and end user training.  In large efforts, entire teams may be dedicated to profiling and remediation of legacy data.  In the midst of all this migration activity sits a critical and often underestimated function – reporting.  What happens to all the analytical, transactional and operational reports the legacy system provided and where do users go for that data in the new world?

Who would want to be a national health care administrator?  Who would want the responsibility for managing health care and formulating health policy for tens or hundreds of millions of people?  It seems obvious that such decisions would rely on quality data.  A recent interview impressed upon me how much data managers can learn from a field where data recording millions of separate life and death decisions aggregates to support decisions on the future allocation of health care resources.

Heather Richards of the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) was recently interviewed by the Australian magazine Image and Data Manager on CIHI efforts to provide neutral, objective and unbiased information to those making health care allocation policy decisions. Ms. Richards also happens to be Director of Publicity for the International Association for Information and Data Quality (IAIDQ).

In a detailed, concise, and refreshingly buzzword-free conversation, Ms. Richards described CIHI’s approach to improving data quality.  To me, that approach boils down to these three themes:

 There is a lot of buzz lately around Agile BI and Agile data warehousing.  Typical questions asked include - Does it produce better results?  Is it faster?  How much does it cost?  And of course, most importantly, is the Agile methodology a fit for Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence projects?

What is Agile?