CISB594 – Business Intelligence Business Analytics and Data Visualization Part I

CISB594 – Business Intelligence Reference Materials used in this presentation are extracted mainly from the following texts, unless stated otherwise.

CISB594 – Business Intelligence Objectives At the end of this lecture, you should be able to: Describe business analytics (BA) and its importance to organizations List and briefly describe the major BA methods and tools Describe the role of OLAP in decision making CISB594 – Business Intelligence

Introduction Many organizations have amassed vast amounts of data that employers can use to unlock valuable relationship to enable organization to compete and perform successfully Using analytical tools, organizations enable decision analysis through access to all relevant data and information

CISB594 – Business Intelligence The Essentials of BA – Analytics : The science of analysis. Business analytics (BA) Provides the analysis procedures to BI, tracking data and analyzing them for competitive advantage. Broad category of applications and techniques for gathering, storing and analyzing to help users make better business and strategic decisions Allows for automating the thinking for decision making The Business Analytics (BA) : An Overview

CISB594 – Business Intelligence The Business Analytics (BA) : An Overview Business analytics (BA) Many tools can be used – the results will be presented in a form of reports, predictions, alerts or graphical presentations More advanced applications of BA includes financial modeling, budgeting, resource allocation and competitive intelligence

CISB594 – Business Intelligence Example : An analytic application used for credit card scoring for a loan application 1.Calculate a credit worthiness score 2.Automatically accept or deny the loan application 3.Select the loan limit 4.Select which credit card product/deal to suit the applicant The Business Analytics (BA) : An Overview

CISB594 – Business Intelligence The tools and techniques of BA Three major categories of BA analytic tools and techniques 1.Information and knowledge discovery 2.Decision Support and Intelligent System 3.Visualization Illustrated in the following diagram

The Business Analytics (BA) Field: An Overview

CISB594 – Business Intelligence Vendors classify BA tools in several different ways. MicroStrategy’s classification of BA tools: 1.Enterprise reporting - used to generate highly formatted static reports meant for broad distribution to many people 2.Cube analysis – used to provide simple OLAP multidimensional slice and dice analytical capabilities to business managers 3.Ad hoc querying and analysis – used to allow power users to query a database for answers 4.Statistical analysis and data mining - statistical, mathematical and data mining tools are used to perform predictive analysis and to determine cause-and-effect correlations 5.Report delivery and alerting – report distribution engines to send full reports/alerts to internal/external users, based on subscriptions and schedules or threshold events The Business Analytics (BA) Field: An Overview

CISB594 – Business Intelligence Vendors classify BA tools in several different ways. SAP’s classification of strategic enterprise management – Three levels of support 1.Operational – SAP R/3 mainly supports transaction processing on the operational level 2.Managerial – middle managers can use SAP/R3 to access all reports, arranged by functional areas 3.Strategic - SAP SEM (Strategic Enterprise Management) The Business Analytics (BA) Field: An Overview

CISB594 – Business Intelligence Major Capabilities of BA Tools Drill-down/Slicing and dicing The investigation of information in detail (e.g., finding not only total sales but also sales by region, by product, or by salesperson). Rearranging data so that they can be viewed from different perspectives Ad Hoc Analysis Analysis made at any time, and with any desired factors and relationships Exception Report Using reports to highlight deviation larger than threshold The Business Analytics (BA) Field: An Overview

CISB594 – Business Intelligence The Business Analytics Four types of processing that are performed by analysts in an organization: 1.Categorical analysis – static analysis based on historical data 2.Exegetical analysis – also based on historical data, and it adds the capability of drill-down analysis (ability to query further down into data to determine the detail data that were used to obtain the value) 3.Contemplative analysis – allows user to change a single value to determine its impact 4.Formulaic analysis - allows changes to multiple variables OLAP tools are designed to support all of the above activities

CISB594 – Business Intelligence Introduction to OLAP Where is OLAP in BI? Where is OLAP in BI?

CISB594 – Business Intelligence Introduction to OLAP What is OLAP in BI? Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) is an industry-accepted reporting technology that provides high- performance analysis and easy reporting on large volumes of data The goal of OLAP, also known as multidimensional data analysis, is to provide fast and flexible data summarization, analysis, and reporting capabilities with the ability to view trends over time

CISB594 – Business Intelligence Introduction to OLAP OLAP applications have the following features: – Enable users to look at different relationships in data by looking beyond traditional two-dimensional row and column data analysis – Offer high-performance access to large amounts of data - give users the power to retrieve answers to multi- dimensional business questions quickly and easily slice-and-dice – Provide slice-and-dice views of multiple relationships in large quantities of data (separation of data in the way you like to view e.g. products sales vs. year vs. location)

CISB594 – Business Intelligence OLAP vs. OLTP OLTPOLAP UsersClerk, IT professionalKnowledge worker FunctionDay to day operationsDecision support DB DesignApplication-orientedSubject-oriented Data Current, up-to-date detailed, relational Historical, multidimensional UsageRepetitiveAd-hoc AccessRead/writeLots of scans Unit of WorkShort, simple transactionComplex query # Records AccessedTensMillions # UsersThousandsHundreds DB Size100MB-GB100GB-TB

CISB594 – Business Intelligence Types of OLAP – Multidimensional OLAP (MOLAP) OLAP implemented via a specialized multidimensional database (or data store). It summarizes transactions into multidimensional views ahead of time Data are organized into cube structure that users can rotate; particularly suitable for financial summaries Online Analytical Processing (OLAP)

CISB594 – Business Intelligence Types of OLAP – Relational OLAP (ROLAP) – The implementation of an OLAP on top of an existing relational database – Extracts data from relational database – Web OLAP – accessible from Web Browser – Desktop OLAP – low priced, simple OLAP, performs local analysis from operational database Online Analytical Processing (OLAP)

CISB594 – Business Intelligence Reports and Queries The oldest activities of OLAP and BI are using reports and queries. Reports Reports – Routine reports – Ad hoc (or on-demand) reports – Multilingual support – Report delivery and alerting Report distribution through any touch point Self-subscription as well as administrator-based distribution Delivery on-demand, on-schedule, or on-event Automatic content personalization

CISB594 – Business Intelligence Reports and Queries Ad hoc query A query that cannot be determined prior to the moment the query is issued. User might need to place such a query after seeing a report

CISB594 – Business Intelligence Now ask if … You are now be able to: Describe business analytics (BA) and its importance to organizations List and briefly describe the major BA methods and tools Describe the role of OLAP in decision making CISB594 – Business Intelligence