Analytics Done Right

Recession is perfect time to make the MDM business case, Gartner speaker says

2008-11-21T13:49:00.002-05:00

"Instead of viewing the current economic downturn just as a dangerous time to be survived, companies should also consider it an opportunity to look inward to improve efficiencies, Lay said. Improved master data – be it customer or product data – can help companies do just that, he said."
...
"If, for example, you can illustrate how better master data will lead to improved cross-selling and – ultimately -- increased profits, executives and line-of-business managers are more likely to listen.

Or identify "processes that are on fire," which, once corrected by MDM, will give the company a leg-up on competitors that are content to maintain the status quo during a downturn.

"Now is the time to start putting the fires out," Lay said. "[As data management pros], we must be savvy about business processes" like supply chain management, cross-sell and up-sell opportunities, and marketing campaigns, and understand how MDM can improve them, he said."
...
"It is important, too, for data management pros to target their MDM business cases to the right people, he said. To do that, having identified a broken business process that better master data can help fix, the next step is identifying the correct business stakeholder to pitch.

"Find something that really matters, a hot-button issue," Lay said, "then find the person who owns the broken process."

If data management pros follow this advice, he said, they are virtually guaranteed success. "I've never seen this thing fail to get a constructive response.""

Recession is perfect time to make the MDM business case, Gartner speaker says
By Jeff Kelly, News Editor19 Nov 2008
SearchDataManagement.com
http://searchdatamanagement.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid91_gci1339507,00.html?track=NL-340&ad=675432&asrc=EM_NLN_5063783&uid=4087156

12 Technologies That Pay Off in a Recession

2008-11-20T11:07:00.003-05:00

"Open-Source Software – It’s true that over a three- to five-year return on investment window, proprietary software can be viewed as being less expensive, but with a price of acquisition near zero, open source is hard to ignore.
Virtualization Software – The basic concept of virtualization is to increase the utilization rate of existing hardware assets. That’s music to the ears of customers under extreme budget pressure.
Managed Services – Labor is still the biggest expense when it comes to IT. Reducing the cost of labor around IT is at the top of the CFO’s agenda.
Cloud Computing – Perhaps this is little more than hosted services by another name. But when everybody is using the same set of buzzwords, it’s best to pay close attention.
Software as a Service – Whether it’s delivered by a major vendor or a local solution provider, SAAS is a solution to be considered for customers short on capital expense budgets required to build on-premises applications.
Security – How security is achieved may be going through a major transformation, but the need for it has never been more acute. Governance – Along with risk management and compliance, the whole downturn in the economy has empowered government officials to introduce even more regulations.
Business Intelligence – The downturn in the economy has people all over the business community looking for more insight. Systems Management – Reducing the number of people required to manage IT systems is going to resonate with customers as they struggle through the downturn.
Storage Management – Regardless of the state of the economy, the amount of data that needs to be managed continues to grow exponentially.
Video Conferencing – All the talk is about unified communications, but when you get right down to it, customers are trying to reduce travel costs.
Green IT – This is going to be a whole lot less about saving carbons and a whole lot more on reducing energy costs."

Making Money on Technology in a Recession
DATE: 2008-11-19
By Michael Vizard

http://www.channelinsider.com/c/a/Commentary/Making-Money-on-Technology-in-a-Recession/?kc=CITCIEMNL11202008STR1

Interesting quotes and links about economic condictions and BI

2008-11-12T15:56:00.003-05:00

"BI has remained a number-one priority in good times and bad for the last three or four years. Whether you're reading Gartner or a variety of other people who track these things, people are just trying to do everything they can to have better operational efficiency," he indicates. "They need to grow their sales and cut their staff and slash expenses at the same time. Look at Starbucks. They just said they want to close something like 400 stores. Obviously, they want to keep the profitable ones open and close the unprofitable ones. They want to know where they can best allocate resources to open new stores. Only business intelligence can give them that kind of insight."

Is Open Source BI at a Tipping Point?
11/5/2008
By Stephen Swoyer
http://www.tdwi.org/News/display.aspx?ID=9207

The building blocks of (and biggest impediments to) analytic success, proponents say, are the same people and process issues that frustrate all would-be transformative efforts. You must understand your business processes. You must have done the infrastructure heavy lifting to optimize those processes (by delivering timely connectivity to operational systems or by ensuring the quality of the data that you're feeding into your analytic pipeline). You must have creative, talented folks on staff. Without these elements, even best-in-class analytics (with the most elegant data models or smartest algorithms) won't help you.
...
"Our point of view is grounded in convergence -- the convergence of analytics, business processes, and the IT architecture. No longer can we approach our customers by only focusing on analytics; we have to broaden our view a bit and look at the bigger picture -- [such as] what is the existing business process that we're looking to optimize, or how can we integrate predictive analytics into the IT infrastructure that supports the business process," says Chris Hamlin, vice-president of enterprise solutions with statistical analysis powerhouse SPSS Inc.
...
"For our customers, that means understanding those [business processes and] making investments in really smart people, people with enterprise architecture experience, [and] people who understand Web infrastructure."
...
"It starts with the data itself. You're always measuring things. Stepping back, you need to look at what you're measuring. Are you measuring what matters most? What else could you measure? Where do you perhaps have a blind spot?" says Ann Milley, senior director of analytics strategy with SAS.
...
It's tempting, Milley says, to sift through everything. There's a finite amount of what she calls "analytic bandwidth," however. "There's a lot of data out there, so … what it comes down to is a case of analytic bandwidth. There's a shortage of analytic talent that can really help you tap into the value of your data. If you're measuring everything -- if you're not trying to understand what you're measuring and prioritize it accordingly -- you're going to saturate that bandwidth."
...
Analytic talent is a rare and pricey commodity -- one that tends to be difficult to attract (and considerably more difficult to retain) during times of economic tumult. The paradox of economic hardship, as Gartner Inc. and other industry watchers like to point out, is that companies that have the means will in many cases pay more to acquire and retain top IT talent.
...
"Sometimes it's a good thing to outsource. Bring in a fresh perspective and a new set of eyes. Most of our Global 2000 [customers] typically have some analytic expertise, but you've still got departments where analytics isn't as widely adopted," she says. "Most companies know that they've got to do … something about the problem that they want to solve. If it's just a matter of analytic bandwidth, it might be time to say, 'Let's go outside of our organization and tap into someone else.' It might be temporary, but if we get good results, it might be project after project."

There's much to be said for a fresh perspective, she argues. "We get cases where [customers have] brilliant model builders but someone else will say, 'You know what? This is the way we've been doing it for a long time. We just want you to come in and take a look at our model and our approach and tell us if there's anything we can do to make it better.'"

There's a further wrinkle here. According to SPSS' Hamlin, one goal of any analytic investment should be to make it pervasive: to expose it to as many consumers as possible and to present it in such a way that it can meaningfully influence (and in many cases drive) decision-making. In this regard, then, analytic technology must above all be usable, either on a standalone basis (via a spreadsheet or analytic workbench, for example), or embedded in third-party software.
...
"One area that we've paid a lot of attention to is how we deploy analytics or guidance around a decision, or how we integrate [analytics] around a business process. That means embedding analytics as part of the process" she asserts.

"If I am a call center agent for an insurance company and I have to walk a customer around a series of questions to help them determine how to handle their claim, I'm not focused on the predictive process that's going on in the background [that] drives those questions and determines where to route that data," Hamlin continues. "A real focus for us has been how do we prepare an environment and build an environment where predictive analytics are being deployed seamlessly into where people already work?"

Analytic Insight: It's All About People and Processes
11/12/2008
By Stephen Swoyer
http://www.tdwi.org/News/display.aspx?ID=9212

Essabse + OBIEE = Enterprise Performance Management (EPM)

2008-10-22T13:53:00.004-04:00

Essbase is a key part of Oracle’s Business Intelligence Foundation Layer
Essbase and Hyperion Performance Management Applications can play several roles in this architecture
‣ As a data source
‣ As a data consumer
‣ As a portal for all Oracle BI
‣ As a MS Office integration point
Essbase can benefit from Oracle BI Enterprise Semantic Model
OBIEE can benefit from Essbase calculations and analytics

Performance Management and BI Applications:

Share two common ETL tools
‣ Informatica PowerCenter, a.k.a. Essbase Data Integration Management
‣ Oracle Data Integrator, uses custom Knowledge Modules for OBIEE / Essbase load
ODI likely to be the strategic ETL tool going forward
Potential to combine Performance Management Applications loading with the main DW ETL process of BI Applications

Essbase and Oracle BI EE Integration Points

2008-10-22T13:40:00.004-04:00

1. Essbase can be a data source for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition

OBIEE can connect to multidimensional as well as relational sources (Microsoft Analysis Services, SAP B/W, now Essbase 9.3.1/11.1)
Import process converts the multidimensional view into a relational view
Essbase cubes, dimensions, hierarchies converted to a logical relational star schema
Essbase data can then be combined with data from sources
Typically used to bring in budget, forecast data etc from Essbase into OBIEE logical model

2. The OBIEE Semantic Model can be a data source for Essbase cubes

Essbase Studio can connect to Oracle BI Server as a data source
Oracle BIEE Presentation Layer Folders appear as databases
Connects via HTTP rather than ODBC, JDBC
Brings across tables, columns (not hierarchies)
Provides access to the data federation & metadata capabilities of OBIEE

3. SmartSpace can consume both Essbase and OBIEE data sources

Smart View and Smart Space 11.1 support OBIEE from releases 10.1.3.3.1
Works through Provider Services, but Provider Services / Essbase license not required for use
OBIEE added as a data source, connects via JDBC
OBIEE content can be viewed within Smart Space gadgets
‣ Oracle BI Answers
‣ Oracle BI Publisher
‣ Oracle BI Delivers
‣ Oracle BI Dashboards

4. Hyperion Workspace can host OBIEE Dashboards, Answers, Delivers and Publisher

From OBIEE 10.1.3.4 and Hyperion EPM 11.1, OBIEE tools can be embedded in Hyperion Workspace
Access all tools through a common UI
‣ Oracle BI Dashboards
‣ Oracle BI Answers
‣ Oracle BI Delivers
‣ Oracle BI Publisher

From Operational Business Intelligence to Competing on Decisions by James Taylor

2008-08-04T12:06:00.003-04:00

I recommend this article. Real time analytics is not the same as Operational Analytics.

Oracle BI Applications offer pre-built content for accomplishing operational BI. Collaboration between ERP and Analytics teams is required in order to successfully integrate Operational BI solutions. Learn more about Operational BI:

Competing on decisions requires a number of changes to the way you think about business intelligence and about data more generally.

Marketing Your Business Intelligence Program by Nancy Williams

2008-07-22T12:22:00.002-04:00

Good article about the value of BI initiatives.

Advancing the maturity of a business intelligence (BI) program requires getting business organizations to understand the potential power of BI. Nancy Williams provides guidelines for creating a successful BI marketing effort.

Surviving Economic Downturns with Performance Management and Business Intelligence Solutions by Markus Sprenger

2008-07-22T12:18:00.003-04:00

Good article that shows the return on investment for Performance Management and BI initiatives in current economic conditions.

This article provides several recommendations for using business intelligence and performance management solutions to positively impact operational efficiencies, cost-cutting efforts and individual employee performance.

Your Business Intelligence Vendor – A Partner or Problem? by Cindi Howson

2008-07-21T17:34:00.003-04:00

Good article about BI vendors and business practices. I guess we are growing in an area that has been a major problem in the implementation of business intelligence effectively.

This article highlights why old sales tactics no longer work and how you can find a business intelligence vendor who is ready to be a partner, not a problem.

Business Intelligence and Sensemaking by Richard Herschel

2008-07-21T17:17:00.002-04:00

Another good article about business analysts.

Management should endorse, participate in and lead knowledge sharing and business intelligence activities that challenge the status quo.

Where Are the Business Analysts? by Dave Wells

2008-07-21T17:06:00.002-04:00

I recommend this article. Business Analysts is a term like many other in our fields that need to be defined in order to eliminate redundancy and miss understandings.

All of the technology, data, information, measures and metrics that we can deliver are useless without business analysts, but the quality of results and the evolution of business analyst as a profession are at risk.

Using Embedded BI Analytics for Near-Real-Time Decisions and Actions

2008-06-11T11:57:00.009-04:00

What is the Simple Object Access Protocol?
The Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation for an XML protocol for exchanging information on the Web.

What is Oracle BI Web Services?
Oracle BI Web Services is an application programming interface (API) that implements SOAP. Oracle BI Web Services allows you to perform three types of function:

Extract results from Oracle BI Presentation Services and deliver them to external applications.
Perform Oracle BI Presentation Catalog management functions.
Execute Oracle Business Intelligence alerts (known as iBots).

Oracle BI Web Services allows external applications such as J2EE and .NET to use Oracle Business Intelligence as an analytical calculation and data integration engine. It provides a set of Presentation Services that allow external applications to communicate with Oracle BI Presentation Services. One can use Oracle BI Web Services to extract results from Oracle BI Presentation Services and deliver them to external applications and Web application environments. One can reference a saved report or send the criteria for the report to Oracle BI Web Services.

The formal definition of services and methods in Oracle BI Web Services can be retrieved in WSDL (Web Services Definition Language) format. Proxy classes for the services can be generated automatically.

The XML Schema Definition (XSD) file for the services is the file SawServices.xsd, which is located in the \Web\App\Res\Wsdl\Schemas directory in the Oracle Business Intelligence Platform installation directory. The XSD file is used internally and cannot be used separately.

Oracle BI Web Services is supported on Oracle JDeveloper, Apache Axis, and the Microsoft .NET framework.

For more information about the SOAP recommendation, consult a reference such as the Microsoft Developer Network or the W3C Web site.

In conclusion, this is SOA technology which can be leverage to build operational BI application, so organization can accomplish Near-Real-Time Decisions and Actions by using Embedded BI Analytics in OLTP.

For more information: read How Oracle BI applications handle real time analysis? or view on demand webcast Using Embedded BI Analytics for Near-Real-Time Decisions and Actions.

Whirlpool Saves Millions Optimizing Marketing Programs

2008-05-16T17:06:00.001-04:00

When faced with a series of business challenges—how to centralize customer information, manage marketing campaigns internally, and better-capitalize on sales opportunities—Whirlpool chose to implement Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition.

See the successful results. (PDF)

Field Reference Forum

How Oracle BI applications handle real time analysis?

2008-05-16T15:29:00.008-04:00

First lets define what real time means:

"There is a wide variety of definitions for the different types of right-time BI processing that exist, but most real-time BI requirements can be placed into one of four main categories: right-time data integration, right-time data reporting, right-time performance management and right-time automated actions." Colin White DM Review Magazine, September 2004

Drill between dashboards and transaction applications.
You can click a link in an interactive dashboard or report to drill to a transaction page in a new browser window for more details, while maintaining the data and security.The following case scenarios explains the concept of drill through available since Siebel Analytics Applications 7.5.

Companies need to provide their sales force with the ability to interact with the data in a rich and meaningful manner – so they can diagnose issues and not just spot them. In short, sales force organizations need to be able to see both the forest and the trees if they wants to be able to understand why things are happening. They needs to ability to see something and drill into it (click) to understand what’s going on – like in this example where the user sees something he or she does not like in the pipeline and drills into it (click), eventually seeing the actual deals that comprise the segment he or she is most interested in (click).

Creating a Micro ETL Execution Plan using the Data Warehouse Application Console (DAC)
Micro ETL execution plans are ETL processes that you schedule at very frequent intervals, such as hourly or half-hourly. They usually handle small subject areas or subsets of larger subject areas. The DAC tracks refresh dates for tables in micro ETL execution plans separately from other execution plans and uses these refresh dates in the change capture process.

Caution: Micro ETL processes can cause issues with data inconsistencies, data availability, and additional load on the transactional database. Therefore, you should consider the following factors before implementing a micro ETL process:

For related star schemas, if one schema is omitted from a micro ETL execution plan, the cross-star reports may be inaccurate. For example, if the Person fact table is refreshed more frequently than the Revenue fact table, a report that spans the Person and Revenue dimensional schemas may produce inconsistent results.

If you omit dimension tables from a micro ETL execution plan, the foreign keys for the fact tables will point to Unspecified rows for the new dimension records. The foreign key references will be resolved when the Complete ETL execution plan is run, but users of the reports should be aware of such inconsistencies.

If you do not include aggregate tables in micro ETL execution plans, the reports that use data from these tables will be inconsistent with the reports that use data from the detailed fact tables. However, if aggregate tables are included in the micro ETL execution plan, the aggregate calculations are performed for each ETL process, which will take a constant amount of time and may be inefficient to perform at such frequent intervals.

Hierarchy tables are rebuilt during every ETL execution plan by querying the base dimension tables. This operation takes a constant amount of time. If the base tables are big, this operation may take a long time and may be inefficient if the micro ETL execution plan runs several times a day. However, if you avoid populating the hierarchy tables during micro ETL processes, data inconsistencies will occur.

With micro ETL execution plans, caching will occur more frequently, which may have performance implications.

Micro ETL execution plans will put more load on the transactional database because of the frequent extracts.

How Oracle BI Applications handle real-time is one of the many advantage that they have to offer. My advice is to work with your clients and first define what real-times means to them; then innovate in stead of reinventing the wheel. The out of the box functionality, in my experience, tends to over deliver the BI requirements of every project that I have worked. I always keep in mind that Siebel now Oracle has smart people working with the biggest organization in the world. Their business is to build software application. I rather reuse and learn new techniques than increase the risk by creating from scratch. I am in the business of implementing software solution. Data entities are constants what change is the context of their use; therefore, trying to understand business requirements from the data and process view will help in the gap analysis and mapping process.

Three distinct pieces of metadata: ETL, rpd and webcat.
One single model – not building separate marts, just extending the same central mart. This is why.

Hyperion System 9 and Oracle BI EE Plus

2007-08-12T14:44:00.000-04:00

Basic Definitions before we dive into Hyperion System 9 and Oracle BI Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) Plus

What is a data warehouse?

A data warehouse is a collection of data marts representing historical data from different operations in the company. This data is stored in a structure optimized for querying and data analysis as a data warehouse. Table design, dimensions and organization should be consistent throughout a data warehouse so that reports or queries across the data warehouse are consistent. A data warehouse can also be viewed as a database for historical data from different functions within a company.

What is a data mart?
A data mart is a segment of a data warehouse that can provide data for reporting and analysis on a section, unit, department or operation in the company, e.g. sales, payroll, production. Data marts are sometimes complete individual data warehouses which are usually smaller than the corporate data warehouse.

What are the benefits of data warehousing?
Data warehouses are designed to perform well with aggregate queries running on large amounts of data.The structure of data warehouses is easier for end users to navigate, understand and query against unlike the relational databases primarily designed to handle lots of transactions.Data warehouses enable queries that cut across different segments of a company's operation. E.g. production data could be compared against inventory data even if they were originally stored in different databases with different structures.

Queries that would be complex in very normalized databases could be easier to build and maintain in data warehouses, decreasing the workload on transaction systems. Data warehousing is an efficient way to manage and report on data that is from a variety of sources, non uniform and scattered throughout a company. Data warehousing is an efficient way to manage demand for lots of information from lots of users. Data warehousing provides the capability to analyze large amounts of historical data for nuggets of wisdom that can provide an organization with competitive advantage.

OLAP - Online Analytics Processing
OLAP tools typically provide multi-dimensional functionalities, such as slicing and dicing, and pivoting query results, which require the underlying database to be designed in a multi-dimensional schema. Furthermore, some OLAP tools have specific preference for either star schemas or snowflake schemas (ROLAP), and some tools(MOLAP) even provide their own proprietary DBMS engine (e.g Hyperion System 9) Using the wrong database design could prevent the OLAP tool from functioning properly – or at all.

Hyperion System 9 is a comprehensive Business Performance Management system that
integrates modular suites of financial management applications with the most comprehensive
business intelligence (BI) capabilities for reporting and analysis.

Major components of Hyperion System 9:
Hyperion System 9 Foundation Services
Hyperion System 9 BI+ Analytics
BI+
Hyperion System 9 Applications+
Hyperion System 9 Data Management Services

To download System 9 Components, read my previous entry Oracle BI EE Plus and Hyperion products available for download

Foundation Services:
Hyperion License Server
Hyperion System 9 Shared Services
Hyperion System 9 Smart View for Office

BI+ Analytics:
Hyperion System 9 BI+ Analytic Services
Hyperion System 9 BI+ Analytic Administration Services
Hyperion System 9 BI+ Analytic Integration Services
Hyperion System 9 BI+ Analytic Provider Services

BI+ :
Hyperion System 9 BI+ Interactive Reporting - OBIEE Plus
Hyperion System 9 BI+ Financial Reporting - OBIEE Plus
Hyperion System 9 BI+ Production Reporting - OBIEE Plus
Hyperion System 9 BI+ Web Analysis - OBIEE Plus
Hyperion System 9 BI+ Enterprise Metrics

Applications+:
Hyperion System 9 Planning
Hyperion System 9 Financial Management
Hyperion System 9 Performance Scorecard
Hyperion System 9 Strategic Finance
Hyperion System 9 Translation Manager

Data Management Services:
Hyperion System 9 Master Data Management
Hyperion System 9 Data Integration Management
Hyperion System 9 Financial Data Quality Management

Note:
Hyperion System 9 Workspace is the Web client for BI+, Planning, and Financial
Management and is part of the BI+ installation. Hyperion System 9 BPM Architect is part
of the Financial Management and Planning installations.

System 9 OLAP Data Sources:

System 9 Relational Data Repositories:
Some relational databases are supported as both data repositories and data sources.
Products that require a dedicated data repository:

Analytic Administration Services—A dedicated database repository is required for Analytic Administration Services only if Log Analyzer is used.
Analytic Integration Services
BI+
BPM Architect—Oracle client must be installed on the Dimension server.
Data Integration Management
FDM
Financial Management
Hyperion MDM
Performance Scorecard
Planning
Shared Services
Translation Manager

Products on which Oracle 10g-10.2.0.2 is supported:

Analytic Administration Services

BI+

BPM Architect

Data Integration Management

Financial Management

Planning

Shared Services

Translation Manager

Siebel Analytics Platform ~ OBIEE

Supported Databases:

Certified Multidimensional Data Source:

The Essbase cubes will be a data source for the Siebel Analytics/Oracle BI Server. Oracle has the connectivity built but has to get it in a release, most likely the end of the year.

Support for ODBC Data Sources

Oracle Business Intelligence support for ODBC allows Oracle Business Intelligence Server, when operating on Windows, to query any relational database management system—either as a data warehouse, an operational data store or as a transactional system—that supports the ODBC 2.0, 2.1 or 3.5 standards.

Oracle BI EE Plus and Hyperion products available for download

2007-08-10T13:45:00.000-04:00

A week ago Oracle announced a new version of its flagship BI suite of tool "Oracle BI Enterprise Edition Plus"

It includes four products from Hyperion:

Hyperion Interactive Reporting

Hyperion SQR Production Reporting Hyperion SQR Production Reporting

Hyperion Financial Reporting g Hyperion Financial Reporting

Hyperion Web Analysis Hyperion Web Analysis

Oracle BI EE Plus goes for 1,700 instead of 1,500 - Oracle BI EE.

For a brief description of Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition Plus Components can be found here

Finally, Hyperion products are available for download. I recommend all certified Siebel Analytics ~ Oracle BI consultants to take advantage of this opportunity.

The Essbase cubes will be a data source for the Siebel Analytics/Oracle BI Server. Oracle has the connectivity built but has to get it in a release, most likely the end of the year.

http://oraclebi.blogspot.com/2007/07/hyperion-products-now-available-for.html

How much a Siebel Analytics/Oracle BI Consultant is worth these days?

2007-08-09T10:06:00.000-04:00

HotGigs collects and aggregates hourly bill rate data from the thousands of consultants on their Staffing Exchange and provides rate research summary data as a free service to their visitors.

According to HotGigs the average hourly bill rate for a Oracle BI Consultant is 137.50. I recommend using this service to plan for contract resources and to compare bill rates against the market.

http://www.hotgigs.com/rates/skill/Oracle-Business-Intelligence-hourly-consultant-bill-rates/

Operational Analytics

2007-08-07T15:16:00.000-04:00

In Fall of 2003, Siebel Systems conducted a test in which user of Siebel eBusiness Applications could drill down to an Analytics Dashboard. The test was a success. The ability to drill down from an operational system to an analytics application was first announced with release of Siebel Analytics application 7.7.

By mid 2004, the sells of Siebel Analytics applications surpassed the Sales of Siebel Analytics Platform ~ BI Suite of Tools. By the end of the same year, Siebel Analytics (application and tools) sales revenue was second to revenue in sales of Siebel eBusiness Application or CRM offering. At the time Siebel Systems was acquired by Oracle, it was considering the industry leader in CRM applications. Nevertheless, it was not known by its BI offering.

Last week Oracle announced Industry's First Enterprise Performance Management System which is the integration of Transactional Systems, Financial Performance Management and Operational BI Systems.

I am a Siebel Analytics Certified Master Consultant. I have clients who had integrated Siebel CRM and Analytics applications in order to provide true pervasive capability. Oracle's Vision for an EMP system is a reality. Just asked any organization that is able to drill from a Siebel CRM application into Siebel Analytics application.

Oracle BI EE = Siebel Analytics Platform

Oracle BI Applications = Siebel Relationship Management Warehouse (RMW) and Customer Centric Warehouse

Hear Paul Rodwick, VP of Oracle BI Products, discuss the trend toward pervasive BI (MP3)

Oracle's Vision for an EMP system

2007-08-07T14:24:00.000-04:00

This is a demo of Oracle's vision for Industry First Enterprise Performance Management System, from the EMP view of the world.

http://www.oracle.com/pls/ebn/swf_viewer.load?p_shows_id=5801530&p_referred=undefined&p_width=800&p_height=600

Oracle Business Intelligence (BI)

2007-08-07T13:34:00.000-04:00

Oracle Business Intelligence (BI) is a portfolio of technology and applications that provides the industry's first integrated, end-to-end Enterprise Performance Management System, including category-leading financial performance management applications, operational BI applications, BI foundation and tools, and data warehousing.

OPERATIONAL BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE APPLICATIONS
Oracle Financial Analytics
Oracle HR Analytics
Oracle Order Management and Fulfillment Analytics
Oracle Supply Chain Analytics
Oracle Sales Analytics
Oracle Service Analytics
Oracle Contact Center Analytics
Oracle Marketing Analytics
Oracle Usage Accelerator Analytics for CRM

FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT APPLICATIONS
Hyperion Financial Management—System 9
Hyperion Planning—System 9
Hyperion Performance Scorecard—System 9
Hyperion Strategic Finance
Hyperion Capital Expense Planning
Hyperion Workforce Planning
Hyperion Financial Data Quality Management

BI FOUNDATION AND TOOLS
Oracle BI Suite Enterprise Edition Plus
Oracle BI Standard Edition One
Oracle BI Standard Edition
Hyperion Essbase

DATA WAREHOUSING
Oracle Warehouse Builder
Oracle Partitioning
Oracle OLAP
Oracle Data Mining

Oracle Business Intelligence Suite—Enterprise Edition Plus

2007-08-07T13:00:00.000-04:00

Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition Plus (EE) is a comprehensive BI platform that provides the best foundation for building enterprise BI solutions. Featuring a unified, highly scalable, modern architecture, BI EE provides intelligence and analytics from data spanning enterprise sources and applications, empowering the largest communities with complete and relevant insight. It includes a full range of easy-to-use and intuitive end user tools such as:

Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition Components:

Oracle Interactive Dashboards

Oracle Answers

Oracle BI Reporting and Publishing

Oracle Disconnected Analytics

Oracle Office Plug-in

Oracle BI Server

http://www.oracle.com/appserver/business-intelligence/docs/OracleBIEEDataSheet.pdf

Hyperion Essbase:

Hyperion Interactive Reporting - System 9

Hyperion SQR Production Reporting - System 9

Hyperion Financial Reporting - System 9

Hyperion Web Analysis - System 9

http://www.oracle.com/appserver/business-intelligence/docs/hyperion-essbase-datasheet.pdf

Information Week Research: Many Companies Plan to Increase BI Spending (March 2007)

Enterprise Performance Management System

2007-08-02T16:43:00.000-04:00

For those of you that missed today web cast from Oracle, here is the link http://www.oracle.com/pls/ebn/live_viewer.main?p_shows_id=5782857

The future is called Oracle BI Suite Enterprise Edition Plus. The past was Siebel Analytics and Hyperion. In order for Siebel Analytics or Hyperion consultants to claim the title of Oracle BI Suite Enterprise Edition Plus consultant. We need to transfer knowledge and increase cooperation between the two groups. Break all barriers and seek a common goal which is to provide value to our customers.

There is not a better example than the one Oracle and Hyperion are showing us in this web cast. No other product in the world come close to what this suite of tool is capable to deliver. Finally, in terms of BI applications, there is nothing out there able to compete against Oracle BI applications and when the integration with BMP applications from Hyperion is completed; it would take a long time and resources for the Germany to developed something similar organically. This is why Oracle acquired Hyperion, to position itself to delivery an
Enterprise Performance Management System

Good example of implementing Siebel Analytics Right

2007-08-01T14:40:00.000-04:00

I know that because I was there working with the most incredible and committed staff from a client committed to do things right.
http://www.oracle.com/customers/snapshots/whirlpool-corp-bi-snapshot.pdf

Oracle Real-Time Decisions

2007-07-29T18:06:00.000-04:00

Overview

The Oracle Real-Time Decisions (Oracle RTD) platform allows you to develop enterprise software solutions that analyze business process behavior and make recommendations in real-time, allowing you to identify and address problems and opportunities as soon as they emerge.

Inline Service refers to the configured application that is deployed using the components in the RTD environment. Oracle RTD consists of five components: Decision Studio, Real-Time Decision Server, Decision Center, Administration (JMX), and Load Generator. Inline Services are configured and deployed using Decision Studio and analyzed and updated using Decision Center. Inline Services run on Real-Time Decision Server. An Inline Service can gather data and analyze characteristics of enterprise business processes on a real-time and continuous basis. It also leverages that data and analysis to provide decision-making capability and feedback to key business processes.

Related Information
To learn more about Oracle RTD you can refer to:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/bi/rtd.html
http://www.oracle.com/technology/obe/index.html

ETL tool from Talend a member of Open Solutions Alliance

2007-07-24T13:44:00.000-04:00

Talend Open Studio http://www.talend.com/products-data-integration/talend-open-studio.php provides advanced capabilities that dramatically improve the productivity of data integration job design; and proven scalability to ensure optimal execution.

Talend Open Studio key benefits include:
Business modeling
Graphical development
Metadata-driven design
Real-time debugging
Robust execution

This is an Open Source ETL solution from Talend, a member of the Open Solution Alliance.

The architecture is similar to Oracle Data Integrator and WhereScape Red. I recommend all three products to be included in an ETL solution selection task when it is required.

Informatica is the tool of choice for an implementation of Siebel Analytics Application/Oracle BI Application. It is the leader in the market and it is a great product reason why Siebel chosen to partner with it. Nevertheless, these new products specificall WhereScape Red, are offering embedded best practices for multidimensional modeling and data warehouse design, part of the new paradigm of Service Oriented Architecture technology of which Siebel Analytics Application is a good example of it.

Links:
WhereScape RED http://www.wherescape.com/
Oracle Data Integrator: http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/oracle-data-integrator/10.1.3/htdocs/1013_support.html#docs
Talend Open Studio: http://www.talend.com/

How much is a Siebel Analytics Consultant worth now days?

2007-07-23T20:46:00.000-04:00

They are a lot of people out there who claim to be a Siebel Analytics consultant. Most of them do not have the experience or knowledge they claim in this technology. In order situations I found consulting firms claiming to specialize in it but in reality do not have the personnel nor the skills to handle the implementation.

These people and/or organizations get the contracts because the underbid us. Then again, having the knowledge does not guarantee success. Chip Camden in his blog entry "Getting beyond the ‘bull’ perception" http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/project-management/?p=128
says it all.

Clients most often go for the lower bid. It is understandable from the point of view of minimizing cost and bring profits up. Then again it is true what they say "you get what you paid for it".

Labs Tip Dont Reinvent the Wheel

2007-07-14T11:57:00.000-04:00

It is amazing how much similarity I found between the subject of this article and common mistake made by most Siebel Analytics professionals in the field. My opinion has always been to improve upon existing ideas or solutions. It is a waist of time and resource to reinvent the wheel.

I have clients calling with performance problems of ETL recurring daily jobs that takes more than 34 hours to complete. Just recently, I had a talk with a a fortune 500 with query performance of its application when the OLAP database is not more than 10 GB in size. Whenever I ask if they have built custom stars instead of trying to re utilize the one that come out of the box. I get an excuse that I have proven so many time to be wrong "Our needs were to specific or our OLTP is heavily customize"

People, you are dealing with a new paradigm now. It is call service oriented architecture (SOA) Stop looking for programmers to implement these applications. They are all moving to the offshore centers so they can write the reusable code of these wonderful applications. What you need is the collaboration of your business and IT teams in your BI efforts. You will also need architects who understand the new technology and are able to interact with your team.

Siebel Analytics Applications answer the who, what, where and when. Who are customers, vendors, employees, partners, etc. What are tangible and intangible products. Where is usually a refer to a geography dimensions or markets where you conduct business. When is your time dimension. It is unreal to believe what this client just told me yesterday "We had to build custom dimension because they were missing from the OOB model" I still thinking what does this client mean by that. I bet you own or have owned a product item from this client. That means that you are or were a customers of it. So why they did not use the W_PRODUCT_D, W_CONTACT_D and W_TIME_D is beyond me. Just take a look on how rich this model is by the picture of the star schema attached to this entry.

Come on people, be serious, the model provides more than what any company needs. I believe the root of this problem is the lack of understand to dig into the intellectual property that comes with these applications.

http://www.careers.eweek.com/article/Labs+Tip+Dont+Reinvent+the+Wheel/177999_1.aspx

This lady is one of the experts in the industry that I admire

2007-07-10T16:13:00.000-04:00

"It's been my experience that companies whose BI initiatives are aligned with their corporate strategies take two important steps. They:

Focus on the business value and eliminate their BI anarchy, and
Bring the appropriate resources to bear and use a collaborative approach to problem solving.

I know it seems like there should be more to it than that, but these two steps can be applied to almost any company and situation. Every company has individual needs, of course, but I've found that companies that take these two steps are generally more effective at aligning BI and corporate strategy."

Information Strategy:Putting the Business Back into Business Intelligence, Part 2

Column published in DM Review MagazineJune 2007 Issue

By Jane Griffin

http://www.dmreview.com/article_sub.cfm?articleId=1085556

This is a very smart lady. I had the pleasure of meeting her in ATL while interviewing for a position. I still remember the set of questions she asked me. They had not relation with BI or Data Warehouse but some how I recognize their intelligent content, reason why I still remember them after 7 years and so many other interviews since them.

I recommend this article from DMReview Magazine

2007-07-10T15:57:00.000-04:00

"A different view of BI is needed. The notion that BI projects are IT projects must be left behind. It's an outmoded way of using technology. BI projects should not be owned by IT. They are, at their very core (as the name implies), business projects that require extensive support from IT to implement."

Information Strategy:Putting the Business Back into Business Intelligence Initiatives

Column published in DM Review MagazineFebruary 2007 Issue

By Jane Griffin

http://www.dmreview.com/article_sub.cfm?articleId=1075095

I recommend this article from BI Review Magazine

2007-07-10T15:52:00.000-04:00

"It is clear that technology is not the root cause for the failure rate reported in the Howard Dresner article. Most failings rest on the shoulders of the business consumer who continually focuses on technology and data sources instead of the business strategy, processes, and definitions. Politics and unwillingness to accept the new paradigm, the continued application of traditional approaches and the lack of a cohesive workforce keeps many organizations in the batter's box and others at first base. BI is not about fancy Web-based reports providing statistics from compiled information in a data warehouse. BI is no longer just looking backwards. Technology now enables us to look at what is occurring at this instant and to forecast what may materialize. BI today is about guided decision-making through the delivery of information from a variety of available resources. The concept Howard Dresner raised 17 years ago is now accessible at new levels"

Business Intelligence: The Chicken or The Egg
From BI Review Magazine June 2007 IssueBy John Zeller June 1, 2007
http://www.bireview.com/article.cfm?articleid=340&pg=ros

Model the Business, Not a System

2007-07-05T23:51:00.000-04:00

The following quote is a good idea for increasing collaboration among IT and Business. I guess the architect is in between reason why I always dislike when anyone tries to categorize me into one or the other. I am technical when I have to work with IT resources to implement an application that full fills business requirements for which I have to be able to communicate and understand the business team. Therefore, I can not be limited to be one or the other when in fact I have to work with both. If anyone needs to give a label to my kind, how about solutions provider? On the other hand, data architect works just fine with me.

"The most critical mistake you can make is treating models as if you personally own them. The models should be presented as belonging to the business and stewarded by the modelers. That means sharing them openly, providing access to those who want it, keeping extra printouts available, offering training on how to read them, and making every effort to make them clear and understandable.

Models and their underlying metadata are corporate assets to be managed by a partnership of architects and the business. In fact, we call all the data and process modeling we do Business Models to demonstrate that these models are not just temporary inputs into the development process of a single project but also longer-term corporate assets.

We create business logical models and business physical models. Keeping the emphasis on the business side of things reinforces the fact that we architects want to solve real problems, not just technical curiosities."

Karen López, I.S.P.
Collaborating with Developers and DBAs: 7 Steps to an Easier Project, a Better Product and a Stronger Team
InfoAdvisors, Inc.
www.infoadvisors.com

Collaboration Increases Confidence in IT Teams

2007-07-05T23:14:00.000-04:00

A lot has been said about IT and Business not getting alone or work in collaboration. The following quote brings some truth to this problem:

"When business users see IT professionals actively and loudly debating the merits of some technical decision, they lose confidence in IT as a whole. When they continue to see the same issue raised throughout a project or carrying over to other projects, they lose confidence in all IT professionals, even if only a few are the cause of the issue.

Jerry Weinberg writes:
“If you use the same recipe, you get the same bread.”

If you want a more collaborative team, you have to change how and where you work."

Karen López, I.S.P.
Collaborating with Developers and DBAs: 7 Steps to an Easier Project, a Better Product and a
Stronger Team
InfoAdvisors, Inc.
www.infoadvisors.com

Team Collaboration

2007-07-05T22:07:00.000-04:00

I am a strong believer on the following quote:

"When teams work together with a common goal and a passion for success, their projects succeed. When the opposite occurs, everyone loses, including the team, the employer, and their customers.

In the course of my normal consulting assignments, I’m often told that there’s something wrong with the data or with the process models being prepared by the team architects, but what I often find is that there is a significant disconnect between what the architects are doing and what the rest of the team expects them to do.

In this paper, I will look at some of the problems that data and process architects face in working with other IT roles and seven easy and inexpensive steps they can take to ensure a collaborative team environment."

Karen López, I.S.P.
Collaborating with Developers and DBAs: 7 Steps to an Easier Project, a Better Product and a Stronger Team
InfoAdvisors, Inc.
www.infoadvisors.com

WhereScape RED

2007-06-29T22:21:00.000-04:00

WhereScape RED provides integrated DW life cycle management functionality for Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle and Teradata deployments. The company’s go-to-market approach includes direct sales to clients, OEM relationships with transactional application vendors, and a network of resellers and consulting partners in the geographic regions in which it operates. WhereScape also provides a freely down loadable working version of its software, which has been an effective method for allowing prospective clients to test-drive the software prior to production deployment,
by building fully-functional small-scale warehouses and marts with WhereScape RED
prior to purchase.

WhereScape RED is a meta data driven DW life cycle management environment. WhereScape RED includes 5 integrated components that support all stages of the DW life cycle process:

Source data extraction and loading facilities (native database connectivity, ODBC, XML, flat file)

WhereScape RED Applications: Administrator is a developer’s interface for creating repositories within the data warehouse and maintaining schedulers. Integrated development Environment (IDE) is a desktop interface for designing and managing the data warehouse. Scheduler is an optional interface that is used primarily by administrators for job status information.

Repository housed within the target DW, the RED Repository is a set of database tables that are installed in each target DW environment. Meta data tables can be accessed by business intelligence tools for query, reporting and analysis purposes. The data warehouse objects created by WhereScape RED are standard database objects such as tables, views, scripts, procedures and indexes. They are always specific to the details of the target database’s SQL or data manipulation dialect: scripts in Teradata can be Multi Load or Fast Load,
procedures are PL/SQL in Oracle and Transact SQL in SQL Server. RED uses the database as the data transformation engine and also stores all meta data about the objects created in the target DW and about the dependent objects within the repository.

Scheduler polls meta data to identify tasks that can be run. It also manages the work flow of dependencies that may exist among jobs or groups of tasks. Tasks can run in the target database or on a separate scheduler platform and initiate loads or procedures specific to databases being used. The scheduler supports multi-platform scheduling and can be called from an existing enterprise scheduler.

Dependent Objects located outside the RED repository, dependent objects include OLAP cubes or exports for other downstream systems whose meta data is stored within the RED repository. The scheduler also manages these objects.

Addressing the DW Life cycle Management Process with WhereScape RED

WhereScape RED provides support for all steps of a DW life cycle. It supports both the developers and business users in their collaborative efforts from the definition stage to deployment stage through a series of iterative steps and feedback loops.

Some of the key strengths of the WhereScape RED software include:

Rapid Prototyping
WhereScape itself describes its software as enabling developers to "fail fast and fail early." With WhereScape RED, developers can create prototypes of candidate production schema, populate it immediately with source data (familiar to business users), and adjust the schema in response to business users’ feedback as needed during joint design-prototype-iterate sessions . all within days and in some cases hours. This practices allows business users to see, in real time, the translation of their requests into working data warehouses and/or data marts, and helps BI/DW
practitioners make appropriate accommodations while they themselves get comfortable, incrementally, with those accommodations.

Self-documentation
Self-documentation was highlighted as one of the key features of WhereScape RED during interviews with WhereScape customers. Within RED, meta data is created automatically while an architect interacts with the RED desktop interface during the various stages of the data warehousing process. Meta data and other documentation can also be edited or added manually on an as needed basis.

Single Source for Metadata
WhereScape RED stores meta data not only about source systems and the data warehouse objects, but also about the external dependent objects such as OLAP cubes as well as ETL routines. Having a single source for all meta data related to the various steps in DW life cycle management enables administrators, architects and developers to manage and access this meta data more efficiently than if it was distributed in individual repositories of the component tools.

Retrofitting
Users of WhereScape RED can also reuse existing tables designed with third party DW modeling tools. In this case the software automatically recognizes that RED was not used as the design tool and retrofits existing DW tables into the RED Repository. This process has been identified as a considerable time saver at organizations, that for various reasons, may chose to work with another modeling tool. This is an example of WhereScape ensuring its product’s compatibility with existing data warehousing tools and environments.

I was given a demo of this product by WhereScape which I called then a framework to build Data Warehouse Application based on industry best practices. I was literally blown away by it. Kind of the same way when I saw Siebel Analytics SRMW model for the first time. The only way I will work on a stand alone implementation of Oracle BI EE would be if client agrees on purchasing this amazing product. Otherwise, they better buy Oracle BI Application since I do not build Data Warehouse from the ground up. Why reinvent the wheel and add unnecessary risk to project which success rate still below 50% when there are product such as this one and Oracle BI Applications in the market?

I recommend everyone to go for a free demo of this amazing product.

http://www.wherescape.com/

Oracle Data Integrator Technical Brief

2007-06-29T21:51:00.000-04:00

Oracle Data Integrator Technical Brief

INTRODUCTION
Oracle Data Integrator is built on several components all working together around a centralized metadata repository. These components—graphical modules, runtime components, and a Web interface—in conjunction with other advanced features, make Oracle Data Integrator a lightweight, legacy-free, state-of-the-art integration platform. This technical brief describes the Oracle Data Integrator architecture in detail

ARCHITECTURE OVERVIEW
The Oracle Data Integrator architecture is organized around a modular repository,
which is accessed in client-server mode by components—graphical modules and
execution agents—that are written entirely in Java. The architecture also includes a Web application, Metadata Navigator, that enables users to access information through a Web interface.

GRAPHICAL MODULES
The four graphical modules are Designer, Operator, Topology Manager, and Security Manager. These modules can be installed on any graphical platform that supports Java Virtual Machine 1.5 (J2SE), including Windows, Linux, HP-UX, Solaris, AIX, and Mac OS, among others.

Designer defines declarative rules for data transformation and data integrity. All project development takes place in this module; this is where database and application metadata are imported and defined. The Designer module uses metadata and rules to generate scenarios for production. This is the core module for developers and metadata administrators.

Operator manages and monitors production. It is designed for production operators and shows execution logs with error counts, the number of rows processed, execution statistics, the actual code that is executed, and so on. At design time, developers can also use the Operator module for debugging purposes.

Topology Manager defines the physical and logical architecture of the infrastructure. Servers, schemas, and agents are registered in the master repository through this module, generally by the administrators of the infrastructure or project.

Security Manager manages user profiles and their access privileges. Security Manager can also assign access privileges to objects and features. This module is generally used by security administrators.

All modules store their information in the centralized repository.

http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/oracle-data-integrator/10.1.3/htdocs/1013_support.html#docs

Business Process Management

2007-06-28T22:02:00.000-04:00

I just completed two tutorial for for Oracle JDeveloper which I recommend to every one who consider themselves a BI resource. They are:

Defining Business Requirements using UML Use Case diagram in JDeveloper 10g
http://www.oracle.com/technology/obe/obe9051jdev/Modeling/UML_UseCase.htm

Modeling Activities for E-Business Integration
http://www.oracle.com/technology/obe/obe9051jdev/ActivityModelingOBE/ActivityModelingOBE.htm

I could not complete the last one since I do not have the menu option to complete "Step 8 - Setting E-Business Integration Properties"

Now days, everyone that works in the BI field needs to take into account BUSINESS PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT, BPM, why? Because applications like Siebel Analytics now Oracle BI set a trend in which drilling into analytics dashboards from the OLTP application is a simple technical procedure; nevertheless, not easy to implement effectively.

It is my believe that in order for a BI application to be truly pervasive. It needs to answer the basic questions who, what and when at the instance the user can pro-actively take action from the information which is being supplied through the interface between OLTP and BI applications.

The following quote is from Jim Ericson editorial "Step By Step" BI Review June 2007.
"I think a casual observer at most companies we study would find that the greatest stumbling block in operational Business Intelligence lie in those neglected, unknown or ad hoc business processes. I do catch myself going overboard on this topic, but how many times does it have to be said: Business processes make up the language that is least abstracted from the psyche of the business itself"

Technical people needs to learn how to speak the business language in order to communicate to its pears in the Business team. I also think Business people need to be less resistance to learn new technology and procedures in order to meet its pears in the Technical team half way. Only then we would be successful implementing the next generation of application which Oracle is bringing to the market.

Oracle BI Applications

2007-06-27T10:10:00.000-04:00

"Oracle’s applications have given the company a large, heterogeneous applications and infrastructure installed base. These customers need an integrated way to access, analyze and deliver information and insight from multiple business applications," the trio notes. "[T]he newly branded Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition from the Siebel acquisition—which Gartner previously rated as visionary [in its magic quadrant]—has given Oracle a new opportunity to create a compelling BI platform strategy and become a significant BI platform and applications vendor in 2007 and beyond."

http://www.tdwi.org/News/display.aspx?ID=8496

The MODEL clause of the SELECT statement Oracle 10G

2007-06-27T09:54:00.000-04:00

The MODEL clause of the SELECT statement enables you to treat your relational output like a spreadsheet. The MODEL clause identifies which columns to aggregate (measures), which columns serve as unique array indexes (dimensions), and which formulas calculate the values (rules).

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/datacenter/?p=130&tag=nl.e050

The MODEL clause has many options for calculating data beyond what is shown here. For more information on MODEL, see the Oracle Database Data Warehousing Guide, Chapter 22, SQL for Modeling:
http://download-west.oracle.com/docs/cd/B19306_01/server.102/b14223/sqlmodel.htm

Oracle Announces General Availability of Oracle Business Intelligence Standard Edition One

2007-06-26T23:36:00.000-04:00

Oracle announced the general availability of Oracle Business Intelligence Standard Edition One (Oracle Business Intelligence SE One), a complete, integrated business intelligence (BI) and data warehousing system that is packaged, pre-configured, and priced to meet the needs of small to medium-sized organizations and workgroups.

http://www.oracle.com/corporate/press/2007_jun/bi-se-one.html?msgid=5699295

http://www.oracle.com/appserver/business-intelligence/standard-edition-one.html

The Oracle10g external table feature

2007-06-26T20:33:00.000-04:00

The Oracle10g external table feature, which allows external data, such as flat files, to be exposed within the database just like a regular database table. External tables can be accessed by SQL, so that external files can be queried directly and in parallel using the full power of SQL, PL/SQL, and Java. External tables are often used in the Extraction, Transformation, and Loading (ETL) process to combine data-transformations (through SQL) with data-loading into a single step. External tables are a very powerful feature with many possible applications in ETL and other database environments where flat files are processed; it is an alternative to using SQL*Loader.

http://www.oracle.com/technology/obe/obe10gdb/bidw/etl/etl.htm

Pitney Bowes Improves TCO with Oracle BI

2007-06-26T13:53:00.000-04:00

The Oracle at Delphi once provided valuable insights to those seeking its counsel. Today, Oracle’s BI solution provides similar services to insight-hungry businesspeople. Find out how Pitney Bowes got a handle on 2 million customer accounts by standardizing on the Oracle BI platform.

http://www.tdwi.org/Publications/WhatWorks/display.aspx?id=8420

About BI-BestPractices.com

2007-06-26T11:47:00.000-04:00

About BI-BestPractices.com is an online community that is developed and maintained by the Business Intelligence Network (BeyeNETWORK.com) and The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI). This is a comprehensive, centralized resource for professionals in the business intelligence and data warehousing industry. The Business Intelligence Network and TDWI have taken the lead to generate and distribute content within a vendor-neutral environment to promote the advancement and success of the BI/DW industry. By combining the expertise of industry thought leaders, and the collective experience of the BI/DW community, BI-BestPractices.com delivers up-to-date information and practical tools that improve industry, enterprise and individual performance.

http://www.bi-bestpractices.com/

Oracle Business Intelligence SE One

2007-06-25T18:52:00.000-04:00

Small Business Computing Mon, 25 Jun 2007 9:35 AM PDTOracle today rolled out its new Business Intelligence Standard Edition One, a pre-configured BI package targeted at small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and workgroups.

http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/news/article.php/3685266

Oracle Certifications

2007-06-25T13:12:00.000-04:00

Oracle Certifications:

http://www.oracle.com/global/nl/education/downloads/opleidingspaden.pdf

Prototyping with a spreadsheet

2007-06-24T18:14:00.000-04:00

Question: Why is prototyping a good idea?
Answer: It allows the users to see something in a short amount of time. The model built can often be used in the final implementation so the work is not duplicated or wasted.
Question: What will the user see if the data is empty? Answer: They will see no results. The user may also receive ODBC errors if a source is defined in the repository, but not physically available.

Prototyping accelerates the entire building process to gain user buy-in and executives support for the project.

Anyone can build something quickly. Often the initial prototype becomes the final model with little effort. It is not a throw away effort. This approach allows you to build a prototype in the real application rather than building it in excel or some other technology that will not be
used in production. I keep versions of Access databases that use in prototyping specific subject areas of an Oracle Analytics Application. I just change the database and connection pools as well as to perform some minor changes in the webcatalog so I can show dashboard of the subject area that my client is interested in as an initial implementation of much larger in scope of an Oracle BI solution.

Oracle BI EE/Siebel Analytics strength is the ability to access non-relational structures and create logical dimensional structures. This is unique functionality that is seamlessly integrated within the platform. Other products require you to use different user interfaces for different types of analysis and back-end systems.

The difference is in not creating any physical joins. If you think about it, it makes sense since the data is flattened into a single wide row of information, so no join is required.

If the physical source changes, the logical model is still correct and doesn't need adjustment.

Create the logical Joins in the Business Model layer.

Notice the dimensions are combined here for ease of use.

Additional notes when prototyping with a spreadsheet:

Spreadsheet does not support count distinct. Be sure this feature is
turned off in database features table.

Disable connection pooling. That will allow you to open up the spreadsheet and make changes to the data without shutting down the Analytics Server.

How to define enterprise-level business requirements? Part5

2007-06-23T00:02:00.000-04:00

Analytics Application

How to plan the initial business process dimensional model implementation and gather project-level business requirements:

Define the basic requirements first, and then build on these basic requirements in subsequent phases.

Logically integrated. "An analytic application is first and foremost an application. That means that some degree of business logic is embedded in the application that helps users navigate through a series of tasks, among other things. In the transactional world, an application steps users through a series of data entry screens and validates their inputs. In the analytical world, an application steps users through a series of interactive reports or views of dimensional data, ideally leading to the point of action—a decision, plan, or request for more information. While savvy power users may not need navigational logic, the bulk of users who view reports once or twice a week need guided analytics to help them effectively analyze data and take action. This navigational guidance can take many forms. In a custom-built application, users may push a button to move to the next report or logical view. Or they may traverse a hierarchical tree of reports, tabbed worksheets, or a briefing book; or they may select predefined filters in a parameterized report. In addition, some BI tools offer users context-sensitive recommendations for the next reports they should view or actions they should take. For example, dashboards and scorecards offer built-in navigational logic via graphical icons whose colors, shape, or direction inform users what metrics and data to examine in which order. " Pasted from http://www.tdwi.org/publications/display.aspx?id=7474

A prototype can be used as a way to guide the user towards defining the business information they need

How to define enterprise-level business requirements? Part4

2007-06-22T23:41:00.000-04:00

Oracle Business Intelligence Suite unites Oracle's business intelligence (BI) middleware with Siebel Business Analytics. When combined with Oracle E-Business Suite, Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise, Oracle's JD Edwards Enterprise One, Oracle's Siebel pre-built analytic applications, the Oracle Business Intelligence Suite addresses the complete spectrum of BI and analytical requirements facing customers today, including historical, real-time and forward-looking insight, with data integration, and management.

Oracle Offers Greater Business Insight with Oracle Applications
The introduction of Oracle Business Intelligence Suite also marks a major Oracle Fusion Application milestone, while delivering value to customers today. Oracle's goal is to deliver information-driven applications that offer role-based, end-to end business insight and industry-specific analytics that utilize Oracle's leading business intelligence software.

Enterprises using Oracle applications today can take advantage of the Oracle Business Intelligence Suite to infuse enhanced intelligence capabilities. Oracle's BI suite and analytic applications enable customers to integrate diverse data sources including Oracle, custom, and third-party applications for complete business insight that leverages existing operational systems.

How to define enterprise-level business requirements? Part3

2007-06-22T23:25:00.001-04:00

Siebel Analytics Application are pre-built BI applications Designed and Built to provide a best of breed architect to offer a enterprise wide BI solution. There are four things that makes Siebel Analytics a Complete, next-generation Analytic Solution:

1. Siebel Analytics goes across the entire Siebel product family – along both Cross Industry (Horizontal) and Industry Vertical product lines.
2. Siebel Analytics is meant for all constituents in the organization, not just for a few power users, it is meant for everyone – throughout the Enterprise and beyond.
3. Siebel Analytics spans historical and real-time data sources providing a real-time (could be up-to-the-minute) and complete picture of the customer and business.
4. Siebel Analytics is not just targeted at Siebel data and Siebel information, but embraces and incorporates other Enterprise data sources to deliver complete commerce chain intelligence. Thus fulfilling the need to handle the enterprise platform data requirements.

"A complete business analytics solution is a complete next generation business and customer analytics solution. It offers pre-built topical and industry specific analytic applications that deliver best practice analyses across the eBusiness value chain; a comprehensive and configurable data warehousing solution that transforms data from Siebel and other internal and external sources into actionable intelligence; a highly scalable and open analytic platform that delivers new levels of insight from data that spans sources across the enterprise; and extensive support for global deployments."
Pasted from: http://resources.crmbuyer.com/crmbuyer/search/sponsor/SIEBELOLAP/0/0/1/index.jsp

How to define enterprise-level business requirements? Part2

2007-06-21T23:58:00.000-04:00

In part1, the John A. Zachman's Framework was introduced to examine the Enterprise-level business requirements. Oracle Corp. is following this approach for building Fusion.

Most people and organization believe that thier business is too unique and specific for a pre-build solution. Nevertheless the following concept which is essential in building the enterprise architecture is fundamental in achieving the single view of the truth from it. It is the basis for which Oracle is integrating the best breed of applications (Siebel, E-Business, PeopleSoft, etc) using its fusion technology.

A semantic data model (SDM) captures the business view of information for a specific knowledge worker community or analytic application.

A logical data model (LDM) captures the business relationships in the enterprise information independent of a specific analytic application or departmental view.

A physical data model (PDM) captures the implementation design of tables in the data
warehouse.

There can be many semantic data models for the various knowledge worker communities in the enterprise, but there is only one logical data model and only one physical data model in an enterprise data warehouse implementation.

Semantic data models are often implemented using dimensional modeling techniques. Dimensional modeling is a more restrictive form of entity-relationship modeling wherein many-to-many relationships are not allowed in the end user’s view of information. All relationships are mandatory many-to-one and only a single path is allowed between any two levels in a dimensional hierarchy.

These modeling rules ensure enforcement of the MECE principle. MECE means that all metrics are presented as mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive in the analytic framework. No dollar will be lost and no dollar will be double-counted.

Oracle BI EE follows the same principles reason why it has three layers the Physical, the Logical and the Presentation.

How to define enterprise-level business requirements? Part1

2007-06-21T23:21:00.000-04:00

I do agree with Vijay Saradhi on his article "Essential Characteristics of a Modern Data Warehouse, Part 1: Critical Issues with a Conventional Data Warehouse"

http://www.datawarehouse.com/article/?articleId=7195

I also believe there is many implementations of Siebel Analytics/Oracle BI applications that falls into what this author calls conventional data warehousing solution.

Siebel Analytics/Oracle BI applications are the best examples of pervasive technology and Service Oriented Application - SOA. I believe many of these implementations come short to provide the full benefits of this technology is because on the approach that individuals and organization take when it comes to implementing what it has been called the New Generation of Applications.

I always tell my clients that as long as we work within Siebel/Oracle and industry best pratices our changes to success will always be 100% guaranteed. My road map is based on Siebel and Ralph Kimball methodology.

Introduction:
Main objective: Define the data that is meaningful to running the business

What do you need to know to support answering the business questions?

Get the basics here, since all subsequent phases will build on this

The importance of understanding business requirements and securing solid business sponsorship

Enterprise View:
How to define enterprise-level business requirements, including the interview process, developing analytic themes, linking themes to business processes, developing the data warehouse bus matrix, and prioritizing business processes with senior management.

Mapping between the system metadata entities as the frame work columns is as follows:

The data column correspond to the what perspective and maps to data maintained by the system metadata entity INFORMATION.

The function column corresponds to the how perspective and maps to data maintained by the system metadata entity PROCESS.

The network column correspond to where perspective and maps to data maintained by the system metadata entity LOCATION.

The people column correspond to the who perspective and maps to data maintained by the system metadata entity USER.

The time column (correspond to the when perspective) is implemented structurally by time/date function-based indexing determine by the smallest addressable unit of time that can be reported (e.g. minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, etc.)

The motivation column corresponds to the why perspective and it contains explicit referential links, specifically connecting enterprise application information with the organizational strategy from the planner, owner, designer, builder, subcontractor and detail vertical integrated perspective.

Integration of Oracle BI Publisher with Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition

2007-06-21T22:43:00.000-04:00

This tutorial mainly covers how Oracle BI Publisher is integrated with Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (Oracle BI EE) 10.1.3.2, and how this integration enables you to create highly formatted reports in Oracle BI Publisher by using Oracle BI Answers and Oracle BI Server metadata.

http://www.oracle.com/technology/obe/obe_bi/bi_ee_1013/bip_biee/bip_biee.htm#o

Oracle BI EE

2007-06-21T22:30:00.000-04:00

Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition (Oracle BI EE) offers an integrated, comprehensive, standards-based BI platform that provides the best foundation for building enterprise wide BI solutions. It leverages the Oracle's existing data warehousing and business intelligence tools, with a new stack of products listed here.
Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition specifically consists of:

Oracle BI Server: Centralized data access and calculation via a logical Common Enterprise Information Model through to the end-user products and other SQL-based tools.

Oracle BI Interactive Dashboards: Personalized, highly intuitive, guided and fully interactive access to cockpits of live analyses.

Oracle BI Answers: Self-service ad hoc capabilities allowing end users to easily create charts, pivot tables, reports, and visually appealing dashboards, all of which are fully interactive and drillable.

Oracle BI Delivers: Proactive intelligence solution providing alerts that can reach users via multiple channels (e-mail, dashboards, and mobile devices), as well as workflow integration.

Oracle BI Disconnected Analytics: Full business intelligence functionality for the mobile professional, enabling fully interactive dashboards and ad hoc analysis while disconnected from the corporate network .

Oracle BI Publisher: High-fidelity report templates that are created and published via common personal productivity applications delivered directly or through Interactive Dashboards to end users.

http://www.oracle.com/appserver/business-intelligence/enterprise-edition.html

Fusion Intelligence For PeopleSoft Enterprise - Fusion Intelligence for JD Edwards EnterpriseOne

2007-06-21T22:23:00.000-04:00

Fusion Intelligence for JD Edwards EnterpriseOne gives you the power to extend your existing investment in Enterprise Performance Management (EMP) while putting you on the path to next generation technologies. By leveraging robust dashboards and ad-hoc reporting capabilities provided buy Oracle's market-leading BI platform. Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE), you benefit from a complete, end-to-end, integrated business intelligence and reporting solution.

http://www.oracle.com/media/peoplesoft/en/pdf/datasheets/fusion-intelligence-jde-data-sheet.pdf

Fusion Intelligence For PeopleSoft Enterprise

2007-06-21T22:17:00.000-04:00

Fusion Intelligence for PeopleSoft Enterprise gives you the power to extend your existing investments in PeopleSoft Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) while putting you on the path to next generation technologies. By leveraging the robust dashboarding and ad-hoc reporting capabilities provided by Oracle's market-leading BI platform, Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE), you benefit from a complete, end-to-end, integrated business intelligence and reporting solution.

Fusion Intelligence for PeopleSoft Enterprise includes:
A unified logical model designed for business users, for the EPM Financials, Human Capital Management, Supply Chain and Campus Solutions warehouses and datamarts. The logical model includes JD Edwards specific content.
Selected dashboard templates for each functional warehouse which include guided analysis paths and prebuilt data mappings.
Delivered integration with the PeopleSoft Enterprise transactional applications including single sign-on, security integration, and integration with PeopleSoft Portal.

http://www.oracle.com/media/peoplesoft/en/pdf/datasheets/fusion-intelligence-data-sheet.pdf

Oracle E-Business Suite Corporate Performance Management and Daily Business Intelligence

2007-06-21T22:08:00.000-04:00

FUSION INTELLIGENCE FOR E-BUSINESS SUITE

Fusion Intelligence for E-Business Suite gives you the power to extend your existing investments in Oracle Applications while putting you on the path to next generation technologies. By leveraging the robust dashboarding, ad-hoc reporting, and extensibility capabilities provided by Oracle’s market-leading BI platform, Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE), you benefit from a complete, end-to-end, integrated business intelligence and reporting solution.

Fusion Intelligence for E-Business Suite includes:
A unified logical model designed for business users of EBS Financials, Procurement, Human Resources, Supply Chain and CRM Intelligence modules.
Selected dashboard templates for each functional area which include guided analysis paths and prebuilt data mappings.
Delivered integration with the E-Business Suite transactional applications including single sign-on, security, Daily Business Intelligence materialized views and base summaries, and Oracle Portal.

http://www.oracle.com/applications/cpm/fusion-intelligence-for-e-business.html

Oracle Business Intelligence Applications v7.9

2007-06-21T22:03:00.000-04:00

Oracle Business Intelligence (BI) Applications are complete, pre- built BI solutions that deliver intuitive, role-based intelligence for everyone in an organization—from front line employees to senior management—that enable better decisions, actions, and business processes. Designed for heterogeneous environments, these solutions enable organizations to gain insight from a range of data sources and applications including Siebel, Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, and third party systems such as SAP.

Oracle BI Applications are built on the Oracle BI Suite Enterprise Edition (OBIEE), a comprehensive, innovative, and leading BI platform. This enables organizations to realize the value of a packaged BI Application, such as rapid deployment, lower TCO, and built-in best practices, while also being able to very easily extend those solutions to meet their specific needs, or build completely custom BI applications—all on one common BI architecture.

http://www.oracle.com/appserver/business-intelligence/docs/business-intelligence-applications-overview-whitepaper.pdf

Oracle BI Solutions and Products

2007-06-21T21:58:00.000-04:00

Pre-Built Analytic Applications
Oracle's comprehensive set of analytic applications provides greater business insight by proactively guiding users to make the most informed decisions. Oracle's analytic applications include capabilities such as corporate performance management, interactive dashboarding, and embedded analytic capabilities for delivering insight pervasively across your enterprise. Open, pre-built, industry specific analytic applications provide actionable intelligence for each business function and user role. These solutions are hot-pluggable into your existing operational systems, meaning you can infuse enhanced intelligence capabilities into your Oracle, custom, and third-party applications.

Business Intelligence Platform
Oracle Business Intelligence Suite is the most comprehensive business intelligence (BI) platform available today, addressing the full spectrum of business intelligence needs, including interactive dashboards, ad hoc analysis, proactive intelligence and alerts, advanced reporting and publishing, real-time predictive analytics, mobile analytics, and more.

Data Warehousing
Building your data warehouse on Oracle is the best way to consolidate and organize all your data so it can be easily managed, accessed, and analyzed. With a single management interface, self-tuning and self-diagnostic features, Oracle Database 10g simplifies maintenance of your ever-expanding data warehouse

http://www.oracle.com/solutions/business_intelligence/index.html

Querying OLAP data using Oracle BI EE

2007-06-21T18:10:00.000-04:00

Oracle recommends a Pure Relational, ROLAP, or MOLAP? for the following scenarios:

Select a purely relationalimplementation when

The analytic requirements of the business are met by the capabilities of SQL.
There are appropriate in-house SQL skills.
The relational engine provides satisfactory query performance.

A purely relationalimplementation is designed and optimized to support the efficient movement and calculation of large volumes of data.

Select a ROLAPimplementation when …

The analytic requirements of the business are met by the capabilities of SQL.
User is looking for an easier way to formulate complex queries.
The detail data is very sparse.
Materialized Views to optimize performance.

Select a MOLAPimplementation …

When the analytic requirements of the business need the extended analytic, forecasting and planning functionality of Multidimensional Database Technology.
When the analysis includes lots of calculated and aggregated Key Performance Indicators
Need an easier way to define complex or proprietary calculations.

I recommend Siebel Analytics/Oracle BI EE consultants to take the following tutorials from Oracle:

http://www.oracle.com/technology/obe/obe_bi/bi_ee_1013/olap/PrepareAW.htm

http://www.oracle.com/technology/obe/obe_bi/bi_ee_1013/olap/createmetadata.htm

http://www.oracle.com/technology/obe/obe_bi/bi_ee_1013/olap/QueryData.htm

Romulo A. Rios - Master Certified Siebel Analytics Consultant

2007-06-21T17:38:00.000-04:00

CONSULTANt summary:

An accomplished Data Warehouse professional with the following qualification:

Master Certified Siebel Analytics Consultant with extensive experience implementing Siebel Analytics/Oracle BI Horizontal and Vertical Applications; Expert knowledge on multidimensional modeling, Data Warehousing, ETL process and applications pre-built metadata.

Understand Oracle product strategy; therefore, able to assist clients implementing Fusion Intelligence which is base on architecture that integrates Siebel Analytics Platform/ Oracle BI EE and other BI product from Oracle like OLAP and Data Mining functionality of Oracle 10G.

Focusing on defining detail solutions with emphasis on gap analysis in order to identify the difference or gaps, between what the out of the box application does by default and what client's organizations need the analytics solution to do. This enable clients to get a return on their investment by eliminating unnecessary development of custom data marts which increase the risks of silos and delay the final delivery of the application to business community.

rios.romulo@gmail.com

Siebel Analytics ProducT skills:

Siebel Analytics High Proficiency
Siebel Data Warehouse High Proficiency
Configuration Specialist High Proficiency
Data Warehousing Specialist High Proficiency
Gap Analyst High Proficiency
Siebel Analytics Application 7.5, 7.7 & 7.8 High Proficiency

Project skills:

Business Requirements High Proficiency
Functional Requirements High Proficiency
Gap Analysis High Proficiency
Solution Design High Proficiency
Technical Architecture High Proficiency

Certifications:

Siebel Systems, Inc. Certified Analytics Master Consultant 7.7 May 2005
Siebel Systems, Inc. Certified Analytics Application Developer 7.7 May 2005
Siebel Systems, Inc. Certified Analytics Server Architect 7.7 October 2004
Siebel Systems, Inc. Certified Analytics Data Warehouse 7.7 October 2004

Qualifications:

Creating and shaping demand for their offerings to accelerate financial returns and growth.
Using foresight and customer insights to deploy marketing investments most efficiently and effectively.
Creating distinctive, compelling and consistent branded experiences to attract and retain customers.
Harnessing talent and technology to capitalize on the key value-creating capabilities.
Understanding the relationship between marketing and business performance, and assigning accountability to exploit this relationship.
Capture and documentation of Management Information/Business Intelligence requirements from clients, via interviews or workshops, ensuring suitable balance of business needs and delivery feasibility.
Performance of Siebel Analytics/Oracle BI EE gap analysis related to Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse Data Model and ETL, creation of high-level and detailed design documentation, accurately mapping requirements into Siebel Analytics functionality.
Design, configuration and documentation of Logical and Physical Data Model and ETL process & mapping configuration.
Configuration of in-scope functional & technical requirements based on design documents produced — including required data structures, data mapping, and related performance tuning - ensuring a best practice approach to configuration and documentation.
Leading a Siebel Analytics/Oracle BI configuration team or Marketing team, ensuring design, development and testing work is completed to standard and on time.
Planning and managing a work package to scope and time expectations.
Working with clients to define corporate KPI’s and management reports or with the client’s Marketing organization to design Campaigns and improve Marketing Effectiveness.
Development and ownership of key client relationships.