I love listening to the Kane Show on Hot 99.5 during my morning commutes into the office. So I couldn’t resist using Arnetta’s saying in the title of this month’s blog. When someone calls in to the Kane Show saying that today is there last day at their company they like playing a clip from Arnetta. In my case it’s not my last day at KTL Solutions but a job change within the company.
Every business from startup to larger established businesses needs to track details about their customers, products, sales, purchases, social media, website logs to name a few. By extracting, manipulating and analyzing this data you can determine key metrics to help you understand more about your customers and grow your business. In part 1 we talked about how to kick start your data warehousing with BI360 and now we need to know what to do with all this data.
Basically you can use your Data Warehouse for financial statement reporting and analysis, dashboards and data mining. I previously went through how to use BI360’s One Stop Reporting here (link to Part 5 – BI Series Nov 2013) so I will be talking more about data mining and .
Many of the projects that I’ve been working on over the last 12 months have evolved integrating data into a data warehouse. Specifically companies are looking to import more data from other systems to do various types of analysis. Data integration is nothing new, companies have been doing it for a long time, but usually with a very manual process that includes vast Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.
What Is a Data Warehouse?
A data warehouse is a database designed to enable reporting and data analysis activities. Data warehouses store current and historical data from one or more disparate sources. Some of these sources may include:
We have put a lot of hard work into this blog series with building a patron analysis so now it’s time to share the wealth of our analysis insights with the rest of the company. Power BI’s web site and mobile approach with the deployment of Office 365 and refreshable data through a Data Management Gateway, is the perfect solution. The Data Management Gateway has come a long way since the first version and with version 1.2 it now supports many data source types from Power Query connections.
The adage “A picture is worth a thousand words” refers to the notion that a complex idea can be conveyed with just a single still image. It also appropriately characterizes one of the main goals of data visualization, namely making it possible to absorb large amounts of data quickly.
The point of Power View is to make it very easy to create pretty, interactive data presentations or reports that will make your boss go “Wow, how did you do that? You’re a genius!” Well, OK, maybe not that far but you’ll definitely look smart. Plus, it also can be used to explore your data visually without worrying about messing anything up and even make reports on your own, without IT help.
While PowerPivot isn't necessarily “new technology,” businesses are trying to move towards it due to how Excel savvy end users can create their own reports without tying up IT resources. KPI's are just another addition to PowerPivot that allows users to visually analyze data across millions of rows.
A KPI (Key Performance Indicator) is a graphical representation that displays progress against a predefined measure or business goal. KPIs make it easier for end users to evaluate the amount of progress without reading a bunch of data.
The Art of Winning an Unfair Game or better known as Moneyball, is a true story about the Oakland Athletics baseball team and its general manager Billy Beane. It’s focus is the team's analytical, evidence-based, sabermetric approach to assembling a competitive baseball team, despite Oakland's disadvantaged revenue situation.
You may be reading this and ask “What does this have to do with me and my business?”
What is Power Query? Power Query is a self-service data extraction tool that is a free add-in for Excel 2010 or higher. It allows users that are already comfortable with Excel a smaller learning curve to start enjoying Power Query. Power Query has a vast array of options that it can use as data sources…
A popular buzz word today is “big data”. Big data refers to a collection of data from multiple platforms to generate data set and analytics. Using big data and analytics effectively is in high demand for many supply chain operations. In fact, it is thought to be the revolution in supply chain. Supply chains transact with multiple vendors, manufactures, distributors and retailers which can make for large data sets and unmanageable information. If data is delivered properly it can be effective in the decision making process and improving profitability.
Understanding how to use your data and where your data comes from are key factors in developing useful analytics.
I often get asked about Business Intelligence and related tools, as dashboards and data integration have become so common today. Everyone wants “instant information.” After all, aren’t we all information workers today?
Since my company is a Microsoft Partner, doing Dynamics (GP, SL and CRM) business applications, my first recommendation is to “look close to home”. You may be surprised by how much existing BI you already own and are not utilizing if you use Microsoft products (Dynamics, SQL, SharePoint, and Office). The Microsoft BI toolkit is not a lightweight player in the BI market, as you can see from the 2013 Gartner’s Magic Quadrant graphic below.
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