Business Intelligence

A primer
Introduction & overview
The paradigm of BI systems
Platforms
Appendix
Review questions

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 Our approach to BI
Cost Flexibility & speed Quality & satisfaction

1. Production unit 1. Spec conformity of

1. Process duration

M anager
cost service and products
2. Activity timeliness
2. Productivity 2. Technology
3. Resource flexiblity

Rep
3. Usage / workload dependability

Dash DSS Enterprise

KPI
Information

C u s to m e r
1. Customer access / 1. Expectation conformity
1. Response time

Identification /
acquisition unit
cost
2. Response timeliness
3. Vendor flexiblity
2.
of the service
Service dependability
2. Customer use cost

mapping
3. Customer satisfaction
Modeling

BI systems modelling
1. Technology
SIRE
ES
1. Expectation conformity
response time
1.
costHIGO
Execution unit 2. Technology
timeliness
of work / work
environment

W o rk e r
2. Technology
2. Preparation effort 3. Activity &
dependability
technology
3. Employee satisfaction
flexibility

taxonomy Aggregate Strategic Level (ASL)

Plan Exec Mon Ctl Info

Analytic Information
Modeling
DFM
BI Architecture
GUI Modeling Rich
GOA Semantic
Level (RSL)

Implementation Level
Software
Engineering
Interface (SEI)

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 Business Intelligence:
the role within Enterprise Systems

Management support
Management Information Systems
[Planning & Management Control + Business Intelligence ]

Front-end systems Back-end systems

(Support the life cycle of (Support the cycle of
customers and end products) production and delivery)

Administrative systems (Finance, HR etc.)

Operations support - 3-
 Acronyms

ABC: Activity Base Costing EPM: Enterprise Performance Management

(synonym of SEM)
ABM: Activity Based Management
ERP: Enterprise Resource Planning
BI: Business Intelligence
ERM: Enterprise Resource Management
BW: Business Warehouse (synonym of DW)
ES: Enterprise System
BSC: Balanced Score Card
KPI: Key Performance Indicator
CPM: Corporate Performance Management
(synonym of SEM) MBO: Management By Objectives

CRM: Customer Relationship Management MRP: Manufacturing Resource Management

CSF: Critical Success Factor ODS: Operational Data Store

DBMS: Data Base Management System OLAP: On Line Analytical Processing

DSS: Decision Support System OLTP: On Line Transaction Processing

DW: Data Warehouse SCM: Supply Chain Management

EIS: Executive Information System SEM: Strategic Enterprise Management

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Characteristics of Analytic & Management Information

Information is
Periodical
Output of computation or
aggregations
Reflects objectives or actual data

E.g. data of P& L of an imaginative

Car Company come from different
transaction processing systems
Sales
Purchasing
Accounting
Etc.

Therefore, the design of BI / MIS :

Is top-own
Defines first target data i.e. the
variables that BI should process
Identifies corresponding source
data
Defines the process to extract and
transform source in target data

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 The 4-layer paradigm of BI /MIS systems

Presentation / reporting
Decision support Mining & other
engine
engines (DSS) application engines
(EIS, reporting)

DATA MART

DATA WAREHOUSE

Loading
Tranformation DATA ENTRY
Extraction

BASI DATI OPERATIVE

BASI DATI OPERATIVE
BASI DATI OPERATIVE
Transactions Data Bases

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The 4-layer paradigm of BI /MIS systems

BI/MIS applications are based on 4

layers

Layer 1 contains source data,

typically stored in Transaction Data
Base

Layer 2 extracts information, and

transforms source data into Multi-key
& Time-dependent data

Layer 3 stores such transformed

information

Layer 4 processes transformed

information according various
purposes
Support decisions (DSS)
E.g. define the sale budget
Prepare reports and dashboard (Report)
E.g., sales performance
Mine stored data (Mining)
E.g. identify customer who may churn

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 Jones case study

CONTEXT REQUIREMENTS
The Supermarket Chain Management want to
Jones includes 300 shops analyze sales
in 3 regions with 60k items Facts : Sales
on sale
Measures: amount,
A POS (Point Of Sale) system quantity, number of tickets
supports all activities of
each shop : Analysis dimensions
item receiving, Date
storing, Item
scrapping, Shop
selling Time span : 24 months
Specifically, POS terminals rolling
record sales transactions
and issue receipts

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 Jones case study: Level 1

Ticket # 2002a23b11
Store #0021MI
Item Master Data
# Item
Item Des Price Qty Amount
# Store
#190 Pen 3560 2 7.12
Description
#69 Mat 550 10 5.50
Price
#90 Lib 32000 1 32.00
Qunatity mesuere
TOTALE 44.62
Stock on hand
Payment Fidelity P.
Stock at the beginning of the day
Date 120109
Average forecasted dayly sale

Receipt Heading
Receipt detail
# Store
# Ticket
# Ticket
# Item
Amount
Amount
Payment
Qty
Date

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 Level 2: extraction-transformation-loading

Extraction includes
Select source data
Check and clean source data (data
Report/ Mining &
cleaning o data cleansing)
DSS
dashboard other Staging of extracted data (as needed)
Log of extractions

Extraction can be
DATA MART Automatic: a batch procedure that
runs periodically (e.g. daily, weekly,
DATA WAREHOUSE
monthly)
Interactive: integrates and fixes
automatic data
LOADING
DATA ENTRY
TRANSFORMATION
EXTRACTION
ETL can use intermediate databases
Staging Area : where extracted data
are temporarily parked (e.g. Data of
each individual shop)
Operational Data Store (ODS): where
TRANSACTIONS DATABASES
granular data are stored and
reconciled for future use (e.g. receipt
data)

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 Level 3: data warehouse

Data are stored in Data

Warehouse and Data Marts
Report/ Mining &
DSS
dashboard other
A Data Warehouse is a
subject-oriented, integrated,
time-variant (temporal), non
volatile collection of summary
DATA MART
and detailed data, used to
support strategic decision-
DATA WAREHOUSE making process for the
enterprise (Inmon 1996)
LOADING
TRANSFORMATION DATA ENTRY
Data Mart is a smaller
warehouse, often a subset or
EXTRACTION

extraction of a warehouse.
TRANSACTIONS DATABASES Warehouse e Mart typically
adopt different data schemas

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 Level 3: data warehouse

Key table 1
Key 1 Key table
Attribute 1
Fact table Key
Key 1 Attribute 1
Attribute 2
Key 2 Attribute 2
Attribute .
Key Attribute .
Measure 1
Key table 2 Measure 2
Key 2 Measure .
Attribute 1
Attribute 2 The warehouse is typically implemented
Attribute . by relational database, whose schema
reflects the corresponding DFM
(Dimensional Fact Model).
In relational schemas:
Fact tables:
Store the value of facts
(measures)
Are identified by multiple keys
(K>= 2)
Key tables
Describe the attributes of
dimensions
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 Jones case study: Level 3

Shop
Shop#
Description
Item
Sales Item#
Shop-class Date# Billing-metric
ZIP-code Item# Item description
Shop# Bar-code#
Time Sales amount Package qty
Date# Sales qty Package-class
Week-day Number of receipts Supplier-brand
Flag work/holyday for local calendar Item-class
Date in muslim calendar
Flag work/holyday for muslim calendar

A simple implementation of the DFM is a STAR schema where key tables are
implemented only for immediate keys
Further analysis / segmentation is obtained by queries on attributes of key tables

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 Jones case study: Level 3

Province-
ZIP
region
Shop
Area

Holiday

Muslim
Sales Date
date
Time
Chinese
Week-day
date
Super-
Class
class
Item
Supplier

A full implementation of the DFM requirements implies a snow flake

schema with a key table for every hierarchy node

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 Level 3: design steps

The process from extraction up to data warehouse creation is supported by warehouse

building tools that are incorporated in most BI platforms

2 Target Data design

3 Mapping of Source Data

into Target Data
4 ETL code generation

5 Creation of Data Warehouse

1 Source Data Base
Identification

6 Data extraction

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Level 3: design steps (a detail)

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 Level 3: data mart

Report/ Mining &

DSS
dashboard other

DATA MART

DATA WAREHOUSE

LOADING
TRANSFORMATION DATA ENTRY
EXTRACTION Data mart store frequently accessed
information

From a same warehouse multiple data

TRANSACTIONS DATABASES marts can be created

Data marts are typically implemented by

hypercube (OLAP technology)

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 Level 3: Data Mart

Customer History

Sales Analysis
Accounting
Marketing

From a same
warehouse multiple
Shop
data marts can be
Data Warehouse created

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 Level 3: Hyper-cube display

Pages
Columns

Facts

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 Level 3: Hyper-cube logic

Fact
An hypercube is a matrix of tables
Sales Shop
A Fact (e.g. Sales) is identified in a
multidimensional space whose axes
are Analysis Dimensions (e.g. Shop,
Time, Item)

Item An hypercube enables to instantly

retrieve complex information e.g. :
Sales in last Year (aggregation of
Time)
by Region (=aggregation of Shops)
by Category (= aggregation of
Product)
Time Event

Quantity = 20
Dimension Amount= 100

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 Level 3: Hyper-cube logic

Shops
MB21000 MB31000 MB41000
Shop Item Month BUDGET

Item
MB21000 0601 Jan 50
0601 0602
MB21000 0601 Feb 55
MB21000 0602 Jan 50
MB21000 0602 Feb 60 Date
MB31000 0601 Jan 65 Jan Feb Mar Apr
MB31000 0601 Feb 45
MB31000 0602 Jan 55
MB31000 0602 Feb 50
MB41000 0601 Jan 60 ITEM
MB41000 0601 Feb 70
MB41000 0602 Jan 65
MB41000 0602 Feb 75

SHOP

OLAP dimensions = warehouse key

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 Level 3: Hyper-cube logic

Dimension Hierarchy
Dimensions are arranged in
Product Type Category
aggregation hierarchies
Svelto (roll-up)
. Washing
powder
Ajax
House Levels of hierarchies are
Dash
called dimensional
Cleaning
Soap
Palmolive
attributes

Dairy A multidimensional analysis

Bread & Food
All Products is performed by navigating
Biscuit trough aggregation levels of
Drinks dimensions

Tools
Hardware
Nuts &
bolts

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 Level 3: Hyper-cube implementation

FACT A wise approach to

TIME
implement
ITEM
Tempo (ch)
Tempo attributi (da def.)
Date
Prodotto (ch)
multidimensional
Prodotto attributi (da def.)
Item information is to have
Shop
an hyper-cube for each
Sales-amount Shop
PuntoVendita (ch)
measure
Sales-qty PuntoVendita attributi (da def.)

Receipt-number
This easies arithmetic
operations and keeps
hyper-cubes light
Shop

Shop
Shop

Item
Item
Item

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 Level 4: presentation

It processes information for

Report/ Mining &
management from various
perspectives
DSS
dashboard other

Define / assess decisions and

program (DSS)
DATA MART
Present information with a
DATA WAREHOUSE friendly navigation that enables
roll up and drill down (EIS &
LOADING dashboard)
TRANSFORMATION DATA ENTRY
EXTRACTION Produce structured reports
(reporting)
Identify trends an pattern in
TRANSACTIONS DATABASES stored information (mining and
profiling)

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 Level 4: reporting

Information distribution and privileges handling

Format editing

Semantic Layer

Data Marts Data Bases

Data warehouse

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Level 4: reporting semantic layer

Purpose: to map data from

heterogeneous sources

Generally semantic layer

includes a set of types e.g.:
Dimensions (= warehouse
keys)
Dimensions attributes ( =
key attributes)
Measures and Facts

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Level 4: reporting format editing

Includes editing functions by

which report pages are
defined.

He content of the report is

obtained by dragging an
dropping information item
from the catalogue of the
semantic layer

Further activities manage the

layout of pages

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Level 4: reporting information distribution

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Level 4: decision supporting system

A DSS is a computer based application

designed to support semi-structured
management decisions by
Searching and analyzing
information on a collection of
sources
Compute and assess results (e.g.
sensitivity analysis)

Typical application fields are:

Planning
Budgeting
Optimization
Funding and Investment Decisions

ERP / CRM vendors offer DSS suites for

corporate planning as Oracles EPM
and SAPs BO

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 Level 4: DSS budgeting example

The control system produces

monthly a financial report and
a report with physical
performance indicators (KPI)

Financial report and KPI report Ricavi a budget

are on 5 dimensions:
1. Time
Ricavi Processi Conto economico
2. Cost centers di calcolo
3. Item
4. Sales channel Sistema di vendita
5. Activity
Stato patrimoniale
Ricavi
Sales data come from the Dati Processi
Sales systems and are stored finanziari di calcolo
in a data mart; the same
Cashflow
approach is also for sales
budget, actual costs and Sistema amministrativo
budget costs
Processi
Voci economiche e patrimoniali
Data marts are merged in two KPI di calcolo KPI
Spese e costi a budget
hyper-cubes, respectively KPI
and Financial.

Over hyper-cubes a software Processi

processes reports on P&L, Costi di calcolo
A&L, Cashflow, KPI

Memorizzazione e calcolo Elaborazione report

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 Level 4: Analytics Engines

Data mining applications for research and marketing are designed for
Discover in a data base relations and associations previously
unknown (data mining helps end user extract useful business
information from large databases (Berson 1997)).
Mining software is a key in marketing to calculate predictive
indicators as
Churning,
Fraud risk,
Saving attitude,
Economic potential etc.

Customer Profiling systems (Analytic CRM)

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BI solutions offered by main vendors

BI is 5-10% of the ES market

Main vendors offer BI products &

applications
SAS: founder of BI and the largest
BI independent vendor, offers a
wide range of applications by
industry and business area, and
specific solutions
Microstrategy
Open source platforms: e.g.
Pentaho

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 Business Intelligence Platforms: SAS

By industry Featured solutions

Education SAS 9.3
Financial Services
SAS Clinical Data Integration
Government
.. SAS Curriculum Pathways
SAS Enterprise Guide
By solution SAS Enterprise Miner
Analytics SAS Fraud Framework for Government
Business Analytics
SAS High-Performance Analytics
Business Intelligence
Customer Intelligence SAS Inventory Optimization
Data Management SAS OnDemand for Academics
Fraud & Financial Crimes SAS Social Media Analytics
High-Performance Analytics SAS Text Analytics
IT & CIO Enablement
SAS Visual Data Discovery
On Demand Solutions
Performance Management
Risk Management
SAS 9.3
Supply Chain Intelligence
Sustainability Management
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 Data Warehouse, Data Mart and Database

Data base Data Warehouse Data Mart

Conceptual modeling ERA DFM DFM

(Rich Semantic Layer)
Information type Master + Event Analysis Analysis
(Master, Event, Analysis)

Information organization Normalized (e.g. 3NF) Star or snowflake Hypercube

Data schema Relational Relational OLAP or Relational

Processing orientation Create + Update Read Read

Typical data operations Insert one individual Access a vector of records Access one ore multiple a
record or modify one or Roll-up, Drill down, Dice vector of records
multiple records Roll-up, Drill down, Dice

Transaction example Enter a customer order Segment customer in Italy Segment customer in Italy
with a degree of loyalty with a degree of loyalty
>70% by age and region >70% by age and region

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 Review questions

Illustrate the input, process and output of the four layers of BI systems

What is an Hyper-cube ?

What is a data mart?

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