Integrating Business Intelligence with the Enterprise

Peter Thanisch

Overview: Monday

Format Time DescriptionLecture 10:00 - 10:45 Overview and Introduction to

Reporting ServicesDemo 10:45 - 11:30 Reports and Report designLab 12:15 - 13:00 Practical session:

Creating a Basic ReportLab 13:00 - 13:45 Practical session: Adding

grouping, sorting and formattingLab 14:30 - 15:15 Exercise on Reporting ServicesLecture 15:15 - 16:00 Observations about design for

Reporting

Overview: Tuesday

Format Time DescriptionLecture 10:00 - 10:45 Introduction to OLAP and

Analysis ServicesDemo 10:45 - 11:30 Dimensional modellingLab 12:15 - 13:00 Practical session: Defining a

data source and defining and deploying a cube

Lab 13:00 - 13:45 Practical session: Modifying measures, attributes and hierarchies

Lecture 14:30 - 15:15 Observation about design for OLAP and Reporting

Discussion 15:15 - 16:00 Wrap-up: questions and feedback

Kinds of BI (from Wikipedia)

• Scorecarding, Business Performance Measurement, Customer Relationship Management, Data mining, Decision Support Systems, Forecasting, Document Management, Enterprise Management systems, Executive Information Systems, Knowledge Management, Mapping, Information visualization, and Dashboarding, Management Information Systems, Geographic Information Systems, Online Analytical Processing, multidimensional analysis, Statistics and Technical Data Analysis, Supply Chain Management/Demand Chain Management, Trend Analysis, Reporting, Web Mining, Text mining.

• (I left a lot of them out!!)

Background to my definition of Business Intelligence

• That there are known knowns, there are things we know that we know,

• There are known unknowns, that is to say there are things that we now know, we don't know.

• But there are also unknown unknowns, there are things we do not know we don't know and each year we discover a few more of those unknown unknowns.

Donald Rumsfeld

My definition of BI

• When somebody is about to make a decision, BI is what he/she uses to find out more about known unknowns, hopefully turning them into known knowns.

• As an added bonus, sometimes (but not very often) BI can actually make the decision maker aware of what had hitherto been an unknown unknown.

My definition of BI

Decision Maker

Possesses Knowledge

Wants to make decisions

Computer

Stores data

BI comprises the facilities that allows a decision maker to use his/her knowledge to transformdata into information that can be used directly to inform the decision

BI

Report

Extracts Data

Returns Information

Introduction to Reporting Services

• Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS).

• SSRS is a set of tools and interfaces for reporting. The tool set includes:– Development tools:

• Report Designer, Model Designer, Report Builder

– Administration tools:• Report Manager

Report Server

• Report Server provides infrastructure for processing and rendering reports.

• Report server comprises:– (1) Web service: exposes a set of

programmatic interfaces that client applications can use to access report servers.

– (2) Windows service: provides initialization, scheduling and delivery services, and server maintenance.

Example used in this presentation

• AdventureWorks: – Fictional company.– Example tables, reports, OLAP cubes, etc.

distributed by Microsoft with SQL Server 2005.

• Two separate databases:– AdventureWorks (OLTP)– AdventureWorksDW

Adventure Works Cycles Business

• Adventure Works Cycles manufactures and sells metal and composite bicycles to North American, European and Asian commercial markets.

• Its base operation, in Bothell, Washington, has 290 employees.• Regional sales teams are located throughout their market base.• In 2000, Adventure Works bought Importadores Neptuno, located in

Mexico. Importadores Neptuno manufactures subcomponents for the Adventure Works Cycles product line. These subcomponents are shipped to the Bothell location for final product assembly.

• In 2001, Importadores Neptuno, became the sole manufacturer and distributor of the touring bicycle product group.

• Coming off a successful fiscal year, Adventure Works wants to broaden its market share by targeting sales to their best customers, extending their product availability through an external Web site, and reducing their cost of sales through lower production costs.

Sales and Marketing Scenario

Customers Types

• Individuals. These are consumers who buy products from the Adventure Works Cycles online store.

• Stores. These are retail or wholesale stores that buy products for resale from Adventure Works Cycles sales representatives.

AdventureWorks Tables

• The Customer table contains one record for each customer.

• The column CustomerType indicates whether the customer is an individual consumer (CustomerType = 'I') or a store (CustomerType = 'S').

• Data specific to these customer types is maintained in the Individual and Store tables, respectively

DEMO: Reporting

Example 1: Product Catalog

• Document map

• Search

Example 2: Company Sales

• matrix data region,

• drilldown

Example 3: Employee Sales Summary

• charts,

• tables,

• dynamic parameters

Example 4. Product Line Sales (Top Sales People)

• calculated fields,

• drillthrough

Example 5. Territory Sales Drilldown

• drilldown from summary data into detail data by showing/hiding rows

Example 6. Sales Reasons Comparisons

• use of an OLAP cube as a data source.

• multi-valued parameters

Example 7. Sales Order Detail

• Accessed from drilldown

Practical Session

Creating a Basic Report

Creating a Basic Report

Lesson 1: Creating a Report Server Project

Lesson 2: Creating a Report

Lesson 3:

Setting Up Connection Information

Lesson 4: Defining a Query for the Report

Lesson 5: Adding a Table Data Region

Lesson 6: Previewing the Basic Report

Employee (HumanResources)EmployeeID

NationalIDNumber

ContactID

LoginID

ManagerID

Title

BirthDate

MaritalStatus

Gender

HireDate

SalariedFlag

Contact (Person)ContactID

NameStyle

Title

FirstName

MiddleName

LastName

Suffix

EmailAddress

EmailPromotion

Phone

PasswordHash

PasswordSalt

AdditionalCont...

SalesOrderHeader (Sales)SalesOrderID

RevisionNumber

OrderDate

DueDate

ShipDate

Status

OnlineOrderFlag

SalesOrderNumber

PurchaseOrderNu...

AccountNumber

CustomerID

ContactID

SalesPersonID

Practical Session

Adding grouping, sorting and formatting

Adding Grouping, Sorting, and Formatting to a Basic Report

Lesson 1: Opening the Tutorial Project

Lesson 2: Adding a Group

Lesson 3: Adding a New Column

Lesson 4: Sorting the Detail Data

Lesson 5: Adding a Subtotal

Lesson 6: Applying Formatting and Style

Lesson 7: Previewing the Updated Report

Exercise On Reporting Services

• In tutorial 1, you cut-and-paste the SQL that retrieves the data from the database.

• There is also a graphical query builder available in Report Designer

• Use the graphical query builder to construct a similar query.

• Make notes on any problems that you encounter

Observations about Design for Reporting

So what is a “Report”?

• A report is made up of three components:– Data: specifies how to extract information from backend data

sources and information on the structure of that data.– Layout: how the information is to be presented.– Properties: parameters, interactions, etc.

• Typically, the report is re-used at intervals.– It picks up the current data from the data sources.

• The report definition may be stored in XML.• An XML report template can be used to define a family of

related reports.• So far, interaction is very limited.

Requirements for Reporting

• Reporting is needed at various levels:– Strategic. The executive’s view. – Tactical. E.g. information to support a marketing

campaign.– Operational. E.g. investigation of a suspected fraud.

• Spectrum of requirements– Ad hoc: sudden (and transient) need for particular

information– Permanent: there is a long term requirement for the

same information, e.g. for regulatory purposes.

The reporting cycle

• A business user needs to make a decision, but there are known-unknowns

• Business user asks the analyst to produce a report.

• Business user runs the report.• On examining the output, there are additional

known-unknowns, preventing the decision.• The business user asks the analyst to change

the report. (Iteration)

What makes Reporting Difficult? (1)

• In other design areas, the designer has more control.– E.g. in entity-relationship modelling, the data

modeller chooses the entities and models the relationship.

– In reporting, the report designer has to work with an existing information system that was not designed for his/her requirements

SQL for Product Line SalesSELECT TOP 5 C.LastName, C.FirstName, E.EmployeeID, SUM(SOH.SubTotal)

AS SaleAmountFROM Sales.SalesPerson SP INNER JOIN HumanResources.Employee E ON SP.SalesPersonID = E.EmployeeID INNER JOIN Person.Contact C ON E.ContactID = C.ContactID INNER JOIN Sales.SalesOrderHeader SOH ON SP.SalesPersonID = SOH.SalesPersonID INNER

JOIN Sales.SalesOrderDetail SOD ON SOH.SalesOrderID = SOD.SalesOrderID INNER

JOIN Production.Product P ON SOD.ProductID = P.ProductID INNER JOIN Production.ProductSubcategory PS

ON P.ProductSubcategoryID = PS.ProductSubcategoryID INNER JOIN Production.ProductCategory PC ON PS.ProductCategoryID = PC.ProductCategoryIDWHERE (PC.ProductCategoryID = @ProductCategory) AND (PS.ProductSubcategoryID

IN (@ProductSubcategory)) AND (SOH.OrderDate > @StartDate) AND (SOH.OrderDate < @EndDate)GROUP BY C.LastName, C.FirstName, E.EmployeeID, PC.ProductCategoryID,

PS.ProductSubcategoryIDORDER BY SUM(SOH.SubTotal) DESC

What makes Reporting Difficult? (2)

• Donald Rumsfeld’s view of the world is VERY over-simplified.

• It is not just a question of turning known unknowns into knowns, etc.

• After the first report is given to the users, they realise that they were looking at the problem in the wrong way.