WHITE PAPER. Seven BI and Analytics Services That Strengthen Your Oracle Infrastructure. Christian Screen

Transcription

1 WHITE PAPER Seven BI and Analytics Services That Strengthen Your Oracle Infrastructure AUTHOR: Christian Screen ABSTRACT: Beginning, expanding, or refining a BI analytics solution is a complex endeavor for any company. From building or configuring a data warehouse, to installing new software or applications, to building relevant reports and dashboards, it s often more time-consuming and costly to implement these structures using existing resources that are already tied up in a number of other important strategic initiatives. Datavail, which has recently acquired Art of BI, now stands at the head of this industry with expert BI and Analytics consulting services that can handle every aspect of Business Intelligence technology so you can move forward with confidence in both the integrity of your data and the accuracy of the insights you gain. With 24 x 7 support services for Oracle BI and Hyperion operational needs, your resources can stay focused on core efforts and reliably depend on Datavail for the day-to-day operations and sturdiness of your environments.

2 content Data Warehousing... Case Study: Professional Services Firm... Data Visualization... Case Study: National Human Resources Firm... Collaborative BI With BITeamwork... Case Study: Multi-national Airline Company... Oracle BI Applications (OBIA) Implementations... Case Study: Public Sector Organization... Advanced Reporting... Case Study: Retail Real Estate Firm... Oracle Business Intelligence System Upgrades... Case Study: Human Resources Company... Training... Case Study: Public Sector Organization... Biography... About Datavail

3 Data Warehousing Data Warehousing is a core component in an effective business intelligence environment. A typical data warehouse is a structured solution that makes consuming information easy. At its core, it s a database with information stemming from many different business or subject areas within the organization, comprised of many sources, typically ERP, CRM, and other "Systems of Record" used for reporting and data distribution. Building a data warehouse is more of an art than a science; that s where Datavail comes in. We generate an enterprise or department-wide central repository for key data and KPIs that is tailored to the needs of the business. Wherever you are in the development of your data warehouse either configuration, design, development, or lifecycle management we have the technical skill and functional familiarity to build a data warehousing solution that takes into account the point of view of the end user. Case Study: Professional Services Firm A customer running Oracle BI contacted Datavail for assistance configuring and integrating the data warehouse. Datavail s Analytics Services team sat down with the company s Business Intelligence staff to review the project goals and draft a blueprint for success. Under the guidance of Datavail s BI experts, the two teams worked together to interview department leaders, gather and document requirements, design a data warehouse dimensional model, develop an enterprise data warehouse, implement best practices, and perform regular maintenance tasks. As a result, the company s data is now centralized where it is easy to access, and queries and maintenance tasks can run more quickly. The client is now confident in their one-source-of-thetruth data repository. Data Visualization When your data reaches the high-level executives of your organization, is it presented in a way that s easy to understand and able to facilitate the discovery of critical insights? Data visualization is a method through which data can be parsed and leveraged in an easy-tounderstand and aesthetically pleasing and meaningful format. Examples of new age visualizations available include heat maps, infographics, sparklines, fever charts, and geographic maps. Datavail s analytics experts can help your organization with the entire data visualization process, including: Parsing the data into its critical components to build the visualization method Data mining and discovery to identify patterns, insights, trends, and potential usage strategy Selection of a data visualization tool that will meet your visualization goals Identifying, developing, and creating the method of visualization to suit your organization s needs Datavail s data visualization experts utilize a variety of tools to ensure your data is represented in a clear, concise, and consistent manner, thus allowing your organization to leverage it in a way that s most beneficial. Case Study: National Human Resources Firm A multinational human resources consulting firm came to Datavail for support building a high-level set of dashboard pages and reports for the business, produced in the Oracle BI portal. These reports and dashboards were key objectives of the project. Datavail stepped in with an expert OBIEE team and created drill-in reports for dashboard page reports, added the company s graphics and colors as a standard palette for graphs and charts, and provided interactivity with dashboard pages based on OBIEE dashboard prompts. They implemented Oracle BI 2c for the enhanced graphical features including HTML5 support to work seamlessly across browsers and mobile devices. They also introduced Visual Analyzer and Data Visualization Desktop tools to further the self-service aspect of data visualization within the organization. As a result, the company s executive team had access to crisp data visualizations into their Gross Margin, Revenue, Spend, Profitability, and other core KPIs, simplifying their monthly evaluation and decision-making processes. Collaborative BI With BITeamwork For years, the ability to analyze data on an Oracle BI dashboard and allow end users to provide feedback by way of commenting directly on the reported data has been unavailable. This has been resolved with Datavail s BITeamwork solution for Oracle BI. BITeamwork is the plug-in solution for Oracle customers who wish to add commenting and collaboration functionality to the Oracle BI toolset. Page Seven BI and Analytics Services That Strengthen Your Oracle Infrastructure 206 Datavail, Inc. All rights reserved.

4 Collaborative BI a means to share decision making information internally throughout an enterprise or to other privileged organization has been on the wish list of companies across the Oracle BI space. Data collaboration is a problem of the past. Now, seamlessly integrated in the Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition system, Datavail s BITeamwork technology has filled the gap with an integrated solution that gives business users and developers alike the power to gain insights. This solution allows users to accomplish and view several important collaborative activities when working within OBIEE: Dashboard comments Cell comments and annotations Screen markups Context-sensitive comments These capabilities have been proven to reduce knowledge silos in the decision making process, increase user adoption of the BI system, ignite interactivity across departments, and encourage problem-solving. Case Study: Multi-national Airline Company An enterprise airline company approached Datavail to solve communication and organizational issues they were facing within Oracle BI reporting over their Hyperion Planning data. The divisions needed to explain their year over year and period over period variances in enough detail to relay an accurate story to upper management. Prior to approaching Datavail, the airline facilitated the requirement for gathering financial justifications with a tedious process across their programs and 20 internal divisions, which involved pulling the information from Essbase, ing their comments to the Planning team who would then enter their numerical variances, copy that into their Hyperion planning cube and also into their reporting cube, and then the final spreadsheet to upper management. With Datavail s proprietary software, BITeamwork, they had a solution that integrated almost seamlessly with Hyperion, Essbase and OBIEE, which already contained most of the data on the existing reports needed for their reconciliations. Datavail s Oracle Analytics team built dashboard report templates within OBIEE after which comments could be placed right next to the financial numbers in question to give upper management a clear view into the activities of the various departments. The comments were then aggregated and prepared for export into monthly and quarterly board book (MBR/QBR) reports in a more efficient, controllable, and collaborative way. They were able to eliminate the spreadsheet templates, the mass of s back and forth between divisions, and the transfer of data across multiple platforms. Oracle BI Applications (OBIA) Implementations The Oracle BI Applications modules are based on a specific business area or vertical Finance, HR, Procurement and Spend, Supply Chain and Order Management, etc. With the capability to provide a robust extensible data warehouse and an ETL solution capable of retrieving data consistently from all major systems of record, implementing and configuring such a complex and integrated system can be a daunting task. And it s important to get it right the first time. Datavail can implement and configure your Oracle BI Applications solution using industry-standard best practices, walking you through the process every step of the way so your team has the skills and agility to maintain the infrastructure in the long-term. This includes extending the OBIA system to meet your unique business needs matching your system of record s customizations whether light or heavy. We have a history of completing services on time and on budget under a sustainable model that minimizes complexity and optimizes the delivered capabilities. Case Study: Public Sector Organization A large public sector client approached Datavail for help implementing and integrating OBIA against their PeopleSoft systems. Their key objectives included increasing the analytics functionality in support of senior management, providing more convenient and accessible web-based analytics to various staff members, and tailoring the analytics to the customized ERP system to best leverage the OBIA solution while retaining out-of-the-box compatibility with Oracle Support, upgrades, and patches. Datavail stepped up to the plate and, hand-in-hand with the client and effective change management strategies, installed and configured the Oracle BI applications software architecture. Seven BI and Analytics Services That Strengthen Your Oracle Infrastructure Page 2

5 We integrated their Active Directory Security into the OBIEE system, delivered complete Full and Incremental OBIA ETL Data Loads from the PeopleSoft source environment to the OBIA Data Warehouse, completed Financial and Procurement and Spend Analytics gap/ fit requirements, configured and extended the modules using best practices to meet the requirements, tested and validated the OBIA modules, and ultimately deployed the solution in production. The public sector client also received OBIA/OBIEE lifecycle management procedures for future development, support, maintenance, and administration of the delivered solution to ensure continued success in the future. Advanced Reporting In OBIEE, as with most reporting and dashboarding systems, a report (aka analysis request) is defined as one single query operation to the underlying data source. Most companies make extensive use of the reporting and dashboard tools in BI systems as a basic means for both high and low-level data visualization and analysis. Whether it be for budgeting, finance, performance analysis, or HR purposes, we know how to work with data retrieval through Oracle Business Intelligence to create self-service analyses and ad-hoc reports. We can create reports and dashboards with the following features: Multiple graphical views (graphs, pivot tables, charts, performance titles) Agile, modern reporting interface Convenient, intuitive, and accessible Self-service analytics, dashboard reporting, visual data exploration Advanced graphics integration with D3, etc. Long-range strategic reporting and analytics Prompts, filters, and graphs Essbase reporting and interactivity Extensible input and interactivity with Oracle APEX Case Study: Retail Real Estate Firm A S&P 500 Real Estate company came to Datavail with a challenge: A company-wide process change for budgeting meant they had to crack down on reporting issues including scattered and inconsistent report development and distribution, lack of knowledge for using the BI analysis and reporting tools, and low user adoption. With more than 50 different reports to develop in their requirements backlog, and multiple versions of the same report travelling from person to person, a more efficient and user-friendly solution was requested. Datavail stepped in to conduct an analysis of the current situation and implemented the following problemsolving activities: Created a dashboard for executives with a highlevel overview and the option to drill down to more detail Implemented best practices for reporting to ensure consistent development every time from every user Improved Income Statement report parameter flexibility Created user-defined roll-ups Created user-defined forecasted versions of comparison Streamlined the reporting process across users As a result, user adoption across the company increased, executives were able to execute timely analyses using accurate data from all sources, and the integrity, confidence, and value of reporting increased. Oracle Business Intelligence System Upgrades There are a variety of upgrades available for various Oracle applications, and one of the most common is the upgrade to Oracle s latest analytics release of the Oracle Business Intelligence 2c system. This features stronger integration of heterogeneous data sources, visualizations, and the cloud capability to create a more efficient and effective business intelligence environment. There are several reasons to make the upgrade from Oracle BI (OBIEE) g to 2c: Allows for mashups (i.e.: combining your own data from spreadsheets on the fly) to gain immediate insights against enterprise data with your own data for quick discovery and shared reporting Updated feature sets such as advanced visual discovery through the Visual Analyzer business user tool Better lifecycle management for installing and deploying OBIEE and its artifacts between environments Updated framework to the preceding version, OBIEE g Straightforward migration from OBIEE 0g, OBIEE g, or Oracle Discoverer Page 3 Seven BI and Analytics Services That Strengthen Your Oracle Infrastructure 206 Datavail, Inc. All rights reserved.

6 If you re having issues running your own upgrade or are simply ready to have professionals handle the change, Datavail s Oracle Business Intelligence (OBIEE) consultants can help your enterprise make a seamless transition to OBIEE 2c. We can take over the various configurations, installations, and remediation required to ensure your upgrade leads to increased functionality and productivity for your team. Datavail can even assist with providing specifications for architecture and upgrade readiness health-checks in preparation for your Oracle BI upgrade. We continually update our training materials to stay up to date on newest releases, process improvements and new client experience We take a hands-on training approach that gives students a real use case for applying their learning Most of our courses build on top of one another, so continuity is kept while advancing through courses Course costs are very competitive and arrangements for training location and class sizes flexible Case Study: Human Resources Company A multinational human resources consulting firm called in Datavail to execute an OBIEE upgrade in an OBIEE and Hyperion Essbase environment. The company had two environments: development and production for both Hyperion Essbase and Oracle BI. Production was set up for high availability. Along with executing the OBIEE upgrade, Datavail upgraded the SmartView plugin for Oracle Hyperion so that Hyperion SmartView could connect to the Oracle BI data sources. Several additional configurations were made to provide better alignment with the company s toolsets and to increase usability of the application. These configurations included changes to the graph default color series, the Multi-User Development Environment (MUDE), installation of the Oracle BI Client Tools, and incorporating a pilot of OBIEE Mobile BI HD. The upgrade was successful and the project was completed on time during a crucial planning period so the company could move forward with all Oracle BI application-based strategic initiatives. If you are seeking a training program for tactical or strategic learning in any of the Oracle Analytics technologies look no further than Datavail. Case Study: Public Sector Organization A large public sector organization that utilized Datavail as a consulting resource for system upgrades and report building also wanted expert in-depth training to ensure both consistent system performance from the IT team, and use of best practices across the various divisions. Datavail s BI and Analytics training team stepped in to teach a basic reports and dashboarding course as well as a custom-built training course that included videos, the Oracle User Productivity Kit, and material derived from standards requested from the company. This training enabled all OBIEE users to use reporting and dashboarding consistently and accurately, and gave the client s technical team the skills and tools they needed to be self-sufficient in managing the systems when the consulting period concluded. Training Did you know that software education and best practices increase your chances of project success by 50 percent? It s true. And since we are one of Oracle's most experienced partners for training Oracle customers on Hyperion, Business Intelligence (OBIEE), Oracle BI Analytic Applications, and Oracle Data Integrator, we have a current and comprehensive program to fit your training needs. What Makes Our Training Different? We have published authors who write and deliver our training courses Our training is delivered by actual consultants who are experts at the course material being instructed Seven BI and Analytics Services That Strengthen Your Oracle Infrastructure Page 4

7 Biography Christian Screen Vice President and Practice Director Oracle Analytics Christian is an innovator in analytics and data warehousing design, best practices, and delivery. With more than fifteen years of decision support and data warehousing with key experiences at Office Depot HQ, Sierra-Cedar, and Capgemini, he oversees the Oracle Analytics Practice which includes the technical development and delivery of Oracle BI collaboration software, data warehouse solutions, Oracle BI/EPM projects, and packaged analytics solutions at Datavail. Christian s professional accomplishments include co-founding BI consulting company Art of BI, co-authoring the first book on Oracle Business Intelligence g, Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition g: A Hands-On Tutorial, and successfully delivering numerous complex implementations of Oracle BI, Oracle BI Analytics Applications (OBIA), Hyperion Planning, and Hyperion Essbase to clients across the world. He is an Oracle ACE, an international speaker, writer, and contributor on analytics centric topics at conference such as Oracle Open World, Collaborate, KScope, and Oracle User Groups where he shares his perspectives and thoughts on industry trends, strategies, and best practices. About Datavail Datavail, which recently acquired Art of BI, is the largest provider of data and database administration (DBA) services in North America with more than 600 DBAs, analysts, developers and consultants. We offer 24 7 managed services and project consulting in database administration, BI/Analytics, data warehousing, and enterprise performance management. Datavail s expert consulting team specializes in integrations, implementations, and upgrades for applications across the Oracle stack, including Hyperion, OBIEE, OBIA, GoldenGate, Weblogic and more. Founded in 2007, Datavail is based in Broomfield, Colo. Contact Us General Inquiries: Fax Number: info@datavail.com Corporate Headquarters: Datavail Corporation 800 Ridge Parkway Suite 25 Broomfield, CO 8002 Powai Office: Datavail Infotech Pvt. Ltd A-902, Supreme Business Park, Hiranandani Gardens, Powai Mumbai Maharashtra Bangalore Office: Datavail Infotech Pvt. Ltd Concept Business Park #39/9, st floor, Block A Hosur Main Road Bommanahalli, Bangalore Page 5 Seven BI and Analytics Services That Strengthen Your Oracle Infrastructure 206 Datavail, Inc. All rights reserved.

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