Sales Analytics Blueprint for Retail (SABR)

Transcription

1 Sales Analytics Blueprint for Retail (SABR) [Solution Deployment Guide] This Solution Deployment Guide describes how to install and use the default SABR model and visualization project in the SABR Evaluation Kit. This guide also describes how to work with your dashboards Datawatch Corporation. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are properties of their respective owners.

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3 SABR Deployment Guide Table of Contents [Overview]... 1 Visual Data Discovery... 1 The SABR Advantage... 1 SABR Requirements and Files... 2 Requirements... 2 Datawatch Desktop Modeler... 2 Datawatch Desktop Designer... 2 Files... 3 Dashboard Definition... 3 Report Definition (Desktop Modeler project + Model)... 4 A Note About Input Files... 5 Desktop Modeler input files... 5 Desktop Designer Input files... 6 Deployment Steps Unzip the files to the required folder View the Dashboards View the reports and summaries Optional: Load your own POS Transaction logs Viewing Reports and Summaries... 9 Viewing Dashboards Viewing the Dashboard on the Web... 16

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5 SABR Deployment Guide [Overview] Monitoring and auditing millions of dollars worth of transactions annually is a considerable challenge for any retailer with a POS machine. Ensuring that the information obtained from mining processes is always correct for proper analytics and visualization adds another layer of complexity to the business intelligence process. Manual extraction of data from POS transaction logs and arrangement into a tabular output is a time-consuming endeavor that most retailers have no extra resources for. The sources of errors are numerous: even minor inaccuracies in pricing, discounts, and vendor, store, and item codes could considerably alter the resulting analytics. The lack of a complete picture of the sales performance of a retail business has far-reaching financial effects. Inventories cannot be properly established, accountants cannot ascertain profitability, and business owners cannot project realistic expansion goals. Without insights gained from client interactions, retail operations cannot focus on activities that promote items that sell well and eliminate those that do not. Visual Data Discovery The Sales Analytics Blueprint for Retail (SABR), powered by Datawatch s Visual Data Discovery solution, is a sales auditing system that can readily extract POS reports and produce tabular and summary views that may be easily read and analyzed by various personnel involved in the sales process. The SABR Advantage SABR greatly simplifies: Extraction of data from POS transaction logs and presentation in tabular or summarized views Physical audit of sales for effective inventory, supply chain, finance, customer, and store management Periodic audit of KPIs to determine and ensure achievement of sales targets Report generation/visualization every audit cycle Automation of repetitive and time consuming tasks to reduce operations costs and improve productivity Visualization of data to uncover previously undiscovered trends and consumer behaviors 1 P age

6 SABR Requirements and Files Requirements DATAWATCH DESKTOP MODELER The SABR reports and summaries require Desktop Modeler. If you do not have Desktop Modeler installed, you can download a trial version here: Desktop Modeler is available as a 32-bit or 64-bit application. The Desktop Modeler 32-bit edition will run on 64-bit Windows operating systems. However, you must install the correct Desktop Modeler version depending on your MS Office version: Install Desktop Modeler 64-bit If you are using 64-bit MS Office 2010 Install Desktop Modeler 32-bit If you are using MS Office 2007 or earlier If you are using 32-bit MS Office 2010 DATAWATCH DESKTOP DESIGNER The SABR Evaluation Kit comes with pre-defined Desktop Designer dashboards. If you wish to use Desktop Designer for visual data analysis but do not have Desktop Designer installed, you can download a trial version here: The dashboards that come with the evaluation kit use the proprietary Datawatch Desktop data source format (DWX) that requires the Microsoft Office OLEDB provider for Office This provider is distributed as a package called Microsoft Access Database Engine 2010 Redistributable. If you do not have this installed on your system, you can download it from the Microsoft site: Note: If you have Microsoft Office installed, you will have to comply with the 32-bit/64-bit version of your Office installation for the Microsoft Office OLEDB provider. If you are running Microsoft Office 32-bit version on your system, you cannot install the 64- bit version of the Microsoft Office OLEDB provider. In turn, this will make you unable to evaluate any solution using the Datawatch Desktop data source format (DWX) with the 64-bit version of Desktop Designer. 2 P age

7 SABR Deployment Guide As with Desktop Modeler, you must install the Desktop Designer version depending on your MS Office and Microsoft Office OLEDB provider version: Install Desktop Designer 64-bit If you are using 64-bit MS Office 2010 Install Desktop Designer 32-bit If you are using MS Office 2007 or earlier Files After unzipping the SABR Evaluation Kit, your drive should have the following folders and files: FOLDER c:\sabr\ c:\sabr\inputs c:\sabr\lookups c:\sabr\data c:\sabr\help DESCRIPTION Contains: The SABR Launcher (SABR.hta). This is a special interface that will allow you to access the elements of the Evaluation Kit. the Desktop Designer dashboard definition (SABR.exw) table and report definition (model and project file: SABR.dmod/dprj) Contains sample input files. You will need to move the actual files to this folder. Contains sample lookup files. In this case, this is a lookup for Category, Brand, Unit Cost, Item Description, Store Name, and User Name. Contains Desktop Modeler exports: Summaries (Excel format) SABR_Transactions.dwx (Datawatch Desktop data source). This database is an output of the Desktop Modeler that is used as the input to Desktop Designer. Contains the help files. DASHBOARD DEFINITION FILE SABR.exw DESCRIPTION Dashboard definition file. Q1 on Q1 Months Stores Categories Store Month Category Month Discounts 1 Discounts 2 Discount details Basket Analysis Basket details Fraud Margins 3 P age

8 Sample SABR Dashboard (Stores): REPORT DEFINITION (DESKTOP MODELER PROJECT + MODEL) FILE SABR.dmod/dprj DESCRIPTION Model and project for a standard SABR file. This model extracts relevant fields only from your POS logs. The SABR Evaluation Kit includes a standard model that extracts data from a sample POS transaction log. This model is ready to use straight out-of-the-box. You can work with full tables as well as pre-defined reports and summaries. For instance, the following summaries are available: Daily Store Sales Report Daily Brand Sales Report Monthly Category Sales Report Invoice Format (a friendlier, easy to read format of POS log) You can export the data to Excel or Access for use in Desktop Designer, or for further visual analysis. 4 P age

9 SABR Deployment Guide A Note About Input Files DESKTOP MODELER INPUT FILES Note that the SABR implementation currently assumes that all input files for Desktop Modeler processing will be placed in the folder: c:\sabr\inputs\ These input files are transformed into tables, and further enriched by: addition of calculated fields joining with one or more external tables to get additional informational fields In the sample, a lookup file ItemMaster.xlsx is used to translate cryptic codes such as User ID, Item Code and Shop Numbers into more descriptive fields such as User Name, Item Description, and Store Name respectively. Note that the lookup file contains worksheets for lookups for the following: ItemList Stores Users Sample lookup file for ItemList: ITEM NO is matched with ItemCode in the original report. This allows the final table to contain Item Category, Brand, Unit Cost, and Description. Note that the implementation does not include any tool or capability to move POS logs to the input folder on your desktop. If you wish to use your own transaction logs, you must manually copy your own files to this folder. 5 P age

10 Desktop Designer Input files The Desktop Designer in the evaluation kit uses a Desktop Data Source (DWX) as its input. The Desktop Data Source is an export output from Desktop Modeler. This input is located in: c:\sabr\data\sabr_transactions.dwx The tables and summaries in Desktop Modeler are exported to a Desktop Data Source and then visualized using Desktop Designer, in the following dashboards: Q1 on Q1 Months Stores Categories Store Month Category Month Discounts 1 Discounts 2 Discount details Basket Analysis Basket details Fraud Margins IMPORTANT NOTE: The output SABR_Transactions.dwx contains columns that have been added to optimize the Desktop Designer Dashboard. If you wish to use your own data source, you need to use the same table structure as SABR_Transactions.dwx. 6 P age

11 SABR Deployment Guide Deployment Steps 1. Unzip the files to the required folder. Unzip the file SABR.zip to your machine s c:\ drive. This should create a folder c:\sabr, with the folder structure and files as listed in the Files section, above. 2. Run the Launcher. Double-click on the file c:\sabr\sabr.hta to run the Launcher. If you have not yet downloaded the Desktop Designer and Modeler, you can do so by selecting the download links on the launcher (#1 and 2 on the Evaluate Column). 3. View the Dashboards. You can start your visual data analysis by selecting Evaluate on Desktop: Visual Data Discovery (#3 on the Evaluate Column) to run the Dashboards. Refer to the section Viewing Dashboards for more details. Note: You can also open the dashboards by double-clicking on: c:\sabr\sabr.exw. 7 P age

12 4. View the reports and summaries. You can start your data analysis by selecting Evaluate on Desktop: Data Integration (#3 on the Evaluate Column) to use the Desktop Modeler. Refer to the section Viewing Reports and Summaries for more details. Note: You can also run Desktop Modeler by double-clicking on: c:\sabr\sabr.dprj 5. Optional: Load your own POS Transaction logs. Carry out this step if you have your own POS Transaction logs that have the same format as those used by the models in the evaluation kit. If your transactions logs have a different format, you will need to adjust the models to extract the correct data. 8 P age

13 SABR Deployment Guide Viewing Reports and Summaries The following steps assume that you have Desktop Modeler: Steps 1. To view the Desktop Modeler reports and summaries, locate and double-click on the following file: c:\sabr\sabr.dprj Desktop Modeler displays the default report in: c:\sabr\inputs in an interface that looks like this: The sample input file POS_<terminal>_<date>.txt contains numeric and coded text data, including transaction codes, POS terminal information (terminal codes, store codes, cashier codes), transaction information (transaction number, date, time, total amount, discount), line item information (item number, quantity, unit price), payment information (payment type, amount), etc. These text files contain an overwhelming amount of detail, delimited by pipes and carriage returns. 9 P age

14 This example is a fragment from a POS variable record transaction log, including a complete snippet for: opening of POS (code 1) for terminal [data in pink] one invoice (code 101) with receipt 1755 [data in gray] all its component detail lines (code 111) with Product SKUs , , and [data in yellow] total line (code 121) [data in red] payment lines (code 131) [data in green] 2. If you have a comparable input file, you can use this instead. Select File > Open > Report to load your own input file. Check Retain Current Model when the Retention Options dialog box displays: 10 P age

15 SABR Deployment Guide 3. Select Table View to display data as a table: 4. You can carry out your own analysis at this point. You can go Table Design to: Define computed fields Sort the data Filter unwanted values Combine with data from other sources 5. Select Summary View to display data as summaries. The Evaluation Kit provides the following summaries out of the box: Daily Store Sales Report Daily Brand Sales Report Monthly Category Sales Report Invoice Format (a friendlier, easy to read format of POS log) 11 P age

16 You can select a Summary using the summaries selector at the left: You can also create your own Summaries using Summary Design. 6. To export Summaries go to Export View: 12 P age

17 SABR Deployment Guide Notes: As discussed earlier, the exported file SABR_Transactions.dwx is used as the data source for the Desktop Designer Dashboard. You can edit the export definitions if you wish to export the data to other formats. 13 P age

18 Viewing Dashboards The following steps assume that you have installed Desktop Designer. Steps 1. To view the Desktop Designer Dashboards, locate and double-click on the following file: c:\sabr\sabr.exw The Desktop Designer initially displays showing the Quarters dashboard: Desktop Dashboards allow you to go beyond your reports and optimize your data discovery process. You can ask questions of the data and see results visually, instantly. You can then refine your questions or ask them in different ways in just seconds. You can: Drill-down to obtain more detail about an outlier Drill-up to get an overview that may reveal a trend that was previously hidden Use interactive filters to remove irrelevant data and noise from analyses, making underlying patterns easier to see. 2. To maximize the Dashboards, view them in Presentation mode. Do the following: Press F5, or Select View > Presentation Mode. 3. Click on the appropriate tab to go to the following Dashboards: 14 P age

19 SABR Deployment Guide Q1 on Q1 Months Stores Categories Store Month Category Month Discounts 1 Discounts 2 Discount details Basket Analysis Basket details Fraud Margins 4. Interact with the charts and the data. In most cases, you can hover on a data point to display details: Select values from drop-down lists and/or check boxes to zero in on specific values: Double-click on chart items to drill-down to lower levels. 15 P age

20 Viewing the Dashboard on the Web You can also view a version of the Dashboard on the web. Go to: Username Password sabr p@ndwch3 Select the SABR workbook. You will see a dashboard that looks like this: You will have a set of Dashboards similar to the ones in the Evaluation Kit. However, note that the data might be different, especially if you loaded and exported your own POS Transaction logs. EOF 16 P age