Articles About Business Intelligence Functions

Below you may find useful resources about the BI functions found in InetSoft's software:

Data Grid Cache Map-Reduce for Business Intelligence - A transcript of InetSoft's Webinar for the Style Intelligence 10.2 release. Discusses the addition of high performance materialized views that allow for fast interactive analysis. Traditionally, our software has always defaulted to accessing your operational data sources directly. We really espoused the idea of traditional BI, where you’re required to build a data warehouse. The only problem with that, and it only comes up some of the time, is that operational data sources tend to be attuned more for data entry and writing. For instance, a CRM system where information is added into the system. So they’re not performance oriented as much for reporting or the reading of that data especially for analysis - interactive analysis and visualization of that data...

 

Data Illustration Software - The main benefit of data illustration is discovering correlations. With filters, the user is able to manipulate the data to only show certain ranges of information. For example, if we are talking in terms of sales of toys for a specific business, the user could use a slider to change the visualization to only show data exclusively for toys between $100 and $500...

Data Integration Software - An explanation of how InetSoft's data integration software can be used to access multiple data sources including an example of accessing a custom object via the Java API. The information access needs of each business differ greatly. From the data sources used, to the dashboard or report design requirements, to the security needed; every company has their own unique set of requirements that must be fulfilled. One important topic that is often forgotten is that of data source integration. If data cannot be retrieved, it cannot be used to produce reports. Style Intelligence provides interfaces for multiple data source types and a flexible Java API that can interface with any custom data source. This article discusses how Style Intelligence interfaces with various data sources and how it can solve data integration problems that are left untouched by other dashboard or reporting tools...

Data Management Implementation - Do you know where to start when trying to implement data management for your organization? We discuss the topic of Data Management Implementation...

Data Management Implementation Strategies - What are some good strategies to take when implementing data management? It's good to know the advantages and disadvantages of some strategies...

Data Management Technology - Data management technology refers to methods used by business to organize, secure, store, and retrieve information. Every company, no matter how large or small it may be, creates an infinite amount of data through its every day activities. Data management technology, typically in the form of software, is used to draw meaningful conclusions and formulate actionable goals...

Data Management Tools for Better Solutions -Style Intelligence's data management tools can work with virtually any data source or operational database, so producing an analysis report or generating an interactive dashboard will present reliable and accurate information that reflects all accumulated knowledge...

Data Mashup Benefits - A list of the business benefits from providing self-service data mashup capabilities in your BI platform, including the ability for end users to import their own data into the BI environment to be re-used and shared...

Data Mashup Information - Data Mashup, at its basic definition, means combining disparate data sources that were not previously architected to be used together. In a data warehouse environment with rigid ETL process, data mashup yields other benefits...

Data Mashup Comparison - An interview with the Data Warehousing Institute - an interview with InetSoft's product manager about data mashup and its comparison to other business intelligence processes such as data federation. The term 'mashup' really gained popularity recently where people were combining two different things – either pieces of music or video or other content that weren't initially purposed or designed to be combined together. The example that I always cite: it's a nice album put together by Dangermouse, called the Grey Album. He has actually combined the music of the Beatles and "The White Album" with the rapping lyrics of Jay-Z and his "The Black Album...

Data Mashup Interview - An interview with Business Intelligence Network - an interview with InetSoft's CEO about the meanings and origins of mashup and its specific application in business intelligence solutions. For the past year or so we have been focused on our data mashup technology. This technology has been out there actually longer than a year. We have been doing this for the past three years. We have begun to see a lot more interest recently. Technology-wise we have evolved a lot. That allows our customers to really push out the usage of the technology to a wide range of areas. That has become the cornerstone of our full stack of BI solutions. That is what we call Data Block™, our technology for data mashup. That now serves as the layer that supports both our visualization, which is more analytic, or executive front-end, as well as publishing, which helps our customers to produce reports and do the more traditional BI types of content generation...

Data Processing Software InetSoft has a suite of data processing and data visualization software headlined by their flagship application, Style Intelligence. This premium BI software can report or visualize data from any set. The processing part of the software runs in the background of the program while the user tools around. Interviews with OEM’s CFO’s and CEO’s suggest that some of the key advantages of purchasing InetSoft’s premium software suite, Style Intelligence, are the application’s ability to solve data management challenges, as well as its IT-friendliness...

Database Access Software - An explanation of Style Intelligence's architecture and ability to access multiple, disparate databases, any via a JDBC connector as well as OLAP cubes, flat files, Web services and other databases. Database access software is a core component of InetSoft's business intelligence software platform. The software can access multiple, disparate databases, any via a JDBC connector as well as OLAP cubes, flat files, Web services and other databases. Speedy Data Access is enabled by InetSoft's patent-pending Data Block technology across a variety of data sources including relational databases, multi-dimensional databases, Web services, flat files and more. Data Modeler and Asset Composer are the technical tools for atomic data block creation...

Definition of Enterprise Intelligence - So let's, first of all, give the definition of enterprise intelligence and some related concepts. You may have seen many of these concepts before, as they have been around for many years. Corporate performance management, business intelligence and customer relationship management are all familiar terms to all of us. CPM and BI take raw data and turn it into actionable corporate information. They create the ability to measure past performance. They deliver knowledge to the right people when and where it is needed, and keep in mind that timeliness is an issue. The issue is that not everybody needs all information, they need just the right information for themselves. Customer relationship management has come roaring back over the past several years, and terms such as engagement, customer experience, satisfaction levels and how to build loyalty have become very important. These lead to cross-sell opportunities and increased wallet share opportunities which also enables improving service and achieves organic growth...

Definition of Hotel Business Intelligence - Hotel business intelligence is the discovery of actional insights hotel management can achieve from monitoring and analyzing KPIs such as: spend per head labor cost as % of sales occupancy rate average daily rate average room rate RevPar - revenue per available room CPOR - cost per available room cancellation rate % of rooms under maintenance average cleaning cost per room % of agent bookings kilowatt-hours (kwh) per room % of beds occupied. Looking for a good hotel business intelligence tool? InetSoft's pioneering dashboard reporting application produces visually appealing web-based dashboards with an easy-to-use drag-and-drop designer. Maximize self-service for all types of users. View a demo and try interactive examples...

Delivering Business Intelligence to Users - Business applications can interface with end users either through a graphical user interface (GUI), a thin client (usually a web browser) or an exported report (PDF, RTF, Excel, etc). Developers can use the JFC libraries, Swing, or a large number of commercial GUI component libraries to build sophisticated, platform-independent, internationalized GUIs...

Department of State BI Example - The State Department is tasked with carrying out the foreign policy of the United States as laid out by President and Congress. This requires the department to have a deep knowledge of policy and politics around the world, from foreign conflicts to matters of migration, terrorism, political unrest, natural disasters, drugs, climate, etc., and to track and analyze data from dozens of regions on an ongoing basis. Business intelligence can help in making sense of the vast quantities of data collected by the State Department. For example, the Humanitarian Information Unit (HIU) produces reports on crisis situations around the word, such as the drought situation in Africa (https://hiu.state.gov/#AF,U2609). The graphic illustrates typical map-based business intelligence output, using color to code dimensions and measures, and inset charts and graphics (including donut charts) to highlight areas of particular interest to the reader.

Deriving Intelligence From Social Media - That’s a really interesting technology that is deriving intelligence from social media. On the one hand, I think it's needed for more adoption of location based apps. But on the other hand, I think of the generations that grew up on social media sharing things who might have no problem sharing this information. That’s in contrast to me who would never think to share what people are sharing now. Maybe sharing your location is no problem for the younger generation. I don’t know. It's a huge cultural demographic shift, and it's something that gives you pause to think about. I think that the younger generation is not going to be so concerned. There are some people I have talked to who say, “Well, they will be concerned when something happens, that forces the issue.” For instance, like when the Pinto exploded in the 70s, it forces to get a lot more concerned about automobile safety, right. And that may or may not happen with personal data sharing. Think of recommendation engines, even back in the day when Amazon was first there, it was little bit alarming that they are making a recommendation based upon something you bought before. And now many people really enjoy that service...

Difference Between Business Intelligence and Performance Management - Business intelligence is a great thing, very simply stated, it means letting business people access and analyze structured content typically stored in corporate databases or data warehouses. Performance management takes it to the next level and actually gives a context for business intelligence. Alternatively, developers can use Web programming with JSP's and/or servlets to develop 'thin client' applications. Style Intelligence facilitates business report application development for all of these methodologies...

Difference Between Production Reporting and Business Intelligence Systems - I find a lot of enterprises struggle with operational reporting and the difference between production reporting and business intelligence systems. You know classic financial production reports are those that run against a single operational system or what we call ERP system. Typically they’re not capturing a lot of historical data. They’re just looking for information about current activity in those reports. A lot of those reports are inflexible and costly to change because either they came with the ERP package if it was a reporting package the company had purchased to run that ERP system, or it was built by an IT department running directly against the operational system and the schema for those systems is very complex so to build a report against them takes a lot of time and expertise so it’s obviously costly to change. So displaying current data, being costly to change, being fairly inflexible, these are the attributes of operational reporting and are the result of running reporting against one system and not having an integrated view of the business or multiple processes put together...

Dive into Business Intelligence Reporting and Analysis - So now we’re going to dive into business intelligence reporting and analysis, monitoring and prediction. Back in the 70s and 80s, all BI was low business value and fairly low complexity, but over time we’ve added other capabilities, so now that business intelligence can provide significant business value. We can put monitoring analysis and reporting into a single solution, and we call it performance dashboarding. This is not just a flat display of what’s performing well and what’s not. It’s a multi layered delivery system that really is the new face of BI. An offshoot of a performance dashboard is predictive analytics. These are the more advanced analytical models and visualization techniques that provide exceptional value. Another area is the planning system. You use the results of your analysis either through your dashboard or your analytical tools to create your plan, your budgets, your models, and your forecasts. In those plans you’re going to set goals, targets and thresholds and those get pushed into your monitoring layer of your dashboard which allows you to monitor your progress towards achieving strategic objectives, executing strategies. This is called scorecard reporting...

DIY Your BI - Are you trying to decide between hiring a BI consultant, building your own dashboards, or even creating a homegrown BI solution? Creating a BI program from scratch can be difficult, expensive, and time consuming, but can also be tailored to your needs in a way that a commercial solution may not be. On the other end, consultants can be very expensive, and often have a hard time understanding your organizations data and what it means. The middle of the road solution is to use a BI program that makes it simple enough to construct desired dashboards and reports, while at the same time providing the flexibility that a homegrown solution would offer. InetSoft’s Style Intelligence is that solution. InetSoft offers accessible BI tools for dashboards, analysis, and reporting. These tools are simple and easy to use for all skill levels, from standard business users to tech-savvy IT professionals. Compared to traditional BI solutions that are generally complex and difficult to administer, InetSoft guarantees ease of use for everyone while still providing a powerful flexible solutions for all of your company's informational and analytic needs...

Do You Find Self-hosted BI Is Cost Prohibitive? - Do You Find Self-hosted BI Is Cost Prohibitive? Bring BI software to your data to deliver real-time data and high performance InetSoft allows you to choose hosting without a huge cost penalty over vendor hosting Explore the live dashboad & report gallery to see what you can provide your end users. "For end-users of our application, such as clinicians and hospital administrators, who are not business intelligence experts, interacting with, and even designing new report templates had to be intuitive and user-friendly, and InetSoft has accomplished that hands down." - President of TNC ...

Do you need to have KPIs on a company’s dashboard usage? - Most BI software provide those types of metrics, how many people log in each day, time spent, dashboards or reports created, et cetera. And it is a useful tool for finding your power users and your laggards. You can now even ask you power users to mentor the laggards. Still the process-change approach is necessary to ensure adoption. That means making the tool the required common language at weekly departmental and monthly business review meetings. That way everybody becomes aware that they are responsible for certain of the measures. Their name is right next to them, and they have to make things happen to ensure their results match the expectations for those key metrics...

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