Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Patiënt kan pas over 10 jaar volledig EPD inzien

17-09-2008 08:27 | Door Pim van der Beek | Er zijn nog geen reacties op dit artikel | Permalink

Patiënt kan pas over 10 jaar volledig EPD inzien

 

Het duurt nog zeker tien jaar voordat patiënten alle denkbare medische informatie digitaal kunnen inzien. Dat voorspelt Gert-Jan van Boven, directeur van Nictiz, het nationale kenniscentrum voor ict en innovatie in de zorg.

Het duurt volgens Nictiz-directeur Gert-Jan Boven nog zeker tien jaar voordat alle  medische informatie digitaal beschikbaar is voor patiënten. Dat komt omdat eerst de uitwisseling van medische gegevens tussen zorgverleners moet worden doorgevoerd. De digitalisering, koppeling en standaardisatie van de medische informatie die lokaal bij zorgverleners is opgeslagen heeft tijd nodig en wordt gefaseerd doorgevoerd.

Tijdens die klus wordt ook de inzage van patiënten in hun digitale gegevens gefaseerd doorgevoerd. Vanaf het vierde kwartaal 2009, als de uitwisseling van digitale medische gegevens tussen huisartsen en ziekenhuizen is doorgevoerd, moet via Digi-D voor patiënten inzichtelijk zijn welke zorgverlener bepaalde medische informatie beheert en wie die informatie heeft ingezien. De patiënt heeft dan nog geen inzicht in de feitelijke medische informatie. Maar het gaat puur om de logging-gegevens. Op termijn zal de patiënt ook inzicht krijgen in de feitelijke medische gegevens. Hoe dat er precies gaat uitzien is nu nog onduidelijk. Er loopt een aantal pilots waarbij patiënten inzicht hebben in hun digitale medische gegevens, bijvoorbeeld bij chronisch zieken. Aan de hand van die uitkomsten wordt bepaald hoe patiënten inzicht kunnen krijgen in hun medische gegevens.

Afhankelijk

Het Nictiz is voor de uitwisseling van patiëntgegevens tussen zorgverleners en de inzage van patiënten in die informatie ook afhankelijk van de snelheid waarmee zorgverleners hun administratie digitaliseren. Volgens Van Boven is het tempo van de digitalisering van patiëntengegevens vooral bij ziekenhuizen erg laag. Ook daardoor kan het nog jaren duren voordat alle medische informatie digitaal beschikbaar is voor patiënten.

De directeuren van vijf ziekenhuizen in Nederland hebben kritiek op de invoer van het epd. De bestuurders vinden dat de patiënt teveel buitenspel blijft bij de ontwikkeling van het epd. Zij pleiten voor invoering van een systeem waarbij de patiënt zijn eigen medische gegevens beheert zoals Google Health en Microsoft Health Vault. Van Boven vindt dat de directeuren bij dat pleidooi een belangrijke denkfout maken. Omdat eerst de gegevensuitwisseling tussen zorgverleners op orde moet zijn.

Van Boven benadrukt dat een gestructureerde uitwisseling van medische gegevens het belangrijkste doel is van het epd. Pas wanneer die uitwisseling in orde is, komt volgens hem het belang van inzage van de patiënt. Volgens de Nictiz-directeur zijn de systemen van Google en Microsoft nu nog onvoldoende in staat om medische gegevens gestructureerd aan te leveren aan de patiënt: "Als de patiënt door bergen informatie moet, kan hij er niets mee. We moeten dus ook kijken hoe de informatie wordt weergegeven. Daarvoor lopen nu al de eerste pilots en gaan wij graag met alle betrokkenen rond de tafel." Van Boven benadrukt dat zelfs wanneer alle medische informatie van een patiënt digitaal beschikbaar is, er nog belangrijke vraagstukken liggen voor de beveiliging van gegevens en beperkingen om gegevens aan te passen.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Dashboard: 3 lagen !


Monitor,
  Analyze
   Examine

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

BI Blog: Dashboard should be able to cope with multiple datasources

Enterprise Data Warehouses vs. Federated Data Stores

Creating a single enterprise data warehouse (EDW) has traditionally been the optimal solution to consolidating enterprise information. However, organizations have found that new data sources appear in the IT landscape faster than can be incorporated into the EDW. In contrast, some organizations have opted for a distributed architecture with information stored in several data marts and joined at the query level, often referred to as federated data. While both approaches have pros and cons, in either case BI software must effectively access multiple data sources to satisfy increasingly complex user requirements.

A true enterprise BI platform would be incomplete without the ability to access and query multiple information sources and present the information through a single standard interface. The user should be able to navigate across all five styles of BI—scorecards and dashboards, enterprise reports, OLAP analytics, predictive analytics, and alerting—irrespective of the data source. Then, business users can concentrate on solving business problems, rather than understanding data sources.

Dashboards must be interactive and highly visual to help users understand business performance. Dashboards that access multiple data sources typically fall into two categories. In the first case, a single dashboard can present data from many sources without joining data across those disparate sources. Overall enterprise KPIs can be monitored using this type of dashboard. In the second case, a single dashboard must join the data across heterogeneous data sources to perform the required analysis. For example, actual sales and forecast sales may be in two different systems. In this case, the BI layer must join the data across from the appropriate data sources. Of course, to perform joins between multiple data sources, common keys need to exist between heterogeneous data sources.

 

Thursday, August 28, 2008

data visualisatie widgets van Microstrategy

MicroStrategy Introduces New Data-Visualization Widgets

8/27/2008

By Stephen Swoyer

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MicroStrategy Inc. today released a bundle of new data visualization "widgets" for its Dynamic Enterprise Dashboards. The new widgets snap into MicroStrategy's dashboard environment and improve how users interact with and understand data, according to the company.

When it first debuted 18 months ago, MicroStrategy pushed Dynamic Enterprise Dashboards as a means of delivering a more interactive spin on the static dashboards. Its new data visualizations are based on Adobe's Flex technology, so everyone with a Flex 2- or 3-compliant toolkit can build widgets of their own, according to MicroStrategy. Furthermore, because MicroStrategy Dynamic Enterprise Dashboards are based on the one-stop underpinnings of the MicroStrategy BI platform, officials say, Flex-savvy users can quickly design widgets without worrying about underlying arcana such as data source connectivity. That's a point MicroStrategy officials seem particularly anxious to drive home.

"The visualizations are coming through our business intelligence platform, which we built from the ground up as a platform. We provide all of that [connectivity] in the platform, so access to relational databases, to operational systems, to multiple sources, that's all taken care of [i.e., facilitated] by the platform," says Brian Brinkmann, director of product marketing with MicroStrategy.

The widgets either deliver new functionality (as in the case of MicroStrategy's Funnel or Waterfall tools) or improve on existing capabilities, as with the new Bubble Grid widget, which Brinkmann describes as a user-requested refinement of MicroStrategy's existing "Bubble Graph" technology.

The new deliverables bring MicroStrategy's library of widgets up to 20 -- although individual users have developed dozens more than that, officials say.

In every case, MicroStrategy's widgets aim to make data more comprehensible. For example, the Bubble Graph widget lets a user view time-series data as an animation or movie so that the user can quickly see how a value changes over time. That was good enough for many users, Brinkmann says, but some clamored for more. Enter Bubble Grid, a new widget that eschews moviemaking in favor of conventional plotting -- again, represented over time (and using different colors and sizes) -- in the context of a grid.

In both cases, Brinkmann says, data-visualization technology lets a user take an enormous amount of data and condense it into an intelligible histogram, which -- in its density and brevity -- can reveal patterns or trends inside the data.

"You're taking all of this data [and] crunching it down to a small space, so you can immediately make sense of it," he comments. "With something like our Bubble Grid [widget], the data set behind that is enormous. If you saw that in a table form, you could not begin to see the patterns and the trends in it that that widget can show you in the span of just 5 seconds. The same is true for so many of the other widgets that we have."

Ditto for MicroStrategy's Funnel widget, a variation of a stacked percent bar chart -- in funnel-like shape, of course. It's ideal for pipeline analyses, sales forecasts, or sales process analyses, according to Brinkmann. Likewise, MicroStrategy's Waterfall widget presents users with a series of increments or decrements that they can modify for the purposes of scenario analysis.

There's a Media widget, too, says Brinkmann. It lets users incorporate media sources -- i.e., audio, video, or still images -- into their dashboard views. "We have customers who use this widget for explanatory and training purposes. For instance, if I don't understand what the data means on the dashboard, I can play the video and someone will explain how to use the dashboard and how to interpret the data."


Stephen Swoyer is a technology writer based in Athens, Ga. You can contact Stephen via e-mail at
stephen.swoyer@spinkle.net.

 bron: TDWI newsletter

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Mislukking vanwege ontbreken Business Case

Zonder business case mislukt ICT-project

Projectmanager

Dat een groot deel van de ict-projecten mislukt, komt omdat bedrijven geen business case maken. Meer dan de helft van de bedrijven berekent geen return-on-investment. De grootste ergernissen, late oplevering en geen oplevering van het project, kunnen door het maken van een business case voorkomen worden.

Bijna de helft van de bedrijven maakt, voor de start van een ict-project, geen business case. Volgens dienstverlener Pecoma Business Technology  is het niet hebben van een business case de reden dat een groot deel van de ict-projecten mislukken. Het bedrijf liet door MarQit Research onderzoek doen onder 207 business- en ict-managers. "Een business case zorgt ervoor dat je minder geld uitgeeft en dat het project niet uitloopt", zegt Simon de Koning, directeur van Pecoma.

Gebruikers hebben de neiging gedurende een project meer wensen aan een ict-project toe te voegen. "Als je een business case gemaakt hebt voor het project, ben je verplicht om iedere keer te onderzoeken wat deze functies toevoegen", zegt De Koning. Driekwart van de respondenten uit het onderzoek zegt dat ict alleen succesvol is als je er bovenop zit.

ROI

Meer dan de helft van de ondervraagde bedrijven berekent vooraf aan een ict-project niet de return on investment (roi). Dat betekent dat in een deel van de business cases die worden gemaakt, geen roi wordt berekend. Vreemd, vindt De Koning. "Een business case zonder berekening van roi is geen goede business case."

De grootste ergernissen bij ict-projecten zijn dat ze altijd later worden opgeleverd dan afgesproken of dat ze niet volledig worden opgeleverd. Bij dit laatste punt verschillen de business- en ict-managers wel van mening. De ict-managers hebben er veel minder vaak problemen mee dan de businessmanagers.

Achteraf wordt in 61 procent van de gevallen geëvalueerd of de doelstellingen zijn gehaald. Eenderde van de managers berekend achteraf of de roi is gehaald. Dat zo onzorgvuldig wordt berekend, komt volgens De Koning doordat de business weinig verstand heeft van ict. Toch moet het maken van een business case vanuit de business komen. "Zij kunnen uitrekenen wat ze besparen door bijvoorbeeld een erp-pakket in te voeren", zegt hij.

Bron: http://www.computable.nl/artikel/ict_topics/beleid/2683353/2379250/zonder-businesscase-mislukt-ictproject.html?utm_campaign=nieuwsbrief&utm_source=nieuwsbrief&utm_medium=email

How to report on ERP data

What's the first piece of advice you can offer to business trying to get usable data out of their ERP systems?

It sounds like a cliché, but I'd strongly suggest taking an incremental approach to providing data to internal users, then allow what you see and learn to drive expansion. Standard project methodologies would begin by looking at the current management reports and generating user input into a requirements document for software to provide data access.

In many cases, however, this input is asked before there is enough user experience in using data in an unstructured way.

Begin by providing a focused data set -- like sales history -- to a defined user group that would appreciate access to this data. Make it simple: Consider a basic data mart with a simple front end, delaying any large-scale software efforts until there's been hands-on experience in users having self-service access to data.

I wouldn't spend a great deal of time in conversations about what should or should not be included in the data offered -- just put out basic fields to users and allow their requests for more (or less) drive what you do next. This learning will resolve issues related to data quality, user reporting needs, and IT architecture questions such as how timely data needs to be.

Should companies consider software alternatives for performance management to those products that already come with their ERP system?

What I routinely tell people is: You've made an investment in your ERP system. If you're getting at the data in a way that meets your team's needs for information, stick with what you have.

If, however, you're finding it difficult to report on data, consider an alternative to get you more value from what you already own. Ask not only about cost but how much effort is required to implement and sustain the tool over time.

Most companies I engage with are stretched from an IT perspective -- there just isn't room for another software project. More often than not, reporting tools are available that can be installed with very little distraction to the business.

In considering alternatives, I'm not a big fan of long lists of features and functions. They make for great software demonstrations, but in reality, people just want to get at data without having to ask for it.

What about the politics of all this -- who should be in charge?

If there's someone internal to the firm that is accountable for information technology, then that person should manage the project. I'd add that for any given business function, such as finance or operations, that there be an identified business lead who will make sure that the project unfolds in a way that meets the needs of that user team.

Move incrementally so that your solution design develops from experience. That obviously works only if you have someone quarterbacking use and feedback from the user end.

Bron: http://www.tdwi.org/News/display.aspx?ID=9071

 

Monday, August 25, 2008

BI overwegingen !

- Wanneer we gevraagd worden informatie op te leveren over het verloop van een niet duidelijk gedefinieerd bedrijfsproces adviseren we dit proces eerst te beschrijven en mogelijk al te optimaliseren.

- Wanneer we gevraagd worden om te rapporteren op basis van kwalitatief slechte data richten we onze energie eerst op het bronsysteem en de bijbehorende processen.

- Wanneer we rapporten moeten maken over klanten, producten of andere gegevens met master data-karakteristieken gaan we niet zelf een bron ontsluiten, maar controleren we eerst of deze gegevens niet al eerder in een DWH- of MDM-oplossing (met bijbehorende governance-regels) zijn opgenomen.

- Wanneer we gevraagd worden een dashboard op te leveren, doen we dit alleen wanneer er naast duidelijke procesbeschrijvingen, procesdoelstellingen en gegevensdefinities ook duidelijkheid bestaat over normen waarmee we het dashboard van een juiste schaal kunnen voorzien.

- Wanneer blijkt dat er meer winst te halen is in het ontsluiten van ongestructureerde data (bijvoorbeeld het binnen één dag weergeven van alle correspondentie met een klant), dan geven we de beperkingen van bi aan.

- Wanneer wij ons denkwerk over databronnen ter beschikking kunnen stellen aan de eerste incrementen binnen een nieuwe soa-architectuur, dan doen wij dat graag.

Met andere woorden, we hebben oog voor de context van ons werk, zien de beperkingen van bi en kennen de randvoorwaarden voor een lange termijn, succesvolle oplossing. Dat wij ons daarvoor met de organisatie kunnen en moeten bemoeien, maakt het werk nog leuker. Tot het mooiste vak van de wereld. Toch?
 
bron: computable


--
Posted By daan to Business Intelligence at 8/01/2008 01:18:00 PM

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Overview BI-tools 2008

Next-generation BI at Hand, Forrester Reports

8/13/2008

By Stephen Swoyer

Looking for BI/DW news?

Despite the last 18 tumultuous months in the BI marketplace, a recent Forrester research report (The Forrester Wave: Enterprise Business Intelligence Platforms, Q3 2008) concludes that the BI leaders of today are much like those of two years ago: a handful of vendors -- namely, IBM Cognos and SAP Business Objects, followed by Oracle Corp. and SAS Institute Inc. -- still sit atop the BI platform market.

BI isn't just a platform play, either. Forrester says Information Builders Inc. (IBI), Microsoft Corp., and MicroStrategy Inc. are doing their level best to keep things interesting.

All in all, Forrester's latest report paints a picture of a diverse, thriving -- and maturing -- BI landscape.

Forrester didn't rank BI vendors in terms of market share, revenue, or installed base alone. The firm says it assessed each of 12 different BI vendors on the basis of 151 criteria, including overall product strength, vendor strategy, and market presence.

In spite of unprecedented consolidation at all levels, Forrester found that the BI market is still far from mature.

"Contrary to popular belief, this vibrant market continues to evolve across multiple dimensions," writes Boris Evelson, a principal analyst with Forrester. "We are currently on the cusp of a next-generation BI with different user interfaces, integration with process and rules, end-user self-service, alternative analytical DBMS technologies, and many others."

SAP Business Objects, IBM Cognos Lead the Pack

Evelson highlights two common paths to BI market leadership: dominance via acquisition -- typically as a means to flesh out portfolio shortcomings (and not strictly as a means to acquire market share) -- and dominance via platform integration. He cites SAP/Business Objects as a textbook case of the former strategy and IBM/Cognos as exemplary of the latter.

"SAP Business Objects believes that enterprises need the best BI tool for every use case, sometimes even at the expense of less-than-complete integration," Evelson writes. "[T]he company went on a spree of acquiring and building many different BI tools over the past few years and ended up with one of the richest BI portfolios on the market in its XI release."

Things are different for IBM Cognos according to Evelson. "IBM Cognos believed that a unified, integrated platform is preferable [to a composite of best-of-breed offerings], even if it did not address every single BI function and feature end users wanted," he writes. "Rather than acquiring multiple technologies, IBM Cognos completely rebuilt its architecture in release 8, falling a bit behind SAP Business Objects in functionality but leading in modern unied architecture."

There's a sense in which the strengths and weaknesses of SAP Business Objects and IBM Cognos reflect these approaches, too.

SAP Business Objects, for example, has cobbled together a best-of-breed powerhouse. "Business Objects … provides some of the best-in-class tools for each use case," he says. "[It] offers a very rich set of mature BI products, and it is also one of the very few vendors offering a complete BI solution including data integration, data quality, and text analytics products.

"One of the main advantages of implementing the entire suite of products from SAP Business Objects is that end-to-end data lineage and impact analysis become a no-brainer. There's indeed a best-in-class tool for every use case." He cites a litany of SAP Business Objects offerings, starting with Crystal Reports (for production reporting); WebIntelligence (for ad hoc query and analysis); Voyager (for OLAP); Polestar (a guided BI search technology); and Xcelsius (a highly visual environment that supports interactive dashboards).

The post-acquisition SAP Business Objects still has its work cut out for it, according to Evelson and Forrester. "While release XI is a huge step in the right direction, plenty remains to be done. Top priorities … include bringing all SAP Business Objects products into a common platform for improved security and administration, integrating the multiple products enabling easier interchange of all metadata, and migrating from one product to another -- all of which could require a signicant rewrite effort," Evelson says.

The former Cognos, on the other hand, tended to focus more heavily on platform integration. "Even though IBM Cognos may not have as many bells and whistles as its top competitor SAP Business Objects, product integration is much less of an issue. Any report or dashboard developed in Query Studio or Analysis Studio can always be easily migrated to Report Studio, the higher-end product," Evelson writes.

"IBM Cognos also tries to make it as easy as possible for its customers to migrate applications from one environment to another [e.g., development to test to production, for example] with a rich set of impact analysis utilities." Other Cognos advantages include not one but two OLAP engines (both PowerCube and the TM1, which Cognos picked up from the former Applix Inc.), as well as a business activity monitoring (BAM) appliance -- Cognos Now! -- which the company picked up via its acquisition of the former Celequest Inc. last year.

If Cognos has an Achilles heel -- outside of its functionality shortcomings, it's an extensive reliance on partners (for data integration, data quality, and text analytics), which it uses to flesh out its end-to-end BI stack. One upshot of this, Evelson points out, is that in spite of Cognos 8 BI's highly integrated value proposition, "enterprise IT pros or systems integrators … still need to assemble components from several vendors."

Oracle and SAS Emerge as Canny Contenders

Like SAP Business Objects and IBM Cognos, both Oracle and SAS followed widely divergent paths to market leadership.

Oracle, for its part, bought itself the makings of a booming BI practice, via its acquisitions of the former Siebel Systems Inc. and the former Hyperion Solutions Corp. However, a smorgasbord of BI technologies does not a market-leading BI platform make, so Oracle has had to do a lot of integration work to reconcile its many BI assets. One upshot of this, according to Evelson, is that its Oracle BI Suite Enterprise Edition (EE) is "very rich in features and functions" and "scores very close to the leading BI vendors." When it comes to product differentiation, Oracle BI Suite EE includes a ROLAP engine and bundles enterprise information integration (EII) capabilities, which helps establish its heterogeneous bona-fides.

There's also Essbase, the OLAP engine Oracle inherited from Hyperion. "Essbase continues to be one of the leading OLAP engines on the market and a preferred tool of finance departments all over the world," Evelson indicates. That's the good news. The not-so-good news is that a few pieces -- such as data quality -- are still missing from Oracle's value proposition. Given Oracle's penchant for fleshing out technology shortcomings (and expanding its market share) by acquisition, it's a safe bet that the firm will buy from without what it doesn't already have (and can't easily develop) within.

"[Forrester] expects Oracle to continue to acquire companies in the areas where it still heavily relies on partners, such as data quality," Evelson writes. "Oracle's main BI challenge will continue to be a fine balancing act: supporting multiple redundant and overlapping products versus bringing the strategic products closer together and integrating the platform, UI, and other core features."

Like Cognos, SAS has focused on building up its BI platform. Unlike Cognos, SAS has a best-of-breed ace up its sleeve: its analytic power. At a time when most of its competitors seem to have recognized the importance of analytics, SAS nonetheless maintains a clear-cut edge.

"Even though several other vendors realize or are starting to realize the value of providing higher-end analytics tools like statistical analysis and predictive modeling, SAS is pretty hard to beat in this category, especially when it comes to embedding such analytical routines in powerful DBMS engines like Teradata," Evelson says. "SAS also continues to differentiate itself in many areas of functional subject-matter expertise, including but not limited to areas like marketing analytics and risk management."

If SAS needs to work on anything, he continues, it's in reducing its dependence on the SAS programming language, which is a requirement to use some advanced features. "[W]ith every new release, more and more features are becoming available in the SAS point-and-click GUI, such as its very popular Enterprise Guide product," he points out.

BI Thrives

Elsewhere, Forrester makes the case for compelling BI diversity, citing multi-use offerings from IBI, Microsoft, and SAP NetWeaver -- along with best-of-breed products from Actuate Corp., MicroStrategy Inc., and the former Spotfire (now TIBCO Spotfire) -- as just a sampling of a thriving BI ecosystem.

"[C]ontrary to some market consolidation trends, respectable and rich BI alternatives abound," Evelson writes. "[IBI} shines with continued innovation, comparable to much larger BI vendors, and the most comprehensive information access adapters [via its iWay assets], easily connecting a large number of very heterogeneous data sources including legacy mainframe databases."

Similarly, Evelson cites Microsoft's credible "enterprise-grade" push via BI (or BI-related) offerings such as SharePoint and its SQL Server stack. "[T]he gap in functionality between Microsoft BI and vendors with more years of BI experience continues to narrow, [and] it will be harder and harder for [data management] professionals not to shortlist Microsoft BI as one of the options on the table," he writes.

"The bottom line is that most enterprises -- whether they know it or not -- have SQL Server somewhere in their organization, and therefore already own a large portion of Microsoft BI tools, which includes one of the most widely used OLAP engines with a highly useful ROLAP/MOLAP real-time tuning feature." Microsoft's weaknesses include -- as expected -- its Windows-centric deployment and development strictures and its lack of a complete platform offering.

SAP makes another appearance, thanks to a near-ubiquitous NetWeaver BI stack that shines in SAP-only environments. "While its portfolio of BI products is still best for SAP environments, the Business Objects acquisition and the converged product road map will change that equation over the next 12 months," he writes.

Forrester and Evelson also singled out the strengths of the MicroStrategy BI platform, particularly in very-large data warehousing environments.

Unlike almost all of its competitors, Evelson notes, MicroStrategy hasn't followed an expansion by way of acquisition, so it can credibly claim to offer a "unified" platform. "What ['unified'] means [in this context] is something few other BI vendors can offer: You can define any object [e.g., a prompt, a lter, etc.] only once and reuse it in multiple reports and dashboards. When you need to change that object, you change it only in one place," he writes.

"Also, unlike many other BI vendors that rely mainly on the power of the underlying DBMS, MicroStrategy offers its own very powerful ROLAP engine, which can virtually optimize even poorly architected data models," he continues, adding that MicroStrategy also shines in high-end analytics. "While many other BI vendors partner with third-party providers for higher-end analytics such as statistical analysis and predictive modeling, MicroStrategy has such functionality built in and fully integrated," he notes.

Unfortunately, MicroStrategy's value proposition comes at a price. "It is not MicroStrategy's strategy to address BI components other than enterprise reporting and analytics, and the company will continue to rely heavily on partners to deliver complete end-to-end BI solutions. As a result, MicroStrategy buyers often need to assemble components from other vendors," Evelson concludes.


Stephen Swoyer is a technology writer based in Athens, Ga. You can contact Stephen via e-mail at
stephen.swoyer@spinkle.net.

Bron: http://www.tdwi.org/News/display.aspx?ID=9070

 

How to report on ERP data

What's the first piece of advice you can offer to business trying to get usable data out of their ERP systems?

It sounds like a cliché, but I'd strongly suggest taking an incremental approach to providing data to internal users, then allow what you see and learn to drive expansion. Standard project methodologies would begin by looking at the current management reports and generating user input into a requirements document for software to provide data access.

In many cases, however, this input is asked before there is enough user experience in using data in an unstructured way.

Begin by providing a focused data set -- like sales history -- to a defined user group that would appreciate access to this data. Make it simple: Consider a basic data mart with a simple front end, delaying any large-scale software efforts until there's been hands-on experience in users having self-service access to data.

I wouldn't spend a great deal of time in conversations about what should or should not be included in the data offered -- just put out basic fields to users and allow their requests for more (or less) drive what you do next. This learning will resolve issues related to data quality, user reporting needs, and IT architecture questions such as how timely data needs to be.

Should companies consider software alternatives for performance management to those products that already come with their ERP system?

What I routinely tell people is: You've made an investment in your ERP system. If you're getting at the data in a way that meets your team's needs for information, stick with what you have.

If, however, you're finding it difficult to report on data, consider an alternative to get you more value from what you already own. Ask not only about cost but how much effort is required to implement and sustain the tool over time.

Most companies I engage with are stretched from an IT perspective -- there just isn't room for another software project. More often than not, reporting tools are available that can be installed with very little distraction to the business.

In considering alternatives, I'm not a big fan of long lists of features and functions. They make for great software demonstrations, but in reality, people just want to get at data without having to ask for it.

What about the politics of all this -- who should be in charge?

If there's someone internal to the firm that is accountable for information technology, then that person should manage the project. I'd add that for any given business function, such as finance or operations, that there be an identified business lead who will make sure that the project unfolds in a way that meets the needs of that user team.

Move incrementally so that your solution design develops from experience. That obviously works only if you have someone quarterbacking use and feedback from the user end.

Bron: http://www.tdwi.org/News/display.aspx?ID=9071

 

Friday, August 1, 2008

BI overwegingen !

- Wanneer we gevraagd worden informatie op te leveren over het verloop van een niet duidelijk gedefinieerd bedrijfsproces adviseren we dit proces eerst te beschrijven en mogelijk al te optimaliseren.

- Wanneer we gevraagd worden om te rapporteren op basis van kwalitatief slechte data richten we onze energie eerst op het bronsysteem en de bijbehorende processen.

- Wanneer we rapporten moeten maken over klanten, producten of andere gegevens met master data-karakteristieken gaan we niet zelf een bron ontsluiten, maar controleren we eerst of deze gegevens niet al eerder in een DWH- of MDM-oplossing (met bijbehorende governance-regels) zijn opgenomen.

- Wanneer we gevraagd worden een dashboard op te leveren, doen we dit alleen wanneer er naast duidelijke procesbeschrijvingen, procesdoelstellingen en gegevensdefinities ook duidelijkheid bestaat over normen waarmee we het dashboard van een juiste schaal kunnen voorzien.

- Wanneer blijkt dat er meer winst te halen is in het ontsluiten van ongestructureerde data (bijvoorbeeld het binnen één dag weergeven van alle correspondentie met een klant), dan geven we de beperkingen van bi aan.

- Wanneer wij ons denkwerk over databronnen ter beschikking kunnen stellen aan de eerste incrementen binnen een nieuwe soa-architectuur, dan doen wij dat graag.

Met andere woorden, we hebben oog voor de context van ons werk, zien de beperkingen van bi en kennen de randvoorwaarden voor een lange termijn, succesvolle oplossing. Dat wij ons daarvoor met de organisatie kunnen en moeten bemoeien, maakt het werk nog leuker. Tot het mooiste vak van de wereld. Toch?
 
bron: computable

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Associatieve analyse met Qliktech

QlikView GolfQuest

QlikTech, 's werelds snelst groeiende leverancier van business intelligence software, lanceert de GolfQuest baanselector. Deze gratis tool helpt golfliefhebbers om snel en eenvoudig de perfecte golfbaan te vinden op basis van dertien criteria.

GolfQuest geeft onder meer de volgende antwoorden:
      • Wat is qua golfweer de beste week om naar Granada in Spanje te gaan?
      • Waar kan ik de beste golfbanen vinden in mijn favoriete vakantieland?
      • Het moet niet boven de 30 graden zijn. Waar kan ik naartoe?

"Net als alle oplossingen op basis van QlikView werkt GolfQuest zoals het menselijk brein. Je kunt alle opties afgaan op basis van je persoonlijke voorkeuren, zonder een vaste vragenlijst te moeten afwerken," zegt Anthony Deighton, Senior Vice President Marketing van QlikTech. "We noemen dat principe 'associatieve analyse' en het is gebaseerd op intuïtieve informatievergaring."

zie : http://www.jisnl.com/2010

 

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Mooie uitspraak

Kennis zegt wat het was. Alleen dit moment toont wat het is !

Monday, April 14, 2008

BI-organisaties profiteren vooral van betere analyses

BI-organisaties profiteren vooral van betere analyses

Gebruikers van business intelligence (bi) noemen vergroting van analytische mogelijkheden als belangrijkste verbeterpunt van de organisatie door de invoer van bi. Kostenbesparing wordt veel minder genoemd als verbeterpunt binnen het bedrijf. Dat blijkt uit gezamenlijk onderzoek van MarketCap en Computable.



In een gezamenlijk onderzoek van MarketCap en Computable is gebruikers van business intelligence-oplossingen gevraagd op welke punten bi zorgt voor verbetering van de organisatie. Verruiming van de analytische mogelijkheden wordt het meest genoemd (37 procent). Beheersbaarheid volgt op ruime afstand (door 16,1 procent als eerste genoemd), waarna kosten en integratie / consolidatie van data en systemen het meest als belangrijkste verbetering worden aangeduid. Standaardisatie, performance en transparantie zijn ongetwijfeld van belang, maar gelden slechts voor enkele deelnemers als belangrijkste verbetering voor de organisatie door bi-middelen.

Datawarehouses

Het gebruik van datawarehouses wordt vaak gezien als een voorwaarde voor goed gebruik van bi. Ook in het ict-onderzoek vinden vooral ict-medewerkers en managers werkzaam binnen grotere organisaties dit essentieel. Datawarehouses worden overigens 'slechts' in iets meer dan de helft van de grootste organisaties gebruikt. Middelgrote organisaties maken minder vaak gebruik van datawarehouses. Organisaties die aangeven dat ze een datawarehouse hebben, geven dit maar voor 47 procent op als de belangrijkste informatiebron.

De vraag dringt zich op, of datawarehouses dan niet goed worden gebruikt bij de overige 53 procent, of dat het datawarehouse voorbij gestreefd is door bijvoorbeeld search technologieën. Volgens Nicole Horevoorts, analist en BI specialist bij MarketCap, is er wel een duidelijk verandering waar te nemen in het minder centraal opslaan van data in datawarehouses. "Met de opkomst van meer gedistribueerde serversystemen en het toepassen van VMware-achtige toepassingen is uiteraard ook de data meer verdeeld en zal dus anders opgeslagen, maar ook anders benaderd en gedistribueerd worden".

bron: http://www.computable.nl/nieuws.jsp?id=2466127

SAP Marktaandeel


SAP is marktleider op het gebied van ERP (enterprise resource planning) software met een aandeel van 28,4% eind 2007 (zie tabel).


Met de acquisitie van Business Objects krijgt SAP voet aan de grond in de markt voor de zogenaamde ‘business intelligence software’, momenteel een van de snelstgroeiende markten.

De overname zal SAP helpen de aangekondigde omzetgroei tot 2010 te verwezenlijken, alhoewel sommige analisten vraagtekens zetten bij de ‘beperkte’ ervaring van het management op het gebied van grote acquisities.

Voorheen rekende SAP in hoofdzaak op organische groei. De verwachting is dat SAP in de toekomst meer grote overnames gaat doen die omwille van het bovenstaande integratierisico’s met zich mee kunnen brengen.

Bron: http://www.beleggersbelangen.nl/web/Nieuws/Artikel.htm?contentid=55846

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Business Objects Announces Industry’s First Intelligence Platform

BusinessObjects XI 3.0 includes significant updates to the portfolio, such as:

  • Crystal Reports® 2008, the industry de facto reporting standard, the only reporting solution to embed Flash and Flex for more interactivity and integrating BI with business processes
  • Web Intelligence®, the most advanced query, reporting and analysis tool for SAP and non-SAP environments, now for the first time providing users with both online and offline access
  • Xcelsius® 2008, a point-and-click data visualization tool designed to create interactive, shareable dashboards – now with easier and more powerful analytic creation
  • Polestar, a new tool that combines the simplicity and speed of search with the trust and analytical power of BI to provide immediate answers to business questions
  • BI Widgets, a new capability that puts personalized metrics directly on people's desktop, so they can monitor key performance indicators and access the most up-to-date information available
  • Voyager, an OLAP data exploration tool designed specifically for financial and business analysts – now with enhanced multi-dimensional analysis and visualization
  • Mobile, a solution for remote access to favorite BI reports, metrics and real-time data with a single click of a wireless device – including enhanced alerts and disconnected analysis mode
  • Live Office, which allows simple embedding and updating of new data in Microsoft Office Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations, with even greater platform support
  • Dashboard Builder, which provides instant insight into business activities by viewing all business intelligence content together in one consolidated dashboard view, now with enhanced interfaces and usability workflows
  • Enhanced support for SAP users including improved performance, increased support for SAP metadata and broader integration for SAP applications

One Platform for Complete, Trustworthy, Agile BI
With BusinessObjects XI 3.0, IT can cost-effectively serve the demands of the business, delivering all the right information to everyone who needs it. A single intelligence platform delivers common services such as information management, metadata management, security and auditing. 
Availability
BusinessObjects XI 3.0 is currently planned to be generally available in Q1, 2008. BusinessObjects XI 3.0 Mobile and BusinessObjects XI 3.0 Polestar are currently planned to be generally available later in 2008.
 
 

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

SMART-programma SAS voor het MKB

Product: SMART-programma SAS voor het MKB


De business intelligence-oplossingen van SAS zijn nu ook beschikbaar voor het midden- en kleinbedrijf. Onder de naam SMART voorziet SAS, via resellers en partners, het mkb van snel inzetbare softwareoplossingen, mét de volledige SAS-functionaliteit.

Om het midden- en kleinbedrijf op een kosteneffectieve en eenvoudige manier de beschikking te geven over de complete reeks analytische oplossingen, biedt SAS onder de naam SMART zijn producten en diensten via een indirect kanaal. Partners van SAS kunnen zo de oplossingen op maat leveren, afgestemd op de specifieke behoefte van de betreffende onderneming.

Het SMART-programma omvat de complete reeks SAS-oplossingen, afgestemd op het mkb: snel te implementeren, direct inzetbaar en eventueel in een ASP- of SaaS-model.

Frank van Osch, Channel Manager bij SAS: "Of het nu om analyse van omzetten, voorraadgegevens, financiële performance of klantgegevens gaat, het MKB opereert in dezelfde onzekere wereld als de grotere organisaties en heeft dezelfde behoefte aan tijdige en voorspellende informatie. Veel bedrijven proberen dit met spreadsheets op te lossen, maar dan loop je al snel tegen grenzen aan. Met de introductie van SMART krijgt het mkb nu de beschikking over de geavanceerde en professionele analytische toepassingen."

bron: http://www.computable.nl/nieuws.jsp?id=2459169&utm_campaign=nieuwsbrief&utm_source=nieuwsbrief&utm_medium=email

Belangrijk voor MKB

snel te implementeren, direct inzetbaar en eventueel in een ASP- of SaaS-model.
 

operational BI: getting the right information to the right people at the right time.

Operational BI can mean many things. In this interview, Rich Ghiosi of HP defines operational BI as putting rich, actionable intelligence in the hands of every business user across the entire information supply chain. That’s coupled with specific analytics that give users optimal information at the right time
 
Those needs will put tremendous pressure on the infrastructure needs of BI systems going forward. Critical issues that companies will need to address to take advantage of business intelligence, Ghiosi says, include the escalating information explosion, and the ability to use information to gain competitive advantage
 
Luister naar het audio rapport
bron:http://www.tdwi.org/News/display.aspx?ID=8879

Friday, April 4, 2008

Gartner Business Intelligence Summit: Embed BI within business processes

Too many organizations approach BI from the bottom up, Schlegel said, focusing on data quality and creating isolated reports upon request, but lacking any unifying vision. The result is an "urban sprawl of reports" that are meaningful only to those individuals who use them.

"We also need to extend up and deliver what's called strategy-driven analytic applications," Schlegel said. "This style is much more focused on overall corporate performance management in a top-down way. We need to think more about how this information is going to be used, how we can insert some form of business intelligence into a business process to make it more actionable."

To do so, here are the five key steps that Schlegel said organizations should address:

  • Business vision and sponsorship. More than just signing a check, business sponsors must share in BI successes, and failures, with IT. "The relationship between IT and the business is one of teamwork," Schlegel said. "That type of balance between the right IT and business expertise … is critical."
  • Data lineage, governance and quality. This is a no-brainer, Schlegel said. "If we're going to make decisions based on this information, we've got to trust it."
  • Trade-off analysis. All business decisions require trade-offs. BI systems must combine planning, reporting and analysis to help decision makers weigh the costs and benefits of their actions. Architects need to take this into account.
  • New skills. Forecasting and simulating scenarios are not currently considered fundamental BI skills, Schlegel said, but they should be. And they must extend throughout an organization, which can be achieved through a BI competency center.
  • Cultural change. Schlegel said executives should ask themselves, "How do we as an organization change our culture away from gut feel and common knowledge to making decisions based on empirical research?" The goal, Schlegel said, is for organizations to view BI as a resource with which to model potential decisions before taking action.
bron: http://searchdatamanagement.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid91_gci1307949,00.html?track=sy240&asrc=RSS_RSS-24_240
datum publicatie: 1/4/2008

The secret to BI success

When allocating resources to a BI implementation, organizations should focus on four key pillars, according to Gartner. The first pillar is user training, Hostman said, including training sessions and communications about the new technology such as newsletters. Organizations also need to focus on an area often overlooked in BI initiatives -- data stewards. For BI to succeed, someone needs to be paying attention to data quality, where it gets dirty, where it decays and who has access to what data. The third pillar of a successful implementation is a focus on the meta data, providing an understanding of where data came from and what effect changing it will have. Finally, an initiative needs to focus on advanced analysis, how to take BI to the next level. Organizations need to understand not only what happened, but why something happened and what might happen in the future, Hostman said,



bron:http://searchdatamanagement.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid91_gci1146234,00.html

datum publicatie: 5/5/2005

TNT kiest voor Qlikview

TNT, wereldwijd leverancier van post- en expressdiensten, heeft Qlikview van BI-leverancier Qliktech in gebruik genomen. Dankzij deze BI-applicatie kan de afdeling Corporate Audit Services van TNT nu snel de betrouwbaarheid van financi�le en urengegevens controleren en de in eigen beheer opgestelde KPI�s analyseren. Daardoor heeft het management op ieder gewenst moment de beschikking over up-to-date stuurinformatie.

datum: 2/10/2007
bron:http://www.crmdossier.nl/nieuws/id2608-TNT_verkrijgt_stuurinformatie_via_Qlikview.html

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Information Builders Brings Performance Management to Smaller Enterprises

Information Builders Brings Performance Management to Smaller Enterprises

Information Builders has often downplayed the importance of discrete performance management (PM) tools, preferring to tout its WebFOCUS as a one-stop-shop for BI and PM alike. Last week's announcement of a new WebFOCUS-branded Performance Management Metrics (PMM) product struck some as a departure for the company, but IBI isn't actually anti-PM, just PM as it has traditionally been practiced (as a tool for budgeting, planning, or forecasting). [more]

BI binnen MKB

 

Belangstelling voor BI binnen het MKB groeit

Performance management

Steeds meer Nederlandse middelgrote en kleine bedrijven gebruiken business intelligence (bi). Hoewel de datastroom minder groot is, blijkt er bij ondernemingen tot vijfhonderd medewerkers veel behoefte aan analytische oplossingen voor beslissingsinformatie. Dat blijkt uit onderzoek van MarketCap.

Business intelligence (bi) is niet langer alleen een interessante toepassing voor grote bedrijven met vele terabytes aan data. Ook binnen het mkb is er steeds meer behoefte aan analytische oplossingen voor het nemen van gedegen bedrijfsbeslissingen. Dat concludeert MarketCap na onderzoek over het gebruik van bi-oplossingen in de Nederlandse markt.

De onderzoekers stellen: "Op zich lijkt deze ontwikkeling verrassend, maar het mag zeker niet als zodanig bestempeld worden. Het midden- en kleinbedrijf in Nederland is bezig meer gegevens en informatie te betrekken in haar bedrijfsprocessen. Niet op de laatste plaats is dit mogelijk gemaakt door de sterk verbeterde informatiesystemen en communicatieinfrastructuur. Zoals eerder bij zeer grote organisaties het geval was, voltrekt zich nu dus ook in het mkb het proces waarbij men via voorspelbaarheid en adoptievermogen meer grip op de organisatie kan krijgen."

BI-specialisten

Volgens de onderzoekers ligt er een uitgelezen kans voor bi-specialisten in de markt. Ze zien hoe verschillende aanbieders van bi-oplossingen op de veranderende vraag vanuit het mkb reageren. "De aanbieders van een breed pakket aan bedrijfskritische applicaties zijn al langer met hun erp(enterprise resource planning) en financiële applicaties actief in het mkb. Voor de bi-specialisten is dit pas sinds kort op gang gekomen", zo concluderen de onderzoekers.

Uit eerder onderzoek blijkt dat business intelligence en corporate performance management (cpm) in de perceptie van de eindgebruiker zeer veel overlap hebben. Voor wat de vraag vanuit het Nederlandse mkb betreft, zal het voor leveranciers zeker belangrijk zijn om zowel business intelligence- als cpm-oplossingen aan te kunnen bieden.