self-service business intelligence: a...

Self-Service Business Intelligence: A Workbook

Copyright ©2013. Jaspersoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Self-Service BuSineSS intelligence: A WorkBook

Introduction step 1 step 2 step 3 step 4 step 5 step 6 Summary Personas


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Table of Contents Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 3Step 1: Determine if Self-Service BI is Right for You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Answer Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Step 2: Define Your Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Questions for Your Business-side Project Sponsor: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9Questions for the BI Project Owner: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Step 3: Understand Your Users’ Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12Create User Personas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Persona Example #1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16Persona Example #2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17Persona Example #3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Help! I don’t know all the information! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19Questions to Ask Users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Step 4: Determine What Levels of Self-Service BI Are Appropriate for You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21Level 1: Managed Reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22Level 2: Interactive Report Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24Level 3: Collaborative Reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27Level 4: Self-Service Analytics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29Level 5: Self-Service Report Authoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Step 5: Decide Your Self-Service BI Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36DIY Self-Service BI (“code your own”) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36Open Source Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37Commercial Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Step 6: Think About Technical Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39Data Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39Metadata – Needs Questionnaire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41The Managed BI Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42Managed Reporting – Needs Questionnaire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43Persona Worksheets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45About Jaspersoft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

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Introduction step 1 step 2 step 3 step 4 step 5 step 6 Summary

Self-Service BuSineSS intelligence: A WorkBook Copyright ©2013. Jaspersoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Personas

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Introduction The drill is so familiar. Business users need answers to questions; they need to make sense of data, so they ask their IT departments for specific reports.

Then they wait. And wait. Sometimes for days.

When they finally receive their request, the data is out-of-date, and the report may not be what they want. Even so, they make decisions based on this stale or incomplete information, impacting their company’s productivity, profitability and sometimes even its survival.

It doesn’t have to be that way, not with self-service business intelligence (BI).

Self-service BI enables users to answer their own questions on their own schedule. This tool makes it easier for users to analyze data and get the information they want, when they want it. Self-service BI means users can analyze the full breadth and depth of data in a timely fashion.

The result? Generally more accurate, more insightful decisions. Happier users. Reduced IT backlog. And often increased profits and reduced costs.

Good results indeed. But self-service BI is not for everyone. First you need to decide whether this tool can help you.

This workbook will help you make that decision, guide you through the other considerations for successfully implementing self-service BI, and help you develop a plan. If you’re a software vendor and you’re building analytics into your product, please refer to Jaspersoft’s document “The Workbook for Embedded BI.”

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Personas

Step 1: Determine if Self-Service BI

is Right for You

First, it’s important to know if self-service BI can help you and your users. This little quiz can help.

Yes No

1Is your corporate culture becoming increasingly data driven (as opposed to “gut driven”)?

2Are your users dissatisfied with the reports they get? Do your users accept existing reports even though better reports would benefit their work?

3Has feedback about the reports dropped off? Is it likely your users have just given up getting anything better so they’ve stopped asking?

4 Could many of your users benefit from creating their own reports?

5 Do many of your users need information faster? Is time critically important?

6 Do many of your users need to determine “why” something is happening?

7Do your users simply need minor changes to existing reports, (e.g., re-formatting, creating one-time reports) that they would like to take care of themselves?

8Is your IT department backlogged with requests for those types of minor changes?

9 Do the reports or analyses that users receive raise new questions?

10Have some business users become your analytics “experts” even though that is not really their job?

11Are your users already using other self-service applications, such as CRM or Helpdesk?

12Do your users have lots of applications or tools with completely different reporting and analysis functions?

13Are your users exporting data into Excel and then formatting or analyzing the results from there?

TOTAL: #Yes #No

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Personas

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1Answer Notes

2

3

4


is Right for You

If you answered “yes” to five or more of the questions from the quiz, your organization will likely benefit from self-service BI.

To learn more about WHY answering “yes” to these questions indicates a need for self-service BI, see the “Answer Notes”.

Otherwise, move on to Step 2 where you can identify your main goals.

Business is increasingly data driven. People need to be able to find the straightforward correlations within the data that might not be obvious. And the rise of social media and greater sophistication of CRM applications are intensifying the amount of data that needs to be analyzed.

Do you know why your users are dissatisfied? Is it the type of data they can or cannot access? The timing? The formatting? It’s important to find that out. Right now, they’re probably asking their colleagues or IT for help. Self-service BI might address the source of these issues.

Getting few complaints is not necessarily good. Generally users complain at first but, if they feel ignored, they settle into silent acceptance. Even if they have stopped complaining, their productivity is probably lower than it could be, and they could become resentful. So the lack of complaints does not necessarily mean things are great. It might indicate that users have given up.

Most users like to generate their own reports, and are used to doing it for virtually everything outside of the company walls. (Many use Microsoft Excel to do this.) So it’s good to find out whether they want more control, and if so, whether they want a substantive change (such as a new row or column of data) or merely variations on the theme (such as sort order, or filtering of data). Enabling users to prepare their own reports would make it easier on them and you.

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Personas

5Answer Notes

6

7

8


is Right for You

Business users often make operational decisions several times a day. To do so, they need to see the supporting data right away. Too often users need help from IT to get the answers they want. Even the best report usually won’t be adequate because of the time delay in getting it developed in the first place. A significant time lag usually results in a more naïve analysis, one based on a gut reaction instead of what might be the “real reason.”

You don’t need self-service if the metrics are extremely well-defined (e.g., a maintenance report on a machine). But self-service BI comes into play when you get into reasons, when you’re trying to understand results not just measure them. And, in that regard, many users want to filter the data just to see what pertains to them.

Users don’t want to get in line or ask for help simply to change the title of a report or the order of the columns. While some will enlist IT to make these minor changes, many users will just use the reporting and analysis tools less (unless forced to use them).

Face it. Your IT department has to support a broad range of users and initiatives, from people who just want a report of the basics to those who really want to slice and dice the data. The IT department can’t neglect any group. If the users could handle the majority of their reporting needs (instead of the typical minority), your IT department would be free to handle many more important matters.

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Personas

91011

12

13


is Right for You

Often one answer leads to more questions. With self-service BI, users can get that much farther along on their own. They’ll get closer to what they really need, and will also be clearer about what they need when they do ask IT for help.

When business users become data-analysis experts, they help foster data-driven decision making and an analytic mindset across the board. That’s the good news. But as these data-savvy users become the “go-to” resources for strategic insight for the entire organization, the demands on their time can become overwhelming. Thus these business users must have tools to allow them to easily share their insight with others.

If your users are accustomed to other “self-service” applications, they will be annoyed when their analysis and reporting is not also self-service.

A lot of software includes rudimentary reporting capabilities, which are typically limited because they are not usually a core design element of the software. Also, if your users are already dealing with several reporting tools, they may have reached a saturation point. If there is no easy way for your users to gain the insights available from bringing different sources of information together from more than one tool, you now have an argument to centralize your reporting and analysis across several applications.

If you don’t make it easy for users to personalize reports with insights, such as medians and weighted averages or apply their department’s business metrics and share the resulting reports, they’ll resort to Excel. And spreadsheet reports often take on a life of their own.

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Personas

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Step 2: Define Your Objectives

Since you’re still reading, you’ve probably decided that self-service BI is worth investigating further. Let’s take it down a level.

What do you hope to achieve by self-service BI?

How might self-service BI support the overall goals of your organization?

For your project sponsors and users, high-level benefits might include reduced time to insight, better decision making and higher satisfaction. For your IT department, the benefits could include a reduced workload, and the time and budget to tackle higher-value projects such as moving the infrastructure to the cloud.

At this point, you might not be super-clear on your goals and expected benefits. That’s fine. This section of the workbook is designed to help you clarify your goals, because the more precise you are about your goals, the more likely your project is to succeed.

We recommend approaching this as a two-step process. First ask your project sponsors — those who own the business side benefits that your SSBI will render — about their goals. Based on their input, articulate your self-service BI goals.

As you proceed, we recommend referring back to this section often, to remind yourself of your main goals.

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Personas


Questions for your business-side project sponsor:

1 What are the top 3 business goals that self-service BI might help you attain?

A.

B.

C.

2 How important is self-service BI to attaining these goals?

Absolutely required A pure nice-to-have

5 4 3 2 1

Goal A

Goal B

Goal C

3 Why do you think self-service BI will help achieve these goals?

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Personas

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1 What’s the single biggest goal you want to achieve via self-service BI?

2

How will you measure your progress toward your goals? Be as specific as possible; include numerical goals and timeframes.

For example, a goal could be reducing the IT backlog for reports by 15% within six months. Or, increasing customer usage by 10% in that same timeframe. Or improving customer satisfaction ratings by 25%.

A. Achieve by (date)

B. Achieve by (date)

C. Achieve by (date)

3 Are there any secondary or less-measurable objectives?

4 What are the most important benefits you expect to realize with self-service BI?

Questions for the BI project owner: Step 2: Define Your Objectives

With the above information from the

business side sponsor, answer the

questions below from the perspective

of the technical sponsor. It is critically

important to make sure that your goals

(as a potential implementer of BI) are

in line with the goals of the users and

sponsors of your BI project.

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Personas

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Rank your expected benefits from self-service BI:

Choose the three most common benefits that are most important to you and rank them 1, 2, or 3. This will help you to guide your project.

Improved Decision MakingThe ability to support analysis for a data-driven company

Faster decisions (also known as “business ability”)

More accurate decisions that are driven more by data and less by “gut”

New business insights (e.g., not just that sales are up, but also where they’re up and why)

Reduced costs by eliminating separate analytic or decision-making tools

Improved communication and teamwork, as everyone receives the same information

Increased User SatisfactionMore satisfied users because of the “instant gratification” of getting their needed information quickly

Increased internal customer satisfaction because of faster response times

Increased EfficienciesReduction or elimination of IT backlog of requests for minor customizations to reports, or for one-off reports

Faster turnaround of more complex reports

Decreased dependence on professional report developers

Dramatic reduction in the number of reports that are managed by IT

Reduced CostsLess reliance on technical resources for customization

Less time creating customer reports, visualizations, data marts, and the like

Other

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Step 3: Understand Your Users’ Requirements

Now that you’ve outlined your goals from self-service BI, let’s move on to your users.

Without enthusiastic users, your application and self-service BI initiative won’t produce the desired results. And, to make your users enthusiastic, you need to understand what they need from self-service BI.

You probably have to satisfy different types of users, with different goals, requirements, and expectations.

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According to TDWI (The Data Warehouse Institute), the two major classifications of BI users are casual users and power users.

Casual Users (also called “business users”) – “Casual users are primarily information consumers, using information in their jobs.”1 They generally include people who make business decisions based on information obtained from reports or analyses by others. Casual users might tweak these reports or analyses slightly (such as filtering the data to a specific date range, or adding a chart). However, they generally work with something created by someone else. About 80% of business users are casual users2, including customers, executives, managers, and non-technical employees.

Casual users often need minor formatting changes (e.g., fonts, colors). They like to be able to sort, reorder, and hide columns. The Big Boss Bill persona featured in this workbook is an example of a casual user.

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1 The Secrets of Self-Service BI, by Wayne Eckerson. TechTarget. http://www.b-eye-network.com/blogs/eckerson/archives/2011/01/the_secrets_of.php2 Beyond Reporting: Delivering Insights With Next Generation Analytics.

http://tdwi.org/webcasts/2009/03/beyond-reporting-delivering-insights-with-next-generation-analytics.aspx (Figure 1)

CASUAL USERS

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http://www.b-eye-network.com/blogs/eckerson/archives/2011/01/the_secrets_of.php


http://tdwi.org/webcasts/2009/03/beyond-reporting-delivering-insights-with-next-generation-analytics.aspx


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POWER USERS

! Power Users (often called analysts, data scientists, Excel junkies, or “number crunchers”) – These people dig deeply into data to find the answers to important business questions. These information producers are often found in the line of business. Power users, who represent about 20% of the total2, create reports, dashboards and models for themselves and casual users. They like to drill down to sub-reports, exchange the rows and columns (“pivot” the data), and create their own reports and analyses from scratch, against a simplified view of data source(s).

Business Analysts – These data- and process-savvy business users identify trends, solve problems and develop plans. They usually live on the business side of the house (not IT). They answer a lot of one-off questions, and spend a fair amount of time assembling materials for others to present at meetings and the like. Business analysts are good at using the tools like Excel and OLAP, although they are not necessarily trained in statistics. They do not bring as much sophistication to the analysis as a scientist would. Betty, our persona included in this workbook, is a business analyst.

Departmental Super Users – Brand managers, operations managers and others tasked with making decisions. That’s their job. But, because they’re technically savvy, these users end up creating ad hoc reports for their colleagues. It’s not really their responsibility, but it often takes a lot of their time. Serious Steve, resembles our departmental super user persona in this workbook.

2 Beyond Reporting: Delivering Insights With Next Generation Analytics. http://tdwi.org/webcasts/2009/03/beyond-reporting-delivering-insights-with-next-generation-analytics.aspx

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There are blank persona charts at the end of this workbook to help you create your personas.

It’s best to create no more than three or four personas. You need to focus on the users who are most important to your project achieving its goals.


Create User Personas.

To make sure you meet the needs of your users, it’s good to develop a “persona” for each type. A persona is a fictional character who represents a class of users, reflecting their typical motivations, goals, skill level, experience, and attitudes. Here are some examples.

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Persona Example #1NAME & PERSONA TYPE Big Boss Bill

Casual User

AGE 49

JOB TITLE VP Operations

TECHNICAL COMFORT Bill is a savvy Internet and computer user, but he can’t create reports.

MOTIVATIONSWhat is he trying to accomplish?

Bill wants to make sure that the company is running as planned. As his title indicates, he is concerned with the entire operation, including sales, manufacturing, and distribution. Bill wants to be able to highlight things like forecasts versus production, and outliers. He wants to get enough information quickly so that he still has time to act.

FRUSTRATIONS Bill gets a boatload of reports, but they often don’t give him the information he really needs, the “why,” because some content is not easily accessible. He often asks IT to crunch numbers, and then waits….

BILL’S IDEAL EXPERIENCE Bill wants actionable, semi-automatic information that he can filter and drill down when he needs more data. He wants to be able to ask the “why” questions and quickly get answers. He won’t do a lot of analysis or learn the intricacies of a new reporting tool, but he needs to be able to get answers to basic questions on the spot without needing help. Immediate information is important to him.

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Persona Example #2NAME & PERSONA TYPE Betty the Business Analyst

Data Analyst

AGE 28

JOB TITLE Data or Business Analyst

TECHNICAL COMFORT Betty’s a bright woman who majored in business in college. She’s not a statistics person or coder, but she’s good at Excel and PowerPoint. She knows the various systems within the company and has a good relationship with the IT department.

MOTIVATIONSWhat is she trying to accomplish?

Betty is a manager of special projects. She needs to analyze data, to identify trends and the like. Probably half her time is spent on routine, packaged reports. Once she identifies interesting data, she would like the report to be automated so she can run it on a regular basis.

FRUSTRATIONS Betty spends a lot of time tracking down data. She is asked to explain the reason, the “why” something is happening. However, she might not have the data and tools she needs to answer the question.

BETTY’S IDEAL EXPERIENCE When asked a question, she would love to have an obvious starting point to get the data. Betty wants easy-to-use (but not simplistic) tools to explore data and identify new relationships and trends. Once she identifies something interesting, she wants to be able to create her own report—without waiting for someone else to help—to monitor a newly found insight, and then schedule it to run on a regular basis.

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Persona Example #3NAME & PERSONA TYPE Serious Steve

Departmental Super User

AGE 38

JOB TITLE Client services manager

TECHNICAL COMFORT Steve is comfortable with Excel and knows a little about how to access data.

MOTIVATIONSWhat is he trying to accomplish?

Steve is responsible for keeping a group of customers happy. He presents their metrics at a weekly meeting.

The existing reporting was inadequate, so Steve started creating his own reports, cutting and pasting information together. Then he started to automate the report to reduce the tedium and his workload.

His manager was impressed, and now Steve is doing the same for his colleagues. Instead of reducing his workload, he’s increased it. In effect, the better job he does, the more work he has to do.

FRUSTRATIONS The data is not in the shape Steve wants. Usually there is a mistake somewhere, which he has to clean up. And he does this every single week. Of course, he is uncertain how useful the reports are anyway since the data is not current.

STEVE’S IDEAL EXPERIENCE Steve wants to work with up-to-date data, and have his report formatted in his preferred way, without having to wait for someone to help him.He wants to be able to create his own reports and visualizations to answer his questions, without having to know a lot about the data and how the underlying databases are structured. He wants to be able to readily and securely share these visualizations and reports with his management and colleagues.

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1 In what areas of your job do you need access to data, reports, and analyses?

2 What are you trying to accomplish with data analysis and reporting?

3 Are you succeeding? Why or why not?

4 What is missing from your current BI or data-access tools that prevent you from making better decisions?

5 What data would you like access to that you’re not getting today?” How would you use them?

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Now remedy the situation by asking actual users. Briefly interview them, asking questions such as the following.


Help! I don’t know all the information!You might not know how to fill in all the boxes in the persona tables. That’s fine. You have identified gaps in your knowledge at the right time, before you even got started on the project.

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6 Do you get your reports, analyses, or data fast enough? Ideally, how quickly do you need them?

7 Can you “crunch” the data the way that you want? Why do you want to crunch it that way?

8 Do you get your reports and analyses in the format you want? Why do you want that format? Do you alter the format on your own?

Now remedy the situation by asking actual users. Briefly interview them, asking questions such as the following.(continued)


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!

Step 4: Determine What Levels of Self-Service BI Are Appropriate for You

Next you’ll need to determine what levels of self-service functionality meet the needs of your personas.

1There are five main possibilities:

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Managed reporting

Interactive report editing

Collaborative reporting

Self-service analytics (with visualization capabilities)

5 Self-service reports authoring These levels overlap somewhat. Let’s see how Bill, Steve and Betty use them.

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Bill sometimes just needs to see some basic information, for example, last week’s sales divided up by geography and product line. If Bill can run that report on his own, whenever he wanted, it would save him a lot of time.


Level 1: Managed Reporting

This level contains self-service functionality that has been around in BI platforms for a while, but you might be missing these capabilities if your BI capabilities are home-grown or grew out of a specialized application.

Sometimes, just adding the infrastructure and control that the most basic BI platforms provide can make your users much more effective.

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To determine if you need the managed reporting level of self-service BI, ask yourself if your users need to:

Level 1 of SSBI - Questionnaire PersonaOne

PersonaTwo

PersonaThree

PersonaFour

Run reports whenever they want, on-demand?

Share the report output with other people?

Export the report output into the format of their choice (e.g., Excel)?

Schedule the report to run on a regular basis?

Receive notifications of new reports via e-mail or text?

View reports from any device (e.g., computers, laptops, smartphones, tablets)?

Save multiple versions of their report output to a central location?

Be assured their reports are secure?

Automatically render different versions of reports, depending on the user’s permissions (role-based security)?

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Level 2: Interactive Report Editing

With interactive report editing, users can access reports that someone else designed and make small (but often significant) changes to the report’s structure and layout. They then save those changes so that the adapted report can be re-used and can be shared with others.


Betty, for example, uses a lot of interactive reports. She loves the fact that she can sort, filter or add columns and rows; change the date range; and the like. She often drills down into the report so that she can see elements making up a sum or an average. Sometimes she adapts the format to show only a small subset of the total report, because this helps her focus on the items of interest.

Steve also likes adapting templates. Some of his reports are dynamic, letting him override the default values so that he can, for example, change the timeframe or recipient. Among other benefits, this enables him to use relative timeframes (e.g., the last three months), as well as absolute ones (e.g., the third quarter 2012).

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!


Like Betty, Steve saves his changes to be rerun in the future. The derivative template may or may not be linked to the source data, but this approach can assure the security of the data. If Betty exported her interactive report to Excel, for example, it would completely remove the original data security, including the access permissions. So there would be no restrictions on the data others could see. With interactive report editing, the server enforces the security. The actual data is still restricted; access permissions are enforced. (For example, the VP of Finance will be able to see all the accounting information; the line manager may only get a small subset of that data.) And Steve is not directly working with the underlying data, as IT has put a “safety net” around that through its metadata layer. (More on the metadata later.)

To determine if you need the interactive report editing capabilities, ask yourself if your users need to:

Level 2 of SSBI - Interactive Report Editing

PersonaOne

PersonaTwo

PersonaThree

PersonaFour

Make minor formatting changes (e.g., the date format)?

Change the sorting order (which column, ascending versus descending)?

Change the order or width of columns?

Hide sections or columns?

Reorder columns?

Limit (filter) the report content?

Include user-defined calculations in a column?

Select columns from a list?

Save their default values (e.g., the timeframe, region)?

Use the adapted report later with the same changes, (e.g., order of columns, formatting, filtering)?

continued next page

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To determine if you need the interactive report editing capabilities, ask yourself if your users need to:(continued)

Level 2 of SSBI - Interactive Report Editing

PersonaOne

PersonaTwo

PersonaThree

PersonaFour

Override the default parameter values?

Run the report on a regular basis?

Use time-based parameters relative to today’s date (e.g., last week)?

Use absolute time-based parameters (e.g., 3rd quarter 2012)?

Share the report with people who have different access permissions?


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Level 3: Collaborative Reporting

As things get more complex and more analysis is needed, users often need to annotate cells and drill down to underlying data.


This is an incredibly powerful capability, as Betty and Steve learn in their weekly meeting with their boss. They are going through the reports when Bill asks Betty about one of the numbers. She knows an unusually large sale at the end of the month skewed those results. She annotates the cell, noting that sale.

Steve also notices that a cell gives a three-day deadline (when deadlines are usually 30 days). He has the appropriate permissions, so he drills down, determines that there was a data entry error, and fixes it. These two actions—correcting the source data and commenting on a report document—are called “writing back.”

Steve has gone beyond interactive reporting and into the data itself, but cannot change the database of record because IT has protected that with the metadata layer.

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Level 3 of SSBI – Collaborative Reporting

PersonaOne

PersonaTwo

PersonaThree

PersonaFour

Correct the underlying source data?

Comment or annotate the report documents?

Highlight some cells?


To determine if you need the ability to do collaborative reporting, ask yourself if your users need to:

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Level 4: Self-Service Analytics Sometimes even additional analytics are needed—to identify trends, analyze meaningful relationships, or answer questions that are not answered by routine reports. Interactive reports allow limited exploration but sometimes a more full-featured data exploration tool is needed. Enter self-service analytics.

A self-service analytics solution usually includes something like an analytic grid (sometimes called an OLAP tool) and perhaps a rich visualization tool. The user can interact with these tools, dragging and dropping fields onto the horizontal and vertical axis of the grid, creating hierarchies of data fields, and trying out different types of aggregates. This is basically cross-tab analysis, allowing the user to look at two or more variables.


Super users like Steve generally need this kind of additional capability; they need to slice and dice data more fully to identify relationships and trends.

For example, Steve might create a hierarchy of regions, exploring what happens when he makes one category subordinate to another. He might analyze several variables, noting how the columns and rows interact with each other. He may use different kinds of aggregates (e.g., sum, average), and will often drill down to the underlying data (and possibly even uncover errors there).

Once he finds what he’s looking for, he’ll create some “pop-out” charts, which will illustrate his findings. These capabilities help him explore broad trends.

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Level 4: Self-Service Analytics The reports at the previous levels were designed to bubble up certain types of information, but they are not really designed for discovery. At the self-service analytics level, there is a lot more flexibility, and the process is much more freeform. This freedom can help people like Steve find answers to questions they might not have had before.


Steve is technical enough to be comfortable with this line of inquiry because he’s worked with Pivot Tables in Excel a lot and is familiar with the process. Also, he is using a drag-and-drop BI interface, which simplifies things. Others may steer away from this type of analysis, concerned about its complexity. However, sometimes even the most casual user will have a question that will go down this type of path, because it helps answer the “why.”

Once Steve has finished his analysis, he generates a colored map to show his boss (who is a visual kind of guy.) The report highlights geographical differences.

In doing so, Steve’s moved away from analytics (where he was working with the data grid) to the visualization level (where he is mainly working directly with the chart).

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Level 4: Self-Service Analytics This capability is important because so many users are visual. And even non-visual learners are quickly becoming conditioned to responding to icons and other visual indicators. Also, we are increasingly becoming a mobile society, and chart-type visualizations are great for consuming on mobile devices. A lot of people can act from just the visualization and not drill down to the underlying data. In many cases, there will not be an underlying report, as the chart will point directly at the data.


Steve chooses a colored map for his visualization, but he had lots of choices. While traditional visualizations were limited to charts and graphs, newer types of visualization are becoming popular. Steve could have used annotated maps, heat maps (where colors represent individual values in a matrix) or spark lines (typically a small chart next to a line of data). Or he could have used icons (e.g., an arrow to show movement), color (e.g., red to highlight outliers) or other visual indicators.

In any case, in preparing his visual Steve is mainly interested in filtering the data down to specific transactions. The difference between this and the other levels is how the data is displayed and how Steve interacts with the data.

Steve e-mails his map to his boss, who views it on his smartphone. Bill is pleased and commends Steve for the information and insight.

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To determine if you need self-service analytics, ask yourself if your users need to:

Level 4 of SSBI –Self-Service Analytics

PersonaOne

PersonaTwo

PersonaThree

PersonaFour

Cross-tab different data points (e.g., products and sales over time) to gain insights?

Easily manipulate data to identify trends and explore the relationships in the data (e.g., change the aggregation metric used in the intersections)?

Summarize the data and break it down in different ways (“slice and dice”)?

Get a historical view to identify trends?

Access this information through a browser?

Tweak an existing/already designed report?

Create a report from scratch, on their own?

Change the dimension (e.g., a field, collection of fields, or rows)?

Change the type of calculation being used (e.g., addition, multiplication, division)?

Change dimensions (e.g., geography) on rows or columns?

continued next page

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To determine if you need self-service analytics, ask yourself if your users need to:(continued)

Level 4 of SSBI –Self-Service Analytics

PersonaOne

PersonaTwo

PersonaThree

PersonaFour

Pivot the data with one click?

Deal with hierarchies in the data (e.g. product line, geography and sales staff)?

Click on an interactive chart and review the data?

Work with the chart as the main object?

Use a slider feature to reference a subset of data?

Drill down on the data levels to access sub-reports?

Access the information on their smartphones or other mobile device?

Which device(s)? An iPad or iPhone?

An Android phone?

A Windows phone?

Embed visual cues into their analytics or reports?

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Level 5: Self-Service Report Authoring Sometimes it is not enough for users to just modify reports that others created. And sometimes a self-service analytic tool is not appropriate. Sometimes, you just want to create your own reports.

Why? So you can run them again and again, without going through all the steps. So you can be freed from the constraints of someone else’s report.


Steve has come to that point. Until now, he has been using reports that IT created. Now he prepares his own, moderately complex report. He uses the raw building blocks (i.e., the data objects that IT set up for this purpose) to create a report from “semi-scratch.”

Steve is pretty talented and his report is okay as is. If the questions were more complicated, he might ask IT for specific help, using his report as a prototype. As it is, IT’s involvement is limited to protecting the data sources through providing a metadata layer.

Steve runs this report and discusses it with his boss weekly. Based on the insights generated from the report, his boss changed the distribution of the products. Sales increased 20% in three months.

Also, now that Steve has deployed his report, Betty is using it as well, modifying it slightly for her needs. Both Steve and Betty get the info they need, when they need it. And Steve gets a promotion and a raise.

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Would your users benefit from authoring their own reports? Do they need to:

Level 5 of SSBI – Self-Service Report authoring

PersonaOne

PersonaTwo

PersonaThree

PersonaFour

Create their own reports from scratch?

Run the reports multiple times?

Share the reports with others?

Use a web-based tool?

Create something quickly (instead of waiting for IT)?

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Step 5: Decide Your Self-Service BI Approach

Look over the items you’ve checked. You probably did not check everything, but it’s likely that you have a much better sense now as to what’s important to your personas.

Now you have to decide whether to make your own tool, use an open source tool, or buy a commercial product. Naturally there are pros and cons. Let’s look at each option.

DIY Self-Service BI (“code your own”)

ADvAnTAgES DISADvAnTAgES

• Focus: The tool will be totally focused on your needs.

• Ownership: You will code it and you will “own” it.

• Cost: You will not have ongoing subscription fees.

• Independence: You will not be dependent on any other company.

• Complexity: The technology is really complex, especially the interactivity.

• Usability: You need it to be easy to use or it won’t be self-service.

• Performance: It takes considerable effort to create a product that performs well.

• Future path: It’s inevitable that usage (and people’s expectations) will increase. Will you be able to support your proprietary tool on an ongoing basis?

• Focus: Is developing your own tools the right use of your company’s resources? Should you be working on your core business instead?

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Open Source Tools

ADvAnTAgES DISADvAnTAgES • A rich feature set: Open source tools provide

many capabilities, which you can use as needed. • Programmability: You’ll probably find full APIs. • Starting point: Open source provides an easy

way to get started with little or no investment. You don’t have to buy a full-blown solution to begin a project, and you could probably get the latest version for each new project.

• No-risk evaluation: You can use the free software while you learn more about what you really need.

• Support: It’s important that the open source product you select has training and support available. You will have to pay for the support.

• Updates: Also, it’s essential that the company standing behind the open source tool is committed enough to continue developing it.

• Limited capabilities: The main disadvantage of open source tools is that they might not have all the capabilities you need.

• Potential lack of scalability: Sometimes the open source stack cannot deal with larger volumes of users. Although you don’t want to get more features than you need, make sure your chosen solution is not a dead end.


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Commercial Tools

ADvAnTAgES DISADvAnTAgES • A full feature set: Commercial products have

comprehensive capabilities. • Support: You’ll have a company standing

behind you for training and support. • Future proofing: The vendor should be

committed enough to continue to develop the tool.

• Security: The metadata layer is typically stronger than in open source tools.

• Leading-edge tools: Certain capabilities, such as interactive charting, will only be found in commercial products. (Limitations vary by vendor.)

• Expense: You’ll have to pay for the tool. However, prices have dropped dramatically, making commercial tools more cost-effective for many companies.

• Future proofing: If the tool is 100% proprietary, you will be in serious trouble if that vendor goes out of business. (If the vendor has both an open source and a commercial version, the open source tool would probably still be available.)


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! The metadata layer provides a “user-friendly,” cleaned-up view of the data. The metadata hides the database complexity, making it easy for people to use and interact with the data. The metadata makes it appear that it is one data source, and keeps the data safe by keeping users from accessing the data directly. By assuring the security of the data, the metadata layer makes self-service BI possible. It also assures that, if your source data changes, your reports will not be affected.

Step 6: Think About Technical Considerations

Your plan for self-service BI cannot be decided by functionality alone. You also need to think about how whatever you do will fit in with your key data sources and technical infrastructure.

Data Management

Are you concerned: • About users creating queries that could bring down the system?

• About them having access directly against the operational data or data warehouse?

• That you’ll have to rewrite the reports if the data changes?

You should be concerned about such things, because databases are complex, security is paramount, and performance is critical.

Enter the metadata layer, which is essential to supporting self-service reporting.

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! Among other advantages, the metadata:

• Cleans up the data.

• Specifies the default formatting.

• Specifies how it will handle data issues, like multiple, disparate data sources coming together.

• Helps you maintain a clean interface even if the data sources are going through “trauma” (e.g., a company merger or acquisition).


In short, the metadata layer assures the employees use the data properly and that it meets the standards for your company.

A good metadata layer means that your super users can self-service to a great extent, without dealing with the database complexity. Without a metadata layer, you will be restricted to the most basic data sources.

The IT department needs to design the metadata layer. They can “put a fence” around the data, restricting access to assure security. The metadata keeps users from doing anything dumb, and assures they can’t bring down the database. (A serious business, indeed).

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To help you come to terms with the metadata, ask yourself:Step 6: Think About Technical Considerations Metadata – Needs Questionnaire Yes No

1 Do you have multiple data sources?

2 Do you have both relational and non-relational data sources?

3 Did they come from different organizations (e.g., a merger)?

4 Is all your data in English?

5 Do you use Big Data sources, such as Hadoop or MongoDB?

6Will you probably need to incorporate more data sources (e.g., social media) in the future?

7Does your data need to be cleaned, such as normalizing country codes or eliminating blank records?

8Are you concerned that users could trigger queries that will tie up the database for extended amounts of time?

9Are you concerned that users will create queries that make no sense or don’t yield valid business insights?

10Are you worried that users will not use the many data sources and structures appropriately?

11Do you have sensitive data that you want to let some users (but not others) query?

12 Do you use (or plan to use) data virtualization?

! The good news is that the metadata layer can be built up a little at a time. You can design this architecture in bite-size pieces for when you need self-service reporting. The data objects can also handle security based on the user.

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The Managed BI Server To get a better idea of your technical needs, ask yourself if your users:


Managed Reporting – Needs Questionnaire Yes No

1Need their own area to store their own reports and access them rapidly?

2Want to share reports and information with colleagues without e-mailing?

3 Need to access reports on their smartphones, laptops or tablets?

4 Use web-based tools a lot?

5 Handle a dozen or more reports?

6Want to store the results of running reports (populated with data), and share them?

7 Serve many other users?

! Obviously, managing all the different users, reports and data sources involved in self-service business intelligence requires a robust BI server. The server needs to be high-performance and configured to provide the self-service BI capabilities (e.g., to enable interactivity, enforce security and access permissions). Security is especially important if you have sensitive data or users outside the company (e.g., customers, an independent sales force).

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Summary You have come a long way. Specifically:

123456

You have clarified your objectives and decided that self-service BI is right for you.

You have an idea of the benefits you can expect from self-service BI.

You understand the differences of the five basic types of self-service BI.

You understand your users and their needs and wants. You know that one size does NOT fit all.

You’ve considered the different types of BI solutions (e.g., DIY, open source and commercial).

You have an idea of the technical considerations, including the need for metadata, for offering self-service BI.

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Summary You clearly think ahead, and have an idea of your company’s needs now and in the future. You have demonstrated your commitment to delivering the right amount of information and right set of capabilities to the right users.

In short, you’re well on your way to implementing a self-service BI tool. In a world where information is the new currency, you are making it possible for your organization to generate the kind of insights that can assure its success.

Congratulations. Let us know if we can help you in any way.

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Personas

NAME & PERSONA TYPEPHOTO

AGE

JOB TITLE

TECHNICAL COMFORT

MOTIVATIONS

FRUSTRATIONS

HIS/HER IDEAL EXPERIENCE

Persona Worksheet “A”

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Personas


AGE

JOB TITLE

TECHNICAL COMFORT

MOTIVATIONS

FRUSTRATIONS


Persona Worksheet “B”

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Personas


AGE

JOB TITLE

TECHNICAL COMFORT

MOTIVATIONS

FRUSTRATIONS


Persona Worksheet “C”

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Personas


AGE

JOB TITLE

TECHNICAL COMFORT

MOTIVATIONS

FRUSTRATIONS


Persona Worksheet “D”

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About Jaspersoft Jaspersoft empowers millions of people every day to make faster decisions by bringing them timely, actionable data inside their apps and business processes. Its embeddable, cost-effective reporting and analytics platform allows anyone to quickly self serve and get the answers they need and scales architecturally and economically to reach everyone. Thanks to a community that is hundreds-of-thousands strong, Jaspersoft’s commercial open source software has been downloaded millions of times and is used to create the intelligence inside hundreds of thousands of apps and business processes. Jaspersoft is a privately held company with offices around the world. For more information visit http://www.jaspersoft.com and http://community.jaspersoft.com

Learn More

See how companies have successfully deployed Jaspersoft BI solutions and are extending the value and performance of their data. Visit our Solutions Showcase page at http://www.jaspersoft.com/embedded-bi. Learn why customers choose Jaspersoft as the Intelligence Inside their apps and business processes here: http://www.jaspersoft.com/why-us

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