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Operational, Tactical, & Strategic Dashboards

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Xcelsius DashboardAs your organization seeks to better understand its customer and manage a diverse line of services and products, operational, tactical and strategic dashboards should become a critical addition to your planning and decision-making toolbox. Whether the dashboard provides your Executive Director a 30,000-foot view of the organization as a whole, or the product line manager an interactive interface which allows exploration into the details of a particular product’s performance, your organization can benefit a well-built dashboard.

Achieving accuracy and consistency for all dashboards within an organization can be both a challenging and expensive task. To this end, TMA Resources delivers three categories of dashboards to its customers to ensure that the right type of presentation is delivered to your organization’s decision–makers …

• Operational Dashboards: Continuously monitor core business processes with real-time transactional data. Alert your managers upon thresholds being exceeded or upon an exception in the data.

• Tactical Dashboards: Provide the department manager with a quick view into how his or her department is performing and highlight areas of concern—so the manager can take action to forestall less-than-optimal performance.

• Strategic Dashboards: Provide senior managers and executives with a glance of the organization’s performance in relation to strategic goals. These dashboards are typically based upon data residing in one of the organizations data warehouses or data marts and contain time-stamped snapshots of data.

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New Product Names within SAP BusinessObjects Version 4.0

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The latest version of SAP Business Objects, released in 2011, has been officially named SAP BusinessObjects 4.0 with the title “XI” being removed from the release number. Many of the client tools in the SAP Business Objects application suite will also have a new name in the new version.

Business Objects Application Names for BOBJ XI 3.x vs. BOBJ 4.0

Business Objects (BOBJ) 4.0 - New Application Names

Source: http://bit.ly/gVurCF

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Components of SAP BusinessObjects: Universes

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A BusinessObjects Universe is a middleware device that contains a business representation of a data warehouse, data marts, or other reporting database. Fundamentally, the universe enables the end-user of BusinessObjects to interact with data without having to understand the complexities of database logic or be familiar with where the physical data is stored. Moreover, the universe is built around common business terminology that describes the business environment and provides the end-user the ability to intuitively query and retrieve exactly the data that they need.

Also known as a “semantic layer”, the universe is an intermediary layer between a database or data source and dependent reports, queries, or dashboards.  The universe is a requirement as a data source for WebIntelligence and Xcelsius dashboards, while being optional as a data source for Crystal Reports.

Role of Business Objects Universe

A universe is developed using the BusinessObjects Designer tool and a universe file (.unv) contains:
•  Database connection information
•  Objects grouped into classes seen by the users
•  Objects that map to database structures
•  A schema of tables and joins based on the database
Components of a Universe Include:
•  Classes – Logical groupings of fields and objects
•  Tables – Mappings to database tables and views
•  Objects – Structures that map to database fields
•  Joins – SQL specifications on how tables relate (contains both inner and outer join information)
•  Contexts – Groups of related tables with their related joins

Universe within BusinessObjects Designer

Key Advantages of Utilizing a BusinessObjects Universe:
•  Only the universe developer needs to understand the structure of the underlying database.
•  Cryptic database jargon is hidden from end-users
•  The designer tool allows the creation of the universe in an easy-to-use graphical interface.
•  The data is read-only so there is no danger of the data being edited or changed by the end user.
•  Reports can be created using a simple interface using drag and drop techniques.
•  All data fields utilize consistent business terminology.
•  Standards can be applied across data fields
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Components of SAP BusinessObjects: QAAWS

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Query as a Web Service (QAAWS) is a technique within the SAP Business Objects suite that allows for creation and publishing of web services.  Subsequently web services are utilized to integrate data between a Business Objects Universe and an Xcelsius Dashboard.  The QAAWS client tool provides the dashboard developer an intuitive wizard that to create universe queries and publish these queries as web services.  Once a web service is published, an Xcelsuis Dashboard can utilize and present that data. Fundamentally, QAAWS is an integration device between a Business Objects Universe and an Xcelsius Dashboard.

Query as a Web Service (QAAWS)

Query as a Web Service (QAAWS)

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Components of SAP BusinessObjects: Xcelsius

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Xcelsius is the primary dashboard development tool of the SAP BusinessObjects suite of business intelligence products.  Xcelsius extends the power of business intelligence environments by offering interactive devices including gauges, charts, widgets, drop-down menus, and sliders.  These intuitive and user-friendly devices simplify the display of complex business data and provide decision makers with an easy way to interact with data and test out future business scenarios with the click of a mouse.

Sample Xcelsius Dashboard

Sample Xcelsius Dashboard

At its heart, Xcelsius is a dynamic and customizable data visualization software package that enables development of both insightful and engaging dashboards from various data sources throughout a typical organization. Moreover, Xcelsius includes graphical interfaces and real-time methods that provide guided analysis and for dynamic monitoring of organizational metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs).

Key Features of Xcelsius Dashboards Include:

•  Intuitive graphical visualizations of data.
•  Dashboard customization to meet unique business needs.
•  Connection of dashboards to any type of data source.
•  Maximization of the value of a business intelligence solution with rich user interface.
•  Deployment of dashboards within Microsoft Office, Adobe PDF, Portals, or on the Web.
•  Empowerment of decision-makers to view and understand key organizational metrics.
•  Improved user adoption of BI tools because of business-friendly visualizations.
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Business Intelligence (BI) Maturity Model - Level 3

BI Maturity Model Level 3 – Dashboard Management

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Overview of Dashboard Management

Dashboard management systems are intended to facilitate and support the information and decision-making needs of management by providing easy access to key business information in a highly graphical and intuitive format. Fundamentally, a dashboard is a graphical business tool that displays a set of KPIs (key performance indicators), metrics, and any other relevant information to a business user, manager, or key decision-maker in a single consolidated view and allows for organizational performance to be easily measured and monitored.  Dashboard data is often displayed as aggregate information and contains data that consolidated from multiple data sources scattered throughout an organization. Dashboards are commonly interactive and provide users the ability to drill into particular aspects of the display and/or rapidly switch between views of the data.

Sample Organizational Dashboard

To make this possible, dashboards are typically composed of advanced data visualization tools including charts, grids, gauges, and maps that allow for various ways of presenting information and interacting with the data. Moreover, dashboard management environments are characterized by providing users with graphical methods to view and interact with key data elements and get a snapshot of organizational performance.

Characteristics of Dashboard Management

•  Presents a number of organizational metrics in a single consolidated view
•  Presents data in graphical and intuitive format
•  Utilizes graphics, charts, grids, gauges, and maps
•  Monitors organizational metrics and key performance indicators (KPI)
•  Enables real-time visibility into data
•  Primarily utilized by senior management and key decision-makers
•  Rapidly displays a snapshot of organizational performance
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Sample Charter for a BI Center of Excellence (BI COE)

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Sample BI Center of Excellence (BI COE)

Sample BI Center of Excellence (BI COE)

In order to ensure a predictable and repeatable usage of Business Intelligence (BI) services across organization X, and to maximize the value of licensing cost, organization X’s information technology department has adopted the formation of a Business Intelligence Center of Excellence (BI COE). This BI COE performs at an enterprise level and serves as a cross-functional team with a permanent, formal organization structure. The team includes defined tasks, roles, responsibilities and processes for supporting and promoting the effective use of business intelligence across the organization.

SAP BusinessObjects Logo

In addition, organization X has chosen to standardize on an organization-wide reporting and decision support platform from SAP Business Objects to provide analysts and decision-makers across the enterprise with easy and flexible access to critical data. While Business Objects is being made available to the users through-out the enterprise, there is a need to establish and uphold best practices, guidelines, policies, standards and training to ensure the usability, sustainability and maintainability of the environment.

Fundamentally, the BI COE at organization X has three major responsibilities:

1. Application/security administration of Business Objects environment
2. Management and support of Business Objects application infrastructure
• Web Intelligence
• InfoView
• Crystal Reports
• Xcelsius Dashboards
3. Oversight, development, and implementation of enterprise business intelligence projects.
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