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Reports vs Analysis
In almost every BI tool there is a potential to make static reports and ad-hoc analysis. Some tools are better in reporting, and other in analysis. From my experience (and yes, I was surprised), about 90% of users really need just static reports. Just to open some BI tool in the morning, refresh it and that's it.
I would appreciate your experience and thoughts, though.
Best Answer
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- Craig Rosenberg
I think there is some confusion about the nature of a "static" report. A static report has fixed composition and data definitions, but there is no reason at all that the data can't be "real-time." Other than a streaming ticker-tape or facsimiles of gauges, how else would you display real time data?
Nor do static reports have to be "programmed." It's pretty simple for anyone who understands the data and relationships to interactively create a report. It can then be made public for others to use, with either static data (at the time it was created) or refreshed data whenever the report is requested.
Then there are prompted or parametrized reports, which are "static" in terms of their composition and data definitions, but prompts at run time can filter, aggregate, constrain, change time periods, etc. These reports are generally developed using BI tools (though the term BI itself has gotten pretty fungible).
To me, a truly dynamic report is one that composes itself based on an understanding of the data, the relationships, the rules and, usually, some personalization that remembers the requester, etc. We find these mainly on the Web. If someone knows of a BI tool that does, please let me know.
Waqas: "Static reports could be useful in scenarios where businesses can live without monitoring and improving variables and business drivers."
I'm sorry, I've never encountered a business that can live without monitoring and improving.
Susan: Real time stats still have to be reported in a consistent framework or people can't understand them. What if your clock face changed its orientation every few minutes, or the speedometer in your car moved to different places on the dashboard?
A lot of reporting is programmed, but that is usually representative of a single operational system. Once data is integrated and there is a need to understand things with metrics that cross subject areas, BI is the ticket as it is designed, mostly, to work against data warehouses and data marts. When a report morphs from static to dynamic, and when report creation turns into say, OLAP, or other exploration/visualization work with tools like Tableau or Spotfire, it pretty hard to define, It's more of a continuum.
Now, analytics is another term that lacks a common definition. People like Tom Davenport position it as advanced quantitative methods conducted by PhD's. I don't agree with this. I believe that anyone who either queries data looking for something, or navigates through data, is doing analytics. That's why OLAP was called OLAP - Online Analytical Processing. Descriptive, predictive and optimizational modeling are finding their way into lots of operational and BI systems, where people don't need to know the Moment Generating Function of a Gamma log-Normal distribution, but software advisors guide them in building useful models. So even in this case, static-appearing reports can be highly analytical.
The important thing is doing the right thing with the right tools and not worrying too much what they're called.
Much of the needs for reporting tend to be operational in nature whereby you can get away with simple daily/weekly/monthly report refreshes. Until an organization understands its data and uses it for strategic reasons, refresh will continue to be the most popular option.
Static reports could be useful in scenarios where businesses can live without monitoring and improving variables and business drivers. However, most organizations would realize the benefits of BI over traditional reports because:
1. Traditional reports are 'hard-coded' and answer pre-defined questions only
2. Traditional Reports provide data after the disaster has struck
3. Traditional Reports require custom programming for business specific needs
4. Traditional Reports show data in fixed layouts and formats
5. Traditional Reports are based on transactional data – not good for analysis
In my business, we use both static reporting and dynamic reporting. The dynamic reporting is used as a "coaching and monitoring" tool for customer service and collection agents. The static reporting is typically used for EOM stats and marketing purposes.
Real time stats though are the wave of the future so every business can see what truly happens.
I think that both Analytics and Business Intelligence are part of the same discipline: Business Analytics.
I can visualize a Venn diagram where BI and Analytics have a significant intersection area, where many activities belong to both areas while some are exclusive of BI and others of Analytics.
Business Intelligence is much more than software. BI is a reliable analytical process that transforms raw data into relevant, accurate and useable strategic knowledge with the purpose of increasing profit.
This process transforms raw data into information, information into knowledge and knowledge into the wisdom necessary to beat the competition in order to increase market share, revenue and profit.
The key is to utilize the powerful BI applications available today to automate this process, to make sound decisions fast, aiming to the sustainable profitability of the company.
The whole process is analytical in nature whether you use a primitive static reporting tool, OLAP, in memory data mapping, visual analytics or the most sophisticated statistical or predictive software; and continues to be analytical once the computer process is completed and the human thinking goes on.
In the end, BI and Analytics are intimately related to the point that there is no value trying to separate them.
Regards, Bill
http://blog.strat-wise.com
I think that both Analytics and Business Intelligence are part of the same discipline: Business Analytics.
I can visualize a Venn diagram where BI and Analytics have a significant intersection area, where many activities belong to both areas while some are exclusive of BI and others of Analytics.
Business Intelligence is much more than software. BI is a reliable analytical process that transforms raw data into relevant, accurate and useable strategic knowledge with the purpose of increasing profit.
This process transforms raw data into information, information into knowledge and knowledge into the wisdom necessary to beat the competition in order to increase market share, revenue and profit.
The key is to utilize the powerful BI applications available today to automate this process, to make sound decisions fast, aiming to the sustainable profitability of the company.
The whole process is analytical in nature whether you use a primitive static reporting tool, OLAP, in memory data mapping, visual analytics or the most sophisticated statistical or predictive software; and continues to be analytical once the computer process is completed and the human thinking goes on.
In the end, BI and Analytics are intimately related to the point that there is no value trying to separate them.
Regards, Bill
http://blog.strat-wise.com
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Reports have been around since about a day after computers were invented. You can't sell technology that old, so the industry constantly comes up with "new and improved." Today's version is "analytics." there is nothing wrong with "static" reports, only static report processes. When authoring a new report is a budetn, the BI stack loses it's value. IT often turns reporting into a locked down system which defeats the purpose of BI.
Analytics has no solid definition. People with no skill in quantitative methods are still capable of performing analytics - that's what they do when they analyze a report. Distinctions of reports vs analytics are silly and are just the creation of marketers. Those that do apply mathematical analysis are just doing a different kind of analytics.