Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
on. Regular communication helps ensures that the source system application
development team continues to consider the impact of their own enhancements
and modifications on the data warehouse. While they do not need to limit what
they do because of potential impact on the data warehouse, they do need to
ensure that the data warehouse team is prepared to properly process any new
data when it begins to flow from the source system. This can be accomplished
by having a representative from the data warehouse attend change review
meetings for the source systems or review the change/enhancement requests
that have been approved. This provides insight into what the source system
support team will be working on and enables the data warehouse team to
begin exploring the potential impact on the data warehouse itself.
Maintaining the BI Application
The BI application provides a starting point for business users. As these initial
reports and analyses are used, new ideas will be generated. Often these
enhancement requests are formally submitted, but usually new reports are
created directly by business users.
The beauty of a BI environment is that experienced users can indeed create
their own reports and analyses. This can be done from scratch or through
a series of modifications to existing reports, enabling them to morph into a
completely new report. It does not require anyone else to step in and do the
work for them.
However, such reports may not follow the standards developed for BI
development and they may not run efficiently. They may meet the business
need, however, and if a report is useful enough, it may be shared with
colleagues for their use too. Nonetheless, rather than have a poorly performing
report distributed throughout the business community, it is better for the
author of the report to submit it to a central BI support team for a formal
release. The BI support team may be a group of highly experienced business
analysts within the business community. This support team can ensure that
proper formatting and other standards are applied. Quality checks can be
done to ensure the accuracy of calculations. Finally, the efficiency of the report
can also be reviewed. Usually, in a short time frame the new report can be
released into the BI environment as a new analysis in the library of reports. If
the new analysis is valuable enough, it may even be included on a dashboard
or other BI portal for general access. As more people gain experience, they can
be taught how to prepare these reports or analyses for distribution.
The important thing is to provide a mechanism for new reports and analyses
to be distributed to the rest of the business community. In addition, keep in
mind that not every report or analysis must go through this process, just those
that are to be included as part of the official BI application. Many reports will
be created for personal use that do not need to be shared.
