COLLEGE OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATION SCIENCES

Mid-Term Assessment 2021

Class Id 106133 / 106134 Course Title Business Intelligence
Program BSERP Campus / Shift City Campus
Date 14th – Mar 2021 Total Marks 30
Duration 02 hours Faculty Name
Student Id 58549 Student Name Shariq Ahmed Khan

Instructions:
• Fill out your Student ID and Student Name in above header.
• Do not remove or change any part question paper.
• Write down your answers with title “Answer for Question# 00”.
• Handwritten text or image should be on A4 size page with clear visibility of contents.
• In case of CHEATING, COPIED material or any unfair means would result in negative marking or ZERO.
• Caution: Duration to perform Mid-Term Assessment is 02 hours only. Extra 3 hours are given to cater all
kinds of odds in submission of Answer-sheet. Therefore, if you failed to upload answer sheet on LMS
(in PDF format) within 5 hours limit, you would be considered as ABSENT/FAILED.
• Attempt All Questions. Each question has 5 marks.
1. As a BI Consultant, this is your first day at job. Your Project Manager calls you and assign a BI Project to be
executed for a trading company.

Technology: QlikView
Industry: Trading
Domain: Sales and Finance

Mention in points the high level plan to execute the project.

Answer for Question# 1: BI PROJECT PLAN:-

• As business intelligence consultant my aim will be to utilize all the features of BI tool “QlikView” to get
the data that companies need, the most important being discovering areas of revenue loss and
identifying where improvements can be made to save the company money or increase profits.

• Build a strategy to make sure the data going into the system is correct and consistent.

• Real time Self-service data visualization for business users with maximize security.

• Will implement modern standardized strategy for Sales & Finance domain to insure correct financial
analytics.

• Gathering data from internal systems and external sources for ease of Salesforce.

• Develop an intuitive user interface that is integrated into day to day workflow /Automating workflows to
reduce the reporting time.

• Data analysis; The gleaning of insights from data that can be acted upon.

• Identification of fraudulent transactions and how to counter them.

2. K & G has a huge sales network. To control the sales, it is divided into the regions. Each region has multiple
zones. Each zone has different cities. Each sales person is allocated to different cities. The objective is to track
Sales figure at different granularity levels of Region. Also to count number of products sold. Products are
categorized as High end and Low end products.

Identify the following:

a) Dimensions and Facts

b) Design a suitable schema (Please make schema on paper or using any online tool and attach its image)

Answer for Question# 2:

a) Dimensions and Facts:

1. A huge sales network needs integrated & automated analytics that drives the whole data in less time.

2. Their network is divided into regions, need to be connected with a single platform

3. A salesperson have to be accessed at at any city any location.

4. A BI software required to track all sales, productivity according to standard

 b) Schema

3. United Garments is looking to implement BI to improve the decision making capability within the
organization. To which decision making level you will recommend United Garments to implement BI and why?

Answer for Question# 3:

They need to implement BI for executive level decision making, to help executives or managers making decisions
using interactive model that describes real-time processes. The system also uses data from the internal database
but looks for specific data that relate to the problems at hand. With this model, the manager enters into the
computer the values that describe a particular situation, and the program computes the results. Marketing
executives at a furniture company could run DSS models that use sales data and demographic assumptions to
develop forecasts of the types of furniture that would appeal to the fastest-growing population groups. Enhance
ability to analyze the expected opportunities in market and threats from competitors. Fast analysis on research
& development. Also can use a predictive analytics program to improve their inventory management system and
use big data to target customer segments for new products and line extensions.

4. Saphire Inc. implemented QlikView in a short span of time. The solution provider was so happy. But when the
users started using the solution, they did not get the required reports. Management did not achieve the goal
they envisioned. In your view,

Are the users who were responsible for the failure OR is the solution provider, and WHY?

Answer for Question# 4:

Not users! The solution provider and the management were responsible for the failure, because, may be they
did’nt recommended the UAT (user acceptance traininig) and its obvious that they implemented the solution in
short span of time because the plan needs to be analyzed & designed properly before implementation &
support…and a short test before go-live.

5. Short answers required (Attempt any five)

1. What is the benefit of In Memory analytics?

 Ans.1: The key advantage of in-memory analytics is speed. Because queries and related data reside in
the server's memory, report generation does not require any network access or disk I/O

2. Why Synthetic Keys are created?

Ans.2: The QlikView handles composite keys by generating Synthetic keys automatically. These keys
represent all occurred combinations of composite keys. Multiple Synthetic keys represent a symptom of
an incorrect data model, but not necessarily. But often, Synthetic keys occur due to an error in the
script.

3. How does Business Intelligence help companies gain competitive advantage?

Ans.3: The reduction of the dispersion of information, Greater scope for interaction between users, Ease
of access to information, The information is available in real time, Versatility and flexibility in adapting to
the reality of the company, Useful in the process of decision making.

4. What is the preferred schema for data model in the Qlikview?

5. What is the benefit of Dimensional Model?

Ans.5: Dimensional model has proved to be more understandable – in the dimensional model, data is
grouped into coherent dimensions that help business users analyze the data easier.

The dimensional model allows boost & optimized query performance. In addition, the predictable
framework of a dimensional model allows database engine to make a strong assumption about the data;
this helps database engine boost query performance.

Dimensional model is extensible.

6. What is the use of Slicing and Dicing technique?

Ans.6: Slicing: The Slicing operations takes one specific dimension from a cube given and represents a
new sub-cube, which provides information from another point of view. It can create a new sub-cube by
choosing one or more dimensions. The use of Slice implies the specified granularity level of the
dimension.

Dicing: Dicing emphasizes two or more dimensions from a cube given and suggests a new sub-cube, as
well as Slice operation does. In order to locate a single value for a cube, it includes adding values for
each dimension.

6. Please see the Dashboard below carefully and answer following queries. Your answers should be crisped and
not more than three lines.
a) What is the knowledge / information the Management can get from Dashboard to do unstructured
decision making?
Ans. The information system assists the mid- and high-level management of an organization by
analyzing huge volumes of unstructured data and accumulating information that can help to solve
problems and help in decision-making. A DSS is either human-powered, automated, or a combination of
both. Decisions can be structured, semi structured, or unstructured, with structured decisions clustering
at the operational level of the organization and unstructured decisions at the strategic level. Decision
making can be performed by individuals or groups and includes employees as well as operational,
middle, and senior managers. Systems to support decision making do not always produce better
management and employee decisions that improve firm performance because of problems with
information quality, management filters, and organizational culture.

b) What is the knowledge / information the Management can get from Dashboard to do structured
decision making?
Ans. Structured decision making technology provides new tools for managers to carry out both
traditional and newer management roles, enabling them to monitor, plan, and forecast with more
precision and speed than ever before and to respond more rapidly to the changing business
environment. Information systems have been most helpful to managers by providing support for their
roles in disseminating information, providing liaisons between organizational levels, and allocating
resources.

c) What is the knowledge / information the Management can get from Dashboard to do Day to Day
decision making?
Ans. They need to be aware of what is happening in the business, while maintaining day-to-day
operational control. This allows them to quickly make tactical decisions, and prepare for strategic
decisions with reliable information. such as tracking, analyzing, reporting, updating etc.