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DIRECTORATE OF DISTANCE EDUCATION

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
 CONTENT
S
Unit 1: Introduction to Business Intelligence 1
Unit 2: Multidimensional Analysis 14
Unit 3: Dimensional Data Warehouse 28
Unit 4: Understanding OLAP 43
Unit 5: Microsoft Business Intelligence Platform 59
Unit 6: Business Intelligence Project 83
Unit 7: Creating Cube 102
Unit 8: Advanced Measures and Calculations 115
Unit 9: Advanced Dimensional Design 128
Unit 10: Retrieving Data from Analysis Services 141
Unit 11: Data Mining 150
Unit 12: Understanding Data Mining Tools 166
Unit 13: Creating Data Mining Queries and Reports 178
Unit 14: Reporting Tools 189
 SYLLABUS
Business Intelligence
Objectives: To impart the skills needed to manage database of large scale organization, techniques for data mining. Student
will learn OLAP and generating quick reports.

S. No. Description
1. Business Intelligence: Introduction, Meaning, Purpose and Structure of Business Intelligence Systems.
Understanding Multidimensional Analysis Concepts: Attributes, Hierarchies and Dimensions in data
Analysis. Understanding Dimensional Data Warehouse: Fact Table, Dimension Tables, Surrogate Keys and
alternative Table Structure. What is multi-dimension OLAP?
2. Understanding OLAP: Fast response, Meta-data based queries, Spread sheet formulas. Understanding
Analysis Services speed and meta-data. Microsoft’s Business intelligence Platform. Analysis Services Tools.
Data Extraction, Transformation and Load. Meaning and Tools for the same.
3. Creating your First Business Intelligence Project: Creating Data source, Creating Data view. Modifying the
Data view. Creating Dimensions, Time, and Modifying dimensions. Parent-Child Dimension.
4. Creating Cube: Wizard to Create Cube. Preview of Cube. Adding measure and measure groups to a cube.
Calculated members. Deploying and Browsing a Cube.
5. Advanced Measures and Calculations: Aggregate Functions. Using M DX to retrieve values from cube.
Calculation Scripting. Creation of KPI’s.
6. Advanced Dimensional Design: Creating reference, fact and many to many dimensions. Using Financial
Analysis Cubes. Interacting with a cube. Creating Standard and Drill Down Actions.
7. Retrieving Data from Analysis Services: Creating Perspectives, M DX Queries, Excel with Analysis Services.
8. Data Mining: Meaning and purpose. Creating data for data mining. Data mining model creation. Selecting
data mining algorithm. Understanding data mining tools. Mapping Mining Structure to Source Data columns.
Using Cube Sources. Configuring Algorithm parameters.
9. Creating Data mining queries and reports: Creation of Prediction queries. Understanding D M X language.
10. Reporting Tools: Using SQL Server Reporting Services to develop reports for analysis services.
 Unit 1: Introduction to Business
Intelligence

Unit 1: Introduction to Business Note

s
Intelligence
CONTENTS
Objectives
Introductio
n
1. Mean
ing of
Busin
ess
Intelli
gence
2. Histo
ry of
Busin
ess
Intelli
gence
1. T
h
e

D
a
t
a

W
a
r
e
h
o
u
Objectives s
e
After studying this unit, you will be able to:
2. O
• Discuss thef meaning of Business Intelligence
f
• Explore history of Business Intelligence
l
• i
State the purpose of Business Intelligence Systems
n
• Construct structure
e of Intelligence Systems

IntroductionE
x
t
Business Intelligence (BI) is a set of ideas, methodologies, processes,
r
architectures, and technologies that change raw data into significant and useful
a
data for business purpose. Business Intelligence can handle large amounts of data
c
to help identify tand evolve new opportunities for the business. Making use of these
new opportunities, and applying a productive scheme on it can provide a
comparable market benefit and long-term stability.
T
r
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f
o
r
m
Business Intelligence

Note Business Intelligence (BI) technologies provide chronicled, present and predictive
s view of business operations. Common functions of enterprise Intelligence
technologies are reporting, online analytical processing, analytics, data
excavation, process excavation, business performance management,
benchmarking, text mining, predictive analytics and prescriptive analytics.
1.1 Meaning of Business Intelligence
BI (Business Intelligence) refers to set of techniques which assist in spotting,
digging out and investigating best data from the large amount of data to improve
conclusion making. Let us understand the concept better with help of an example.

Example: Suppose we have chronicled data of a Shopping Mart of 3-6

months. Here, in the data we have different products with their respective
specifications. Let us select one of the products-say Candles. We have three kinds
of Candles in this class say Candle A, Candle B, Candle C. On studying of these
data we come to know that sale of Candle C was at peak out of these three classes.
Now on afresh and deep study into these data we got the outcome that the sale of
this Candle C was maximum between the time intervals of 9 am to 11 am. On
further deeper analysis, we came to the conclusion that this specific Candle is the
one used in place of worship.
Now, let’s apply Business Intelligence for this analysis. What an enterprise
firm or the organization can do is, get other material that can be used in church
and place them nearby those candles. Now the customers approaching the
Shopping Mart to purchase the candles for place of worship can also have a look on
the other material and may be tempted to purchase them as well. Now this will
surely enhance the sales and hence the income of Shopping Mart.

Self Assessment

1 Fill in the blanks: can handle large amounts of data to help identify and
..................................
. evolve new opportunities for the business.

2 BI (Business Intelligence) refers to set of techniques which assist

. in ....................., digging out and ........................ best data from the large
amount of data to improve conclusion making.

1.2 History of Business Intelligence

Normally, early business applications had their own databases that supported their
functions. These databases became “islands of information” in that no other
systems had access to them. These islands of information proliferated as more and
more departments were automated.

Did u know? Amalgamations and acquisitions aggregated the difficulty since the
companies integrated completely distinct systems, numerous of which were
doing the similar job.
However, businesses shortly identified the analytical value of the data that they
had access to. In fact, as enterprises automated more systems, more data became
accessible. However, collecting these data for analysis was a challenge because of
the incompatibilities amidst systems.

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Note
! s
Caution There was no simple way (and often no way) for these systems to interact.

An infrastructure was required for data exchange, collection, and analysis that
could supply a unified view of an enterprise’s data. The data warehouse evolved
to complete this need.
1.2.1 The Data Warehouse

The concept of the data warehouse (Figure 1.1) is a lone scheme that is the
repository of all of the organization’s data (or simply data) in a pattern that can
be competently analysed so that significant accounts can be arranged for
administration and other information workers.
Figure 1.1: Data Warehouse
Concept

Point of Sale

Gift Registry

Ad Hoc
Inventory Queries
ETL Batch Reports
Data Warehouse
transfers

dashboards

Sales Promotions

Source: http://www.gravic.com/shadowbase/images/uses/datawarehouse.png

However, meeting this goal requires some challenges:

• Data should be acquired from a variety of incompatible systems.
• The identical piece of data might reside in the databases of distinct systems in
distinct types. A specific data item might not only be represented in distinct
formats, but the values of this Data piece might be distinct in distinct
databases. Which value is the correct one?
• Data is continually altering. How often should the Data warehouse be
revised to contemplate a sensibly current view?
• The amount of Data is massive. How is it analysed and presented easily so that
it is useful?
To meet these needs, a broad range of powerful tools were developed over the years
and became productized. They included:
• Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) utilities for the moving of data from the
diverse data sources to the common data warehouse.
• Data-mining pushes for complex predetermined analysis and ad hoc queries of
the Data retained in the Data warehouse.
• Reporting tools to provide management employees with the outcomes of the
analysis in very simple to absorb formats.

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Note 1.2.2 Offl ine Extract, Transform and Load

s (ETL)
Early on, the one common interface that was provided between the disparate
systems in an association was magnetic tape. Tape formats were standardized, and
any system could compose tapes that could be read by other systems. Thus, the
first data warehouses were fed by magnetic tapes prepared by the various systems
inside the association. However, that left the difficulty of data disparity. The data
written by the different systems reflected their native data associations.

Notes The data written to tape by one system often had little relation to the
similar data written by another system.
Even more important was that the data warehouse’s database was designed to
support the analytical functions needed for the business intelligence function.
This database design was typically a highly organised database with complex
indices to support Online Analytical Processing (OLAP). Databases configured for
OLAP allowed complex analytical and ad hoc queries with rapid execution time.
The data fed to the data warehouse from the enterprise systems was converted to
a format significant to the data warehouse.
To explain the difficulty of initially stacking this data into a data warehouse, holding
it updated, and resolving discrepancies, Extract, Transform and Load (ETL) utilities
were evolved. As their name suggests, these utilities extract data from source
databases, change/transform them into the widespread data warehouse format,
and load them into the data warehouse, as shown in Figure 1.2.
Figure 1.2: Extract/Transform/Load
Structure

ETL – Extract/Transofrm/Load
Source: http://www.gravic.com/shadowbase/images/uses/etl.png

The transform function is the key to the achievement of this approach. Its job is
to request a series of rules to extracted data so that it is properly formatted for
loading into the data warehouse. An example of transformation rules includes:
• The selection of data to load.
• The translation of encoded items (for example, 1 for male, 2 for female to M,
F).

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• Deriving new calculated values (sale price = price - Note

discount). s
• Merging data from multiple sources.
• Summarizing (aggregating) certain rows and
columns.
• Splitting a column into multiple columns.
• Resolving discrepancies between similar data
items.
• Validating the data.
Figure 1.3:ofRepresentation
Figure 1.3 Shows Representation ETL Model of ETL
Model

Source:
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s1600/ETL_Global.jpg

The ETL function permits the consolidation of multiple data sources into a well-
structured database for use in complex analysis. The ETL process is performed
occasionally, such as daily, weekly, or monthly, depending upon the enterprise
needs. This method is called offline ETL because the key database is not
relentlessly updated. It is revised on a periodic batch basis. Though offline ETL
serves its purpose well, it has some drawbacks as well:
• The data in the data warehouse is not fresh. It could be weeks old. Though, it
is useful for strategic functions but is not especially adaptable to tactical use.
• The source database typically should be temporary inactive throughout the
extract method. Otherwise, the target database is in an inconsistent state
following the load. With this result, the applications must be shutdown, often
for hours.

In order to develop to support real-time business intelligence, the ETL function

must be relentless and non-invasive, which is called online ETL, and is recounted
later. In compare to offline ETL, which supplies data which is not fresh but reliable
answers to queries, online ETL supplies present but varying answers to successive
queries since the data that it is using is constantly being updated to reflect the
current state of the business.

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Note 1.2.3 Data-Mining

s Engines
The ETL utilities make data collection from numerous diverse systems practical.
Then, the data needs to be converted into useful information. Some key points to
remember:
• Data are easily facts, figures, and text that can be processed by a computer.

Example: A transaction at retail point-of-sale is data.

• Information is processed data. For example, analysis of point-of-sale
transactions yields information of consumer buying behaviour.
• Knowledge represents a pattern that connects information and usually
presents a high grade of predictability as to what is recounted or what will
happen next.

Example: An example of knowledge is the prediction of promotional efforts

on sales of particular items based on buyers’ buying behaviour.
Useful data-mining engines were evolved to support complex analysis and
ad hoc queries on a data warehouse’s database. Data mining looks for patterns
among hundreds of seemingly unrelated fields in a large database, patterns that
recognize earlier unknown trends. These trends play a key role in strategic
decision making because they disclose localities for process enhancement.

Example: Data-mining engines are those from SPSS and Oracle which are
the foundation for OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) systems.

1.2.4 Reporting Tools

The knowledge created by a data-mining engine is not very useful unless it

is presented easily and clearly to those who need it. There are many formats for
reporting information and knowledge results. One of the common techniques for
displaying information is the Figure
digital 1.4:
dashboard
Digital (shown in Figure 1.4).
dashboard

Source:
http://www.powerhealthsolutions.com/images/PBR_DigitalDashboard_KPIs.png

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It provides a business manager with the input necessary to push the business Note
towards success. It presents the client a graphical view of business processes. The s
client then drills down the data at will to get more details on a specific process.
Today, many versions of digital dashboards are accessible from a kind of software
vendors.
1.2.5 Data Marts

As corporate-wide data warehouses came into use, it was discovered that in many
situations a full-blown data warehouse was overkill for applications. Data marts
evolved to solve this problem. A data mart is a special type of a data warehouse. It
is focused on a single subject (or functional area), such as Sales, Finance, or
Marketing. Whereas data warehouses have an enterprise- wide depth, the
information in data marts pertains to a single department. The primary use for a
data mart is Business Intelligence (BI) applications. Implementing a data mart can
be less expensive than implementing a data warehouse, thus making it more
practical for the small business.

Notes A data mart can also be set up in much less time than a data warehouse.
Figure 1.5 shows the relationship between data warehouse and
data mart.
Figure 1.5: Relationship between Data Warehouse and
Data Mart

Source:
http://www.dataprix.net/fi les/uploads/250image/HEFESTO%20v2_0/data%20mart%
20-
%20top%20down.png

Self Assessment

Fill
3 inAnthe blanks:
................................... was required for data exchange, collection, and
. analysis that could supply a unified view of an enterprise’s data.

4 ........................................ utilities for the moving of data from the diverse data
. sources to the common data warehouse.

5 The first data warehouses were fed by ................................. prepared by the

. various systems inside the association.

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Note 6 The data fed to the data warehouse from the .................................. was
s . converted to a format significant to the data warehouse.
7 The job of ................................................ is to request a series of rules to
. extracted data so that it is properly formatted for loading into the data
warehouse.
8 The .................................. function permits the consolidation of multiple data
. sources into a well-structured database for use in complex analysis.
9 In compare to offline ETL, ....................................... supplies present but
. varying answers to successive queries.
10. .............................. represents a pattern that connects information and
usually presents a high grade of predictability as to what is recounted or
what will happen next.
11. A ............................... is a special type of a data warehouse focused on a
single subject (or functional area), such as Sales, Finance, or Marketing.
12. The primary use for a data mart is .................................. applications.

1.3 Purpose of Business Intelligence Systems

‘The purpose of business intelligence systems is to utilise all your underlying
business data to help executives make better business decisions,’ said Tony
Banham, technology and solutions director for Oracle Greater China.
Business Intelligence process consists of 3 distinct tasks:
1 The first task BI has to do is to gather the necessary data about the business.
. The key to this is automating the process. Gathering data was very time
and money consuming in the past, but todays with the usage of modern
computers, it’s much easier to collect data from various sources.
2 The second task is to analyse the collected data and then further extract
. information from it. The extracted information is then transformed into
knowledge.
3. The final task is to use the newly gathered knowledge to improve the
business.
There are many business intelligence tools to complete the process of gathering
knowledge related to business like Cognos, BizTools, Hummingbird and
Informatica.

1.4 Structure of Intelligence Systems

It not intelligence
1 business
A only supports the latest
system information
has three technologies, but also provides
key advantages:
. pre-packaged application solutions.
2 It focuses on the access and delivery of business information to end users,
. and support both information providers and information consumers.
3 It support access to all forms of business information, and not just the
. information stored in a data warehouse.
Figure 1.6 gives an overview of Structure of Business Intelligent System.

1.4.1 Business Intelligence Applications

Business intelligence applications provide integrated business applications,

hardware, software, and consulting services. Decision Edge from IBM, for example,
analyses customer information and based on that assists in the creation of tailored
customer marketing programs.

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Figure 1.6: IBM Business Intelligence Note

Product Set s

Source: www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg245415.pdf

1.4.2 Decision Support Tools

Query and Reporting

The two main query and reporting products (in IBM) are the Query Management
Facility (QMF) and Lotus approach. QMF has been used for many years as a host-
based query and reporting tool by DB2 whereas Lotus approach is a desktop
relational DBMS that has gained popularity due to its easy-to-use query and
reporting capabilities.

Online Analytical Processing (OLAP)

If we talk about IBM structure, its key product in the OLAP marketplace is the DB2
OLAP Server, which implements three-tier client/server architecture for
performing complex data analysis. The value of the DB2 OLAP server lies in its
ability to generate and manage relational tables that contain multidimensional
data.

Information Mining

Intelligent Miner by IBM is one of the few products in the market to support an
external API, allowing resultant data to be collected by other products (for example
an OLAP product) for further analysis.

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Note 1.4.3 Access

s Enablers
Client access to warehouse and operational data from business intelligence tools
requires a client database API.

4. Data Management

Data management offers intelligent data partitioning and parallel query and utility
processing of the data.

Example: DB2 for OS/390, DB2 for VM, and DB2 for VSE DB2 Universal
Database.

5. Data Warehouse Modelling

Using Visual Warehouse a data warehouse can be designed and constructed. Tools
for developing data warehouse includes components for defining the relationships
between the source data and warehouse information, transforming source data
and managing warehouse maintenance.

Task Find out the procedure to extract data from each individual database.

Self Assessment

State whether the following statements are true or false:

13. The first task BI has to do is to gather the necessary data about the business.
14. Business intelligence system do not supports the latest information
technologies.
15. The value of the DB2 OLAP server lies in its ability to generate and
manage relational tables that contain multidimensional data.

Case Business Intelligence

Study
Management

Y
ou are working for a sporting goods retail company. Overall sales
have beenfor the last three quarters and management is very much
declining
concerned.
Each retail store has its own individual databases that keep
specific items. However at the overall management level, only sales figures for
track of sales for
each store are reported. Management has asked you to prepare reports by
sale items (such as specific brand X and model Y of running shoes) and by
categories of sale items (such as all running shoes) so that they can make
accurate decisions on which product lines to drop to reduce overall inventory
costs. As a BI specialist or as a part of a development team, you will need to
develop a procedure to extract data from each individual database, reconcile
data formats and types, aggregate all data into a data repository, and
develop queries based on management requests. You will communicate
and work closely with management representatives to ensure that the
created data repository and reports meet their needs. This usually involves a
series of back and forth discussion during which both sides ask and answer
Contd....
questions. You have to develop a good understanding of the business
concerns

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 Unit 1: Introduction to Business
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and be able to frame them into technical requirements for the BI project. You Note
s
also need to educate management regarding possibilities and constraints of
the technology as it translates into business applications. Depending on
your level of responsibilities, you will develop or contribute to the
development of a realistic estimate of time, resources and cost to achieve the
intended goal. Once the project is launched, you will develop full
specifications, develop and test subsystems, and integrate into final product.
Throughout the development process, you will conduct a series of
increasingly rigorous technical, functional and user tests. Based on the
results of these tests, you can expect revision of technical specifications, and
overall system and unit design, along with project timeline, resources and cost
revisions. Of particular importance will be a focus on user needs and
requirements, business applications, and easy-to-use user interface. Your BI
team may be also invoked in developing and delivering training to managers
Questions:
and other stakeholders in using the new system.
1. What are basic technical requirements for the BI project?
2. Explain the procedure to extract data from each individual database.
3. What role does BI specialist play in management company?
4. What all factors will lead to reduction of the inventory cost?
Source:
http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/uac/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/d0e7c318-6764-2c
10-
95b9-d2cf096d8e9d?overridelayout=true&44929653037402

1.5 Summary
• Business Intelligence can handle large amounts of data to help identify and
evolve new opportunities for the business.
• BI (Business Intelligence) refers to set of techniques which assist in spotting,
digging out and investigating best data from the large amount of data to
improve conclusion making.
• An infrastructure was required for data exchange, collection, and analysis that
could supply a unified view of an enterprise’s data.
• Early on, the one common interface that was provided between the disparate
systems in an association was magnetic tape.
• Databases configured for OLAP allowed complex analytical and ad hoc queries
with rapid execution time.
• The ETL function permits the consolidation of multiple data sources into a
well-structured database for use in complex analysis.
• In order to develop to support real-time business intelligence, the ETL
function must be relentless and non-invasive, which is called online ETL, and
is recounted later.
• The ETL utilities make data collection from numerous diverse systems
practical.
• Useful data-mining engines were evolved to support complex analysis and ad
hoc queries on a data warehouse’s database.
• There are many formats for reporting information and knowledge results.
One of the common techniques for displaying information is the digital
dashboard.
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Business intelligence applications PROFESSIONAL
provide integrated business applications, 1
UNIVERSITY
hardware, software, and consulting services. 1
Business Intelligence

Note 1.6
s
Keywords
Business Intelligence (BI): Business Intelligence (BI) is a set of ideas, methodologies,
processes, architectures, and technologies that change raw data into significant
and useful data for business purpose.
Business Intelligence Applications: Business intelligence applications provide
integrated business applications, hardware, software, and consulting services.
Data Marts: A data mart is the access layer of the data warehouse environment that
is used to get data out to the users.
Data Warehouse: In computing, a data warehouse or enterprise data warehouse
(DW, DWH, or EDW) is a database used for reporting and data analysis.
Extract, Transform and Load (ETL): The process of extracting data from source
systems and bringing it into the data warehouse is commonly called ETL.
Magnetic Tape: Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic recording, made of a thin
magnetisable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic film.
Online Analytical Processing (OLAP): OLAP is part of the broader category of
business intelligence, which also encompasses relational database, report writing
and data mining.
Query Management Facility (QMF): Query Management Facility is a query tool
invented by IBM, for interfacing with their DB2 system. The most recent version
is Version 9.2.

1.7 Review Questions

1. What is Business Intelligence (BI)?
2. Define Business Intelligence. Give some examples.
3. Briefly discuss history of Business Intelligent.
4. Explain the concept of the data warehouse.
5. What is offline Extract, Transform, and Load?
7
6. “Implementing
What a data mart
do you understand by can be less expensive
data-mining engines? than implementing a data
. warehouse”. Elucidate.

8 What is the purpose of business intelligence

. systems?
9 What are the key advantages of business intelligence
. system?
10. Write the brief description of Business Intelligence
Applications.

Answers: Self Assessment

1. Business Intelligence 2. Spotting, investigating
3. Infrastructure 4. Extract, Transform, and Load
(ETL)
5. Magnetic tapes 6. Enterprise systems
7. Transform function 8. ETL
9. Online ETL 10. Knowledge

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11. Data 12. Business Intelligence Note

mart (BI) s
13. 14.
True False
15. True

1.8 Further
Readings

Books Carlo Vercellis (2011). “Business Intelligence: Data Mining and

Optimization for Decision Making”. John Wiley & Sons.

David Loshin (2012). “Business Intelligence: The Savvy Manager’s

Guide”. Newnes.
Elizabeth Vitt, Michael Luckevich, Stacia Misner (2010). “Business
Intelligence”.
O’Reilly Media, Inc.
Rajiv Sabhrwal, Irma Becerra-Fernandez (2010). “Business
Intelligence”. John Wiley & Sons.
Swain Scheps (2013). “Business Intelligence for Dummies”. Wiley.

Online links http://data-warehouses.n

et/
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B19306_01/server.102/b14223/ettover.ht
m
h t t p : / / w w w. h c l t e c h . c o m / e n t e r p r i s e - t r a n s f o r m a t i o n - s e r v i c e
s/ d a t a -
warehousing-and-business-intelligence
http://www.techopedia.com/definition/24170/extract-transform-load
-etl

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Note
s
Unit 2: Multidimensional
Analysis
CONTENTS
Objectives
Introductio
n
1. Dime
nsion
Attrib
utes
1. Key Attribute
2. Dimension Hierarchy
1. Type of
Hierarchy
3. Summary

Objectives
4. Keywords
5. Review Questions
After studying this unit, you will be able to:
6. Further Readings
• Recognize the Dimension Attributes
• Summarize the Dimension Hierarchy
• Identify the Type of Hierarchy

Introduction
In statistics and related fields, multidimensional analysis is a data analysis process
that groups data into two or more categories: data dimensions and measurements.
To show this, let us take the case of a football game. A data set which comprises of
the number of wins for one cricket team every year for many years could be
categorized into a single dimensional or longitudinal data set. Another data set
which comprises of the number of wins many different cricket groups inside a year
can be under a single dimensional or traverse sectional data set. A single data set
that comprises of the number of wins for diverse cricket teams over numerous years
could be comprised in a two-dimensional data set.
Multi-Dimensional analysis is an Informational analysis on data which takes into
account numerous distinct connections, each of which comprises a dimension.
For example, a retail analyst may want to understand the connections amidst
sales by district, by quarter, by demographic circulation or by product. Multi-
dimensional analysis will yield outcomes for these complex relationships.

2.1 Dimension Attributes

A dimension consists of members.

Example: The members of a product dimension are the individual products.

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Members have attributes to identify Note

them. s

Example: Some possible attributes for a product dimension could be the

product code, colour, and size.
If the dimension is defined as a hierarchy, the lower levels of the hierarchy
must also have an attribute that identifies the parent of each member. Information
about each dimension is stored in one or more dimension tables.

2.1.1 Key Attribute

Each dimension contains a key attribute. Each attribute is bound to have

one or more columns in a dimension table. The key attribute is the attribute in a
dimension that identifies the columns in the dimension main table that are used in
foreign key relationships to the fact table.

!
Typically, the key attribute represents the primary key column or
Caution
columns in the
dimension table.
An attribute can also be bound to one or more additional columns for a
specific task.

Example: An attribute’s Name property determines the name that appears

to the user for each attribute member and this property can be bound to a
calculated column in the data source view.
Table 2.1: Dimension Attribute
Table 2.1 showsProperties
dimension attribute properties.
Property Description

Attribute Identifies the folder in which to display the associated attribute

Hierarchy hierarchy to end users.
Display Folder
Attribute Determines whether an attribute hierarchy is generated by
Hierarchy Analysis Services for the attribute. If the attribute hierarchy is not
Enabled enabled, the attribute cannot be used in a user-defined hierarchy
and the attribute hierarchy cannot be referenced in
Multidimensional Expressions (MDX) statements.
Attribute Determines the level of optimization applied to the attribute
Hierarchy hierarchy. By default, an attribute hierarchy is Fully Optimized,
Optimized State which means that Analysis Services builds indexes for the
attribute hierarchy to improve query performance. The other
option, Not Optimized, means that no indexes are built for the
attribute hierarchy. Using Not Optimized is useful if the attribute
hierarchy is used for purposes other than querying, because no
additional indexes are built for the attribute. Other uses for an
attribute hierarchy can be helping to order another attribute.
Attribute Determines whether the associated attribute hierarchy is ordered.
Hierarchy The default value is True. However, if an attribute hierarchy will
Ordered not be used for querying, you can save processing time by
changing the value of this property to False.

Attribute Determines whether the attribute hierarchy is visible to client

Hierarchy applications. The default value is True. However, if an attribute
Visible hierarchy will not be used for querying, you can save processing
time by changing the value of this property to False. Contd....

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Note
Custom Specifies the column that defines a custom rollup formula.
s Rollup
Column
Custom Rollup Specifies the column that contains the properties of a custom rollup
Properties formula.
Column
Default Member Specifies a Multidimensional Expressions (MDX) expression that
defines the default measure for the attribute.

Description Contains the description of the attribute.

Discretization Contains the number of buckets into which to discretize.

Bucket Count

Discretizati Defines the method to use for discretization.

on Method

Estimated Count Specifies the estimated number of members in the attribute. Until
you run the Aggregation Design Wizard, the default value is zero.
Either you can allow the wizard to count the number of records or
you can enter an estimated value. Enter a value manually if you
know the number of members and want to save the time that is
required to query the database for the count. If you are working
with a test subset of your production data, you can use the counts
of your production data so that the aggregation design will be
optimized for the production data instead of the test data.
Grouping Behaviour A user defined value that provides a hint to client applications on
how to group attributes.

ID Contains the unique identifier (ID) of the dimension.

Instance Selection Provides a hint to client applications about how a list of items
should be displayed, based on the expected number of items in the
list. The available options are as follows:
 None No hint is provided to the client application. This is
the default value.
 Drop Down The number of items is small enough to display in
a drop- down list.
 List The number of items is too large for a drop-down list, but
does not require filtering.
 Filtered List The number of items is large enough to require
users to filter the items to be displayed.
 Mandatory Filter The number of items is so large that the
display must always be filtered.

Is Aggregatable Specifies whether the values of the attribute members can be

aggregated. The default value is True, which means that the
attribute hierarchy contains an (All) level. If the value for this
property is False, the attribute hierarchy does not contain an (All)
level.
Key Columns Contains the column or columns that represent the key for the
attribute, which is the column in the underlying relational table
in the data source view to which the attribute is bound. The value
of this column for each member is displayed to users unless a
value is specified for the Name Column property.

Member Determines whether member names in the attribute hierarchy

Names must be unique.
Unique
Members With Data Used by parent attributes to determine whether to display Contd....
data
members for non-leaf members in the parent attribute. This
property value is only used when the value of the Usage
property is set to Parent. This means that a

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 Unit 2: Multidimensional
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Note
parent-child hierarchy has been defined. The available options
are as s
follows:
 Non-leaf Data Hidden Non-leaf data is hidden.
 Non-leaf Data Visible Non-leaf data is visible.
Members with Provides a template string that is used by parent attributes to
Data Caption create captions for system-generated data members in the parent
attribute. This property value is only used when the value of the
Usage property is set to Parent. This means that a parent-child
hierarchy has been defined.
Name Contains the user-friendly name of the attribute.

Name Column Identifies the column that provides the name of the attribute that
is displayed to users, instead of the value in the key column for the
attribute. This column is used when the key column value for an
attribute member is cryptic or not otherwise useful to the user, or
when the key column is based on a composite key. The Name
Column property is not used in parent-child hierarchies; instead,
the Name Column property for child members is used as the
member names in a parent-child hierarchy.
Naming Template Defines how levels are named in a parent-child hierarchy
constructed from the parent attribute. This property value is only
used when the value of the Usage property is set to Parent. This
means that a parent-child hierarchy has been defined.

Order By Describes how to order the members that are contained in the
attribute hierarchy. The default value is Name, which specifies
that ordering of the attribute members is based on the value of
the Name Column property, if any. Otherwise, members are
ordered by the value of the key column. The available options are
as follows:
 Name Column Order by the value of the Name Column
property.
 Key Order by the value of the key column of the attribute
member.
 Attribute Key Order by the value of the member key of a
specified attribute, which must have an attribute relationship
to the attribute.
 Attribute Name Order by the value of the member name of a
specified attribute, which must have an attribute relationship
to the attribute.

Order By Attribute Identifies the attribute by which to order the members of the
attribute hierarchy.

Root Member If Determines how the root or topmost members of a parent-child

hierarchy are identified. This property value is only used when the
value of the Usage property is set to Parent. This means that a
parent-child hierarchy has been defined. The default value is
Parent Is Blank Self Or Missing, which means that only members
that meet one or more of the conditions described for Parent Is
Blank, Parent Is Self, or Parent Is Missing are treated as root
members. The following values are also available:
 Parent Is Blank Only members with a null, a zero, or an empty
string in the key column or columns are treated as root
members.
 Parent Is Self Only members with themselves as parents are
treated as root members.
 Parent Is Missing Only members with parents that cannotContd....
be
found are treated as root members.

Type Contains the type of the attribute.

Unary Specifies the column that provides unary operators. It is a binding

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Note Usage Describes how an attribute is used.

s
The available options are as follows:
 Regular The attribute is a regular attribute. This is the default
value.
 Key The attribute is a key attribute.
 Parent The attribute is a parent attribute.
Value Column Identifies the column that provides the value of the attribute. If the
Name Column element of the attribute is specified, the same Data
Item values are used as default values for the Value Column
element. If the Name Column element of the attribute is not
specified and the Key Columns collection of the attribute contains
a single Key Column element representing a key column with a
string data type, the same Data Item values are used as default
values for the Value Column element.
Source:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms174919.aspx

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:

1 .............................. is an Informational analysis on data which takes into
. account numerous distinct connections, each of which comprises a
dimension.
2 Information about each dimension is stored in one or
. more ...................................
3 The key attribute represents the ................................. in the
. dimension table.
4 An ................................... can also be bound to one or more additional columns
. for a specific task.

2.2 Dimension Hierarchy

A hierarchy is a set of parent-child relationships between attributes within a
dimension. These hierarchy attributes are also known as levels. Example, the Time
Dimension can have Total, Year, Quarter, Month and Date as its levels as shown in
Figure 2.1:
Figure 2.1: Time Dimension
Example

Source:
http://oracle-bi.siebelunleashed.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Time-Dim-Hierarchy.jp
g

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2.2.1 Type of Note

Hierarchy s
Level-based: This type of hierarchy consists of an ordered set of two or more
levels.

Example: A time hierarchy might have three levels for Year, Quarter, and
Month.
Level-based hierarchies can also contain parent-child relationships. This type of
dimension hierarchy levels allow to perform aggregate navigation and configure
Figure 2.2: Level based Hierarchy
level-based measure calculations.
Example

Source:
http://gerardnico.com/wiki/_media/dat/obiee/bi_server/design/dimension/
obiee_multiple_dimension_hierarchie.jpg

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Notes Also it supports special type of level-based dimension for unbalanced and Skip-level hierarchy.
It also supports time dimension to provide special functionality for modelling time series data.
Parent-child: A parent-child hierarchy is a hierarchy in a standard dimension that contains a
parent attribute. A parent attribute describes a self-referencing relationship, or self-join, within
a dimension main table. It is actually value-based hierarchy. It consists of values that define the
hierarchy in a parent-child relationship (Figure 2.3).

Example: An employee hierarchy might have no levels but might just contain names of
employees who are managed by other employees. Employees may have titles like Vice President
and then Vice Presidents might report to other Vice Presidents and they can be at different
depths in the hierarchy.

Figure 2.3: Parent-child Hierarchy

Source: http://3d.recoil.org/nojavascript/Images/Parent-Child.gif

In addition to above discussed two level of hierarchy it can be of following type as well:

Ragged Hierarchy: A hierarchy in which all the lowest-level members do not have the same
level of depth is ragged hierarchy.

Example: A time hierarchy might be having current month data at the day level, the
previous month’s data at the month level, and the previous 10 year’s data at the quarter level.

It is also known as an unbalanced hierarchy.

Skip-level: A hierarchy in which certain members do not have values for certain higher
levels are known as skip-level hierarchy.

Example: In India, Delhi city does not belong to another state (it belongs to Delhi as a
state itself).

What matters is that users can still navigate from the country level (India) to Delhi
(city level) and below without the need for a state level.

User-defined: These are user-defined hierarchies of attributes that are used in service of
Microsoft SQL Server to arrange the members of a dimension into hierarchical structures and
provide navigation paths in a form of cube.

For example, the Table 2.2 defines a dimension table for a time dimension.

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 Unit 2: Multidimensional
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Table 2.2: Dimension Table for Time Note

Dimension s
Year Quarter Month
1999 Quarter 1 Jan
1999 Quarter 1 Feb
1999 Quarter 1 Mar
1999 Quarter 2 Apr
1999 Quarter 2 May
1999 Quarter 2 Jun
1999 Quarter 3 Jul
1999 Quarter 3 Aug
1999 Quarter 3 Sep
1999 Quarter 4 Oct
1999 Quarter 4 Nov
1999 Quarter 4 Dec

Source:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms174935.aspx

Did u know? The Year, Quarter, and Month attributes are used to construct a
user-defined hierarchy, named Calendar, in the time dimension.

Task Prepare a table hierarchy of employees according to their salary.

The relationship between the levels and members of the Calendar dimension
is shown in Figure 2.4.
Figure 2.4: Relationship between the Levels and Members of the Calendar
Dimension

Source:
http://i.msdn.microsoft.com/dynimg/IC165224.gif

Notes Any hierarchy other than the default two-level attribute hierarchy is
called a user- defined hierarchy.

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Note Self
s Assessment
State whether the following statements are True or False:
5. A hierarchy is a set of parent-child relationships between attributes within a
dimension.
6. Level-based hierarchies can also contain parent-child relationships.
7 A Ragged Hierarchy describes a self-referencing relationship, or self-
. join, within a dimension main table.

8 Parent attribute is also known as an unbalanced

. hierarchy.
9 Skip-level is hierarchies of attributes that are used in service of Microsoft
. SQL Server to arrange the members of a dimension into hierarchical
structures.
10. User-defined is a hierarchy in which certain members do not have values
for certain higher levels are known as skip-level hierarchy.
11. Ragged Hierarchy consists of values that define the hierarchy in a parent-child
relationship.

Case Mining a Star

Study
Schema
ne of the strengths of Oracle Data Mining is the ability to mine star
schemas with

O minimal effort. Star schemas are commonly used in relational

may contain interesting demographics, fact tables will often contain user
databases,
behaviour, and they
such as phone often
usage or contain
purchaserich
patterns. While dimension tables
data with
patterns. Bothinteresting
of these aspects -
demographics and usage patterns - can provide insight into behaviour.
Churn is a critical problem in the telecommunications industry, and
companies go to great lengths to reduce the churn of their customer base.
One case study describes a telecommunications scenario involving
understanding, and identification of, churn, where the underlying data is
present in a star schema. That case study is a good example for
demonstrating just how natural it is for Oracle Data Mining to analyse a star
schema, so it will be used as the basis for this series of posts.
The case study schema includes four tables: CUSTOMERS, SERVICES,
REVENUES, and CDR_T. The CUSTOMERS table contains one row per
customer, as does the SERVICES table, and both contain a customer id that
can be used to join the tables together. Most data mining tools are capable of
handling this type of data, where one row of input corresponds to one case for
mining. The other two tables have multiple rows for each customer. The
CDR_T (call data records) table contains multiple records for each customer
which captures calling behaviour. In the case study, this information is already
pre-aggregated by type of call (peak, international, etc.) per month, but the
information may also be available at a finer level of granularity. The
REVENUES table contains the revenue per customer on a monthly basis for a
five month history, so there are up to five rows per customer. Capturing the
information in the CDR_T and REVENUES table to help predict churn for a
single customer requires collapsing all of this fact table information into a
single “case” per customer. Most tools will require pivoting the data into
columns, which has the drawbacks of densifying data as well as pivoting data
beyond column count limitations. The data in a fact table is often stored in
sparse form (this case study aggregates it to a denser form, but it need not be
this way for other mining activities), and keeping it in sparse form is highly
desirable.
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For fact table data that has a much larger number of interesting groups Note
s
(such as per- product sales information of a large retailer), retaining the
sparse format becomes critical to avoid densification of such high cardinality
information. Oracle Data Mining algorithms are designed to interpret missing
entries in a sparse fact table appropriately, enabling increased performance
and simpler transformation processing.
Some steps in the referenced case study are not completely defined (in my
opinion), and in those situations I will take my best guess as to the intended
objective. This approximation is sufficient since the intent of this series of
posts is to show the power and flexibility of Oracle Data Mining on a real-
world scenario rather than to match the case study letter-for- letter.
The following files support reproduction of the results in this series of posts:
telcoddl.sql - SQL which creates the four tables
telcoloadproc.plb - Obfuscated SQL which creates the procedure that can
generate data and populate the tables - all data is generated, and patterns are
injected to make it interesting and “real-world” like
telcoprep.sql - A SQL create view statement corresponding to the data
preparation steps from part 2 of this series
telcomodel.sql - A SQL script corresponding to the steps from part 3 of this
series
In order to prepare a schema that can run the above SQL, a user must be
created with the following privileges: create table, create view, create mining
model, and create procedure (for telcoloadproc), as well as any other privs as
needed for the database user (e.g., create session).Once the schema is
prepared, telcoddl.sql and telcoloadproc.plb can be run to create the empty
tables and the procedure for loading data. The procedure that is created is
named telco_load, and it takes one optional argument - the number of
customers (default 10000). The results from parts 2 and 3 of this series
correspond to loading 10,000 customers.
The sample code in these posts has been tested against an 11gR2 database.
Many new features have been added in each release, so some of the
referenced routines and syntax are not available in older releases; however,
similar functionality can be achieved with 10g. The following modified
scripts can be used with 10g (tested with 10gR2):
telcoprep_10g.sql - A SQL create view statement corresponding to the data
preparation steps from part 2 of this series, including substitution for the
11g PIVOT syntax and inclusion of manual data preparation for nested
columns.
telcomodel_10g.sql - A SQL script corresponding to the steps from part 3 of
this series, including substitution of the Generalized Linear Model algorithm
for 10g Support Vector Machine, manual data preparation leveraging the
transformation
1 package,
Handling missing usefor
values of call
dbms_data_mining.apply
data records: The CDR_T instead
tableofrecords
10gR2
.built-in
thedata mining
number scoringminutes
of phone functions,
usedexplicit commit of
by a customer persettings priorper
month and to
build,call
and type
removal of theFor
(tariff). EXPLAIN routinethe
example, from the script
table flow.
may contain one record
corresponding
In addition, to the
the create number
mining of peak
model (callistype)
privilege minutes in
not available in January
10g. for a
specific customer, and another record associated with international calls
in March for the same customer. This table is likely to be fairly dense
(most type-month combinations for a given customer will be present)Contd....

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Note
due to the coarse level of aggregation, but there may be some missing
s
values. Missing entries may occur for a number of reasons: the customer
made no calls of a particular type in a particular month, the customer
switched providers during the timeframe, or perhaps there is a data
entry problem. In the first situation, the correct interpretation of a
missing entry would be to assume that the number of minutes for the
type-month combination is zero. In the other situations, it is not
appropriate to assume zero, but rather derive some representative value
to replace the missing entries. The referenced case study takes the latter
approach. The data is segmented by customer and call type, and within a
given customer-call type combination, an average number of minutes is
In SQL, we need to generate additional rows for the missing entries and
computed and used as a replacement value.
populate those rows with appropriate values. To generate the missing
rows, Oracle’s partition outer join feature is a perfect fit.
select cust_id, cdre.tariff, cdre.month, mins
from cdr_t cdr partition by (cust_id) right outer join
(select distinct tariff, month from cdr_t) cdre
on (cdr.month = cdre.month and cdr.tariff =
cdre.tariff);

I have chosen to use a distinct on the CDR_T table to generate the set of
values, but a more rigorous and performant (but less compact) approach
would be to explicitly list the tariff-month combinations in the cdre
inlined subquery rather than go directly against the CDR_T table itself.
Now that the missing rows are generated, we need to replace the missing
value entries with representative values as computed on a per-customer-
call type basis. Oracle’s analytic functions are a great match for this
step.
select cust_id, tariff, month,
nvl(mins, round(avg(mins) over (partition by cust_id, tariff))) mins
from (<prev query>);

We can use the avg function, and specify the partition by feature of the
over clause to generate an average within each customer-call type
2 Transposing
group. The Call Data Records:
nvl function will The next transformation
replace step inwith
the missing values the case
the
. study involves transposing
tailored, computed averages. the data in CDR_T from a multiple row per
customer format to a single row per customer by generating new
columns for all of the tariff-month combinations. While this is feasible
with a small set of combinations, it will be problematic when
addressing items with higher cardinality. Oracle Data Mining does not
need to transpose the data. Instead, the data is combined using Oracle’s
object-relational technology so that it can remain in its natural, multi-row
format. Oracle Data Mining has introduced two data types to
capture such data - DM_NESTED_NUMERICALS and
In addition, the case study suggests adding an attribute which contains
DM_NESTED_CATEGORICALS.
the total number of minutes per call type for a customer (summed
across all months). Oracle’s rollup syntax is useful for generating
aggregates at different levels of granularity.
select cust_id,
cast(collect(dm_nested_numerical(tariff||’-’||nvl(month,’ALL’),mins))
as dm_nested_numericals) mins_per_tariff_mon from
(select cust_id, tariff, month, sum(mins) mins
Contd....

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 Unit 2: Multidimensional
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from (<prev query>)

Note
s
group by cust_id, tariff, rollup(month))
group by cust_id;

The above query will fi rst aggregate the minutes by cust_id-tariff-

month combination, but it will also rollup the month column to produce
a total for each cust_id-tariff combination. While the data in the case
study was already aggregated at the month level, the above query
would also work on data that is at a finer granularity.

Once the data is generated by the inner query, there is an outer group by
on cust_id with the COLLECT operation. The purpose of this step is to
generate an output of one row per customer, but each row contains
an entry of type DM_NESTED_NUMERICALS. This entry is a
collection of pairs that capture the number of minutes per tariff-month
combination.

While we performed missing value replacement in the previous

transformation step, thereby densifying the data, Oracle Data Mining
has a natural treatment for missing rows. When data is presented as a
DM_NESTED_NUMERICALS column, it is assumed that any missing
entries correspond to a zero in the value - matching the first option for
missing value treatment described earlier. If this is the correct
interpretation for missing values, then no missing value treatment step is
necessary. The data can remain in sparse form, yet the algorithms will
3 Transposing Revenue
correctly interpret theRecords:
missingAgain, no as
entries need to transpose
having when
an implicit using
value of
. Oracle Data Mining. We add an aggregate to produce the total revenue
zero.
per customer in addition to the per-month breakout coming from the
COLLECT.
select cust_id, sum(revenue) rev_tot_sum,
cast(collect(dm_nested_numerical(‘REV-’||month, revenue))
as dm_nested_numericals) rev_per_mon
from revenues
group by cust_id;
4 Creating Derived Attributes: The final transformation step in the case
. study is to generate some additional derived attributes, and connect
everything together so that each customer is composed of a single entity
that includes all of the attributes that have been identified to this point.

The PIVOT operation is used to generate named columns that can be

easily combined with arithmetic operations. Binning and filtering steps,
as identified in the case study, are included in the above SQL.

The query can execute in parallel on SMPs, as well as MPPs using

Oracle’s RAC technology. The data can be directly fed to Oracle Data
Mining without having to extract it from the database, materialize copies
of any parts of the underlying tables, or pivot data that is in a naturally
multi-row format.

Questions:

1. How the missing values were handled for call data records?

2. Why do we transposing revenue records?

Source:
http://amozes-oracle.blogspot.in/2010/12/mining-star-schema-telco-churn-case.html

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Note 2.3
s
Summary
• If the dimension is defined as a hierarchy, the lower levels of the hierarchy
must also have an attribute that identifies the parent of each member.
• Typically, the key attribute represents the primary key column or columns in
the dimension table.
• A hierarchy is a set of parent-child relationships between attributes within a
dimension. These hierarchy attributes are also known as levels.
• Level-based hierarchies can contain parent-child relationships.
• A parent-child hierarchy is a hierarchy in a standard dimension that
contains a parent attribute.
• A hierarchy in which all the lowest-level members do not have the same level
of depth is ragged hierarchy.
• The Year, Quarter, and Month attributes are used to construct a user-defined
hierarchy, named Calendar, in the time dimension.

4. Keywords
Hierarchy: A hierarchy is a set of parent-child relationships between
attributes within a dimension.
Key attribute: The key attribute is the attribute in a dimension that identifies the
columns in the dimension main table that are used in foreign key relationships to
the fact table.
Level-based: This type of hierarchy consists of an ordered set of two or more
levels.
Parent-child: A parent-child hierarchy is a hierarchy in a standard dimension that
contains a parent attribute.
Ragged Hierarchy: A hierarchy in which all the lowest-level members do not
have the same level of depth is ragged hierarchy.
Skip-level: A hierarchy in which certain members do not have values for certain
higher levels are known as skip-level hierarchy.
User-defined: These are user-defined hierarchies of attributes that are used in
service of Microsoft SQL.

5. Review Questions
1. What is the multi-dimensional analysis?
2. Discuss about the key attribute of dimension attributes.
3. Briefly explain the dimension attribute properties.
4. What is the dimension hierarchy? Explain with example.
5. Discuss are the various type of hierarchy.
6. “Parent-child is actually value-based hierarchy”. Comment.
7. What is ragged hierarchy? Give the suitable example.
8. Explain the relationship between the levels and members of the calendar
dimension.

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Answers: Self Note

Assessment s
1. Multi-Dimensional analysis 2. Dimension
tables
3. Primary key column or columns 4. Attribute
5. True 6. True
7. False 8. False
9. False 10. False
11. False

2.6 Further
Readings

Books Carlo Vercellis (2011). “Business Intelligence: Data Mining and

Optimization for Decision Making”. John Wiley & Sons.

David Loshin (2012). “Business Intelligence: The Savvy Manager’s

Guide”. Newnes.
Elizabeth Vitt, Michael Luckevich, Stacia Misner (2010). “Business
Intelligence”.
O’Reilly Media, Inc.
Rajiv Sabhrwal, Irma Becerra-Fernandez (2010). “Business
Intelligence”. John Wiley & Sons.
Swain Scheps (2013). “Business Intelligence for Dummies”. Wiley.

Online links dssresources.com/developers/tools/

multidimensionalanalysis.html
www.bris.ac.uk/poverty/downloads/socialexclusion/multidimensio
nal.pdf
www.cs.umu.se/education/examina/Rapporter/PerWesterlu
nd.pdf
www.georgehart.com/research/multanal.html
www.learn.geekinterview.com › Data Warehouse › Data
Analysis

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Note
s
Unit 3: Dimensional Data
Warehouse
CONTENTS
Objectives
Introductio
n
1. Dime
nsion
al
Mode
l
2. Facts
Table
1. T
y
p
e
s

o
f

M
e
a
s
u
r
e
2. T
y
Objectives p
e
s
After studying this unit, you will be able to:
• o
Describe about Dimensional Model
f
• Construct Facts Table
F
• Demonstrate Dimension Tables
a
• c Surrogate Keys and Alternative Table Structure
Discuss about
t
• Explain Multidimensional OLAP
T
Introductiona
b
Dimensions are l a common way of analysing data. Dimension model comprises of
a fact table e and numerous dimensional tables and is used for assessing
summarized
3. Dimedata. Dimensional data modelling is the preferred modelling technique
in a BI environment.
nsion Knowing the basics of data warehousing and dimensions helps
Table
you design a better data warehouse that fits your reporting
s
4. Surro
gate
2 Keys
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Alter
nativ
e
Table
Struc
 Unit 3: Dimensional Data
Warehouse

needs. This unit on data warehousing dimensions explains the importance of Note
dimensions and dimension granularity and stresses the importance of flattening s
hierarchies—with the goal being to make data more accessible and useful to users.
It also focuses on fact and dimension table.

3.1 Dimensional Model

Dimensional model comprises of a fact table and numerous dimensional tables and
is used for assessing summarized data. Since Business Intelligence reports are
used in assessing the facts (aggregates) across various dimensions, dimensional
data modelling prefer the modelling technique in a BI environment.
Facts are normally calculated data like dollars’ worth or Sales or income. They
correspond to the aim of a conclusion support analysis.
Dimensions define the axis of enquiry of a fact.

Example: For example, Product, Region and Time are the axes of enquiry
of the Sales
detail.
One such enquiry could be a scenario where the user might require to see the
Sales (in dollars) for a specific item in a market over a specific time span of time.
In this case, we are calculating the fact (Sales) over three dimensions (Product,
Region and Time). Thus we can say that dimensions give different views of the
facts. They give structure to the otherwise unstructured facts.
It typically contains the attributes for the SQL answer set. Figure 3.1 shows an
example of dimensional Figure 3.1: Example of Dimensional
model.
Model

Source:
www.oedewaldt.com/movies/dimensional%20modeling.pptý

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Note Self
s Assessment
Fill in the
blanks:
1 Dimensional model comprises of a .............................. and numerous
. dimensional tables and is used for assessing summarized data.

2. .................................. define the axis of enquiry of a fact.

3.2 Facts Table

Fact table generally represent a process or reporting environment that is of
value to the organization. It is important to determine the identity of the fact
table and specify exactly what it represents. A fact table typically corresponds to
an associative entity in the E-R model.
They must be listed in a logical fact table. Each measure has its own aggregation
rules such as ADD, AVG, MIN or MAX. Aggregation rules define the way by which
business would like to contrast standards of a measured value.

!
CautionFacts are the measurements associated with fact table records at
fact table
granularity.
The Figure 3.2 displays how Sales detail table is connected in a One-to-Many
relationships withFigure
other3.2: Sales Details
dimension tables.Table One-to-many
Relationship

Source:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JR3HxkgK6w0/Ti_PS_Egw3I/AAAAAAAAAMQ/
tOdQBrMG3FU/s1600/Star_Model.JPG

3.2.1 Types of Measure

Various types of measure in a fact table are:

• Additive - Measures that can be added across any dimensions are
additive measure.
• Semi Additive - Measures that can be added across only some
dimensions are semi additive.
• Non Additive - Measures that cannot be added across any
dimension are non-additive.

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 Unit 3: Dimensional Data
Warehouse

3.2.2 Types of Fact Note

Table s
There are basically three types of fact tables:
• Transactional: A transactional table is the most basic and fundamental type of
fact table. The grain associated with a transactional fact table is usually
specified as one row per line in a transaction, e.g., every line on a receipt
represents a transaction.
• Periodic Snapshots: It takes a picture of the moment, where the moment could
be anything like performance summary of a salesman over the previous 3
months. A periodic snapshot table is dependent on the transactional table.
• Accumulating Snapshots: In this type of fact table the activity of a process is
shown such that it has a well-defined beginning and end.

Example: The processing of an order where an order moves through

specific steps until it is completed.

As steps towards fulfilling the order are completed, the row which is
associated with it is updated in the fact table. This type of table often has
multiple date columns, each representing a complete step in the process.
Therefore, it’s important to have an entry in the date dimension that
represents an unknown date, as many of the milestone completion time are
unknown at the time the row is created.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:

3. A fact table typically corresponds to an associative entity in

the ..............................

4. Measures that can be added across only some dimensions

6 In
are..............................
..............................table often has multiple date columns, each
. representing a complete step in the process.
5. .............................. take a picture of the moment, where the moment could be
anything.
3.3 Dimension Tables
Dimension tables consist of attributes that describe fact records in the fact table.
Some of these attributes provide descriptive information; others are used to specify
how fact table data should be summarized to provide useful information to the
person who is analysing the information. Every dimension has a set of descriptive
attributes. Dimension tables contain attributes that describe business entities.

Example: The Client dimension can contain attributes like C_No.,

Area, State, Country etc.

Did u know? In a dimensional table, columns can be used to categorize the

information into hierarchical levels.

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Note For example, a dimension table for stores in the StandardMart sample database
s includes the following columns:
Table 3.1: Sample Dimension
Table

Column Description
store_country Specifies the country or region in which the store is located. This is
the country level of the hierarchy.
store_state Specifies the state in which the store is located. This is the state
level of the hierarchy.
store_city Specifies the city or province in which the store is located. This is the
city level of the hierarchy.
store_id Specifies the individual store. This is the lowest level of the hierarchy.
This field contains the primary key of the store dimension table and is
used to join the dimension table to the fact table.
store_name Specifies the name of the store. The values in this column are used to
identify the store to users in a readable form.

Source: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa905979(v=sql.80).aspx

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:

7. Dimension tables consist of attributes that describe ....................... in the fact
table.
8. .......................... contain attributes that describe business entities.

3.4 Surrogate Keys and Alternative Table Structure

A surrogate key in a database is a unique identifier for either an entity in the
modelled world or an object in the database. The surrogate key is not derived from
application data. Surrogate keys are keys that are maintained within the data
warehouse instead of keys taken from source data systems.

Example: Say for the employee ‘Emp12 the Business unit changes from B1
to B2. Now, if you use the natural primary key ‘Emp12 for your employees within
your data warehouse then everything would be allocated to Business unit ‘B22
even what actually belongs to ‘B1.’
If you use surrogate keys, you could create on the other day a new record
for the Employee ‘Emp12 in your 3.3:
Figure Employee Dimension
Surrogate Key with a new surrogate key.
Example

Source:
http://mahaveersingh.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/surrogate_key_blog_banner1.j
pg

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 Unit 3: Dimensional Data
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This way, in your fact table, you have your old data (i.e. before the day you added) Note
with the SID of the Employee ‘Emp12 > > ‘B1.’ All new data (i.e. after the day you s
added) would take the SID of the employee ‘Emp12 > > ‘B2.’

3.4.1 Advantages of Surrogate Keys

• Immutability: Surrogate keys do not change while the row exists. Thus
applications cannot misplace their reference in the database.

• Change in Requirements: Attributes that uniquely recognize an entity might

change over the time, which might lead to invalidation of the suitability of
the compound keys.

Example: An employee’s network username is chosen as a natural key. If it

is merged with another company, new employees must be inserted. Now, some of
the new user names may lead to conflict because their user names were
developed independently.

In these cases, usually a new attribute should be added to the natural

key (for example, an old_company column). In the case of a surrogate key,
only the table that characterizes the surrogate key must be altered. But in the
case of natural keys, all tables that use the natural key will have to change.

• Performance: Surrogate keys tend to be a compact data type, such as a four-

byte integer. This allows the database to query the single key column faster
than it could multiple columns.

• Uniformity: When every table has a uniform surrogate key, some tasks can be
easily automated by composing the code in a table-independent way.

• Validation: It is possible to design key-values that are in coordination with a

well-known pattern which can be automatically verified.

Example: The keys that are intended to be used in some column of some
table might be designed to “look differently from” those that are intended to be
used in another column or table, thereby simplifying the detection of application
errors in which the keys have been misplaced.

3.4.2 Disadvantages of Surrogate Keys

But surrogate keys also come with some disadvantages. The values of
surrogate keys have no relationship with the real world meaning of the data held
in a row. Therefore over usage of surrogate keys lead to the problem of
disassociation and creates unnecessary ETL burden and performance degradation.

Query optimization also becomes difficult when one disassociates the

surrogate key with the natural key. This is because when surrogate key takes the
place of primary key, unique index is applied on that column. And any query based
on natural key identifier leads to full table scan as that query cannot take the
advantage of unique index on the surrogate key.

• Referential Integrity: Referential integrity must be maintained between all

dimension tables and the fact table. Each fact record contains foreign keys
which are related to primary keys in the dimension tables.

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Notes
!
Caution Every fact record must have a related record in every dimension table used with
that particular fact table.
 Shared Dimensions: To maintain consistency dimension tables that are shared are created.
These tables are used by all components and data marts in the data warehouse.

3.4.3 Alternative Tables used in Data Warehousing

Auxiliary Table

This table is created with the SQL statements CREATE AUXILIARY TABLE and is used to hold
the data for a column that is defined in a base table.

Base Table

The most common type of table is base table. You can create a base table with the SQL CREATE
TABLE statement. All programs and users that refer to this type of table refer to the same
description of the table and to the same instance of the table.

C lone Table

A table that is structurally identical to a base table is known as clone table. You can create a clone
table by using an ALTER TABLE statement for the base table that includes an A D D C L O N E
clause.

Example: In the DB2 catalogue, SYSTABLESPACE.CLONE indicates that a clone table

exists.

Empty Table

A table with zero rows is an empty table.

History Table

A history table is used by Database to store historical versions of rows from the associated
system period temporal table.

Materialized Query Table

Materialized query tables are useful for complex queries that run on large amounts of data.

Notes They are commonly used in data warehousing and business intelligence applications.

Result Table

A table that contains a set of rows that a database selects or generates, directly or indirectly, from
one or more base tables in response to an SQL statement is known as result table. A result table
is not an object that you can define using a CREATE statement.

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 Unit 3: Dimensional Data Warehouse

Temporal Table Notes

A temporal table is a table that records the period of time when a row is valid.
A table that is defined by the SQL statement CREATE GLOBAL TEMPORARY TABLE or
DECLARE GLOBAL TEMPORARY TABLE is temporary table. It is used to hold data
temporarily.

XML Table

It is a special table that holds only X ML data. When you create a table with an X ML column,
database implicitly creates an X ML table space and an X ML table to store the X ML data.

Self Assessment

State whether the following statements are true or false:

9. The surrogate key is derived from application data.
10. Surrogate keys change while the row exists.
11. In the case of natural keys, all tables that use the natural key will have to change.
12. When every table has a uniform surrogate key, some tasks can be easily automated by
composing the code in a table-independent way.
13. The values of surrogate keys have relationship with the real world meaning of the data
held in a row.
14. The most common type of table is base table.
15. A table with zero rows is an empty table.
16. A temporal table is a table that records the period of time when a row is valid.
17. X ML table is used to hold data temporarily.

3.5 Multidimensional OLAP

OLAP stands for On-Line Analytical Processing. In computing, OLAP is an approach to

answering Multi-Dimensional Analytical (MDA) queries swiftly. OLAP is part of the broader
category of business intelligence, which also includes relational database, report writing and
data mining. Depending on the underlying technology used, OLAP can be broadly divided into
M O L A P and ROLAP.

Did u know? In the OLAP world, there are mainly two different types: Multidimensional
OLAP (MOLAP) and Relational OLAP (ROLAP). Hybrid OLAP (HOLAP) is combination
of MOLAP and ROLAP.

3.5.1 M O L A P

In MOLAP, data is stored in a multidimensional cube. It fulfils the requirements for an analytic
application, where you require to access only summarized level of data. The storage is not in the
relational database, but in proprietary formats. Figure 3.4 shows physical multi-dimensional
cubes.

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Business Intelligence

Note Figure 3.4: Physical Multi-dimensional

s Cubes

Source: http://www.executionmih.com/dipm_images/ZCA-MOLAP.GIF

This method stores the data in multi-dimensional arrays which is different

from the two dimensional relational structure.
Advantages:
• MOLAP cubes are built for fast data retrieval and are thus optimal for slicing
operations.
• MOLAP can perform complex calculations quickly.
Disadvantages:
• MOLAP is limited in the amount of data it can handle because all the
calculations are performed when the cube is built.
• Cube technology generally do not already exist in the organization, therefore,
to adopt MOLAP technology, chances are additional investments in the form of
human and capital is needed.

3.5.2 ROLAP

This methodology depends on manipulating the data stored in the relational

database. There are detail level values in relational data warehouse.
Advantages:
• ROLAP can handle large amounts of data.
• ROLAP can leverage functionalities inherent in the relational database as they
sit on top of the relational database.
Disadvantages:
• In ROLAP the performance can be slow. As it is known that ROLAP report is
essentially a SQL query on the relational database, the query time can be
long if the underlying data size is large thus the performance of same can
be slow.

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 Unit 3: Dimensional Data
Warehouse

• ROLAP can be limited by SQL functionalities. As, ROLAP technology mainly Note
relies on SQL statements and SQL statements do not fit all needs (like it’s not s
easy to do complex queries in SQL), thus what ROLAP can do is traditionally
limited by what SQL can do.
3.5.3 HOLAP

HOLAP technologies combine the advantages of MOLAP and ROLAP. The first
product to provide HOLAP storage was Holos but with time the technology also
became available in other commercial products such as Microsoft Analysis
Services (MAS), Oracle Database OLAP Option, MicroStrategy etc.

Task Compare and contrast the MOLAP and ROLAP.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:

18. OLAP stands for .......................................
19. OLAP can be broadly divided into ....................... and ..................................
20. In MOLAP, data is stored in a ..............................
21. ............................ can leverage functionalities inherent in the relational
database as they sit on top of the relational database.
22. .................................... technologies combine the advantages of MOLAP and
ROLAP.

Case Lolopop: Automated Data

Study
Warehouse

T
he essential concept of a data warehouse is to provide the ability to
gather data
optimized into
databases without regard for the generating applications or
platforms.
Data warehousing can be formally defined as “the coordinated,
architected,
periodic copying ofand
data from various sources into an environment optimized
for analytical and informational processing”.

The Challenge

Meaningful analysis of data requires us to unite information from many

sources in many forms, including: images; text; audio/video recordings;
databases; forms, etc. The information sources may never have been
intended to be used for data analysis purposes. These sources may have
different formats, contain inaccurate or outdated information, be of low
transcription quality, be mislabelled or be incompatible.

New sources of information may be needed periodically and some elements of

information may be one time only artefacts.

A data warehouse system designed for analysis must be capable of assimilating

these data elements from many disparate sources into a common form.
Correctly labelling and describing search keys and transcribing data in a
form for analysis is critical. Qualifying
Contd....

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Note the accuracy of the data against its original source of authority is imperative.
s
Any such system must also be able to: apply policy and procedure for
comparing information from multiple sources to select the most accurate
source for a data element; correct data elements as needed; and check
inconsistencies amongst the data. It must accomplish this while maintaining
a complete data history of every element before and after every change with
attribution of the change to person, time and place. It must be possible to
apply policy or procedure within specific periods of time by processing date
or event data to assure comparability of data within a calendar or a
processing time horizon. When data originates from a source where different
policies and procedures are applied, it must be possible to reapply new
policies and procedures. Where quality of transcription is low qualifying the
data through verification or sampling against original source documents and
media is required. Finally, it must be possible to recreate the exact state of all
The analytical system applied to a data warehouse must be applicable to all
data at any date by processing time horizon or by event horizon.
data and combinations of data. It must take into account whether sufficient
data exists at the necessary quality level to make conclusions at the desired
significance level. Where possible it must facilitate remediation of data from
original primary source(s) of authority.

When new data is acquired from new sources, it must be possible to input and
register the data automatically. Processing must be flexible enough to
process these new sources according to their own unique requirements and
yet consistently apply policy and procedure so that data from new sources
is comparable to existing data.

When decisions are made to change the way data is processed, edited, or how
policy and procedure is applied, it must be possible to exactly determine the
point in time that this change was made. It must be possible to apply old
policies and procedures for comparison to old analyses, and new policy and
procedure for new analyses.

Defining Data Warehouse Issues

The Lolopop partners served as principals in a data warehouse effort with

objectives that are shared by most users of data warehouses. During business
analysis and requirements gathering phase, we found that high quality was
cited as the number one objective. Many other objectives were actually
quality objectives, as well. Based on our experiences, Lolopop defines the
generalized objectives in order of importance as:

Quality information to Create data and/or combine with other data sources

In this case, only about one in eight events could be used for analysis across
databases. Stakeholders said that reporting of the same data from the same
incoming information varied wildly when re-reported at a later date or when
it came from another organization’s analysis of the same data. Frequently the
data in computer databases was demonstrably not contained in the original
documents from which they were transcribed. Conflicting applications of
policy and procedure by departments with different objectives, prejudices and
perspectives were applied inconsistently without recording the changes or
their sources, leaving the data for any given event a slave to who last
interpreted it.

Timely response to requests for data

Here, the data was processed in time period batches. In some instances, it
could take up to four years to finalize a data period. Organizations requiring
3 data for analysisPROFESSIONAL
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for analysis, entirely bypassing the official data warehouse and
analytical sources.
Contd....
 Unit 3: Dimensional Data Warehouse

Notes
Consistent relating of information

An issue as simple as a name — the information that could be used to connect data events
to histories for individuals or other uniting objects — had no consistent method to
standardize or simplify naming conventions. Another example, Geographical Information
System (GIS) location information had an extravagant infrastructure that was constantly
changing. This made comparisons of data from two different time periods extremely
difficult.

Easy access to information

Often data warehouse technologies assume or demand a sophisticated understanding of

relational databases and statistical analysis. This prevents ordinary stakeholders from
using data effectively and with confidence. In some instances, the personnel responsible
for analysis lack the professional and technical skills to develop effective solutions. This
issue can stultify reporting to a few kinds of reports and variants that have been
programmed over time, and reduces data selection for the analyses to kind of magic
applied by clerical personnel responsible for generating reports.

Unleash management to formulate and uniformly apply policy and procedure

We found that management decisions and mandates could be hindered by an inability to

effectively capture, store, retrieve and analyse data.

In this particular instance, no management controls existed to analyse: source of low

quality; work rates; work effort to remediate (or even a concept of remediation);
effectiveness of procedures; effectiveness of work effort; etc.

Remediation is a good case in point. Management experienced difficulty with the concept
of remedying data transcription from past paper forms — even though the forms existed
in images that could be automatically routed. The perception was that quantity of data,
not quality, was the objective and that no one would ever attempt to fix data by verifying
it or comparing it to original documents.

Manage incoming data from non-integrated sources

Data from multiple, unrelated sources requires a plan to convert electronic data, manage
imaging and documents inputs, manage workflow and manage the analysis of data. In
this case, every interface required manual intervention. Since there was no system
awareness at the beginning of the capture process as to what was needed for analysis at the
end, it was very difficult to make rapid and time effective changes to accommodate
changing stakeholder needs.

Reproducible Reporting Results

We found that reporting of data was not reproducible and the reasons for differences in
reporting were not retrievable, undermining confidence in the data, analysis and
reporting. One may essentially summarize these objectives as quality challenges that
require a basic systems engineering approach for resolution.

Questions:

1. What were the challenges of lolopop automated data warehouse?

2. What were the data warehouse issues?

Source: http://www.lolopop.net/Lolopop.DWStudy.pdf

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Note 3.6
s
Summary
• Dimensional model comprises of a fact table and numerous dimensional
tables and is used for assessing summarized data.
• Fact table generally represent a process or reporting environment that is of
value to the organization.
• A fact table typically corresponds to an associative entity in the E-R model.
• Various types of measure in a fact table are: Additive, Semi Additive, Non-
Additive.
• There are basically three types of fact tables: Transactional, Periodic
snapshots and accumulating snapshots.
• Dimension tables consist of attributes that describe fact records in the fact
table.
• A surrogate key in a database is a unique identifier for either an entity in
the modelled world or an object in the database.
• Attributes that uniquely recognize an entity might change over the time,
which might lead to invalidation of the suitability of the compound keys.
• But surrogate keys also come with some disadvantages. The values of
surrogate keys have no relationship with the real world meaning of the data
held in a row.
• Referential integrity must be maintained between all dimension tables and
the fact table.
• The most common type of table is base table. You can create a base table
with the SQL CREATE TABLE statement.
• A table that contains a set of rows that a database selects or generates,
directly or indirectly, from one or more base tables in response to an SQL
statement is known as result table.
• OLAP stands for On-Line Analytical Processing. In computing, OLAP is an
approach to answering multi-dimensional analytical (MDA) queries swiftly.
• In MOLAP, data is stored in a multidimensional cube. It fulfils the
requirements for an analytic application, where you require to access only
summarized level of data.
• HOLAP technologies combine the advantages of MOLAP and ROLAP.

3.7 Keywords
Accumulating Snapshots: In this type of fact table the activity of a process is shown
such that it has a well-defined beginning and end.
Auxiliary Table: This table is created with the SQL statements CREATE AUXILIARY
TABLE and is used to hold the data for a column that is defined in a base table.
Dimension Tables: Dimension tables consist of attributes that describe fact records
in the fact table.
Dimensional Model: Dimensional Modelling (DM) is the name of a set of techniques
and concepts used in data warehouse design. It is considered to be different from
entity-relationship modelling (ER).
Empty Table: It is a table with zero rows is an empty table.
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In software engineering, an Entity-relationship model (ER model) is a
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data model for describing a database in an abstract way.
 Unit 3: Dimensional Data
Warehouse

Fact Table: Fact table generally represent a process or reporting environment that Note
is of value to the organization. s

HOLAP: HOLAP (Hybrid Online Analytical Processing) is a combination of ROLAP

(Relational OLAP) and MOLAP (Multidimensional OLAP) which are other possible
implementations of OLAP.
Multidimensional Online Analytical Processing (MOLAP): This is the more
traditional way of OLAP analysis. In MOLAP, data is stored in a multidimensional
cube. The storage is not in the relational database, but in proprietary formats.
Result Table: A table that contains a set of rows that a database selects or
generates, directly or indirectly, from one or more base tables in response to an
SQL statement is known as result table.
ROLAP: This methodology relies on manipulating the data stored in the relational
database to give the appearance of traditional OLAP's slicing and dicing
functionality.
Surrogate Key: A surrogate key in a database is a unique identifier for either an
entity in the modelled world or an object in the database.
Temporal Table: A temporal table is a table that records the period of time when a
row is valid.
Transactional Table: The grain associated with a transactional fact table is usually
specified as one row per line in a transaction.
XML Table: It is a special table that holds only XML data.

3.8 Review Questions

1. What is dimension?
2. Explain the dimensional model.
3. “Dimensions define the axis of enquiry of a fact.” Elucidate.
4. Give examples of dimensional model.
5. What do you understand by fact table?
6. Explain the types of measure and fact table.
7. “Dimension tables consist of attributes that describe fact records in the fact
table”. Discuss.
8. Define the concept of surrogate key. Also write down the advantages and
disadvantages.
9. What do you understand by alternative tables used in data warehousing?
10. Briefly explain about multidimensional OLAP.
1. Fact table 2. Dimensions
Answers:
3. Self
E-R model Assessment 4. Semi additive
5. Periodic snapshots 6. Accumulating
snapshots
7. Fact records 8. Dimension tables
9. False 10. False

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Notes 11. True 12. True

13. False 14. True
15. True 16. True
17. False 18. On-Line Analytical
Processing
19. MOLAP, ROLAP 20. Multidimensional cube
21. ROLAP 22. HOLAP

3.9 Further
Readings

Books Carlo Vercellis (2011). “Business Intelligence: Data Mining and

Optimization for Decision Making”. John Wiley & Sons.

David Loshin (2012). “Business Intelligence: The Savvy Manager’s

Guide”. Newnes.
Elizabeth Vitt, Michael Luckevich, Stacia Misner (2010). “Business
Intelligence”.
O’Reilly Media, Inc.
Rajiv Sabhrwal, Irma Becerra-Fernandez (2010). “Business
Intelligence”. John Wiley & Sons.
Swain Scheps (2013). “Business Intelligence for Dummies”. Wiley.

Online links http://sqlmag.com/business-intelligence/data-warehousing-dimensio

n-basics
msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/
aa905979(v=sql.80).aspx?
www.b-eye-network.com/view/7
57?

www.fcsm.gov/99papers/yost.pd
f?

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 Unit 4: Understanding
OLAP

Unit 4: Understanding Note

s
OLAP
CONTENTS
Objectives
Introductio
n
1. Basic
Conc
epts
of
OLAP
1. C
o
m
p
o
n
e
n
t
s

o
f

O
L
A
P
2.
Adva
ntage
s of
Objectives
OLAP
3. Fast
After studying this unit, you will be able to:
Respo
• nse
Recognize Basic Concepts of OLAP
• 4. List
Meta
the Advantages of OLAP
data
• Explain
Basedabout the Fast Response
Queri
• Describe the Metadata Based Queries
es
• Construct the Spreadsheet Formulas
1. A
• n the Analysis Services Speed
Discuss about
a
• Discuss about
t Metadata
o
Introductionm
y
Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) is a technology that is used to create
o
decision support software. OLAP enables application users to quickly analyse
f
information that has been
a

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t
h

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x
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Note summarized into multidimensional views and hierarchies. By summarizing predicted

s queries into multidimensional views prior to run time, OLAP tools provide the
benefit of increased performance over traditional database access tools. Most of
the resource-intensive calculation that is required to summarize the data is done
before a query is submitted. This unit on OLAP explains the concepts and
advantages of OLAP, spreadsheet formulas. It also covers study of metadata.

1. Basic Concepts of OLAP

OLAP is a database expertise that has been optimized for querying and describing,
rather than of processing transactions. OLAP data is drawn from historical data,
and it is aggregated into structures that allow complicated analysis. Data in OLAP
is also coordinated hierarchically and placed in cubes instead of tables. It is a
sophisticated technology that benefits multidimensional structures to supply fast
access to data for analysis. This association makes it easy for a PivotTable report or
PivotChart report to show high-level abstracts, such as total sales across an entire
region, and also show the details for sites where sales are particularly strong.
OLAP databases contain two basic types of data: measures, which are numeric
data, the quantities and averages that you use to make informed enterprise
decisions, and dimensions, which are the categories that you use to coordinate
with these measures. OLAP databases help to coordinate data by many levels of
details by utilizing the identical categories that you are familiar with to analyse the
data.

1. Components of OLAP
Figure
OLAP
4.1: Components of

Source: http://www.esri.com/news/arcuser/0206/graphics/olap_1.jpg

Figure 4.1 shows the components of

OLAP Let us study about them one
by one:
• Cube: It is a data structure that aggregates the measures by the levels and
hierarchies of each of the dimensions that you want to analyse. Cubes
combine some dimensions, such as time and geography, with summarized
data, such as sales or inventory figures.
• Measure: It is a set of values in a cube that are founded on a column in the
cube’s detail table and that are generally numeric types. Measures are the
centred values in the cube that are pre-processed, aggregated, and
analysed.

Example: sales, earnings and charges

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• Member: An item in a hierarchy comprising one or more occurrences of data. Note

A member can be either unique or non-unique. s

• Calculated Member: It is a member of a dimension whose worth is calculated

at run time by utilizing an expression.

Example: A calculated member, Profit, can be determined by subtracting

the worth of the member, charges, from the worth of the constituent, sales.
• Dimension: A set of one or more organized hierarchies of levels in a cube that
a user understands and benefits as the base for data analysis.

Example: A geography dimension might include levels for Country/Region,

State/ Province, and town etc.
• Hierarchy: A logical tree structure that organizes the members of a dimension
such that each member has one parent member and none or more child
members. A child member is a member in the next lower level in a hierarchy
that is exactly related to the current member.

Example: In a time hierarchy containing the grades Quarterly, Monthly, and

Daily, June is a child member of Quarter2. A parent is a member in the next higher
level in a hierarchy that is exactly related to the current member. For example, in
a time hierarchy that contains the grades Quarterly, Monthly, and Daily, Quarter1
is the parent of January month.
• Level: Within a hierarchy, data can be organized into smaller and higher levels
of detail, such as Year, Quarter, Month, Week and Day level in case of time
hierarchy.
Figure 4.2: among
Figure 4.2 shows relationship Relationship
OLAP among OLAP
components.
Components

Source:
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HO-
C7o7iVrHyv4UbrgPF_PJA
4.2 Advantages of OLAP
Following are the advantages of OLAP:
(a) One major advantage of OLAP is consistency of information and computed
results. No issue how much or how quick data is processed through OLAP
programs or servers, the reporting result is offered in a reliable production,
so analysts and executives habitually understand what to gaze for and where.

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Note
s
Did u know? This is especially helpful when matching data from previous reports
to data present in new ones and projected future ones. It avoids the long
discussion about who has the correct data.
(b) “What if” scenarios are some of the most well liked uses of OLAP programs
and are made eminently more possible by multidimensional processing.
(c) Another advantage of multidimensional data presentation is that it allows a
supervisor to drag down data from an OLAP database in very broad terms. In
other words, reporting can be as easy as comparing a couple of lines of data
in one column of a spreadsheet or as complex as viewing all aspects of
mountain of data.
(d) OLAP is a technology that can be distributed to many users using a variety of
platforms.
(e) Also, multidimensional presentation can create an understanding of
connections not before realized.
(f) OLAP creates a single stage for all the information and business requirements;
budgeting, forecasting, describing and analysis.
(g) Last but not least, the learning curve to use OLAP is negligible. The most
utilised interface to analyse data retained in OLAP technology is the well
renowned.

Self Assessment

2 in..............................
Fill the blanks: is a data structure that aggregates the measures by the
. levels and hierarchies of each of the dimensions that you want to analyse.
1. OLAP databases contain two basic types of data i.e. measures
and
3 ..................................
............................. is a set of values in a cube that are founded on a column
. in the cube’s detail table and that are generally numeric types.
4 ............................... is a member of a dimension whose worth is calculated at
. run time by utilizing an expression.
5 ................................. is a logical tree structure that organizes the members of
. a dimension such that each member has one parent member and none or
more child members.
6 ...................................... is a technology that can be distributed to many users
. using a variety of platforms.
7. The .......................... to use OLAP is negligible.

4.3 Fast Response

Hyperion Essbase consistently delivers very quick query response times that make
an iterative environment for analytic queries possible. OLAP user’s queries are
neither predictable nor repairable and the results of one query often frame the
obligations of the next. In this natural environment, answers must be forthcoming
in seconds— not minutes or hours — or analysts will cut short the analysis
process to meet administration deadlines.

!
CautionTo be productive, an analysis session should be interactive and keep pace
with the
analyst’s speed of consideration.

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With Hyperion Essbase, most users obtain responses to their queries in a fraction of Note
a second. Even the most complex queries take only a couple of seconds. In audited s
OLAP benchmark results, Hyperion Essbase processed more than 6,800 complex
queries per minute on a four- processor server — an average answer time of just
0.00876 seconds per query.
While query tools are becoming progressively complicated, their presentation is
still limited by the answer time of the data source. It consistently provides very
quick answer by permitting designers to optimize performance founded upon an
application’s unique obligations for query presentation, calculation complexity,
assessment window (the allowance of time accessible to load and assess the
application), user concurrency and computer disk utilization. Hyperion Essbase
accomplishes this flexibility through three calculation choices: precalculate, calc
on the go by plane and calc on the go by plane and store. Together, these three
assessment schemes let designers maximize flexibility, capacity and performance.

Self Assessment

State whether the following statements are true or false:

8 OLAP user’s queries are neither predictable nor repairable and the results
. of one query often frame the obligations of the next.

9 To be productive, an analysis session should not be interactive and keep

. pace with the analyst’s speed of consideration.

4.4 Metadata Based Queries

A metadata block is a named group of metadata in a specific format. A metadata
block can contain individual metadata pieces such as an author or creation time
and additional metadata blocks. A metadata block’s name is very resolute by its
format.

Example: A metadata block including App1 metadata would be entitled

“app1”. Common metadata formats includes App1, Exif, IFD, and XMP.
Figure 4.3: JPEG image with Rating
Metadata

Source:
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Note A metadata piece is a name/value pair that describes characteristics like author,
s name, and rating. A route sign contains one or more metadata block titles. It can
also identify a metadata piece inside a metadata block. The following path
expression comprises an App1 block which comprises an IFD block which
comprises the metadata piece:
/app1/ifd/{ushort=18249}
The Figure 4.3 illustrates the makeup of an example JPEG image with four origin
metadata blocks: App0, App1, XMP, and an unidentified block. Each emphasised
item notes the type of metadata (block or piece) and the query expression utilised
to retrieve the data.

4.4.1 Anatomy of a Path Expression

To get access to metadata, a completely qualified query expression must be used in

most cases. So, what is a completely qualified query expression? A completely
qualified expression is a string that begins with the path feature slash (/), pursued
by a navigation route to a metadata block or a specific metadata piece. Each step
within the navigation path is separated by a slash, forming an expression for
accessing a metadata block or a metadata item.

Example: The following is a completely trained query expression that

accesses the Microsoft photograph ranking in an IFD block that is nested in an
App1 block:
/app1/ifd/{ushort=18249}

When this expression is parsed, it first explore for the App1 metadata block
inside the image’s metadata. If the App1 block is found, it continues it does seek
looking for the nested IFD metadata block. If the IFD block is discovered, it then
examines for the specific metadata piece.
Notes If at any time a metadata block or piece is not found, it aborts the query.

4.4.2 Block Selection

The simplest metadata query expression is an expression to get a query

reader/writer for an exact metadata block. Getting a query reader/writer enables
you to direct subsequent queries exactly to a nested metadata block without
considering with its parent block. A block selection query expression is a
navigation route to the yearned metadata block. For example, in the preceding
example there are five metadata blocks, two of which are nested in other metadata
blocks. The following are the path expressions to each metadata block in the JPEG
example:
/app0
/app1
/app1/ifd
/app1/ifd/exif
/xmp

When you use a query reader/writer to execute a query, it comes back a new query
reader/ writer that services queries inside the scope of the particular metadata
block. For instance, if you execute the query “/app1”, a new query book reader is
got and queries to the new book reader are relation to the App1 block. This means
that the query “/ifd” is legitimate for the new reader because the App1 block
contains an IFD block. However, “/xmp” would not work because this App1 block
does not comprise an XMP metadata block.
For the JPEG example, the following indexed route expression can be utilised:
/[0]app1/[0]ifd
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In the query language, all indexes start at zero. In the previous expression, the first Note
zero queries for the first App1 block and the second zero queries the first nested s
IFD block. Index notation can still be utilised even when multiple blocks of the
identical kind do not live. If the example JPEG includes a second App1 block with
an embedded IFD block, the expression “/[1]app1/ifd” would be utilised to access
the second App1 block.
The following expression accesses the Microsoft Photo ranking in the XMP block:
/xmp/xmp: Rating

The “xmp:” part of the expression is a schema identifier. XMP is an extensible

benchmark and allows third party entities to publish their own schemas which
indicate how to shop certain metadata items.
The following data types are accepted by the query dialect:
char
uchar
short
ushort
long
ulong
int
uint
longlong
ride high
twice
str
wstr

guid

bool

The query dialect is not case sensitive and treats all individual features as
lowercase. However, some metadata formats (such as XMP) are case sensitive.
When employed with a case-sensitive metadata format, use the backslash (\)
feature when you want to identify an uppercase feature.
Table 4.1: Examples of Expression and
The following tableDescriptions
supplies some example expressions and descriptions of their
interpretations by
Expression the query dialect parser. Description
ifd/xmp/exif:Author Corresponds to the following navigation path: IFD block ->
XMP block -> "Author" property in the "Exif" schema.
/[1]ifd/[0]xmp/ Same as the first item in this table except that the [#] prefix
exif:Author describes which item to navigate in event of a name
collision.
/ifd/{ushort=700}/ Same as the first item in this table except that it uses a
Author data expression to reference the XMP block instead of the
block name "xmp" (XMP block is embedded under the
unsigned short tag identifier 700). Also, the "Author"
property does not specify a schema. The query parser
will try to match the property across all schemas and
return the first match.
/ifd/xmp Provides a navigation path to a metadata block. If the block
is found, a new metadata reader/writer is returned.
/[*]tEXt/Keyword Gets or sets the Keyword property for a PNG chunk.
Because the PNG metadata specification allows for
multiple chunks of a particular type, the [*] notation
gets/sets the data PNG chunk with the appropriate
property. Per the PNG specification, no two chunks can
Source: have the same properties.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ee719796(v=vs.85).a
spx

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Note Self
s Assessment
Fill in the blanks:

10. A metadata block is a named group of ................................... in a specific

format.

11. A metadata piece is a ...................................... that describes characteristics

like author, name, and rating.

12. The simplest .................................. is an expression to get a query

reader/writer for an exact metadata block.

13. In the query language, all indexes start at ....................................

14. The query dialect is not case sensitive and treats all individual features
as ........................

4.5 Spread Sheet Formulas

In OLAP we have about 5 kinds of calculations:

13. Aggregations

14. Matrix Calculations

15. Cross Dimensional Calculations

16. OLAP Aware functions

17. Procedural Calculations

Aggregations are simply addition. Adding days into weeks, weeks into months, and
so on or individual customers into customer groups, families etc.

Matrix calculations are like what you would do in a spreadsheet, with arbitrarily
complex relationships (+,-,*,/, sum, count, and more) both across the row and
down the columns. Calculations like variance, variance %, total, count, inventory
balances, etc. for example.

Cross dimensional calculations are like what you would do in linked spreadsheets,
or in a multidimensional spreadsheet. In these, computed results can refer to
numbers in another sheet in the cube, over distinction dimensions or different
hierarchies, not just on the same spreadsheet you are on. Calculation examples
include product share, market share, etc.

OLAP Aware Functions are like spreadsheet functions that have been extended to
understand OLAP. These encompass statistics, forecasting purposes, economic
purposes, time calculations. Just like a spreadsheet, most OLAP servers have some
hundred OLAP aware formulas provided.

Example: A single OLAP aware function we could assess a benchmark

deviation, a variance, an interest fee, etc. across all dimensions.
Beyond what a spreadsheet does these purposes work across dimensions
and realise OLAP notions like parents, young kids, ancestors, time intelligence,
etc.
Procedural calculations are the one in which specific calculation rules are
defined and executed in a specific order. For example, a per cent of revenue
contribution is procedural calculation. Profitability analysis is also an example of
procedural calculation. It requires procedural logic to model and execute rules
5 that reflect the business.
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Self Note
Assessment s
Fill in the blanks:
15. ................................. are like what you would do in linked
spreadsheets, or in a multidimensional spreadsheet.
16. ........................................ are like spreadsheet functions that have been
extended to understand OLAP.

4.6 Analysis Services Speed

OLAP delivers the simplest form of analysis, permitting any person to slice and dice
interrelated subsets of data or “cubes” with the click of a mouse. Users can
investigate data using standard OLAP characteristics such as page-by, pivot, sort,
filter and drill up/down to flip through a sequence of report views.

Notes OLAP analysis offers users primary access to their data warehouses in
lieu of more sophisticated investigation functionality needed by power users
Most
andOLAP vendors supply Multi-dimensional OLAP (MOLAP) solutions to perform
analysts.
this kind of analysis, but restricted cube capacity has burdened numerous IT
managers by establishing and organizing hundreds of overlapping cube
databases to hold stride with growing organizational claims. To get the most out
of BI applications, however, OLAP investigation desires to continue beyond the
benchmark MOLAP cube and supply full speed-of-thought interactivity against the
whole data warehouse.
Analysis Services carries OLAP by letting you design, create, and manage
multidimensional organisations that contain data aggregated from other data
sources, such as relational databases. For data mining applications, Analysis
Services permits you design, create, and visualize data mining models that are
assembled from other data sources by using a broad kind of industry- standard
Figure 4.4: Analysis of Services Concepts and
data excavation algorithms.
Objects Figure 4.4 shows analysis of services concepts and
objects.

Source:
http://i.msdn.microsoft.com/dynimg/IC6000.gif

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Note 4.7
s
Metadata
The term metadata refers to “data about data”. The term is ambiguous, as it is
utilised for two basically different notions (types). Structural metadata is about the
creation and specification of data organisations and is more correctly called “data
about the containers of data”; descriptive metadata, on the other hand, is about
one-by-one examples of submission data, the data content. In this case, a helpful
recount would be “data about data content” or “content about content” thus
metacontent.

Metadata (metacontent) are generally found in the business card catalogues of

libraries. As data has become progressively digital, metadata are furthermore used
to recount digital data utilising metadata measures exact to a particular control
and respect. By describing the contents and context of data documents, the value
of the original data/files is greatly bigger.

Example: A webpage may contain metadata identifying what language it is

in writing in, what tools were utilised to create it, and where to proceed for more
on the subject, permitting browsers to automatically improve the know-how of
users.

Metadata (metacontent) are characterized as the data providing information

about one or more aspects of data, such as:
• Means of creation of the data
• Purpose of the data
• Time and date of creation
• Creator or author of the data
• Location on a computer mesh where the data were created

Example: A digital image may include metadata that describe how large the
picture is, the hue deepness, the image resolution, when the image was created,
and other data.

A text document’s metadata may comprise information about how long the
document is, who the author is, when the article was written, and a short abstract
of the article.

As such, metadata can be stored and organised in a database, often called a

Metadata registry or Metadata repository. However, without context and a
reference, it might be impossible to identify metadata just by looking at them.

Example: By itself, a database consisting of several figures, all 10 digits

long could be the results of computed results or a list of numbers to close into an
Did u know?
equation The term
- without any “metadata” wasthe
other context, coined in 1968
figures by Philip
themselves can Bagley,
be seeninas the
his
data. book “Extension of programming dialect notions”.
Following Figure 4.5 show an example of metadata.

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Figure 4.5: Example of Note

Metadata s

Source:
http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR1zN_FO3Vk1jHWkuCKQAjxB3O0O
41
SbnLZLnNdYmhmg4HWyLM_ZQ

4.7.1 Types of Metadata

There are three main types of metadata:

• Descriptive metadata describes a resource for purposes such as discovery and
identification. It can include elements such as title, abstract, author, and
keywords. Sample elements of it are unique identifiers (PURL, Handle),
physical attributes (media, dimensions condition) and bibliographic attributes
(title, author/creator, language, keywords).
• Structural metadata indicates how compound objects are put together.

Example: How pages are ordered to form chapters.

Sample elements of it are structuring tags such as title page, table of
contents, chapters, parts etc.
• Administrative metadata provides information to help manage a resource,
such as when and how it was created, file type and other technical
information, and who can access it.

Did u know? Two further subtypes of administrative metadata:

(i) Rights management metadata, which deals with intellectual property

rights, and
(ii) Preservation metadata, which contains information needed to archive
and preserve a resource.
Sample elements include technical data such as scanner type and model,
resolution, bit depth,
Task Give examples forcolour space,
the use filemetadata
of SAS format, compression, light source,
DATA step functions to
owner, copyright
identify and trackdate etc. that describes data libraries and users.
metadata

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Note 4.7.2 Metadata

s Functions

1. Discovery of resources
O Allowing resources to be discovered by applicable
criteria.
O Identifying
assets;
O Bringing alike assets
simultaneously;
O Distinguishing dis-similar
assets;
O Giving location
information.
2 Organizing e-
. resources
O Organizing links to resources based on audience or
theme.
O Creating these pages dynamically from metadata retained in
databases.
3 Facilitating
. interoperability
O Using characterized metadata designs, shared protocols, and
crosswalks between designs, resources across the network can be
sought more seamlessly.
O Cross-system seek, e.g., using Z39.50
protocol;
4 Digital
. identification
O Components for standard number like
ISBN
O The location of a digital object may also be granted
utilising:
(i) a file name
(ii) a URL

4.7.3 Advantage of Metadata

One major advantage of metadata is that redundancy and inconsistencies can be

identified more easily as the metadata is centralized.

Example: The system catalogue and data dictionary can help or guide
developers at the conceptual or structural phase or for further maintenance.

Self Assessment

State whether the following statements are true or false:

17. By describing the contents and context of data documents, the value of the
original data/ files is smaller.
18. Metadata (metacontent) are generally found in the business card catalogues
of libraries.
19. Metadata can be stored and organised in a database, often called a
Metadata registry or Metadata repository.
20. Administrative metadata provides information to help manage a resource.

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Note
s

Case ABC,
Study
Inc.

H
ow a Financial Services Company Developed a Performance Report
for Clients,
Saved $200K and Sold $167,000,000 of Equity in Just
9 Months.
This story is based on our success at ABC, Inc., the leading outsource
collection agency for government debts in the US. We are using the
pseudonym “ABC” to protect their confidentiality. Please allow us to recount
how we applied OLAP technology to develop a flexible performance report
for ABC clients, saved $200K in accounting software expenses and helped
ABC sell some equity for $167,000,000 in just 9 months.
Like any other financial services company, ABC must provide regular reports
that measure its performance to its clients. ABC measures its performance
with what they call their CARE report. The recovery percentages that appear
in the CARE report are the primary measure of performance for ABC clients.
ABC first deployed their CARE report via a 40- page C program. But, the
CARE report for all clients was taking over 24 hours to process and the
resulting 500-page report was inflexible. There was no way to quickly focus in
on a single client or client contract and there was no way to change the level
of detail. There was also no way to further analyse the results, e.g. by loan
type, so they could discern what portions of their business are most lucrative.
And there was no convenient way to validate or understand a sum by
examining the detail records that it represents. What they needed was CARE
information delivered in the form of an Excel pivot table.
Merrill Eastman, ex-CEO of Bestfoods and then acting CEO of ABC, suggested
that we give Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) a try. Our first assignment
was to transform the old CARE report into an OLAP cube. OLAP looked like
the answer because it pre-computes numeric aggregations for the cross-
product of all relevant dimensions so that summary information for any
combination of dimensions can be displayed on demand. If you are familiar
with Excel, it suffices to say that OLAP transforms a relational database into a
pivot table.
1 ABC already owned Microsoft SQL Server licenses and appreciated its
There are a number of OLAP software alternatives out there, but we quickly
. ease of use and administration.
settled on SQL Server Analysis Services because:
2 Microsoft has bundled Analysis Services with every copy of SQL Server
. since 1998. So, ABC didn’t have to buy anything to give it a try.

3 SQL Server Analysis Services became the OLAP market

. leader in 2003.
4 SQL Server OLAP Services is tightly coupled with MS Excel. Like
. most other companies, ABC uses Excel exclusively for all financial
reports and analysis.
Developing the OLAP CARE report proceeded slowly at first because it was
difficult to reach consensus on CARE Report specifications. Analysis Services
is easy to use, but it was still very difficult to figure out how to get the content
of the old CARE report out of an OLAP cube. The major challenges we
learned to overcome included:
• How to export 80M facts and dimension rows from Informix to SQL
Server in less than 4 hours?

Contd....

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Note • How to transform exported information into a SQL Server data

s
mart with no referential integrity errors?
• How to compute distinct counts within the cube that have a different
granularity than the basic revenue facts?
• How to map the same facts to multiple members within the same
dimension?
• What ragged hierarchies should be used as dimensions of the cube?
• How to support drillthrough to facts so that cube aggregates can be
validated and understood?
• How to tie CARE cube aggregates to the General Ledger so that data
integrity could be validated?
It took about 8 weeks to deliver the first CARE cube. A few weeks later, we
delivered a sister cube that provided more comprehensive recovery analysis.
By then, ABC was a believer in SQL Server OLAP Services and the rush was
on to expand its use. We trained three ABC software engineers to build cubes
and they set about developing General Ledger, General Ledger Budget,
Payroll, Collector Performance and Revenue Forecasting cubes in parallel.
The General Ledger cubes delivered immediate benefits. ABC was using OSAS
accounting software. They were not satisfied with the reports that OSAS
produced, but was reluctant to invest an estimated $200K to acquire a new
package and train accounting personnel to use it. Instead, they purchased an
ODBC driver to export OSAS data and we built a cube to generate their
reports. Today, their Balance Sheets and Profit and Loss Statements are
implemented in an account rollup dimension. They can drill down from a few
lines at the top to any level of detail. The drill-down feature is particularly
useful in the GL Budget cube. If budget variances are detected at the highest
levels, they just double-click on their OLAP pivot table to drill down until they
discover the roots of the variance. The OLAP accounting reports reduced the
time required to close ABC’s books by 5 days. As a result, they can make
critical business decisions that much faster.
Meanwhile, ABC’s impressive performance attracted outside investors. A
venture capital firm became the primary suitor and a team of business
analysts set out to understand ABC’s business. After exhaustive due diligence,
the VCs decided to invest $167,000,000. They did so because ABC has a rock
solid business. But, the deal might not have happened without the OLAP
cubes. The OLAP cubes answered due diligence questions more quickly and in
much more detail than the VC had seen in previous deals. The Billing cube that
we developed at the VC’s request was fundamental to their belief that future
revenues would grow fast enough to support the necessary ROI.
Question:
Analyse the case and provide an alternative solution.
Source: http://www.winmetrics.com/olap_casestudies.html

4.8 Summary
• OLAP is a database expertise that has been optimized for querying and
describing, rather than of processing transactions.
• OLAP user’s queries are neither predictable nor repairable and the results
of one query often frame the obligations of the next.
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• A metadata block can contain individual metadata pieces such as an author Note
or creation time and additional metadata blocks. s

• To get access to metadata, a completely qualified query expression must be

used in most cases.
• The simplest metadata query expression is an expression to get a query
reader/writer for an exact metadata block.
• OLAP delivers the simplest form of analysis, permitting any person to slice
and dice interrelated subsets of data or “cubes” with the click of a mouse.
• Metadata (metacontent) are generally found in the business card catalogues
of libraries.
• Sample elements include technical data such as scanner type and model,
resolution, bit depth, colour space, file format, compression, light source,
owner, copyright date etc.
• One major advantage of metadata is that redundancy and inconsistencies can
be identified more easily as the metadata is centralized.

9. Keywords
Calculated member: It is a member of a dimension whose worth is calculated at
run time by utilizing an expression.
Cube: It is a data structure that aggregates the measures by the levels and
hierarchies of each of the dimensions that you want to analyse.
Descriptive metadata: Descriptive metadata describes a resource for purposes such
as discovery and identification.
Dimension: A set of one or more organized hierarchies of levels in a cube that a
user understands and benefits as the base for data analysis.
Hierarchy: A logical tree structure that organizes the members of a dimension.
Level: Within a hierarchy, data can be organized into smaller and higher levels of
detail.
Measure: It is a set of values in a cube that are founded on a column in the cube's
detail table and that are generally numeric types.
Member: An item in a hierarchy comprising one or more occurrences of data.
Metadata block: A metadata block is a named group of metadata in a specific
format.

10. Review Questions

1. Write down the meaning of OLAP.
4
2. “Hyperion
Discuss theEssbase consistently
components of OLAP.delivers very quick query response times
. that make an iterative environment for analytic queries possible”.
3. What are the advantages of OLAP?
Elaborate.
5 What are the metadata based
. queries?
6 Discuss about the anatomy of a Path
. expression.
7 Describe the block
. selection.

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Note 8 Give some examples of expression and

s . descriptions.
9 Discuss about the spread sheet
. formulas.
10. What is the analysis services
speed?
11. Explain the concept of metadata.
12. What are the various types of
metadata?
13. Discuss about the metadata
functions.
14. What are the advantages of
metadata?
1. Averages 2. Cube
Answers:
3. Self
Measure Assessment 4. Calculated member
5. Hierarchy 6. OLAP
7. Learning curve 8. True
9. False 10. Metadata
11. Name/value pair 12. Metadata query
expression
13. Zero 14. Lowercase
15. Cross dimensional calculations 16. OLAP Aware Functions
17. False 18. True
19. True 20. True

4.11 Further
Readings

Books Carlo Vercellis (2011). “Business Intelligence: Data Mining and

Optimization for Decision Making”. John Wiley & Sons.

David Loshin (2012). “Business Intelligence: The Savvy Manager’s

Guide”. Newnes.
Elizabeth Vitt, Michael Luckevich, Stacia Misner (2010). “Business
Intelligence”.
O’Reilly Media, Inc.
Rajiv Sabhrwal, Irma Becerra-Fernandez (2010). “Business
Intelligence”. John Wiley & Sons.
Swain Scheps (2013). “Business Intelligence for Dummies”. Wiley.

Online links dublincore.org/metadata-

basics/
www.guardian.co.uk › Technology › Data protection
www.newyorker.com/.../verizon-nsa-metadata-surveillance-proble
m.html
www.sas.com/technologies/bi/olap/

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 Unit 5: Microsoft Business Intelligence
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Unit 5: Microsoft Business Intelligence Note

s
Platform
CONTENTS

Objectives

Introductio

1. Facto
rs
Affect
ing

1. P
o
w
e
r

2. U
s
a
b
i
l
i
t
y

3. C
o
m
p
a
t
i
b
i
l
i
t
y

w
i
t
h

E
x
i
s
t
i
n
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Business Intelligence

Note Objectiv
s
es
After studying this unit, you will be able to:
• State the Factors affecting Business Intelligence Solutions
• Discuss the Key Benefit Areas of BI
• Explain the Microsoft Business Intelligence Platform Capabilities
• Identify the Business Intelligence Platform Requirements
• Describe the Analysis Services Tools

Introduction
Microsoft Business Intelligence solutions leverage your existing technology
investments in
.NET, SQL Server and Office to develop rich integrated reporting and analytics
experiences that empower users to gain access to accurate, up-to-date
information for better, more relevant decision making. If you are seeking
comprehensive, server-based reporting service designed to help you author,
manage, and deliver both paper-based and interactive Web-based reports, the
Microsoft Business Intelligence platform is an ideal service to provide fast, reliable
reporting services. This unit provides an introduction to Business Intelligence and
to Microsoft BI after discussing factors affecting BI and its key benefit areas.

1. Factors Affecting
The following are some key factors that determine a company’s choice of BI
solutions:

1. Power

A significant component working out the alternative of an analytical application is

its power or functionality. A number of BI tools, such as Cognos PowerPlay, have
robust analytical capabilities that allow specialized users in companies to quickly
perform complicated database analysis. Usually, the client population for
analysis-heavy devices comprises of more accomplished workers such as
financial analysts and administration.

2. Usability

Though some mighty tools are in the market, lack of client friendliness is a barrier
to adoption that has often frustrated business users and kept them from utilizing
the full worth of analytic applications. If the users of an analytical submission are
business staff, picking a solution that is easy to discover and use key to achieving
affirmative comes back. Office XP devices such as Excel are high on the usability
scale because they enable business users to support BI purposes through the use
of desktop tools they are already familiar with.

3. Compatibility with Existing Technology

If companies are following best-of-breed expertise schemes, the solution must

support fast integration with third-party and home-grown applications and
databases. In evolving its BI platform, Microsoft has leveraged the compatibility of
SQL Server with databases such as Oracle 9i and DB2. Companies can use the SQL
Server 2000 for the Oracle Customer kit to link the two databases and alleviate the
6 task of managing
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Self Note
Assessment s
Fill in the
blanks:
1 The .................................. for analysis-heavy devices comprises of more
. accomplished workers such as financial analysts and administration.

2. Office XP devices such as .................................. are high on the usability

scale.

2. Key Benefit Areas

This gives a detailed review of the major areas of benefits of BI.

1. Improved Technology Management

Microsoft’s BI platform can positively influence expertise management by

facilitating the task designing and deployment phase of a BI task as well as
simplifying the task of ongoing scheme administration. Throughout the task
designing phase, devices such as the SQL Server Accelerator for BI can expedite
the development of BI schemes by giving developers direct access to existing best
practices.

Example: The Analytics Builder Workbook is a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet

that can mechanically generate a company’s specific.

Specific returns resulting from Microsoft BI solutions include the

following:
• Reduced development and integration costs
• Reduced consulting expenditure
• Reduced IT employee training
• Reduced infrastructure costs
• Reduced report development costs
• Reduced ongoing support costs

5.2.2 Improved Information for Decision Making

Improved Information organization and access from BI can influence the bottom
line by improving some enterprise undertakings. Companies using Microsoft’s BI
devices can make it cheaper for users to access data, simplify the task of data
mining and analysis, and enable employees to make enterprise decisions that
decrease charges or improve profitability.
Some components of the Microsoft BI stage can lower the costs of accessing
information by allowing users to efficiently generate queries and reports on their
own.
Did u know? Excel is a client-friendly yet precious OLAP tool, enabling
employees in various agencies from sales to accounting to present sales
analysis on their own.

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Note Self
s Assessment
Fill in the blanks:
3. Companies using .......................... devices can make it cheaper for users
to access data.
4 Specific returns resulting from Microsoft BI solutions include the reduced
. development and ..........................

5.3 Microsoft Business Intelligence Platform Capabilities

Business Intelligence is rather a wide term, thus it wouldn’t be superfluous to state

what Microsoft BI platform can be utilised for:
• Preparing dashboards and scorecards: Numbers are significant, although
furthermore meaningful it is to know where the numbers begin from.
Dashboards and scorecards within the Microsoft solution are completely
interactive, thus one can quickly dive into each area of data to watch it from
another view and – thereby – find out certain thing more. Even though the
data might have its source in differentiated places, it’s accessible from within
a single dashboard.
• Stimulating collaboration: The matter of effective collaboration is vital to all up
to date associations and Microsoft Business Intelligence platform carries it
very well. With well- developed connection capabilities (one can use blogs,
wiki sheets, usual documents, and presentations); it allows all users across the
association to work on the same “version of data” what increases their
presentation. On the other hand, search engine allows users to quickly find
exactly what they’re looking for, no issue how high volumes of data are.
• Self-sufficient reporting and analysis: Broad reporting and analytics
capabilities in Microsoft Business Intelligence platform permit users to gain
the insight as deep as they need. Without any need for IT agencies
involvement, they can arrange and change accounts and analysis. The
working natural environment is, then, secure and intuitive, so that no
specialists need to hold an eye on the system incessantly.
• Data mining and predictive analysis: The “next grade” of Business Intelligence
also is supplied inside the Microsoft platform. One can thus analyse data
from different points of view mechanically and find out the tendencies what –
if finished without computer support – could last considerably longer or
become impossible at all.
• Data warehousing: Microsoft Business Intelligence platform supplies ETL
(Extract, change, burden) methods and – thereby – supports data
warehousing.
5 ............................... allows users to quickly find exactly what they’re looking
. for, no issue how high volumes of data are.
Self Assessment
6 Microsoft Business Intelligence platform supplies ............................... methods
.Fill inand
thethereby
blanks: supports data warehousing.

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5.4 Business Intelligence Platform Note

s
Requirements
Business intelligence platform should include the following technologies:
• Data Warehouse Databases: A business intelligence platform should
support both relational and multidimensional data warehousing databases.

!
CautionIn supplement, storage forms should support the circulation of data
across both
and data forms should support clear or near-clear access to data, while it’s
retained.
• OLAP: OLAP is a critical business intelligence platform constituent. It is the
most broadly utilized approach to analysis.

!
CautionBusiness intelligence platforms should provide OLAP support inside
their
databases, OLAP functionality, interfaces to OLAP functionality, and OLAP
construct and
manage capabilities.
• Data Mining: Data mining has reached the mainstream. It is a critical business
intelligence platform capability.
Notes Platform should include data mining functionality that boasts a range of
algorithms that can operate on data warehouse data.
• Interfaces: Business intelligence stages should provide open interfaces to data
warehouse databases, OLAP, and data mining. Where befitting, interfaces
should obey with measures. Open, standards-based interfaces make it
simpler both to purchase and to construct applications that use the facilities
of a business intelligence stage.
• Build and Manage Capabilities: Business intelligence stages should supply the
capabilities to build and organize data warehouses in their data warehouse
databases. Build capabilities should include the implementation of data
warehouse forms, the extraction, action, transformation, and cleansing of
data from operational sources, and the primary stacking and incremental
updating of data warehouses according to their forms.

5.4.1 Uses of Microsoft BI Services

Through Microsoft’s Business Intelligence (BI) services:

• Your company can build profitable connections with your customers
• Your company can decrease the risk of non-compliance and financial
disasters
• You can competently change your business into a proactive conclusion
making business
• You can advance workforce productivity both at the individual employee grade
and all through the workforce
• You can optimize the return on current business and IT investments
• You can accomplish greater compliance with government and regulatory
guidelines
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Note • You both as an external or interior client will achieve much quicker difficulty
s explaining and conclusion making ability at all grades strategic, operational
and tactical
• You get the right information at the right time to facilitate and expedite key
decisions

5.4.2 Microsoft’s Business Intelligence Platform Strategy

Microsoft’s business intelligence platform strategy is rooted in its database

proposing: SQL Server 2000. SQL Server 2000 is the anchor storage and query
expertise behind.NET servers. And, one of the key applications for SQL Server is
business intelligence. The business intelligence platform scheme for Microsoft
leverages SQL Server-based technologies and goods through these components:
• Deliver a comprehensive business intelligence platform with
sophisticated data warehousing techniques, large analytic functionality,
and very good presentation and scalability across all platform components
• Through Microsoft’s business intelligence platform:
O impel business intelligence to the edges of the
business
O Make business intelligence more pervasive inside the
corporation
O Make business intelligence more reachable for more users and more
types of users
Microsoft applies this platform strategy through the application of a well-known
and well- proven Microsoft product trading equation. That equation has these key
components:
• very quick implementation
• Ease of discovering and ease of use
• reduced cost and high worth
• fast return on investment (ROI)
This is the equation that Microsoft has frequently demonstrated and consistently
proven. The business has used it effectively for its Windows platform (now .NET
platform), its SQL Server database as utilised for OLTP applications, its e-
commerce platform, business Server, and its application development suite, Visual
Studio. While all of us have been trained to be sceptical (even very unlikely) about
phrases like “fast implementation” and “ease of use,” Microsoft has always
consigned on them. And, this is not just a vision for little organizations with little
allowances. Microsoft consigns data warehousing worth to companies of all
dimensions.
Netting it out, Microsoft’s business intelligence platform scheme endows
companies of any dimensions, of any grade of business intelligence skill and know-
how, of any IT budget to establish business understanding all through and to
deliver and accomplish the benefits of business intelligence—improved
effectiveness, greater efficiency, and higher quality throughout all their business
methods.

5.4.3 Partnerships

Microsoft’s business intelligence platform is built on Microsoft expertise. Microsoft

controls all aspects of it creation, development, product trading, and support. The
firm feels that this platform is core to its database scheme and an integral
constituent of snare. Control of the whole platform from designing, design,
development, and product marketing perspectives is absolutely vital in alignment
to supply consistency, integration, and timely technology delivery for both
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 Unit 5: Microsoft Business Intelligence
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intelligence platform. The firm actually values partnerships to create a large Note
groundwork of focused business intelligence tools and applications that supports s
its platform. These partnerships simplify and accelerate adoption of the platform
and make the platform’s assets more effortlessly accessible. This is a perfect
partnering approach.

Notes If we compare Microsoft’s approach with IBM’s, in Microsoft it owns its

business intelligence platform whereas in IBM OEMs its platform’s OLAP
expertise from Hyperion, and, as an outcome, IBM doesn’t control its
business intelligence platform.
4. Microsoft’s Business Intelligence Platform

Microsoft’s business intelligence platform is constructed on SQL Server. SQL Server

characteristics supply relational and multidimensional data warehousing, OLAP,
data mining, and build and organise capabilities for relational and
multidimensional data warehouses. SQL Server also provides an array of
submission interfaces all constructed on the flexible and extensible object- oriented
COM component model. These interfaces supply the access to all business
intelligence assets with the flexibility and control to address any application
requirement.

5. Packaging and Price

Packaging and pricing distance Microsoft’s business intelligence platform from the
platforms of Oracle, IBM, and Hyperion. For the processor-based permit charge of
$19,999 per processor for SQL Server Enterprise Edition, you get the whole
business intelligence platform.
Figure OLAP, indata
5.1: BI Models mining,
Microsoft and build and organise
SQL Server
2008 R2
capabilities are included as database characteristics.

Source: http://www.microsoftbiconsultant.com/images/MS-SQL-2008-R2-BI.jpg

Oracle charges $40,000 per processor just for the Enterprise Edition of its
relational data. OLAP, data mining, and build and organise capabilities are all
individually cost and packaged features

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Note of this Enterprise Edition of the firm’s database. IBM allegations $25,000 per
s processor just for the Enterprise Server Edition of its relational database with
included but basic build and manage capabilities. OLAP, data mining, and
sophisticated build and manage are all additional. Hyperion allegations $28,000
per processor just for OLAP with packaged construct and manage capabilities.
Figure 5.1 depicts BI model in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2.
5.4.6 Oracle’s Business Intelligence Platform Strategy

Oracle is a software business with two foremost lines of business: databases and
applications. The present flagship proposing of the firm’s database business is
Oracle9i. This is an object/ relational database administration scheme designed
and positioned to support all types of Internet-based applications. Oracle9i
integrates what Oracle terms a “complete and integrated infrastructure for
building business intelligence applications.” So, Oracle’s business intelligence
platform strategy to supply a comprehensive business understanding platform built
on and integrated inside its flagship database system.

Did u know? Oracle Business Intelligence is an integrated, intuitive, and

interactive business intelligence solution that provides comprehensive
report creation and delivery capabilities, from data preparation to final
presentation, against multidimensional OLAP or relational data sources.

Partnerships

Partnerships do not play a major function inside Oracle’s business intelligence

platform. The “complete and integrated infrastructure” means that every platform
component is provided by Oracle and is founded on Oracle9i. Oracle’s R&D
organization controls the creation, development, and support of the whole
platform. Like Microsoft, Oracle uses partnerships for business platform tools and
applications, although the firm actually strives against with these partners with
its own business intelligence tools and applications. Because Oracle’s business
intelligence platform does not include colleague technology, Oracle has the
significant advantage of control over the platform’s components, technology and
integration.

Oracle’s Business Intelligence Platform

Oracle9i is the foundation of Oracle’s business understanding platform. OLAP

functionality is supplied by Oracle9i OLAP and data mining functionality is supplied
by Oracle9i data mining. Both are characteristics of Oracle9i Business Edition.
Build and Manage functionality is provided by two toolsets. The first, Oracle
Business supervisor, is the major management structure and DBA toolset as well as
the toolset for OLAP construction and organization. The second is Oracle9i
Warehouse Builder. This toolset, a component of Oracle Internet Developer Suite,
presents capabilities for managing relational data warehousing resources,
conceiving relational data warehouse forms, and ETL.

Package and Pricing

From a packaging perspective, Oracle boasts little bundling. All the constituents of
its business intelligence platform are individually bundled and cost and the
construct and manage components have separately cost and bundled sub-
components. Oracle9i Business version is cost at $40,000 per processor. Oracle9i
OLAP is cost at $20,000 per processor. Oracle9i data Mining is cost at
$20,000 per processor. And, Oracle Warehouse Builder is priced at $5,000 per
6 entitled client.
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them up and Oracle’s business intelligence platform is at smallest five times higher Note
in price than Microsoft’ business understanding platform. s

Figure 5.2: Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer Dashboard

Example

Source: http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B14099_19/core.1012/b13994/img/dashboard.gif

IBM’s Business Intelligence Platform Strategy

From a business perspective, IBM has three businesses: hardware, software, and
consulting services. The programs business has four constituents: WebSphere
programs, DB2 data administration programs, Lotus (collaboration) programs,
and Tivoli (system administration) programs.

Notes Business intelligence is one of two IBM-provided solutions of DB2 data

management programs. (The other solution is e-business.)
IBM characterizes business intelligence as “warehousing, data mining, and
OLAP.” That’s precisely our delineation of a business understanding platform. So,
IBM’s business intelligence answer is a business intelligence platform.
IBM’s strategy for business intelligence is to help companies know their customers
and to use that information to gain comparable advantages, to maximize revenue,
and minimize cost. Business intelligence is implicitly targeted at all of IBM’s
markets. The firm makes no explicit distinction in the positioning of business
understanding for the types or dimensions of businesses or for the kinds of users
inside those businesses that can use its business understanding platform. It’s a one
dimensions aligns all approach.

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Note Hyperion’s Business Intelligence Platform

s Scheme
In mid-2001, Hyperion changed its business strategy, shifting its focus from
business intelligence software infrastructure and applications to business
presentation management programs answers. The firm states its target “is to be
the premier global provider of business presentation management solutions.”
These solutions are created to automate the business performance administration
method of scheme setting, modelling, planning, performance supervising,
describing and investigation. Their target is to improve your profitability.
The expertise platform for Hyperion’s performance administration solutions is
Essbase, its venerable OLAP Server Within the new strategy, Hyperion states that
Essbase technology will be enhanced in the areas of ease of use, ease of
application development, interoperability of business performance management
applications, scalability, and tighter integration with relational data sources.
Missing from Hyperion’s enhancement strategy for Essbase are localities such as
analytic technology and business intelligence platform technologies. Essbase is
evolving away from a general reason OLAP facility and in the direction of a
platform for carrying a very exact type of business understanding application.
Hyperion’s new scheme and target can play quite well in today’s business
understanding market where companies’ top main concerns are to do business
more competently and efficiently. Business performance administration is a classic
business intelligence submission. It requires a comprehensive business intelligence
platform as its base in order to assemble the data that comprises business
presentation, organize that data, investigate it, present it, and use investigation
outcomes to advance business presentation.

Packaging and Pricing

Hyperion Essbase has a pricing model for with two elements: a per server charge
and a per entitled client charge. Currently, per server charge is $28,000 per
processor and per entitled client charge is $1,500. Essbase packaging includes the
OLAP server, administrative tools, and construct and organise tools.

!
Essbase installations most commonly use relational data warehouses as
Caution
the data
causes for Essbase cubes.

Comparing Business Intelligence Databases

Table 5.1: Diff erent BI
Databases
The following table enumerates BI Databases
Interfaces of different companies:
Microsoft Oracle IBM Hyperion
Relation SQL and SQL SQL and Not applicable
al Transact/SQ and DB2 SQL
interface L PL/SQL
s
ODBC and JDBC ODBC and ODBC and JDBC
OLE DB JDBC
ADO
ADO.NET
OLAP MD OLAP DML Essbase API Essbase API
Interfaces X Java OLAP
DSO API Contd....
Pivot Table SQL and
Service PL/SQL
XML for Analysis

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Data mining DSO Oracle9i Data Intelligent Miner Not applicable Note
interfaces Pivot Table Mining  C++ s
Service Wizards API (Java)  SQL
 Visual tools
DB2 OLAP Miner
 Essbase API

Source: A Comparison of Business Intelligence Strategies and Platforms by

Mitch Kramer.

Microsoft’s BI/PM Offering

The following figure illustrates various BI/PM offerings by Microsoft:
Figure 5.3: Various off erings by
Microsoft

Source:
http://www.element61.be/assets/microsoft-business-intelligence-&-performance-manage
ment-
platform_small.jpg

Self Assessment

Fill
7 inAthe blanks:
.............................. platform should support both relational and
. multidimensional data warehousing databases.
8 Business intelligence stages should provide open interfaces to data
. warehouse databases, OLAP, and ..............................
9 Business intelligence stages should supply the capabilities to build and
. organize data warehouses in their ..............................
10. SQL Server 2000 is the anchor storage and query expertise
behind ..............................
11. The firm actually values .............................. to create a large groundwork of
focused business intelligence tools and applications that supports its
platform.
12. Packaging and pricing distance Microsoft’s business intelligence
platform from the platforms of Oracle, IBM, and ..............................
13. .............................. is a software business with two foremost lines of business:
databases and applications.

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Note 5.5 Analysis Services

s
Tools
Business Intelligence Development Studio is Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 with
project types that are specific to SQL Server business intelligence. Business
Intelligence Development Studio is the primary natural environment that you will
use to evolve enterprise solutions that includes analysis Services, Integration
Services, and Reporting Services tasks. Each project type supplies templates for
creating the objects needed for business intelligence answers, and supplies a
variety of designers, tools, and wizards to work with the objects.

Features in Business Intelligence Development Studio:

• Start Page
• Tool Windows in Business Intelligence Development Studio
• Menus in Business Intelligence Development Studio
• Toolbars in Business Intelligence Development Studio
• Working with Projects and Solutions
• Customizing Environment, Tools, and Windows
• Using Source Control Services
• Getting More Information
• Analysis Services in Business Intelligence Development Studio
• Integration Services in Business Intelligence Development Studio
• Reporting Services in Business Intelligence Development Studio

5.5.1 Start Page

When you first open Business Intelligence Development Studio, the Start page
appears in the centre of the Business Intelligence Development Studio user
interface. This page exhibits a register of lately revised projects; help topics,
World Wide Web sites and other resources; links to product and updated
information from Microsoft; and by default, a register of items from the RSS feed of
the specified report.
To display a page other than the Start Page at startup, click Options on the tools
menu, expand the Environment node, and in the At Startup menu, select the item
to display.

Notes To discover more about the Start page, click within the Start Page and
press F1.
5.5.2 Tool Windows in Business Intelligence Development
Studio

Business Intelligence Development Studio includes a set of windows for all stages
of solution development and project administration.

Example: Business Intelligence Development Studio includes windows

that let you organise multiple tasks as a unit and view and change the properties of
objects in projects. These windows are accessible to all the project types in
Business Intelligence Development Studio.

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The Figure 5.4 displays the windows in Business Intelligence Development Studio Note
with the default configuration. s

Figure 5.4: Business Intelligence Development

Studio with Default Configuration

Source: http://i.msdn.microsoft.com/dynimg/IC146944.gif

Business Intelligence Development Studio comprises of four major windows:

• Solution Explorer
• Properties Window
• Designer Window
• Toolbox Window

Solution Explorer

You can manage all the different tasks in a solution from a single window,
Solution Explorer. The Solution Explorer view presents the active solution as a
logical container for one or more projects, and includes all the pieces associated
with the projects. You can open project pieces for modification and present other
administration jobs directly from this view.
In Solution Explorer, you can create empty solutions and then add new or existing
tasks to the solution. If you create a new project without first creating a solution,
Business Intelligence Development Studio automatically creates the solution too.
When the solution includes tasks, the tree view includes nodes for project-specific
objects. For example, the analysis Services project includes a Dimensions node,
the Integration Services project includes a Packages node, and the Report form
project includes a reports node.

Notes To access solution Explorer, click solution Explorer on the View menu.

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Note Properties
s Window
The Properties Window menus are the properties of an object. You use this window
to view and change the properties of objects, such as packages, that are open in
editors and designers. You can furthermore use the Properties window to edit and
view document, task, and solution properties.

Notes To access the Properties window, click Properties Window on the view
menu.
Designer Window

The Designer window is the tool window in which you create or modify business
intelligence objects. The designer provides both a code view and a design view of
an object. When you open an object in a project, the object opens inside a
specialized designer in this window.

Notes The Designer window is not available until you add a project to a solution
and open an object inside that project.
Toolbox Window

The Toolbox window displays a variety of items for use in business intelligence
tasks. The tabs and items available in the Toolbox change depending on the
designer or editor currently in use. The Toolbox window habitually displays the
General tab, and may furthermore display tabs such as Control Flow Items,
Maintenance Tasks, Data Flow Sources, or Report Items.

Notes To access the Toolbox, click Toolbox on the view menu.

5.5.3 Menus in Business Intelligence Development Studio

The default menus that emerge in Business Intelligence Development Studio are
equal to those in Visual Studio. When you first open Business Intelligence
Development Studio, before you change the environment, open a solution, or open
any projects, Business Intelligence Development Studio includes the following
menus:
• File
• Edit
• View
• Tools
• Window
• Community
• Help

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File Note
Menu s
The choices on the file menu support file management. When you first open
Business Intelligence Development Studio, but before you have created a new
project or opened an existing project, some choices are unavailable. These choices
become available only when you start to work in the context of a solution, or
open a project within a solution.

Edit Menu

The choices on the Edit menu support editing of text and code in documents. This
menu supplies commands such as undo and redo; find and replace; enable and
manage bookmarks. When you first open Business Intelligence Development
Studio, before you have created a new project or opened an existing project, some
choices are unavailable. Depending on the project type, some menu options many
not be available.

Example: The Undo and Redo options are not supported in Integration
Services projects.

View Menu

The choices on the view menu help you manage the client interface of Business
Intelligence Development Studio. This menu and its submenus supply the choices to
open the diverse windows, toolbox, explorers, and browsers.

Tools Menu

The choices on the Tools menu customize behaviour of the development

environment. This menu, its submenus, and the dialog boxes it accesses provide
choices to set the following options:
• Select process and a code type for debugging
•
• Connect to a database.
Select external tools toThe Database
include in theExplorer lists the data connections
environment
Work
Importwith
andmacros
•
• export specified environment settings or reset environment
settings to their defaults
• Choose the toolbars to display in the user interface and arrange the order of
commands
• Set the options that apply to the overall development environment, solutions
and projects, source control, debugging, and designers and editors

Window Menu

The choices on the Window menu organise the behaviour of windows, explorers,
and browsers in Business Intelligence Development Studio.

Community Menu

The choices on the Community menu lets you ask questions of other users and
of technical support, send response to Microsoft, access groups and connect to
the developer centre.

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Note Help
s Menu
The options on the Help menu provide access to Help topics.

4. Toolbars in Business Intelligence Development Studio

When you first open Business Intelligence Development Studio the Toolbar includes
only the Menu Bar toolbar and only a couple of icons that are accessible on the
Menu Bar toolbar. To customize the Toolbar, click Customize on the Tools menu,
and then select additional toolbars to display, or change options for the toolbar
appearance.

5. Working with Solutions and Projects

In Business Intelligence Development Studio, a solution is a container that

organizes the diverse projects that you use when you evolve end-to-end business
solutions. A solution permits you handle multiple tasks as one unit and blend one or
more associated projects that contribute to a business solution.
When you create a new solution, Business Intelligence Development Studio adds a
solution folder to Solution Explorer and creates documents that have the additions
.sln and .suo.
• The *.sln document comprises data about solution configuration and registers
the tasks in the solution.
• The *.suo file comprises information about your preferences for
employed with the solution.
Projects are stored in solutions. You can create a solution first and then add
projects to the solution. If no solution exists, Business Intelligence Development
Studio technically creates one for you when you first create the project. A solution
can contain multiple projects of distinct types. You can furthermore create a new
solution and then add subsequent projects.
In Business Intelligence Development Studio you can add projects of the following
types:
• Analysis Services projects, for creating analytic objects
• Integration Services projects, for creating ETL packages
• Report Model projects, for creating report models
• Report Server projects, for creating reports

5.5.6 Customizing the Environment, Tools and Windows

Business Intelligence Development Studio can be easily configured to match your

employed method. You can configure the general development environment and its
behaviour, and make alterations to its tools and windows. When you save a
solution, your configurations are kept to a *.suo file in the solution folder.
You can configure the Business Intelligence Development Studio environment
with collection of backgrounds customized for SQL Server business intelligence
development by choosing the Business Intelligence backgrounds collection. Use
import and Export settings on the tools menu to reset all your backgrounds based
on the Business Intelligence Settings collection or to trade only the categories of
Business Intelligence backgrounds that you choose.
To configure one-by-one choices for the environment and tools, click Options on the
tools menu to open choices dialog box. To discover more about the different choices
7 LOVELY
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carton, click a node in the left pane, and then press F1.
4 UNIVERSITY
 Unit 5: Microsoft Business Intelligence
Platform

Using Source Control Note

Services s
Like Visual Studio, Business Intelligence Development Studio is integrated with
source control programs. If source control software is established on the computer,
you can add solutions and projects to source control, and then open the solutions
and tasks in Business Intelligence Development Studio from the source control
application.

Getting More Information

The Visual Studio documentation provides detailed information about the Microsoft
application development environment. It help collection provides documentation for
the user interface that Business Intelligence Development Studio uses. To access
the Visual Studio help topics that are relevant to the user interface shared with
Business Intelligence Development Studio, you must install the MSDN Library that
is included with SQL Server or configure the Business Intelligence Development
Studio help options to access Help. When online Help is enabled, you can obtain
context-sensitive help from the Visual Studio windows by pressing F1 or clicking
Help.

Analysis Services in Business Intelligence Development Studio

Business Intelligence Development Studio includes the Analysis Services project for
developing Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) for business intelligence
applications. It includes the templates for cubes, dimensions, mining structures,
data sources, data source views etc.

Integration Services in Business Intelligence Development Studio

Business Intelligence Development Studio includes the Integration Services project

for developing ETL solutions. It includes the templates for packages, data sources,
and data source views, and provides the tools for working with these objects.

Reporting Services in Business Intelligence Development Studio

Business Intelligence Development Studio includes the Report Model and Report
projects for developing reporting solutions. The Report Model project type includes
the templates for report models; data sources etc. and provide the tools for
working with these objects.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:

14. The choices on the ............................ menu support editing of text and code in
documents.
15. The choices on the ............................ menu help you manage the client
interface of Business Intelligence Development Studio.
16. The choices on the ............................ menu customize behaviour of the
development environment.
17. The choices on the ............................ menu organise the behaviour of
windows, explorers, and browsers in Business Intelligence Development
Studio.

5.6 Data Extraction, Transformation and Load

In computing, Extract, Transform and Load (ETL) refer to a process that involves:
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Extracting data from outside sources 5
Business Intelligence

Note • Transforming it to fit operational needs, which can include

s quality levels
• Loading it into the end target (database, more specifically, operational data
store, data mart or data warehouse)
Figure 5.5 shows a complete description of ETL Architecture Pattern.

Figure 5.5: ETL Architecture

Pattern

Source:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/ETL_Architecture_Pattern.jpg

Extract

The first stage of an ETL process involves extracting the data from the source
systems. An intrinsic part of the extraction involves the parsing of extracted data,
resulting in a check if the data meets an expected pattern or structure. If not, the
data may be rejected entirely or in part.

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Transfor Note
m s
The transformation stage applies a series of rules or functions to the extracted data
to derive the data for loading into the end target. Some data sources will require
very little or even no manipulation of data.

Load

The loading phase loads the data into the end target, usually the Data Warehouse
(DW). Some of the data warehouses may overwrite existing information
frequently; updating data is done on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

7. Meaning and Tools of Extraction

Data extraction is the act or process of retrieving data from data sources for further
data processing. Usually, the term data extraction is applied when data is first
imported into a computer from primary sources like measuring or recording
devices.

1. Tools

A good ETL tool must be able to communicate with different relational databases
and read the various file formats used throughout an organization. Many ETL
vendors now have data profiling, data quality, and metadata capabilities. A
common use case for ETL tools include converting CSV files to formats readable
by relational databases.
Popular ETL Tools are:
• IBM WebSphere Information Integration
• Ab Initio
• Informatica
• Talend
Figure 5.6 depicts an ETL Tools
FigureComparison chart.
5.6 ETL Tools
Comparison

Source:
https://sheet.zoho.com/publicgraphs/983047000000039763.p
ng

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Note ETL Tools are typically used by a broad range of professionals - from students
s to database architects.

Task “Microsoft enables business users to look no further than Excel for self-
service BI”. Comment.

Self Assessment

State whether the following statements are true or false:

18. The first stage of an ETL process is transformation stage which involves
extracting the data from the source systems.
19. The loading stage applies a series of rules or functions to the extracted data
to derive the data for loading into the end target.
20. A common use case for ETL tools include converting CSV files to formats
readable by relational databases.

Case Wireless Data Services Provider -

Study
Business Intelligence Platform &
Reporting
Background
As a growing provider of wireless broadband services, the road to success in
this competitive industry is clear: expand coverage as quickly and as
efficiently as possible while maintaining the highest level of service quality. In
an effort to control rising costs and enable strategic decision making, the
company required a method for assembling, analysing, and disseminating
network deployment data with maximum visibility and accuracy. During the
ongoing network expansion process, numerous sites were quickly acquired,
zoned, and permitted simultaneously by the deployment team. With only a
small time window to complete work, even the most minor setback could
lead to massive cost overruns. A lack of site status visibility was causing
problem sites to incur exponentially higher costs due to re-work and
redundant permitting. To maintain the aggressive schedule and avoid run-
away costs, the network development team needed a system to quickly identify
site progress against build-out goals. Concurrently, the market launch team
struggled to communicate with the network deployment team. Without
accurate market status information, they were unable to make informed
decisions and effectively forecast the demand for customer service
resources. This lack of communication posed the risk of causing market
launch delays and the loss of significant future revenue. Additionally,
dependable market coverage information was needed to measure adherence to
regulatory requirements.
Giving Visibility to the Network Build Out
The shortage of actionable information was not due to a lack of data. An
internally developed system tracked the network build-out process and
compiled raw transactional records. Analysts, however, were tasked with
manually cleaning and analysing massive “data dumps” from the system. Due
to the sheer amount of data, only a small subset of the
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 Unit 5: Microsoft Business Intelligence
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markets could be realistically analysed and reports were often out of date by Note
s
completion. Further problems were introduced by discrepancies in the data
definitions. To make faster and more accurate decisions, managers needed a
way to quickly obtain current and comprehensive reports with maximum
accuracy.
Looking forward, the company anticipated expanding their business
intelligence capabilities beyond network deployment to optimize business
decisions in other units. These new capabilities were expected to yield
increasing amounts of data that would require an expansion of storage
capacity. A framework was sought for designing and defining future data
warehousing and business intelligence implementations.
Creating a Platform to Support Growth and Control Costs
Originally selected to perform an assessment of the organization’s overall
business intelligence capabilities, Hitachi Consulting was subsequently
engaged to provide a comprehensive solution to this pressing issue. By
utilizing expertise in BI and in collaboration with the IT, finance, marketing,
and network development teams, Hitachi Consulting designed a platform to
bring visibility to the company’s network deployment efforts. The
implementation of a Cognos dashboard, built on an Oracle relational database
system, would be linked to a data feed from the existing network monitoring
system. Organized by phase and by market, the new dashboards would offer
decision makers the option to obtain a high level view or to drill down into the
specifics of each. Without the constraints of limited data or the prohibitive
costs of manual analysis, reports could be infinitely configured and generated
nightly. Key metrics, such as population counts, sites on air, sites leased, and
duration calculations, would be integrated while data definitions would be
consolidated for increased accuracy.
The future needs of the organization were also considered as the system was
designed to serve as the foundation for the development of a more robust and
scalable data warehousing platform. Hitachi Consulting helped define the
data warehouse framework and design standards by assisting the client in
developing an internal “Centre of Excellence” for future implementations.
Cost Savings is realized with Improved Operational Efficiencies
With an aggressive and costly objective of doubling service coverage in less
than a year, this young company worked closely with Hitachi Consulting to
help them achieve it. Through our business intelligence expertise and
implementation, the company realized immediate gains in operational
efficiency.
The company is now better positioned to minimize development costs
through more accurate financial insights. Reports that formerly required
many hours of preparation are near-instantly generated with greater
relevance, scope, and accuracy. Managers, in turn, gain increased visibility of
schedule slips which has enabled them to prevent them as they occur.
The system is expected to pay for itself through the cost savings of only a
single market. Data that was formerly available to only a few is now
empowering those making the decisions to manage a network build-out that
2 What solution does wireless broadband services provider provides
is on time and on budget.
. to Hitachi Consulting?
Questions:
Source:
www.hitachiconsulting.com/files/.../CS_WirelessProviderBI.pdf
1. Analyse a case find out what is the problem?

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Business Intelligence

Note 5.8
s
Summary
• A web-based report, the Microsoft Business Intelligence platform is an ideal
service to provide fast, reliable reporting services.
• A number of BI tools, such as Cognos PowerPlay, have robust analytical
capabilities that allow specialized users in companies to quickly perform
complicated database analysis.
• Office XP devices such as Excel are high on the usability scale because they
enable business users to support BI purposes through the use of desktop tools
they are already familiar with.
• Companies can use the SQL Server 2000 for the Oracle Customer kit to link
the two databases and alleviate the task of managing the two databases.
• Microsoft’s BI platform can positively influence expertise management by
facilitating the task designing and deployment phase of a BI task as well as
simplifying the task of ongoing scheme administration.
• Companies using Microsoft’s BI devices can make it cheaper for users to
access data, simplify the task of data mining and analysis, and enable
employees to make enterprise decisions that decrease charges or improve
profitability.
• Microsoft’s business intelligence platform strategy is rooted in its database
proposing: SQL Server 2000. SQL Server 2000 is the anchor storage and
query expertise behind.NET servers.
• Business Intelligence Development Studio is Microsoft Visual Studio 2008
with project types that are specific to SQL Server business intelligence.
• Data extraction is the act or process of retrieving data from data sources for
further data processing.

5.9 Keywords
Business Intelligence (BI): Business Intelligence (BI) is a set of theories,
methodologies, processes, architectures, and technologies that transform raw data
into meaningful and useful information for business purposes.

Data Extraction: Data extraction is the act or process of retrieving data out of
(usually unstructured or poorly structured) data sources for further data
processing or data storage (data migration).

Data Mining (DM): Data mining (the analysis step of the “Knowledge Discovery in
Databases” process, or KDD), an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science, is
the computational process of discovering patterns in large data sets involving
methods at the intersection of artificial intelligence, machine learning, statistics,
and database systems.

Data Warehousing: In computing, a data warehouse or enterprise data warehouse

(DW, DWH, or EDW) is a database used for reporting and data analysis.

Decision Support Systems (DSS): A decision support system (DSS) is a computer

program application that analyses business data and presents it so that users can
make business decisions more easily.

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 Unit 5: Microsoft Business
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5.10 Review Note

s
Questions
1. What are the key factors that determine a company’s choice of BI
solutions?
2. What is the Microsoft Business Intelligence Platform?
3. What are the key benefit areas of Microsoft business intelligence?
4. Briefly explain the capabilities of Microsoft business intelligence.
5. What are the requirements in Business intelligence platform?
6. What are the uses of Microsoft BI Services?
7. Write short note on Microsoft’s business intelligence platform
strategy.
8. Discuss the IBM’s business intelligence platform strategy.
9. What is the Hyperion’s Business Intelligence Platform Scheme?
10. Write down the features in Business intelligence development
studio.
11. Provide details for menus in business intelligence development
studio.
12. Discuss the extract transform load.
1. Client population 2. Excel
Answers:
3. Self
Microsoft’s BI Assessment 4. Integration costs
5. Search engine 6. ETL (Extract, change,
burden)
7. Business intelligence 8. Data mining
9. data warehouse databases 10. . NET servers
11. Partnerships 12. Hyperion
13. Oracle 14. Edit
15. View 16. Tools
17. Window 18. False
19. False 20. True

5.11 Further
Readings

Books Carlo Vercellis (2011). “Business Intelligence: Data Mining and

Optimization for Decision Making”. John Wiley & Sons.
David Loshin (2012). “Business Intelligence: The Savvy Manager’s
Guide”. Newnes. Elizabeth Vitt, Michael Luckevich, Stacia Misner
(2010). “Business Intelligence”.
O’Reilly Media, Inc.
Rajiv Sabhrwal, Irma Becerra-Fernandez (2010). “Business
Intelligence”. John Wiley & Sons.
Swain Scheps (2013). “Business Intelligence for Dummies”. Wiley.

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Note
s
Online links http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/decision-support
-system
nfotrove.com/files/GreenHill.pdf?
www.kpmg.com/GR/en/IssuesAndInsights/.../The-MS-Platform-for-
BI.pdf
www.microsoft.com/en-in/bi/?

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 Unit 6: Business Intelligence
Project

Unit 6: Business Intelligence Note

s
Project
CONTENTS

Objectives
Introductio
n
1. Creat
ing
Data
Sourc
e
2. Creat
ing a
Data
Sourc
e
View
3. Modif
ying
the
Data
View
4. Creat
Objectives
ing
Dime
After studying this unit, you will be able to:
nsion
• s,
Discuss Creating Data Source
Time
• Explain
and Creating the Data Source View
• Modif
State the Modifying of the Data View
ying
• Summarize
Dime Creating Dimensions, Time and Modifying Dimensions
• nsion
Define the Parent-child Dimension
s
Introduction
1. C
r
Too many times, e Business Intelligence (BI) and Data Warehousing project
managers are nota equipped well to handle their role in guiding a project to success.
t allotted to lead a project is either: (1) a technician who doesn’t
Often, the person
i
know the first thing about managing a project, or (2) a project manager who
n
doesn’t know theg first thing about Business Intelligence. Purpose of BI is making
the most of an organization’s data assets. By making better data-driven decisions
through BI, companies
D can gain advantages like increasing revenue, reducing costs,
or reducing risks.
i This Unit focus on discussion of data source and data source
m with dimension is explained in the unit. Finally, you will learn
view. Also, working
e dimension.
about parent-child
n
6.1 Creatings Data Source
i
o
In an Analysis Services multidimensional model, a data source object represents a
n
connection to s the data source from which you are importing data. A
multidimensional model must contain at least one data source object, but you can
add more2. to combine
T data from several data warehouses.
i
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D
i
m
Business Intelligence

Note Choose a Data

s Provider
You can connect utilizing an organized Microsoft .NET Framework or native OLE
DB provider. For Oracle and other third-party data causes, check if the third-party
provides a native OLE DB provider and if it does try that first. If you get errors, try
one of the other .NET providers or native OLE DB providers listed in connection
manager. Be certain that any data provider you use is established on all computers
utilized to develop and run the analysis Services solutions.

Set Credentials and Impersonation

Options

A data source connection can occasionally use Windows authentication or an

authentication service provided by the database administration scheme, such as
SQL Server authentication when connecting to SQL Azure databases.

!
The account you identify should have a login on the isolated database
Caution
server and
read permissions on the external
database.

Windows Authentication

Connections that use Windows authentication are specified on the Impersonation

data tab of the Data Source Designer. Use this tab to choose the impersonation
option that identifies the account under which analysis Services runs when
connecting to the external data source. Not all options can be utilised in all
scenarios.

Database Authentication

As an alternate to Windows authentication, you can specify a connection that uses an

authentication service provided by the database administration scheme. In some
situations, utilising database authentication is required. Scenarios that call for
utilising database authentication includes SQL Server authentication to connect to
a Windows Azure SQL Database, or accessing a relational data source that runs on
a different operating system.
For a data source that uses database authentication, the username and password of
a database login is particular on the attachment string. Credentials are
supplemented to the attachment string when you enter a client name and
password in connection manager when setting up the data source connection in
your Analysis Services model. Remember to identify a client identity that has read
permissions to the data.
By default, data,
Notes
When retrieving SQL Server Data library
the client Tools (SSDT)
makingdoes
thenot save passwords
connection with a
formulates
the connection
connection requeststring. If the password
that includes is not saved,
the credentials in theAnalysis Services
connection prompts
string.
you to enter the password when it is needed.
Create a Data Source Using the Data Source Wizard
To create data source using the data source wizard follow
these steps:
1 In SQL Server Data Tools, open the Analysis Services project or connect to
. the Analysis Services database in which you want to define the data source.

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 Unit 6: Business Intelligence
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2 In Solution Explorer, right-click the Data Sources folder, and then click New Note
. Data Source to start the Data Source Wizard. s

3 On the Select how to define the connection page, choose Create a data source
. based on an existing or new connection and then click New to open
Connection Manager. New connections are created in Connection Manager.

4 Select the Microsoft .NET Framework or native OLE DB provider to use for
. the connection.
5 Enter the information requested by the selected provider to connect to the
. data source. If the Native OLE DB\SQL Server Native Client provider is
selected for example, then enter the following information:
(a) Server Name is the network name of the Database Engine instance.

(b) Log on to the Server specifies how the connection will be

authentication. Use Windows Authentication uses Windows
authentication. Use SQL Server Authentication specifies a database
user login for a Windows Azure SQL databases.
(c) Select or enter a database name or Attach a database file are used to
specify the database.
(d) In the left side of the dialog box, click All to view additional settings
for this connection, including all default settings for this provider.
(e) Change settings as appropriate for your environment and then click OK.
The new connection appears in the Data Connection pane of the Select
how to define the connection page of the Data Source Wizard.

!
Regardless of whether you clear or select Save my password, Analysis
Caution
Services
will always encrypt and save the password. The password is encrypted and stored
in both
6 .abfClick
and Next. In Impersonation
data files. Information,
This behaviour specify
exists because the Windows
Analysis Servicescredentials
does not or
. support
user identity
session- that Analysis
based Services
password willon
storage use when
the connecting to the external
server.
data source.
7 Click Next. In Completing the Wizard, enter a data source name or use the
. default name. The default name is the name of the database specified in the
connection. The Preview pane displays the connection string for this new
data source.
8. Click Finish. The new data source appears in the Data Sources folder in
Solution Explorer.

View or Edit Connection Properties

The attachment string is formulated based on the properties you choose in the
Data Source Designer or the New Data Source Wizard. You can view the
attachment string and other properties in SQL Server Data Tools.

To edit the connection string

1. In SQL Server Data Tools, double-click the data source object in Solution
Explorer.
2.
3 Click Edit, andgrid
The property thenappears,
click Allshowing
on the left navigation
available pane. of the data
properties
. provider you are using.

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Note
s
Did u know? A data source reference is an association to another Analysis
Services project or data source in the same solution. You can remove the
reference by clearing the check box which will end the synchronization
between the objects.

Add Multiple Data Sources to a Model

You can create more than one data source object to support connections to
additional data sources. To combine data from multiple data sources:

1. Create the data sources in your model.

2. Create a data source view, using a SQL Server relational database as the data
3 In Data Source View Designer, using the data source view just created right-
source.
. click anywhere in the work area and select Add/Remove Tables.

4 Choose the second data source and then select the tables you
. want to add.
5 Find and select the table you added. Right-click the table and select New
. Relationship. Choose the source and destination columns that contain
matching data.
Supported Data Source Types

Types of data sources that you can use in a multidimensional model are shown
in Table 6.1.
Table 6.1: Types of Data
Sources

Source Versions File type Providers

Access Microsoft Access 2003, .accdb or Microsoft Jet 4.0 OLE DB

databas 2007, .mdb provider
es 2010.
SQL Microsoft SQL Server (not OLE DB Provider for SQL
Server 2005, 2008, 2008 applicabl Server
relational R2, 2012, e) SQL Server Native Client
Windows Azure OLE DB Provider
databases SQL Database
SQL Server Native 11.0
Client OLE DB Provider
.NET Framework Data
Provider for SQL Client
SQL 2008 R2; 2012 (not OLE DB provider for SQL
Server applicabl Server PDW
Parallel e)
Data
Warehou
se (PDW)
Oracle Oracle 9i, 10g, 11g. (not Oracle OLE DB Provider
relation applicabl .NET Framework Data
al e) Provider for Oracle Client
databas
es
.NET Framework Data
Provider for SQL Server
MSDAORA OLE DB provider
OraOLEDB Contd....
MSDASQL

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Teradata Teradata V2R6, V12 (not TDOLEDB OLE DB provider Note

relation applicable) s
.Net Data Provider for
al Teradata
databas
es
Informix V11.10 (not Informix OLE DB provider
applicabl
relation e)
al
databas
es
IBM 8.1 (not DB2OLEDB
DB2 applicabl
relation e)
al
databas
es
Sybase V15.0.2 (not Sybase OLE DB provider
relation
Source: applicabl
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms175608.aspx
al e)
databas
SelfesAssessment
Other (not applicable) (not OLE DB provider or ODBC
Staterelation
whether the following statements are true or false:
applicabl driver
al e)
1. databas
Multidimensional model must contain at least one data
source
es object.
2 A data source connection can occasionally use Windows authentication or an
. authentication service provided by the database administration scheme.

3 When retrieving data, the client library making the connection formulates a
. connection request that includes the credentials in the connection string.

4 In completing the Wizard, the new data source appears in the Data
. Sources folder.
5 In Data Source View Designer, using the data source view just created right-
. click anywhere in the work area and select Add/Remove Tables.

6.2 Creating a Data Source View

After you have defined the data sources that you will use in an Analysis Services
project, the next step is generally to define a data source view for the project. To
define a new data source view

1. In Solution Explorer, right-click Data Source Views, and then click New Data
2 OnView.
Source the Data Source View Wizard page, click Next. Then a page appears to
. select a Data Source.

3 Under Relational data sources, one of the data source will be selected.
. Click Next.
4 On the Select Tables and Views page, you have to select tables and views from
. the list of objects that are available from the selected data source. Click > to
add the selected tables to the Included objects list. Finally, Click Next and
Finish.

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Note Figure 6.1: Select Tables and Views

s Page

Source:
http://i.msdn.microsoft.com/dynimg/IC50754.gif
5 To maximize the Microsoft Visual Studio development environment, click the
. Maximize button.

6 To view the tables in the Diagram pane at 50 per cent, click the Zoom icon
. on the Data Source View Designer toolbar.

Figure 6.2: Viewing the Tables in a Data Source

View

Source:
http://i.technet.microsoft.com/dynimg/IC102093.gif

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7 To hide Solution Explorer, click the Auto Hide button on the title bar. To Note
. unhide Solution Explorer, click the Auto Hide button again. s

Self
Assessment

Fill in the blanks:

6 To maximize the Microsoft Visual Studio development environment,
. click the
................................... button.
7 To view the tables in the Diagram pane at 50 per cent, click
. the ............................ icon on the Data Source View Designer toolbar.

8. To hide Solution Explorer, click the .............................. button on the title bar.

6.3 Modifying the Data View

You can use the DataView to add, delete, or modify rows of data in the table. The
ability to use the DataView to modify data in the underlying table is controlled by
setting one of three Boolean properties of the DataView: AllowNew, AllowEdit, and
AllowDelete. They are set to true by default.
Properties are AllowNew, AllowEdit, and AllowDelete. They are set to true by
default. Properties action works in following way:
• If AllowNew is true, you can use the AddNew method of the DataView to
create a new DataRowView.
• If AllowNew is false, an exception is thrown if you call the AddNew method
of the DataRowView.
• If AllowEdit is true, you can modify the contents of a DataRow via the
DataRowView. You can confirm changes to the underlying row using
DataRowView.
• If AllowEdit is false, an exception is thrown if you attempt to modify a value
in the DataView.
• If AllowDelete is true, you can delete rows from the DataView using the Delete
method of the DataView or DataRowView object and the rows will be deleted
from the Data table.
• If AllowDelete is false, an exception is thrown if you call the Delete method of
the DataView or DataRowView.

4. Creating Dimensions, Time and Modifying Dimensions

1. Creating Dimensions

A database dimension is a collection of associated objects, called attributes, which

can be used to supply information about fact data in one or more cubes.

Example: Usual attributes in a product dimension might be product title,

product category, product line, product dimensions, and product price. These
things are compelled to one or more columns in one or more tables in a data
source view. By default, these attributes are visible as attribute hierarchies and
can be utilised to realise the detail data in a cube.

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Note Attributes can be coordinated into user-defined hierarchies that supply

s navigational routes to assist users when browsing the data in a cube.

Use the Dimension Wizard in SSDT to create a database dimension in a Microsoft

SQL Server Analysis Services project. After a database dimension is created, you
can use Dimension Designer to modify its properties. To understand the concept
better we will create a DateTime Dimension.

6.4.2 Time Dimension

To Create DateTime Dimension follow these steps:

• Go to Dimensions in project’s Solution Explorer. Right-click on Dimensions and
click New dimension. A wizard will open. Click Next on that wizard.
Choose Use an existing table option and click Next again. On Specify
Source Information window, select your Data source view, Main table, Key
Figure
columns and Name 6.3: Dimension Wizard: Specify Source
columns.
Information

Source:
http://www.blrf.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/visual_studio_2008_dimensio
n_
wizard_create_datetime_dimension.png

Click Next and on this window, un-check all related tables offered to you and click
Next again. On Select Dimension Attributes only Attribute Names T, Year, Month
and Day should be Enabled.

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Figure 6.4: Dimension Wizard: Select Dimension Note

attributes s

Source:
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n_
wizard_select_dimension_attributes.png

Click next and on the next window, name this dimension as DateTime and click
Finish.
Every dimension has its own Attributes and those attributes can be assigned into
Hierarchies, which define how different attributes are related to each other.
In Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services, you can use the Dimension Wizard in
SSDT to create a time dimension when no time table is available in the source
database. This can be done by selecting one of the following options on the Select
Creation Method page:
• Generate a time table in the data source: Select this option when you have
permission to create objects in the underlying data source.
• Generate a time table on the server: Select this option when you do not have
permission to create objects in the underlying data source.

6.4.3 Modifying the Date Dimension

In this we will create a user-defined hierarchy and change the member names that
are displayed for the Date, Month, Calendar Quarter, and Calendar Semester
attributes.

Adding a Named Calculation

You can add a named calculation to a table in a data source view. The expression
appears and behaves as a column in the table.
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Note To add a named

s calculation
1 Open the data source view by double-clicking it in the Data Source Views
. folder in Solution Explorer.

2 In the Tables pane, right-click Date, and then click New Named
. Calculation.
3 In the Create Named Calculation dialog box, type SimpleDate in the Column
. name box, and then type the following DATENAMEstatement in
theExpression box:
DATENAME(mm, FullDateAlternateKey)
+ ‘‘+
DATENAME(dd, FullDateAlternateKey) +
‘, ‘ + DATENAME(yy,
4 Click OK, and then expand Date in the Tables pane. On the File menu,
. FullDateAlternateKey)
click Save All.
5 In the Tables pane, right-click Date, and select
. Explore Data.
6. Review the last column in the Explore Date Table view. Close the Explore Date
Table view.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:

9. We can use the ................................. to add, delete, or modify rows of data in
the table.
10. A database dimension is a collection of associated objects,
called................................., which can be used to supply information about
fact data in one or more cubes.
11. Uses the Dimension Wizard in ................................. to create a database
dimension in a Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services project.
12. In Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services, you can use
the ................................. in SSDT to create a time dimension when no time
table is available in the source database.

6.5 Parent-Child Dimensions

A parent-child dimension is based on two dimension table columns that together
define the lineage relationships among the members of the dimension. One
column, called the member key column, identifies each member; the other column,
called the parent key column, identifies the parent of each member.

Example: In the Table

following Employee
6.2: Sample table, the column that identifies
Employee
Table
each member is Employee_Number. The column that identifi es the
parent of each member is Manager_Employee_Number.

Source:
http://i.msdn.microsoft.com/dynimg/IC553.gif

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These columns can be used to define a parent-child dimension that contains Note
the following member hierarchy. s

Figure 6.5: Sample Member

Hierarchy

Source: http://i.msdn.microsoft.com/dynimg/IC44843.gif

Both columns must have the same data type. Both columns must be in the same
table.
When you define a parent-child dimension, you can also select a third column to
provide member names, which are displayed to end users as they browse cubes.
The depth of a parent- child dimension can vary among its hierarchy’s branches.
You can use the Dimension Wizard to create parent-child dimensions. After you
create a parent- child dimension, you can edit it in Dimension Editor (if the
dimension is shared) or Cube Editor (if the dimension is private).

Task Make report on application of business intelligence and planning in

midsize companies.

Self Assessment

State whether the following statements are true or false:

13. A parent-child dimension is based on two dimension table columns that
together define the lineage relationships among the members of the
dimension.
14. When you define a parent-child dimension, you can also select a third column
to provide member names, which are displayed to end users as they browse
cubes.
15. You can use the Dimension Wizard to create parent-child dimensions.

Case Managing Data Sources for Input to

Study
Data Warehousing and Business
Intelligence

D
ata warehousing and business intelligence effort is only as good as
theput
is data that
into it. The saying “Garbage In, Garbage Out” is all too true.
A leading
cause of data warehousing and business intelligence project failures
the wrong or poor quality
is to obtain
data. Contd....

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Note Managing data warehouse input sources includes a number of steps

s
organized into two phases. In the first phase the following activities are
undertaken:
• Manage the Data Source Identification Process
• Identify Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
• Identify Dimension Data Sources
• Identify Fact Data Sources
When the major data sources have been identified it is time to quickly gain
detailed understanding of each one:
• Obtain Existing Documentation
• Model and Define the Input
• Profile the Input
• Improve Data Quality
• Save Results for Further Reuse
Manage the Data Warehousing Data Source Identification Process
The source identification process is critical to the success of data warehousing
and business intelligence projects. It is important to move through this effort
quickly, obtaining enough information about the data sources without being
bogged down in excess detail while still obtaining the needed information.
Start out with a list of the entities planned for the data warehouse / data
mart. This can be managed with a spreadsheet containing these columns:
• Entity name
• Data mart role (Fact, Dimension, Bridge, etc.)
• Subject Area
• Data Source(s)
• Analyst Name(s)
• Subject Matter Expert(s)
• Status

Complete the entity name, data mart role and subject area entries. Assign
an analyst to each entity who will find data sources and subject matter
experts for each entity.

Contd....

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Identify Data Warehousing Data Source Subject Matter Note

Experts s
Consider the following questions when determining the sources and costs of
data for the Data Warehouse:
• Where does the data come from?
• What processes are used to obtain the data?
• What does it cost to obtain the data?
• What does it cost to store the data?
• What does it cost to maintain the data?
Identify Dimension Data Sources for the Data Mart
Dimensions enable business intelligence users to put information in context.
They focus on questions of: who, when, where and what. Typical dimensions
include:
• Time period/calendar
• Product
• Customer
• Household
• Market Segment
• Geographic Area
Master data is a complementary concept and may provide the best source of
dimensional data for the data warehouse. Master data is data shared between
systems that describe entities like: product, customer and household. Master
data is managed using a Master Data Management (MDM) system and stored
in an MDM-Hub. Benefits of this approach include:
• It is less expensive to access data from a single source (MDM-Hub) than
extracting from multiple sources.
• MDM data is rationalized.
• MDM data is of high quality
If an MDM-Hub does not exist consider creating one. It will have many uses
beyond supporting the data warehouse and business intelligence.
If no MDM-Hub is available, you will need to examine source systems and
determine which system contains the data most suitable for dimensions. If the
data is not stored in a managed database, you may need to define the data
locally, in a spreadsheet or desktop database, and then provide to the data
warehousing system.
Identify Fact Data Sources for the Data Mart
The Fact contains quantitative measurements while the Dimension contains
classification information. The data sources for Fact tend to be transactional
software systems. For example:

Contd....

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Notes
System Example Fact Data
Sales Order Entry  Sales Transaction
 Return Transaction
Customer Service  Service Episode
 Service Result
Accounts Payable  Payment Transaction
Sales Campaign  Sales Campaign Event

Larger enterprises may have multiple systems for the same kind data. In that case, you
will need to determine the best source of data - the System of Record (SOR) as the source
of data warehousing data.
Detailed Data Source Understanding for Data Warehousing
When the major data sources have been identified it is time to quickly gain detailed
understanding of each one. Consolidate the spreadsheet developed in the identification
phase by data source, then create a new spreadsheet to track and control detailed
understanding:
 Data Subject Name
 Obtain Doc Date

 Define Input

 Date Profile

 Input Date Map

 Date

 Data Quality Date

 Save Results

 Analyst Name

 SME Name(s)
Status

This approach provides an effective workflow as well as a project planning and control
method. Due dates are assigned and actual complete dates and status are tracked.
Contd....

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Notes
Obtain Existing Documentation
When seeking to understand a data source, the first thing to do is look at existing
documentation. This avoids “re-inventing the wheel”. If a data source is fully documented,
data profiled and of high quality most of the job of data source discovery is complete.
Existing documentation may include:
 Data models
 Data dictionary
 Internal/technical documentation
 Business user guides
 Data profiles and data quality assessments
Check through the documentation to assess its completeness and usefulness.
The data source analyst should study the existing documentation before any in depth
discussions with the SMEs. This improves the credibility of the data analyst and save time
for the SMEs.
Model and Define the Input
The data model is a graphic representation of data structures that improves
understanding and provides automation linking database design to physical
implementation. This section assumes that the data source is stored in a relational
database that modelled using typical relational data modelling tools.
If there is an existing data model, start with that, otherwise use the reverse engineering
capability of the data modelling to build a physical data model. Next, group the tables that
are of interest into a subject area for analysis. Unless, a large percentage of the data source
is needed for the data warehouse avoid studying the entire data source. Stay focused on
the current project.
For each selected data source table define:
 Physical Name
 Logical Name
 Definition
 Notes
For each selected data source column define:
 Physical Name
 Logical Name
 Order in Table
 Datatype
 Length
 Decimal Positions
 Nullable/Required
 Default Value
Contd....

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Notes  Edit Rules

 Definition
 Notes
Profile the Data Source
The actual use and behaviour of data sources often tends not to match the name or
definition of the data. Sometimes this is called “dirty data” or “unrefined data” that may
have problems such as:
 Invalid code values
 Missing data values
 Multiple uses of a single data item
 Inconsistent code values
 Incorrect values such as sales revenue amounts
Data profile is an organized approach to examining data to better understand and later use
it. This can be accomplished by querying the data using tools like:
 SQL Queries
 Reporting tools
 Data quality tools
 Data exploration tools
For code values such as gender code and account status code do a listing showing value
and count such as this gender code listing:

Code Count Notes

F 500 Female
M 510 Male
T 12 Transgender?
Z 5 ???
NULL 1000 Missing

Other systems may represent female and male as 1 and 2 rather than F and T, and so may
require standardization when stored in the data warehouse. When data from multiple
sources is integrated in the data warehouse it is expected that it will be standardized and
integrated.
Statistical measures are a good way to better understand numeric information such as
revenue amounts. Helpful statistics are:
 Mean (average)
 Median

 Mode

 Maximum

 M inimum
Quartile Contd....
Averages

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Note
• Standard Deviation s
• Variance
Consistency within a database is another important factor to determine
through data profiling. For example, there may be an order table which
should only have orders for customers established in the customer table.
Perform queries to determine whether this is true.
Improve Data Quality
Data profiling may reveal problems in data quality. For example, it might show
invalid values are be entered for a particular column, such as entering ‘Z’ for
gender when ‘F’ and ‘M’ are the valid values. Some steps that could be taken
to improve data quality include:
• Work with data owners to define the appropriate level of data quality.
Build this into a data governance program.
• Determine why there are data quality problems — do a root cause
analysis.
• Correct the data in the source system through manual or automated
efforts.
• Add edits or database rules to prevent the problem.
• Change business processes to enter correct data.
• Make data quality visible to the business through scorecards, dashboards
and reports.
Save Results for Further Reuse
The information gathered during the data source discovery process is valuable
metadata that can be useful for future data warehousing or other projects. Be
sure to save the results and make available for future efforts. This work can
be a great step toward building an improved data resource.
Question:
Discuss the case study in contrast with efficient and effective workflow of
obtaining the right source data and using it in the data warehousing and
business intelligence project.
Source: http://infogoal.com/datawarehousing/data_sources_2.htm

6.6 Summary
• A multidimensional model must contain at least one data source object, but
you can add more to combine data from several data warehouses.
• A data source connection can occasionally use Windows authentication or an
authentication service provided by the database administration scheme, such
as SQL Server authentication when connecting to SQL Azure databases.
• The attachment string is formulated based on the properties you choose in the
Data Source Designer or the New Data Source Wizard.
• After you have defined the data sources that you will use in an Analysis
Services project, the next step is generally to define a data source view for
the project.
• The ability to use the DataView to modify data in the underlying table is
controlled by setting one of three Boolean properties of the DataView:
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Note • A database dimension is a collection of associated objects, called attributes,

s which can be used to supply information about fact data in one or more
cubes.
• You can add a named calculation to a table in a data source view. The
expression appears and behaves as a column in the table.
• A parent-child dimension is based on two dimension table columns that
together define the lineage relationships among the members of the
dimension.

7. Keywords
Data Source Reference: A data source reference is an association to another Analysis
Services project or data source in the same solution.
OLTP (Online Transaction Processing): Online transaction processing, or OLTP, is a
class of information systems that facilitate and manage transaction-oriented
applications, typically for data entry and retrieval transaction processing.
Oracle: The Oracle Database (commonly referred to as Oracle RDBMS or simply as
Oracle) is an object-relational database management system produced and
marketed by Oracle Corporation.
Parent-child Dimension: A parent-child hierarchy is a hierarchy in a standard
dimension that contains a parent attribute.
RDBMS: RDBMS stands for Relational Database Management System. RDBMS data
is structured in database tables, fields and records.
SQL: SQL (Structured Query Language) is a special-purpose programming language
designed for managing data held in a relational database management system
(RDBMS).

8. Review Questions
1.
3 What are
What are the
the types
steps of
of creating data source?
data sources?
.
2. Write down
down the
the steps
process
Write in of creating
creating data source using the data source wizard.
a data
4 source view.
5
. Give explanation of modifying the data
. view.
6 Explain about the time dimension options in SQL server 2008
.
Analysis Services. What are parent-child dimensions?
7
.Answers: Self
Assessment
1. True 2. True
3. True 4. False
5. True 6. Maximize
7. Zoom 8. Auto Hide
9. DataView 10. Attributes
11. SSDT 12. Dimension
Wizard
13. True 14. True
15. True

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6.9 Further Note

s
Readings

Books Carlo Vercellis (2011). “Business Intelligence: Data Mining and

Optimization for Decision Making”. John Wiley & Sons.

David Loshin (2012). “Business Intelligence: The Savvy Manager’s

Guide”. Newnes.
Elizabeth Vitt, Michael Luckevich, Stacia Misner (2010). “Business
Intelligence”.
O’Reilly Media, Inc.
Rajiv Sabhrwal, Irma Becerra-Fernandez (2010). “Business
Intelligence”. John Wiley & Sons.
Swain Scheps (2013). “Business Intelligence for Dummies”. Wiley.

Online links https://ojs.hh.se/index.php/jisib/article/download/

19/pdf?
site.xavier.edu/sena/info600/businessintelligence.pdf?
www.cgi.com/sites/cgi.com/files/.../business-intelligence-white-pa
per.pdf?

www.ibm.com/businesscenter/cpe/download0/.../practicalframewo
rk.pdf

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Note
s
Unit 7: Creating
Cube
CONTENTS
Objectives
Introductio
n
1. Wizar
d to
Creat
e
Cube
1. Explanation
2. Concept of Cube
3. Adding Measure
and Measure
Groups to a Cube
4. Calculated Members
5.
Deploying and
Browsing a Cube
Objectives
6. Summary
After studying this unit, you will be able to:
7. Keywords
• Discuss the Wizard to Create Cube
8. Review Questions
• Recall the Concept of Cube
9. Further Readings
• Explain the Adding Measure and Measure Groups to a Cube
• Demonstrate Calculated Members
• Identify Deploying and Browsing a Cube

Introduction
A data cube is a three (or more) dimensional array of values, commonly used to
describe a time series of image data. An OLAP cube is an array of data understood
in terms of its 0 or more dimensions. Benefit of building a cube to store your data is
that you can centralize the business rules for calculations that you can’t easily
store in a relational data mart. The structure of the cube makes it much easier to
write queries to compare data year over year and also you gain the ability to
transparently manage aggregated data in the cube. In this chapter, you will learn
about creating a cube using Wizard. It also discusses adding measure and measure
groups to cube. Finally, calculated measures and deploying and browsing of cube
are discussed in the unit.

7.1 Wizard to Create Cube

Use the Cube Wizard to create a cube rapidly and effortlessly. When you create the
cube, you can add living dimensions or create new dimensions that structure the
cube. You can also create dimensions separately, using the Dimension Wizard, and
then add them to a cube.

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A Cube acts as an OLAP database to the subscribers who need to query data from Note
an OLAP data store. A Cube is the main object of a SSAS solution where the s
majority of fine tuning, calculations, aggregation design etc. Now, we will create a
cube using our dimension and fact tables. We will use SQL Server 2008 here.

7.1.1 Explanation

Right click the Cube folder and select “New Cube”, and it will invoke the Cube
Wizard. In the first screen select one of the methods of creating a Cube. We assume
our dimensions are ready, and schema is already designed to contain dimension
and fact tables. So we will select the option of “Use existing tables”.

Figure 7.1: Select Creation

Method

Source: http://www.mssqltips.com/tutorialimages/2008_Cube_Wizard_Step_1.jpg

In the next screen, we need to select the tables which will be used to create
measure groups. We again assume we have a DSV which has fact tables in the
schema. So we will use this as shown in the Figure 7.2.

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Note Figure 7.2: Select Measure Group

s Table

Source: http://www.mssqltips.com/tutorialimages/2008_Cube_Wizard_Step_2.jpg

In the next screen, we need to select the measures that we want to create from the
fact tables we just selected in the previous screen. For now, select all the fields as
shown below and move to the next screen.
Figure 7.3: Select
Measures

Source:
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In this screen you need to select any existing dimensions. We have created three Note
dimensions and we will include all of these dimensions as shown below: s
Figure 7.4: Select Existing
Dimensions

Source: http://www.mssqltips.com/tutorialimages/2008_Cube_Wizard_Step_4.jpg

In the next screen, we can select if we want to create any additional new
dimensions from the tables available in the DSV. We do not want to create any more
dimensions, so unselect any selected tables as shown below and move to the next
screen. Figure 7.5: Select New
Dimensions

Source:
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Note Finally you need to name your cube, which is the last step of the wizard before
s your cube is created. Name it something appropriate like “Sales Cube” as shown
below. Figure 7.6: Completing the
Wizard

Source: http://www.mssqltips.com/tutorialimages/2008_Cube_Wizard_Step_6.jpg

Now your cube should have been created and if your cube editor is open you
should find different tabs to configure and design various features and aspects of
the cube. Figure 7.7: Final Cube
Structure

Source:
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Note
s
Find out the defaults used by the create cube wizard.
Task

Self
Assessment

Fill in the blanks:

1 A Cube is the main object of a .............................. where the majority of
. fine tuning, calculations, aggregation design etc.

2. Right-click the Cube folder and select “New Cube”, and it will invoke
the .........................

7.2 Concept of Cube

A cube is a multidimensional structure that contains information for analytical
purposes; the main constituents of a cube are dimensions and measures.
Dimensions define the structure of the cube, and measures provide aggregated
numerical values of interest to the end user. A cell, in the cube, is defined by the
intersection of dimension members and contains the aggregated values of the
measures at that specific intersection.

A cube provides a single place where all related data, for analysis, is
stored.
Did u know?
A cube is composed of:
• Dimensions
• Measures and Measure Groups
• Partitions
• Perspectives
• Hierarchies
• Actions
• Key Performance Indicators (KPI)
• Calculations
• Translations

7.3 Adding Measure and Measure Groups to a Cube

You can use the Define New Measures page to create new measures for a cube that
is being created without using a data source.
To get familiar with all related operations of a Cube, read the following context:
• If you select measures from template Options it will displays the measures
from the cube template to include in the cube.
• To include a specific measure from the template, select the check box for
that measure.
• To include all measures from the template in the cube, select the check box in
the header.
• Use Measure Name to lists the measures that are available in the template.
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Note • To rename a measure, click on that measure and type a

s new name.
• Use Measure Group to lists the measure group for the measure.
• To change the measure group, click on the measure group, and then either
enter a new measure group or select an existing measure group from the
list.

To add a measure group to a cube

1. In Solution Explorer, right-click the cube, and then click View Designer.
2. In Cube Designer, click the Cube Structure tab.
3 Either click the New Measure Group button or right-click anywhere in the
. Measures pane and then click New Measure Group.

4 In New Measure Group, click the table from the data source view that you
. want to use as the new measure group, and then click OK.

To remove a measure group from a cube

1. In Solution Explorer, right-click the cube, and then click View Designer.
2. In Cube Designer, click the Cube Structure tab.
3. In the Measures pane, click the measure group that you want to remove.
4. Either click the Delete button or right-click the measure group and then
click Delete.
5. In the Delete Objects dialog box, review the object to be deleted, and then
click OK.

Self Assessment

3 inAthe
Fill ..........................
blanks: is a multidimensional structure that contains information
. for analytical purposes; the main constituents of a cube are dimensions and
measures.
4 A cube provides a single place where all related data, for analysis,
. is ..........................
5 We use .......................... to lists the measures that are available in
. the template.
6. We use .......................... to lists the measure group for the measure.

7.4 Calculated Members

A calculated member is a dimension member whose worth is calculated at run time
using a sign that you specify when you define the calculated member. Calculated
member can also be defined as assessees.

!
CautionOnly the definitions for calculated members are retained; values are
calculated in
memory when required to answer a query.
Calculated members enable you to add members and measures to a cube without
expanding its size. Although calculated members must be based on data (such as
constituents) that currently lives in the cube, you can create complex expressions
by combining this data with arithmetic

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operators, figures, and a variety of functions. Analysis Services constitutes a Note

library of over 100 functions and allows you to list and use other function s
libraries.
Calculated members have a Format String property that controls the format of
cell values displayed to end users. This property is accessed in the properties pane
of Cube Editor. The Format String property accepts the same values as the
Display Format property of measures.
The following image shows the Calculations tab of Cube Designer:
Figure 7.8: Calculations tab of Cube
Designer

Source:
http://i.msdn.microsoft.com/dynimg/IC574394.gif

Self Assessment

State whether the following statements are true

or false:
7 Only the definitions for calculated members are retained; values are calculated
. in memory when required to answer a query.

8 Calculated members have a Format String property that controls the format
. of cell values displayed to end users.

7.5 Deploying and Browsing a Cube

Browsing a deployed cube helps you understand the modifications that you
should make to improve the functionality of the cube.

Example: You may have to define dimension member sort orders, delete
unnecessary dimension attributes, define new user hierarchies, modify existing
user hierarchies, or configure measure properties.

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Note After you deploy a cube, cube data is viewable on the Browser tab in Cube
s Designer, and dimension data is viewable on the Browser tab in Dimension
Designer.
To browse the deployed
cube:
1 Switch to Cube Designer in BI Development Studio by clicking the Analysis
. Services Tutorial cube.

2. Select the Browser tab, and then click Reconnect on the toolbar of
the designer.
The following image highlights the individual panes in Cube Designer.

Figure 7.9: Individual Panes in Cube Designer

Source: http://i.technet.microsoft.com/dynimg/IC29955.gif

As you can see, the left pane of the designer shows the metadata for the
Analysis Services Tutorial cube. Perspective and Language options are available
on the toolbar of the Browser tab.

Notes The Browser tab includes two panes to the right of the metadata pane:
the upper pane is the filter pane, and the lower pane is the data pane.
3 In the metadata pane, expand Measures, expand Internet Sales, and then
. drag the Sales Amount measure to the Drop Totals or Detail Fields Here
area of the Data pane.
4 In the metadata pane, expand Product. Drag the Product Model Lines user
. hierarchy to the Drop Column Fields Here area of the data pane, and then
expand the Road member of the Product Line level of this user hierarchy.

5 In the metadata pane, expand Customer, expand Location, and then drag the
. Customer Geography hierarchy from the Location display folder in the
Customer dimension to the Drop Row Fields Here area of the data pane.

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6. In similar way, expand, United States, Order date, Customer and other Note
headings as required. s

Figure 7.10 shows Internet sales by region and product line for the month of
Figure 7.10: Internet sales by region and
February, 2002.
product
line for the month of February, 2002.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:

9. After you deploy a cube, ............................ is viewable on the Browser tab in
Cube Designer, and .............................. is viewable on the Browser tab in
Dimension Designer.
10. The Browser tab includes two panes to the right of the metadata pane: the
upper pane is the ............................., and the lower pane is
the ...................................

Case Building a Data

Study
Cube

T
his example uses sales figures from XYZ Co., which makes many kinds
of widgets.
For each sales transaction, we know four pieces
of data:
• Which types of widget were involved (style, colour, size
and so on)
• Store or sales agent
• Sales amount
• Geographic region or territory
In a real-world situation, we would also know many other data items, including:
• Quantity
Contd....

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Note • Custome
s
r
• Cost to XYZ for each
widget
• Order date
• Shipment date
• Method and cost of
shipping

Any of these pieces of data can function as a dimension in a data cube. We can
take any two dimensions and produce a 2-D table:

1 Thus we can correlate or track sales against individual stores or sales

. agents. Add in a third factor, such as price, and we can produce a 3-D
data cube,
2 That allows us to see how much each store or sales agent is selling in
. addition to which type of widget. Swap in geography, and

3. We can now see who is selling where.

Questions:
1. What are different pieces of data available for the
company here?
2 What can be effect of price change (increase by 25%) in United States
. on the sales in this company?
Source:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/91640/Data_Cubes
7.6 Summary
• A Cube is the main object of a SSAS solution where the majority of fine tuning,
calculations, aggregation design etc. Now, we will create a cube using our
dimension and fact tables. We will use SQL Server 2008 here.

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• A cube is a multidimensional structure that contains information for Note

analytical purposes; the main constituents of a cube are dimensions and s
measures.
• Dimensions define the structure of the cube, and measures provide
aggregated numerical values of interest to the end user.
• A calculated member is a dimension member whose worth is calculated at run
time using a sign that you specify when you define the calculated member.
• Browsing a deployed cube helps you understand the modifications that you
should make to improve the functionality of the cube.
• Perspective and Language options are available on the toolbar of the
Browser tab.
• The Browser tab includes two panes to the right of the metadata pane: the
upper pane is the filter pane, and the lower pane is the data pane.

7. Keywords
Cube: A Cube is the main object of a SSAS solution where the majority of fine
tuning, calculations, aggregation design etc.
Cube Wizard: Use this wizard to create a cube. The wizard helps you select the
data source, fact table, measures, and dimensions for a new cube.

8. Review Questions

1. What is the Cube Wizard?

2. Give the explanation for creating cube.

3. “A Cube is the main object of a SSAS solution”. Do you agree? Discuss.

4. Write down the concept of cube.

5. Discuss about adding measure and measure groups to a cube.

6. What are the steps for removing a measure group from a cube?

7. “Calculated member can also be defined as assesses”. Elaborate.

8. Give explanation for individual panes in cube designer.

Answers: Self Assessment

1. SSAS solution 2. Cube Wizard

3. Cube 4. Stored

5. Measure Name 6. Measure Group

7. True 8. True

9. Cube data, Dimension data 10. Filter pane, data

pane

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Notes 7.9 Further Readings

Books Carlo Vercellis (2011). “Business Intelligence: Data Mining and Optimization for
Decision Making”. John Wiley & Sons.
David Loshin (2012). “Business Intelligence: The Savvy Manager’s Guide”. Newnes.
Elizabeth Vitt, Michael Luckevich, Stacia Misner (2010). “ Business Intelligence”.
O’Reilly Media, Inc.
Rajiv Sabhrwal, Irma Becerra-Fernandez (2010). “Business Intelligence”. John
Wiley & Sons.
Swain Scheps (2013). “Business Intelligence for Dummies”. Wiley.

Online links h t t p: / / p u b l i b . b o u l de r . i b m . c o m / i n fo c e n t e r / db 2 l u w / v
8 / t o pi c / com.ibm.dwe.tutorial.doc/tutolaplescube.htm
pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/ctm1/.../t_dsk_model_create_dim.html?
technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ee677579.aspx?
www.jinfonet.com/kbase/jreport8.1/tutorial/Trail3/cube.htm?

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4
 Unit 8: Advanced Measures and
Calculations

Unit 8: Advanced Measures and Note

s
Calculations
CONTENTS

Objectives

Introductio

1. Adva
nced
Meas
ures
and
Calcu
lation
s

2. Aggre
gate
Funct
ions

3. Retri
eving
Objectives
Data
from
After studying this unit, you will be able to:
a
• Cube advanced measures and calculations
Explain
Using
• Discuss
MDX aggregate functions
Queri
• Construct retrieving data from a cube using mdx queries
es
• Learn about Calculation scripting
4. Calcu
• lationcreating KPIs
Explain
Scrip
ting
Introduction
5. Creat
In this ing
unit, you will learn advanced measures and calculations. The aggregate
functionsKPIs
like SUM, MIN, MAX and COUNT are discussed. It also explains how to
use MDX to conditionally apply formatting to a measure or calculated member and
6. Sum
retrieve data from cube. As the unit progress you will learn about calculation
mary
scripts. Finally, you will learn to create Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that
7.
combine Keyw
expressions and graphics for actual, target, status, and trend values.
ords
8.1
8. Advanced
Revie Measures and Calculations
w
The focus of this is the utilization of advanced methods of exploring and surfacing
Quest
OLAP cube
ions data using Multidimensional Expression Language (MDX), both in the
Enterprise Guide viewer and via the PROC SQL interface to OLAP. Before moving to
9. Furth
the advanced content, a brief review of OLAP principles and terminology is
er
necessary to provide some context. Since cube navigation within the Enterprise
Readi
Guide viewer
ngs plays an integral part in gaining the MDX knowledge necessary for
advance OLAP cube data manipulation, it too will be reviewed.

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Note Aggregate tables store pre-computed results, which are measures that have been
s aggregated (typically summed) over a set of dimensional attributes. Using
aggregate tables is a very popular technique for speeding up query response
times in decision support systems. This eliminates the need for run-time
calculations and delivers faster results to users. The calculations are done ahead of
time and the results are stored in the tables. Aggregate tables should have many
fewer rows than the non-aggregate tables, and therefore, processing should be
Often, a business wants to compare values of a measure and needs a calculation to
quicker.
express the comparison. Oracle BI Server has a calculation engine to perform a
multitude of calculations. Calculation measures allow end users to ask business
questions like “Show me the accounts receivable balance as of Q3” or “Show me
the difference between units ordered and units shipped.”
Once the groundwork has been laid, MDX queries and the use of several MDX and
SAS functions within those queries will be demonstrated.

Notes The examples provided will allow you to customize the OLAP cube report
data and leverage the potential analytical insights made available through
this medium.
Self
Assessment

Fill in the blanks:

1 .......................... store pre-computed results, which are measures that have
. been aggregated (typically summed) over a set of dimensional attributes.

2. ............................... Server has a calculation engine to perform a multitude of

calculations.

8.2 Aggregate Functions

It is very common to sum measures when you aggregate values along dimension
hierarchies, but sometimes you need to apply a different aggregation method.

Example: If you want to calculate average sales per customer, you divide
total sales by number of customers. You can sum sales amount to get total sales,
but to get the number of customers, you need to count customers, making sure to
count each customer only once, regardless of how many purchases each customer
has made.
Suppose you want to analyse the overall gross margin for every product
in your data source. One way to do this is to create a new calculated field called
Margin that is equal to the profit divided by the sales. Then you could place this
measure on a shelf and use the predefined summation aggregation. Here, Margin
is defined as:
Margin = SUM([Profit]/ [Sales])
This formula calculates the ratio of profit and sales for every row in the data
source, and then sums the numbers.

!
However, this is almost certainly not what you would have
Caution
intended because
summing ratios is generally not useful.

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Instead, you probably want to know the sum of all profits divided by the sum of all Note
sales. That formula is shown below: s

Margin = SUM( [Profit]) / SUM([Sales])

In this case, the division is performed after each measure is aggregated. An
aggregate calculation allows you to create formulas like this.
Table 8.1 shows list of aggregate functions with descriptions.
Table 8.1: Common Aggregate
Functions

Aggregat Category Description

e
Functio
n
Sum Additive The value of a parent member is the sum of the values of its
children. Sum is the default aggregate function.
Count Additive Counts number of rows in a fact table where are particular
column is non-empty or counts fact table rows. The value of
a parent member can also be calculated by summing of the
values of its children.
Min Pseudo The value of a parent member is the minimum value of its
- children.
additiv
e
Max Pseudo The value of a parent member is the Maximum value of its
- children.
additiv
e
Distin Non- Counts unique values of a column in the fact table. The
ct additiv value of a member is determined by counting unique
Count e values for the member.
None Non- No aggregations are performed.
additiv
e
First Child Semi- The value of a parent member is the sum of the value of its
additiv children, except for a member in the Time dimension. In
e the Time dimension, the value of a parent member is the
value of its first child.
Last Child Semi- The value of a parent member is the sum of the value of its
additiv children, except for a member in the Time dimension. In
e the Time dimension, the value of a parent member is the
value of its last child.
First Semi- The value of a parent member is the sum of the value of its
Non- additiv children, except for a member in the Time dimension. In
empty e the Time dimension, the value of a parent member is the
value of its first non-empty child.
Last Semi- The value of a parent member is the sum of the value of its
Non- additiv children, except for a member in the Time dimension. In
empty
Source: e the Time dimension, the value of a parent member is the
http://www.anzmall.com/node/89
value of its last non-empty child.
LetAverage
us understand the aggregate
Semi- functions
The value using anderived
for a member example. The cubealong
by summing that these
all
examples
of use has a singledimensions
additiv measure, atSales, based level
the lowest on the Sales_Amount
of granularity of thecolumn
cube’s in
theChildren e
Sales fact table. timehas
The cube dimension and then averaging.
three dimensions:
ByAccount Semi- The ByAccount aggregate function is used when the cube
• Customers, based on the table Customers and containing these levels from
additiv contains an account type dimension. The aggregate
highest to e lowest: function applied to the measure is a property of the
members of the Account dimension.
O (All)

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Note O Customer with Customer_Name as the member name column and

s Customer_ID as the member key column
• Retail Stores, based on the table Retail_Stores and containing these levels
from highest to lowest:

O (All)

O Retail Store with Retail_Store_Name as the member name

column and Retail_Store_ID as the member key column
• Products, based on the table Products and containing these levels from
highest to lowest:
O (All)
O Product Category with Product_Category as the member name
column and the member key column

O Product with Product_Name as the member name column and

Product_ID as the member key column

The cube’s fact table

Sales is:
Table 8.2: Fact Table
Sales

Transaction_ID Customer_ID Product_ID Retail_Store_ID Sales_

Amoun
t
1 1 1 1 300
2 1 1 1 250
3 1 1 1 250
4 1 2 1 100
5 1 4 1 700
6 2 1 2 290
7 2 2 2 90
8 2 3 3 510
9 3 1 4 350
10 3 2 3 110
11 4 3 4 550

Source: 12 4 4 4 750
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms365396.aspx

Cube’s dimension tables Customers, is:

Table 8.3: Dimension Table
Customers

Customer_ID Customer_Name Customer_Addres Customer_Addres

s_ Line_1 s_ Line_2
1 A 1 A Street Aville, AA 55555
2 B 2 B Street Bville, BB 55555
3 C 3 C Street Cville, CC 55555
4 D 4 D Street Dville, DD 55555

Source:
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Another cube’s dimension tables, Retail_Stores, are Note

shown below. s
Table 8.4: Dimension Table
Retail_Stores

Retail_ Retail_Stor Retail_Store Retail_Store

e_ _ _
Store_I Name Address_Line_ Address_Line_
D 1 2
1 A 1 A Avenue Atown, AA 55555
2 B 2 B Avenue Btown, BB 55555
3 C 3 C Avenue Ctown, CC 55555
4
Source: D 4 D Avenue Dtown, DD 55555
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms365396.aspx

The cube’s final dimension table, Products, is shown

here. Table 8.5: Dimension Table Products

Product_ID Product_Name Product_Description Product_Category

1 A aaaa aaaa aaaa AB
2 B bbbb bbbb bbbb AB
3 C cccc cccc cccc CD
4 D dddd dddd dddd CD

Source: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms365396.aspx

Sum

If a measure’s Aggregate Function property value is Sum, the measure value for a
cube cell is calculated by adding the values in the measure’s source column from
only the rows for the combination of members that defines the cell and the
descendants of those members.
The following examples return values that represent accumulated Sales:
• A query on the Sales measure for customer A, retail store A, and product A
returns 800.
• A query on the Sales measures for customer A, retail store A, and product
category AB returns 900.
• A query on the Sales measure places each retail store on the x-axis, nests
products under product categories on the y-axis, and slices by All Customers.
Table 8.6: Result of Query
It returns the result as shown in Table 8.6.

All Retail Stores A B C D

All Products 4250 1600 380 620 1650
AB 1740 900 380 110 350
A 1440 800 290 350
B 300 100 90 110
CD 2510 700 510 1300
C 1060 510 550
D 1450 700 750

Source:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms365396.aspx

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Note Mi
s n
If a measure’s Aggregate Function property value is Min, the measure value for a
cube cell is calculated by taking the lowest value in the measure’s source column
from only the rows for the combination of members that defines the cell and the
descendants of those members.
The following examples return values that represent the lowest Sales price:
• A query on the Sales measure for customer A, retail store A, and product A
returns 250.
• A query on the Sales measures for customer A, retail store A, and product
category AB returns 100.
• A query on the Sales measure places each retail store on the x-axis, nests
products under product categories on the y-axis, and slices by All Customers.
Table 8.7: Result of Query
It returns the result as shown in Table 8.7.

All Retail Stores A B C D

All Products 90 100 90 110 350
AB 90 100 90 110 350
A 250 250 290 350
B 90 100 90 110
CD 510 700 510 550
C 510 510 550
D 700 700 750

Source: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms365396.aspx

Max

If a measure’s Aggregate Function property value is Max, the measure value for a
cube cell is calculated by taking the highest value in the measure’s source
column from only the rows for the combination of members that defines the cell
and the descendants of those members.
Table 8.8: Result of Query

All Retail Stores A B C D

All Products 750 700 290 510 750
AB 350 300 290 110 350
A 350 300 290 350
B 110 100 90 110
CD 750 700 510 750
C 550 510 550
D 750 700 750

Source: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms365396.aspx

The examples return values that represent the highest Sales price.
• A query on the Sales measure for customer A, retail store A, and product A
returns 300.
• A query on the Sales measures for customer A, retail store A, and product
category AB returns 300.

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• A query on the Sales measure places each retail store on the x-axis, nests Note
products under product categories on the y-axis, and slices by All Customers. s
It returns the result as shown in Table 8.8.

Count

If a measure’s Aggregate Function property value is Count, the measure value for a
cube cell is calculated by adding the number of values in the measure’s source
column from only the rows for the combination of members that defines the cell
and the descendants of those members.
The following examples return values that represent the number of Sales
transactions.
• A query on the Sales measure for customer A, retail store A, and product A
returns 3.
• A query on the Sales measures for customer A, retail store A, and product
category AB returns 4.
• A query on the Sales measure places each retail store on the x-axis, nests
Table 8.9: Result
products under product categories on theofy-axis,
Queryand slices by All Customers.
It returns the result as shown in Table 8.9.
All Retail Stores A B C D
All Products 12 5 2 2 3
AB 8 4 2 1 1
A 5 3 1 1
B 3 1 1 1
CD 4 1 1 2
C 2 1 1
D 2 1 1

Source: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms365396.aspx

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:

3. .......................... = SUM([Profit]/ [Sales])
4. The division is performed after each measure
is ..............................
5 If a measure’s Aggregate Function property value is Sum, the measure value
. for a cube cell is calculated by adding the values in
the ....................................
6 If a measure’s Aggregate Function property value is .............................., the
. measure value for a cube cell is calculated by taking the lowest value in the
measure’s source column.
7 If a measure’s Aggregate Function property value is Max, the measure value
. for a cube cell is calculated by taking the .............................. value in the
measure’s source column.
8.3 Retrieving Data from a Cube Using MDX Queries
To use facts and figures from an analysis Services cube in your report, you
should define an Analysis Services data source and create one or more report
datasets. When you define the data

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Note source definition, you should specify an attachment string and credentials so that
s you can get access to the data source from your client computer.

Did u know? You can create embedded data source definition for use by a single
report or a shared data source definition that can be utilised by multiple
reports.
The methods in this topic recount how to create an embedded data source. To
create an embedded Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services data source:
21. Onthe
In theData
toolbar in the
Source Report Data
Properties pane,
dialog box,click
typeNew, andinthen
a name click Data
the Name text box,
.Source.
or accept the default name.
3 Verify that Embedded connection is
. selected.
4 From the Type drop-down list, select Microsoft Sql Server Analysis
. Services.
5 Specify a connection string that works with your Analysis Services data
. source. Contact your database administrator for connection information and
for the credentials to use to connect to the data source. The following
connection string example specifies the AdventureWorksDW database on
the local client:
Data Source = local host; Initial Catalog = Adventure Works DW
6. Click Credentials and then Click OK. The data source appears in the Report
Data pane.

8.4 Calculation Scripting

A script command is an MDX script, included as part of the definition of the cube.
Script commands let you perform almost any action that is supported by MDX on a
cube, such as scoping a calculation to apply to only part of the cube. In SQL Server
2005 Analysis Services (SSAS), MDX scripts can apply either to the whole cube or
to specific sections of the cube, at specific points throughout the execution of the
script. The default script command, which is the CALCULATE statement, populates
cells in the cube with aggregated data based on the default scope.
The default scope is the whole cube, but you can define a more limited scope,
known as a subcube, and then apply an MDX script to only that particular cube
space. The SCOPE statement defines the scope of all subsequent MDX
expressions and statements in the calculation script until the scope is terminated
or redefined. The THIS statement is then used to apply an MDX expression to the
current scope. You can use the BACK_COLOR statement to specify a background
cell colour for the cells in the current scope, to help you during debugging.

Types of MDX Scripts

1 The default MDX script: At the time that you create a cube, Analysis
.ThereServices
are two creates
types of aMDX scripts:
default MDX script for that cube. This script defines a
calculation pass for the whole cube.
2 User-defined MDX script: After you have created a cube, you can add user-
. defined MDX scripts that extend the calculation capabilities of the cube.

Task “Script commands let you perform almost any action that is supported
by MDX on a cube”. Comment.

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Self Note
Assessment s
Fill in the
blanks:
8 A ...................................... command is an MDX script, included as part of the
. definition of the cube.

9 The default scope is the whole cube, but you can define a more limited scope,
. known as a
................................. and then apply an MDX script to only that particular
10. cube space.
There are two types of MDX scripts: ..................................
and ......................................

8.5 Creating KPIs

KPIs are measurements that define and track specific business goals and
objectives that often roll up into larger organizational strategies that require
monitoring, improvement, and evaluation. Begin the process of meeting your
organization’s goals by defining KPIs for monitoring sales and margins.

To create or edit a KPI:

1. Open a KPI for editing or create a new KPI. To create a new KPI, do one of
the following:
(a) In the global header, hover the mouse pointer over the New menu, select
KPI, and from the Select Subject Area dialog, select a subject area for
the KPI. The ”KPI editor” is displayed.
(b) From a scorecard, go to the Scorecard Documents pane or the Catalogue
pane, click the New Object icon list, select KPI, and from the Select
2 Subject
On the ”KPI Area dialog,
editor: select
General a subjectpage”,
Properties area for the KPI.
specify the The ”KPI editor”
business owner,
. actualisvalue,
displayed.
and target value, and indicate if you want to enable trending to
determine performance patterns.

3 On the ”KPI editor: Dimensionality page”, select the dimensions (for example,
. Sales by Region and by Financial Quarter) that you want to use to aggregate
the KPI’s actual and target values.

Notes Note that you should include a time dimension for most KPIs. Exceptions
include constants or metrics that are defined as current snapshots, such as
“Inventory on Hand” or “Current Phone Support Wait Time.”
4 On the ”KPI editor: Thresholds page”, indicate the desired goal based on KPI
. values (for example, “High Values are Desirable”), define the ranges that
evaluate KPI values to determine performance status, and associate
performance levels with actions.
5 On the ”KPI editor: Related Documents page”, add any external links or
. business intelligence objects to the KPI.

6 Save the KPI. Note the following items:

.
(a) If you are creating a stand-alone KPI, then click Finish to
save the KPI.
(b) If you are creating a new KPI, then the ”Save As dialog” is displayed
where you specify the KPI’s name and where you want to save the KPI.
If you want the KPI to

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Business Intelligence

Note display within a scorecard’s ”Scorecard Documents pane”, then save the
s KPI to the scorecard object’s folder within the catalogue.

(c) If you are creating a KPI from a scorecard, then click Save from the
”Scorecard editor”.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:

11. .................................. are measurements that define and track specific
business goals and objectives that often roll up into larger organizational
strategies.
12. Open a KPI for .................................. a new KPI.

Case Business Intelligence Project

Study
Pitfalls

M
ost of us have heard stories of business intelligence failures. I assure
you thatfor
is rare it technology to cause the failure. Unfortunately, it is
usually
“softer”theissues that bring down the project. Here is a list of
pitfalls. By understanding these pitfalls, hopefully you will avoid them
definite project
altogether or at least decrease their effects when confronted with them.

A recent Nucleus Research report lists their top five IT mistakes in generic IT
projects. These reasons include:

Customization Overkill

Every business intelligence project is subjected to constantly changing

requirements. This can be managed by using a scope document to hold
peoples’ feet to the fire. Trouble arises when we begin customizing vendor
applications or those standard reporting applications that we created to
better match individual needs. According to the report, too much
customization rarely increases usability, but it surely will increase initial and
ongoing costs. You get the one-two punch with overly customized applications.
Initially, you will spend more on consulting and projects will take longer to
build. Secondly, the applications will require more consulting and personnel to
support and maintain. The business must have a good justification for
customizing a vendor’s application or your in-house analytical capability.

Lack of Training

We would all like to think that our business intelligence applications are so
intuitive and easy to use that no training is needed. If that is the case, then
why hasn’t everyone in your organization embraced your business
intelligence environment? There are many other related processes or cultural
changes that are needed for full utilization and adoption of your business
intelligence applications. The report relates Salesforce.com stories in which
the technology was deployed with no user training. The companies ended up
either abandoning the tool (which was unfair to the vendor) or worse,
investing significantly in changing bad behaviour later because the users
made up their own procedures for using the tool. Please listen to your vendor
when they offer estimates for the type and length of training needed to use
their tool. Then make sure you only train those employees with a “need to
know,” rather than making the entire company goes through the training.
Contd....
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Note
No Executive
s
Involvement
This form of support is especially critical for business intelligence projects
that require collaboration between different organizational groups. This is
because you are changing the way the business users do their work. The
business users become hesitant, maybe even hostile toward the new
technology and application. You must have a C-level executive who is willing
to be the first guinea pig, to be the first person to adopt the new environment.
This executive will make your application the only way they receive such
information; which will create incentives for others to adopt the new system
and replace workers who flatly refuse to play. A clear list of benefits, along
with the metrics that will be used to measure the benefits, will go a long
way. Thus, the executive will become comfortable and want to get on board
with the project.
Lack of Communication to Consultants
Make sure that you and your consultants understand who is doing what. Agree
on specific roles, responsibilities, costs and estimated time frames before you
initiate the project. If things get off track, do not wait to call a meeting to
determine the problems and potential solutions. A scope document for the
project and another for the consultants’ roles and responsibilities will
eliminate a large heartache later. Specific deliverables assigned to each
person on the project, as well as their time frames, will benefit you greatly.
Assuming the Project is finished
The report successfully points out that a project is not over simply because the
application has been deployed. It should end when it is being effectively used
by the business. This is especially true of business intelligence applications. It
may take a while before the business community actually uses the new
application. It may be because other processes must be implemented before
the analytics can be fully utilized. It is important to understand how the
application fits into the business user’s workflow before declaring that the
project is completed. Your project may not truly end for several months,
perhaps even years, after it has been organized.
Question:
Add your own comments about these in terms of specific business
intelligence projects.
Source: http://www.b-eye-network.com/view/1519

8.6 Summary
• The focus of this is the utilization of advanced methods of exploring and
surfacing OLAP cube data using Multidimensional Expression Language
(MDX), both in the Enterprise Guide viewer and via the PROC SQL interface
to OLAP.
• Once the groundwork has been laid, MDX queries and the use of several MDX
and SAS functions within those queries will be demonstrated.
• It is very common to sum measures when you aggregate values along
dimension hierarchies, but sometimes you need to apply a different
aggregation method.
• If a measure’s Aggregate Function property value is Sum, the measure value
for a cube cell is calculated by adding the values in the measure’s source
column from only the rows for the combination of members that defines the
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• To use facts and figures from an analysis Services cube in your report, you
should define an Analysis Services data source and create one or more
report datasets.
Business Intelligence

Note • You can create embedded data source definition for use by a single report or a
s shared data source definition that can be utilised by multiple reports.
• A script command is an MDX script, included as part of the definition of the
cube. Script commands let you perform almost any action that is supported by
MDX on a cube, such as scoping a calculation to apply to only part of the
cube.
• The default scope is the whole cube, but you can define a more limited scope,
known as a sub cube, and then apply an MDX script to only that particular
cube space.
• KPIs are measurements that define and track specific business goals and
objectives that often roll up into larger organizational strategies that require
monitoring, improvement, and evaluation.

7. Keywords
Aggregate Functions: In computer science, an aggregate function is a function
where the values of multiple rows are grouped together as input on certain criteria
to form a single value of more significant meaning or measurement such as a set,
a bag or a list.
Calculated Member: A calculated member is a dimension member whose value is
calculated at run time using an expression that you specify when you define the
calculated member.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): Key Performance Indicators are valuable for
teams, managers, and businesses to evaluate quickly the progress made against
measurable goals.
Multidimensional Expressions (MDX): Multidimensional Expressions is the query
language that you use to work with and retrieve multidimensional data in
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services (SSAS).
Script: A script command is an MDX script, included as part of the definition of the
cube.

8. Review Questions
1. Briefly explain the advanced measures and calculations.
2. What is an aggregate function?
3. Discuss about retrieving data from a cube using MDX queries.
4. What is script command?
5.
1. What are the
Aggregate various types of MDX Scripts?
tables 2. Oracle BI
6.
3. Discuss
Margin the process of creating or editing
4. a KPI.
Aggregated
5. Measure’s
Answers: Self source column
Assessment 6. Min
7. Highest 8. Script
9. Subcube
10. Default MDX script, User-defined MDX script
11. KPIs 12. Editing or
create

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 Unit 8: Advanced Measures and Calculations

8.9 Further Readings Notes

Books Carlo Vercellis (2011). “Business Intelligence: Data Mining and Optimization for
Decision Making”. John Wiley & Sons.
David Loshin (2012). “Business Intelligence: The Savvy Manager’s Guide”. Newnes.
Elizabeth Vitt, Michael Luckevich, Stacia Misner (2010). “ Business Intelligence”.
O’Reilly Media, Inc.
Rajiv Sabhrwal, Irma Becerra-Fernandez (2010). “Business Intelligence”. John
Wiley & Sons.
Swain Scheps (2013). “Business Intelligence for Dummies”. Wiley.

Online links msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd239327(v=sql.100).aspx

quartetfs.com/en/mdx-query-basics-and-usage-example
www.bidn.com › Home › Blogs › DustinRyan

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7
Business Intelligence

Note
s
Unit 9: Advanced Dimensional
Design
CONTENTS
Objectives
Introductio
n
1. Creat
ing
Dime
nsion
s
2. Build
an
Accou
nt
Dime
nsion
to
Supp
ort
Finan
cial
Analy
Objectives
sis
3. studying
After Inter this unit, you will be able to:
actin
• Discuss
g Creating Dimensions
with
• Explain Build an Account Dimension to Support Financial Analysis
a
• Cube interacting with a Cube
Interpret
1. I
Introductionm
p
In this unit, you
l will learn about advanced dimensional designs. Multiple
hierarchies can ebe created for a dimension to provide alternate views of dimension
m
members. The account dimension and its associated rules enable you to create and
maintain a charte of accounts for various financial models. Here, you will learn
n
about creating dimensions. You will also be able to build an account dimension to
t
support financial analysis. Each base schema design technique brings limitations
i
and implications for aggregate design. Finally, you will learn about interacting
n
with cubes. In this
g the key focus will be on implementing actions, creating standard
actions and creating a drillthrough action.
A
9.1 Creatingc Dimensions
t
i
Multiple hierarchies can be created for a dimension to provide alternate views of
o
dimension members.
n
s
Example: A time dimension that has two hierarchies can comprise of a
2.
normal calendarC view and a fiscal calendar view.
r
e
a
t
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n
g

S
t
 Unit 9: Advanced Dimensional
Design

In Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 Analysis Services, a dimension with multiple Note
hierarchies is actually two or more distinct dimensions that can share dimension s
tables and may share the same aggregations.

Different dimensions with a single hierarchy is called schema. It requires a time

span to indicate the presence of more than one hierarchy.

Notes When creating dimensions with multiple hierarchies, the hierarchy part
of the name should not be same to any current or future level name or
member name in the dimension because queries using the dimension may be
To ambiguous.
help minimize disruption to cubes, it is helpful to identify dimensions with
multiple hierarchies before they are established. One way to do this is to name the
dimension with a time span and a hierarchy title part at the time of creation.
Additional hierarchies can then be created by utilising the identical dimension
name part followed by the period and the hierarchy title part.
Dimensions that have multiple hierarchies can be created in the Dimension Wizard
or Dimension Editor. For each hierarchy that is being created, the method is alike
to creating a new dimension.
To create a dimension with a single defined hierarchy using the Dimension
1 In the Analysis Manager Tree pane, expand the database in which you want
Wizard:
. to create a dimension with multiple hierarchies.

2 Right-click the Shared Dimensions folder, point to New Dimension, and then
. click Wizard.
3 In the second step of the wizard select either Star Schema: A single
. dimension table or Snowflake Schema: Multiple, related dimension tables.

4 Follow the remaining wizard steps to define levels and various options for the
. dimension.
5 In the Finish step of the wizard, enter a name in the Dimension
. name box.
6 Select the Create a hierarchy of a
. dimension box.
7 Enter a name in the Hierarchy
. name box.
8 Click Finish to complete the wizard. After you complete the wizard,
. Dimension Editor appears so that you can further refine the dimension.

9 (Optional.) To create another hierarchy of the dimension, from the File menu in
. Dimension Editor, point to New Dimension, and then click Wizard. Follow
the steps in the next procedure, “To create a dimension with additional
defined hierarchies using the Dimension Wizard,” beginning with Step 3.

To create a dimension with additional defined hierarchies using the

Dimension Wizard:
1 In the Analysis Manager Tree pane, expand the database in which you
. want to define additional hierarchies for a dimension with at least one
named hierarchy.
2 Right-click the Shared Dimensions folder, point to New Dimension, and then
. click Wizard.
3 In the second step of the Dimension Wizard select either Star Schema: A
. single dimension table or Snowflake Schema: Multiple, related dimension
tables.
4 Follow the remaining wizard steps to define levels and various options for the
. dimension.
5 Select the Create a hierarchy of a
. dimension box.

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Business Intelligence

Note 6 Select a dimension name having a defined hierarchy from the Dimension
s . name box.
7 Enter a name in the Hierarchy
. name box.
8 Click Finish to complete the wizard. After you complete the wizard,
. Dimension Editor appears so that you can further refine the dimension.

9 (Optional.) To create another hierarchy of the dimension, from the File menu
. in Dimension Editor, point to New Dimension, and then click Wizard. Repeat
Steps 3 through 8.
Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:

1. Different dimensions with a single hierarchy are called ...............................
2. Dimensions that have multiple hierarchies can be created in
the ...............................

9.2 Build an Account Dimension to Support Financial

Analysis
The Account dimension and its associated rules enable you to create and maintain a
chart of accounts for various financial models.

In Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services, an account type dimension is a

dimension whose attributes represent a journal of accounts for fi nancial
reporting reasons. An account dimension permits you selectively manage
aggregation across various accounts over time. An account dimension also lets you
use a benchmark means to resolve most of the non-standard aggregation issues
typically came across in business understanding solutions that handle financial
data. If you did not have such a standard mechanism, settling these nonstandard
aggregation issues Table
would9.1:
need Multidimensional
Properties of AccountExpression
Dimension (MDX) scripts.
Members
The following table describes the pre-defined properties of Account dimension
members:
Property Description

Account A selectable option that groups the account member into a type,
Type Member such as Tax Expense or Liability, for use with business rules.
ID Planning Business Modeler uses this property to determine the
aggregation behaviour for accounts.
When using this property in a business rule calculation, you must
explicitly reference the property as Account Type Member ID. Do
not use a substitute such as "Account type".
Debit Credit Indicates whether, for calculation purposes such as aggregation,
Planning Business Modeler treats this account type as a debit
entry or a credit entry. When used in calculation, an account type
that has a debit name has a negative sign for calculation, and an
account type that has a credit entry has a positive sign.

Time Indicates how Planning Business Modeler handles values in this

Balance account type for aggregation. The following values are possible:
 Sum — aggregation value is the sum of all child members.
 End — aggregation value is the last nonempty child along the
Time dimension. Also called Last-child aggregation.
 Avg — aggregation value is the average value of member
children.
Contd....

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 Unit 9: Advanced Dimensional
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Consolidated Boolean (TRUE-FALSE) value that indicates whether this account

Note
type should be included in the Planning Business Modeler s
consolidation calculations.
Converted Boolean (TRUE-FALSE) value that indicates whether this account
type should be included in the Planning Business Modeler
currency conversion calculations.
Inter-company Boolean (TRUE-FALSE) value that indicates whether this account
should be included in intercompany calculations.

Source: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb795367(v=office.12).aspx

User Modifications in the Account Dimension

You can update the Account Type Member ID property of a member of the Account
dimension. You can also add a new dimension member to the Account dimension
and create member hierarchies in the dimension. In addition, you can also add
member sets, member views, and member properties. The following table shows
the ways you can modify user-defined objects in the Account dimension.
Table 9.2: User-defined
Objects

User-defined object Create Update Delete

Dimension members Yes Yes Yes
Dimension properties No Yes No
Member sets Yes Yes Yes
Member views Yes Yes Yes
Member properties Yes Yes No

Source:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb839292(v=office.12).aspx

Self Assessment

State whether the following statements are true or false:

3 In Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services, an account type dimension is a
. dimension whose attributes represent a journal of accounts for financial
reporting reasons.
4 If you did not have such a standard mechanism, settling these
. nonstandard aggregation issues would need Multidimensional Expression
(MDX) scripts.
3. Interacting with a Cube

1. Implementing Actions

The purpose of an Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) application is to supply

users with valuable information to propel business conclusions. Actions supply
another means by which users can accumulate information and take steps based on
the data they find in cubes. You can add activities to a cube that users will
subsequent execute. An action is habitually started by a user or client application
and relates to an object in a cube. That object might be a dimension member or a
specific cell, which is then used as a parameter for the activity. Not all client
applications are able to execute actions, so make certain you realise the capability
of the client application before creating actions in your cube.

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Business Intelligence

Note You can add several kinds of activities to a cube. A URL action is helpful for
s navigating to a particular World Wide Web location based on cube facts and
figures.

Example: You might desire to visit a customer’s Web location after

examining that customer’s data in a cube, or you might desire to get access to
information from an internal reporting Web server to get more data about a
specific product you’re analysing.

9.3.2 Creating Standard Actions

The Cube Designer in Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS)

includes an activity tab. You can define an action on this tab by specifying the
activity name, activity goal, the action type, and the action sign that generates a
string used to run the activity. An activity goal is the portion of the cube to which
the activity connects and is the object that the client clicks to launch the action.
The activity sign is a Multidimensional Expression (MDX) sign that evaluates as a
string applicable to the activity kind. Each activity kind has its own syntax
requirements, but usually you include the MDX CURRENTMEMBER function in the
action expression to link the object to the current cube context.

Did u know? In this method, we will add a new URL activity that opens a World
Wide Web page and executes a search for a product category or subcategory.

Create a URL action

1 Use Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) to open the

. AdventureWorks BI solution. You will need to establish the AdventureWorks
SSAS database before you can create an activity. This ensures that the
database created is present in BIDS and on the analysis Services server are
both the identical.
2 On the build menu, choose Deploy AdventureWorks SSAS. If the
. AdventureWorks SSAS database currently lives on the server, a dialog carton
may emerge warning that the data- groundwork will be overwritten. If the
warning appears, click Yes. The prior version of the facts and figures-
groundwork will be deleted and the current deployment will extend.
3 After the database has been successfully deployed and processed, expand the
. Cubes folder in Solution Explorer, right-click the AdventureWorks.cube, and
select View Designer.
4 In the Cube Designer, click the activities tab. On the activities tab toolbar,
. click New Action.

5 In the Action Editor, change the name of the action to

. Internet Search.
6 An action target is the location in the cube where the action can be
. executed. An action target has a target type and a target object. You can
choose from several target types.

Example: If you select Cube, the action is available for all cube objects—
every dimension, hierarchy, level, and member.

7 Expand the Target Object List, expand the product dimension, choose product
. by Category, and click OK. You can enter an MDX sign in the status text box to
further limit the scope of the target.

8 In the Condition text box, enter the following MDX

. expression:

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 Unit 9: Advanced Dimensional
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[Product].[Product by Category].Level IS [Product].[Product by Note

Category].[Category] OR s
[ P r o d u c t ] . [ P r o d u c t by Category].Level IS [Product].[Product by
Category].[Subcategory]

You need to select the type of action that you want

to create.
Figure 9.1: Activity Tab
Toolbar

Source:
http://i.msdn.microsoft.com/dynimg/IC574400.gif
9 In the Action Content section of the editor, verify that URL is selected from
. the Type list. The Action Expression text box includes the string that will be
passed to the application that is begun by the action.

10. In the Action Expression text box, enter the following MDX expression:
“http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=”
+ [Product].[Product by Category].CurrentMember.Name
+ “&form=QBLH”

Now before you can execute the action, you need to deploy your project. After the
project is successfully deployed, you can browse the cube and execute the URL
action that you just created.

9.3.3 Creating Drillthrough Actions

Drillthrough actions supply fast access to lowest grade of details stored in a cube.
When you create a drillthrough action, you choose dimension attributes and
assesses that are returned as columns of data when the action is performed. When
a client examining summary value executes

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Business Intelligence

Note the activity, the client application executes the drillthrough query supplied by
s analysis Services to return and display a set of rows containing the detailed data
behind the summary value. Contrary to the action name, a drillthrough action does
not get access to data stored in the source relational database.

!
CautionAny data that you want to be available for drillthrough should be
comprised in
the cube’s dimensions and measures.

9.3.4 Linking to Reporting Services Reports

When Reporting Services is part of your Business Intelligence (BI) infrastructure,

you can effortlessly create activities that execute these reports. After the report is
established, you can create an action that executes the report.
The enhanced security environment of Windows 7 needs that you modify the default
Internet Explorer security configuration if you want to deploy a report to the local
instance of reporting Services.

Notes You must furthermore add yourself to the Reporting Services Content
Manager security role.
We will now configure Internet Explorer Security to allow reporting service.

Configure Internet Explorer Security to allow Reporting Services

administration
1 On the Microsoft Windows task bar, click Start, select All Programs, right-
. click Internet Explorer, and select Run as Administrator.

2 In the User Account Control dialog box, select

. Allow.
3 From the Internet Explorer Tools menu, select Internet
. Options.

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 Unit 9: Advanced Dimensional
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4. In the Internet Options dialog box, click the Security tab, select Trusted Sites, Note
and then click Sites. s

5. In the Trusted Sites dialog box, clear the Require Server Verification (https:)
For All Sites in This Zone check box.
6. In the Add This Website to the Zone text box, type http://localhost.

7. Click Add and then click Close. In the Internet Options dialog box,
click OK.

Task Prepare a dimension wizard to create the account dimension.

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Business Intelligence

Note Self
s Assessment
Fill in the
blanks:
5 The purpose of an .................................. application is to supply users
. with valuable information to propel business conclusions.

6 A URL action is helpful for navigating to a particular World Wide Web location
. based on
.................................. and figures.
7 The Cube Designer in Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS)
. includes an
..................................
8 .................................. actions supply fast access to lowest grade of details
. stored in a cube.
9 Contrary to the action name, a drillthrough action does not get access to data
. stored in the source ..................................

10. After the report is established, you can create an action that executes
the ..................................

Case MITS Provides Custom Solution for

Study
Florida Healthcare Maintenance
Organization (HMO)
Company Profile:
Name:
Preferred Medical Plan,
Inc. Distinction:
Licensed HMO provider, boasting the largest individual HMO membership
in Florida. Vertical Software Provider:
DST Systems,
Inc. Database:
IBM UniVerse
Company
Background
Preferred Medical Plan, Inc. (PMP) is an independently owned, licensed HMO
in Southern Florida with 170 employees providing individuals with a range of
comprehensive medical, surgical and hospital benefits including dental and
optical riders. PMP, Inc. has the largest individual HMO membership in
Florida and is committed to providing its members with more choices and
benefits than any other individual health plan. In September of 2002,
Consumer Reports awarded PMP, Inc. with its highest coverage index for
offering the most comprehensive set of benefits.
The Challenge
Due to the nature of their industry, PMP, Inc. has many internal and external
information reporting needs. Since healthcare insurance is so highly
regulated, they must comply with external state reporting requirements such
as enrolment data, HEIDIS, Child Health Check Up and HIV/AIDS statistics,
as well as fraud detection and prevention efforts. Internally,
Contd....
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 Unit 9: Advanced Dimensional
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Note
there is a need to utilize information to predict and manage expenses,
s
making it feasible to provide the most comprehensive benefits packages
possible to members at a reasonable cost. PMP Inc’s Information Services
Project Manager, John J. Burns, PMP describes how the company relies on
efficient access to data: “From a production point of view, we’re in the claim
adjudication business. We need to determine which type of claim or which
types of providers are submitting claims requiring the most effort to
To access their data, PMP, Inc. relied on traditional reporting mechanisms and
adjudicate.”
practices which are heavily dependent on Information Services (IS) resources.
John J. Burns provided insight into the common maintenance and
development of reports. “Reports that were developed internally by IS staff or
canned system reports not customized to our specific needs were run using
the same transactional database that was being used in production. There
were times when this would severely affect system performance.” This
impact on the production system was most evident at the beginning of the
month, when most reports are run, and resulted in the production system
being brought to a crawl. The drain on the IS resources was also significant
due to the amount of time needed to create custom reports or modify
existing reports, decreasing the amount of time IS staff had available to
devote to other projects.
The Solution
When looking into reporting solutions, PMP, Inc. was concerned about some of
the issues associated with maintaining large sets of data in a data warehouse
environment. Through his experience with the MultiValue community, Burns
was aware of MITS products and the advanced reporting and analytics MITS
Discover offered. MITS Discover presented a way to access near real time
data without need for a dedicated data warehouse. During further review of
MITS Discover Burns realized “[the] Discover hypercube concept
eliminated these concerns. We [also] anticipated that the browser-based
interface would reduce training time and combined with the ability to export
directly into a spreadsheet or Adobe PDF documents would empower the
end user and not burden the limited resources of our IS Department.”
PMP, Inc. wanted to find out what types of claims were costing the most to
process and who was filing them. Additionally, they needed to perform
comparative analysis, such as differences between geographical regions,
average cost per claim type and cost per claim by each of their submitting
providers. Burns worked with a MITS Product Specialist to design and
implement their first set of Hypercubes to provide this analysis.
As a result of past experience, Burns mentioned, “often a solution based on
how a product functions is offered or even forced on a client.” He did not find
this to be the case with MITS and was impressed with the amount of time the
MITS staff took to understand PMP’s business processes and unique needs.
He went on to say, “MITS took the time to thoroughly comprehend what we
hoped to accomplish and how MITS Discover could meet most of those needs.
[The MITS Product Specialist] also clearly stated what the tool was not
designed to do, and knowing that actually helped us get exactly what we
required out of the design of our Hypercubes.”
The Results
While the rollout of MITS Discover to the majority of PMP’s users is still in
process, they are currently using MITS within their Claims, Fraud and
Abuse, Utilization, and IS departments. One example of improved access to
data is in their Turnaround Hypercube. Claims have a 30 day turnaround for
payment and with this Hypercube they
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queue. Most claims are adjudicated 7
Contd....
Business Intelligence

Note
s between day 14 and day 17, resulting in a bell curve distribution of the data.
This metric has proved to be so useful that they will be including it, in its
graphical form, as a key performance indicator (KPI) on their MITS Discover
Dashboard, allowing them to instantly view shifts in the curve and attend to
underlying issues. In its beginning stages the response to MITS within PMP,
Inc. has been very positive, with users already providing feedback for
additional Hypercubes. Burns followed up on this by commenting, “To me, this
is a very encouraging sign. It signals that with very little exposure to the tool,
end users are seeing its potential in ways that would benefit them and how it
can allow them to produce the analysis and reports that they require.” He has
also found that “[MITS] Discover easily uncovers inaccuracies and
inconsistencies that can exist in the underlying data, sometimes to the doubt
of the user. Verification, however, proves [MITS] Discover to be correct and
our assumptions of the data to be wrong. I like to say that if you shine a
Questions:
flashlight in a darkened room and the roaches scurry, don’t blame the
flashlight!”
1. Analyse the case and provide a solution to Preferred Medical Plan, Inc.
(PMP).
2. What is Turnaround Hypercube?
Source: http://www.mits.com/solutions/success-stories/healthcare.html

9.4 Summary
• In Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 Analysis Services, a dimension with multiple
hierarchies is actually two or more distinct dimensions that can share
dimension tables and may share the same aggregations.
• Dimensions that have multiple hierarchies can be created in the Dimension
Wizard or Dimension Editor.
• The Account dimension and its associated rules enable you to create and
maintain a chart of accounts for various financial models.
• You can update the AccountTypeMemberID property of a member of the
Account dimension. You can also add a new dimension member to the
Account dimension and create member hierarchies in the dimension.
• The purpose of an Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) application is to supply
users with valuable information to propel business conclusions.
• The Cube Designer in Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS)
includes an activity tab.
• Drillthrough actions supply fast access to lowest grade of details stored in a
cube. When you create a drillthrough action, you choose dimension attributes
and assesses that are returned as columns of data when the action is
performed.

9.5 Keywords
AccountTypeMemberID: A selectable option that groups the account member into a
type.
Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS): Business Intelligence
Development Studio (BIDS) is the IDE from Microsoft used for developing data
analysis and Business Intelligence solutions utilizing the Microsoft SQL Server
Analysis Services, Reporting Services and Integration Services.

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 Unit 9: Advanced Dimensional
Design

Cube Designer: The Cube Designer in Business Intelligence Development Studio Note
(BIDS) includes an activity tab. s

Multidimensional Expression sign (MDX): Multidimensional Expressions (MDX) is a

query language for OLAP databases, much like SQL is a query language for
relational databases. It is also a calculation language, with syntax similar to
spreadsheet formulas.
URL actions: A URL action is a hyperlink that points to a Web page, file, or other
web-based resource outside of Tableau.

9.6 Review Questions

1. What is a data dimension?
2. Why do we create the data dimensions?
3 Discuss the process for creating a dimension with a single defined
. hierarchy using the dimension wizard.

4 Explain the steps for creating a dimension with additional defined

. hierarchies using the dimension wizard.

5 Describe the pre-defined properties of account dimension

. members.
6 Write about the user modifications in the account
. dimension.
7 How do we implement the actions in
. OLAP?
8 How do we create a URL
. action?
9 Write down the process for creating drillthrough
. actions.
10. Discuss how to confi gure internet explorer security to allow reporting
services administration?

Answers: Self Assessment

1. Schema 2. Dimension Wizard or Dimension

Editor
3. True 4. True

5. Online Analytical Processing 6. Cube facts

(OLAP)
7. Activity tab 8. Drillthrough

9. Relational database 10. Report

9.7 Further
Readings

Books Carlo Vercellis (2011). “Business Intelligence: Data Mining and

Optimization for Decision Making”. John Wiley & Sons.
David Loshin (2012). “Business Intelligence: The Savvy Manager’s
Guide”. Newnes.
Elizabeth Vitt, Michael Luckevich, Stacia Misner (2010). “Business
Intelligence”.
O’Reilly Media, Inc.

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Business Intelligence

Note Rajiv Sabhrwal, Irma Becerra-Fernandez (2010). “Business

s Intelligence”. John Wiley & Sons.

Swain Scheps (2013). “Business Intelligence for

Dummies”. Wiley.

Online links http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/articles/bi/advanced-dimen

sional-
design-359613.html
www.atlantamdf.com/Presentations/AtlantaMDF_091106.p
df?
www.mhprofessional.com/downloads/.../01-ch01_0071770
445.pdf?

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 Unit 10: Retrieving Data from Analysis
Services

Unit 10: Retrieving Data from Analysis Note

s
Services
CONTENTS
Objectives
Introductio
n
1. Creat
ing
Persp
ective
s
1. C
r
e
a
t
e

P
e
r
Objectives s
p
After studying this
e unit, you will be able to:
c
• Provide insight into creating perspectives
t
• Explain thei Multidimensional Expressions (MDX) queries
v
• Discuss thee usage of Excel with analysis services

2. Multi
Introduction
dime
nsion
Your cubeal comprises numerous dimensions and measures from some subject areas:
sales, finance,
Expre output, and inventory. It can assist as a source of information for
multiplessions
workgroups or agencies across your association. Although this
(MDX is beneficial for users, application developers, and IT administrators,
centralization
it might) be difficult for users to find their way to the data they need. To help
make yourQueri cube simpler to comprehend and navigate, you can create
es
perspectives that limit the number of dimensions, calculations, actions, and KPIs
that users
1. see when
S they are browsing or querying a cube. A perspective allows
you to create a E view of a subset of a cube that can be more easily comprehended
L will provide you an insight into creating perspectives. You will
by users. This unit
E
learn about Multidimensional Expression (MDX) queries. Finally, you will learn
about connecting C Excel client to Analysis Services environment.
T

10.1 Creating
S Perspectives
t
A cube may contain
a multiple viewpoints. Generally each viewpoint displays a
subset of the cube
t that is related to a widespread subject area or that is needed by
e To describe and visualize applications, a viewpoint appears just
a group of users.
m
like a cube. Although, it is important to note that you cannot request security to a
viewpoint. e
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Note
s

Notes If a client has access to a cube, the client has access to all of the
perspectives in that cube.

10.1.1 Create a Perspective

For models that contain many subject areas, for example, Sales, Manufacturing, and
Supply data, it might be helpful to Report Builder users if you create perspectives
of the model. A perspective is a sub-set of a model.

Did u know? Creating perspectives can make navigating through the contents of
the model easier for your model users.
To create a perspective:
1 In the Tree view, right-click Model, point to New, and then click
.
Perspective. In the Edit Perspective dialog box, click Clear All.
2
Locate the Purchase Order Detail entity, and then select its check
.
box.
3
To add all the attributes of the Purchase Order Header entity to the
.
perspective, clear the check box, and then select the check box again.
5
4
.. Locate the Product entity, clear the check box, and then select the
6 check box again. Click OK.
To
. rename the
perspective
1 To see the new perspective, scroll down to the bottom of the List view. The
. last item listed is called New Perspective.
2 Right-click New Perspective, and then click Rename.
.
Type Products and Purchases and on the File menu, click Save All.
3
.Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:

1. To describe and visualize applications, a viewpoint appears just like
a .............................. 2. A perspective is a ............................... of a model.

10.2 Multidimensional Expressions (MDX) Queries

An MDX query is different from an MDX expression. An expression is a formula
that calculates a single value. A query is a command that can get numerous values
from a cube, generally to create a report. The cube browser in the Cube
Designer, like other describing and data visualization applications utilised with
Analysis Services, allows you to drag and drop dimensions and measures and
generates MDX queries behind the scenes to get values from a cube. You can use
these tools to create accounts without composing any MDX queries of your own.
Learning MDX will permit you to take advantage of some of the more advanced
features of Analysis Services to create precisely the dataset you need. You can use
MDX queries to understand and debug complex MDX signs.

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The most widespread use of an MDX query is to extract values from an OLAP Note
cube to populate a report. A cube has dimensions, but a report does not. Reports s
have axes. An axis can include members from more than one dimension.

!
Caution A report generally doesn’t show all of the data comprised in a cube.

The basic Multidimensional Expressions (MDX) query is the SELECT statement.

1. SELECT Statement Syntax

The following syntax shows a basic SELECT statement that includes the use of the
SELECT, FROM, and WHERE clauses:
[ WITH <SELECT WITH clause> [ , <SELECT WITH clause> ... ] ]
SELECT [ * | ( <SELECT query axis clause>
[ , <SELECT query axis
clause> ... ] ) ]
FROM <SELECT subcube clause>
[ <SELECT slicer axis clause> ]
[ <SELECT cell property list clause> ]

The MDX SELECT statement supports optional syntax, such as the WITH keyword,
the use of MDX functions and the ability to return the values of specific cell
properties as part of the query.

2. SELECT Statement Example

The following example shows a basic MDX query that uses the SELECT statement.
This query returns a result set that contains the 2010 and 2011 sales and tax
amounts for the North sales territories.
SELECT
{ [Measures].[Sales],
[Measures].[Tax] } ON COLUMNS,
{ [Date].[Fiscal].[Fiscal Year].&[2010], [Date].
[Fiscal].[Fiscal Year].&[2011] } ON ROWS
FROM [Adventure Works]
WHERE ( [Sales Territory].[North] )

In this example, the query defines the following

result set information:
• The SELECT clause sets the query axes as the Sales and Tax members of
the Measures dimension, and the 2010 and 2011 members of the Date
dimension.
• The FROM clause indicates that the data source is the Adventure Works cube.
• The WHERE clause defines the slicer axis as the North member of the
Sales Territory dimension.
Notice that the query example also uses the COLUMNS and ROWS axis aliases.
The ordinal positions for these axes could also have been used.

Example: The following example shows how the MDX query could have
been written to use the ordinal position of each axis:
SELECT
{ [Measures].[Sales],
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Business Intelligence

Note [Measures].[Tax] } ON 0,
s { [Date].[Fiscal].[Fiscal Year].&[2010],
[Date].[Fiscal].[Fiscal Year].&[2011] } ON 1
FROM [Adventure Works]
WHERE ( [Sales Territory].[North] )

Self Assessment

State whether the following statements are true or

false:
3. An MDX query is different from an MDX
4 Learning MDX will permit you to take advantage of some of the more
expression.
. advanced features of Analysis Services to create precisely the dataset you
need.
5. The MDX SELECT statement supports optional syntax.

10.3 Excel with Analysis Services

You can use Analysis Services as a data source for the Office Excel 2007 PivotTable
and PivotChart characteristics. The Excel 2007 PivotTable characteristic permits
you to create reports and crosstab reports that will let you pivot, filter, add and
remove dimensions, drill down, drill up, and drillthrough data. You can use the
Excel 2007 PivotChart feature to create powerful data visualizations. Excel 2007
presents various features you can use to format and analyse data with PivotTable:
• Improve the appearance of your report by hiding field headers and using the
expand/ collapse buttons.
• View empty rows and columns.
• Execute Analysis Services actions.
• Sort and filter data.
• Display member properties.
• Display KPIs.
• View and modify data sources.
Analysis Services provides dimensional data that is well-suited for data exploration
in PivotTables and Power View reports. You can get Analysis Services data from:
• OLAP cubes on an Analysis Services multidimensional server.
• Tabular models on an Analysis Services tabular server.
• Excel 2013 workbooks on SharePoint 2013, if the workbook contains a data
model.
• PowerPivot workbooks on SharePoint 2010.

10.3.1 Connecting Excel Client to Analysis Services

Environment

From within Excel, select the Analysis Services drop down from the Data tab ->
From Other Sources drop down, and then walk through the data connection
wizard to identify location, cube, and credentials.

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Figure 10.1: Excel Accesses Analysis Note

Services s

Source:
http://blogs.msdn.com/blogfi les/excel/WindowsLiveWriter/UsingExcelExcelServiceswi
th
SQLServerAnal_B11A/image_thumb.png

You should now have a connection to Excel

Figure 10.2: a cube within Excel and a pivot table ready.
Connection
Property

Source:
http://blogs.msdn.com/blogfi les/excel/WindowsLiveWriter/UsingExcelExcelServiceswit
h
SQLServerAnal_B11A/image_thumb_1.png

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Note You’ll notice that connecting to Analysis Services 2008 uses MSOLAP.4. To add the
s provider to the list of approved providers in Excel Services, go to Central
Administration -> Shared Services Administration for Excel Services. Select
Trusted Data Providers from the Excel Services Settings of the Shared Services
Administration page. Add MSOLAP.4 to the trusted list in order for the connection
to work in Excel Services.
Figure 10.3: Excel Services Data
Provider

Source:
http://blogs.msdn.com/blogfi les/excel/WindowsLiveWriter/UsingExcelExcelServiceswit
h
SQLServerAnal_B11A/image_thumb_2.png

Click Add Trusted Data Provider at the top of the list, and enter
Provider ID = MSOLAP.4
Data Provider Type = OLE DB
Description = Microsoft OLE DB Provider for OLAP Services 10.0.

You are now set and can publish your workbook to Excel Services and you will be
able to view, interact and refresh data from Analysis Services 2008 in Excel
Services.

Task Compare the Syntax of the MDX SELECT Statement to SQL.

Self
Assessment

Fill in the blanks:

6 You can use Analysis Services as a data source for the ..........................
. PivotTable and PivotChart characteristics.

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7 Analysis Services provides dimensional data that is well-suited for data Note
. exploration in PivotTables and ...................................... s

8 Connecting to Analysis Services 2008

. uses ......................................

Case Data Services Firm Uses Microsoft BI and

Study
Hadoop to Boost Insight into Big Data

K
lout wanted to give consumers, brands, and partners faster, more
detailed
into insight
hundreds of terabytes of social-network data. It also wanted to
boost
To do efficiency.
so, Klout deployed a business intelligence solution based on
Server 2012 Enterprise and Apache Hadoop. As a result, Klout processes data
Microsoft SQL
queries in near real time, minimizes costs, boosts efficiency, increases
insight, and facilitates innovation.

Solution

In 2011, Klout decided to implement a BI solution based on Microsoft SQL

Server 2012 Enterprise data management software and the open-source Hive
data warehouse system. “When it comes to BI and analytics, open-source tool
sets are just ineffective and there’s really not a good choice,” Mariani says.
“Instead, Klout chose the best of both worlds by marrying the Microsoft BI
platform with Hadoop and Hive.” Based on employees’ previous experience
with the Microsoft BI platform, Klout also knew that SQL Server offers
excellent compatibility with third-party software and it can handle the data
scale and query performance needed to manage big-data sets.

In August 2011, engineers implemented a data warehouse with Hive, which

consolidates data from all of the network silos hosted by Hadoop. In addition,
Klout deployed SQL Server 2012 on a system that runs the Windows Server
2008 R2 Enterprise operating system to take advantage of Microsoft SQL
Server 2012 Analysis Services. Engineers use it to manage all business logic
required to facilitate Multidimensional Online Analytical Processing
(MOLAP). Data is stored in multidimensional cubes, which helps preserve
detail and speed analysis. To provide high availability, Klout replicates the
database to a secondary system using SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn.

At the time that Klout was initially deploying its solution, SQL Server 2012
and Hive could not communicate directly. To work around this issue,
engineers set up a temporary relational database that runs MySQL 5.5
software. It includes data from the previous 30 days and serves as a staging
area for data exchange and analysis. Klout engineers are currently working
to implement the new open database connectivity driver in SQL Server 2012
to directly join Hive with SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services. In addition, to
enhance insight Klout plans to work with Microsoft to incorporate other
Microsoft BI tools into its solution, such as Microsoft SQL Server Power Pivot
for Microsoft Excel.
2 Discuss the benefits of implementing business intelligence solution
Questions:
. based on Microsoft SQL Server 2012 by Klout.
1.
Source: Analyse the case and provide any other solution to the problem.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/product-info/case-studies/klout.aspx

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Note 10.4
s
Summary
• A cube may contain multiple viewpoints. Generally each viewpoint displays a
subset of the cube that is related to a widespread subject area or that is
needed by a group of users.
• For models that contain many subject areas, for example, Sales,
Manufacturing, and Supply data, it might be helpful to Report Builder users
if you create perspectives of the model.
• An MDX query is different from an MDX expression. An expression is a
formula that calculates a single value. A query is a command that can get
numerous values from a cube, generally to create a report.
• You can use Analysis Services as a data source for the Office Excel 2007
PivotTable and PivotChart characteristics.
• Analysis Services provides dimensional data that is well-suited for data
exploration in PivotTables and Power View reports.
• From within Excel, select the Analysis Services drop down from the Data tab -
> From Other Sources drop down, and then walk through the data
connection wizard to identify location, cube, and credentials.
• Select Trusted Data Providers from the Excel Services Settings of the Shared
Services Administration page. Add MSOLAP.4 to the trusted list in order for
the connection to work in Excel Services.

5. Keywords
MDX SELECT: The MDX SELECT statement supports optional syntax, such as the
WITH keyword, the use of MDX functions and the ability to return the values of
specific cell properties as part of the query.
Multidimensional Expressions (MDX) query: Multidimensional Expressions (MDX) is
a query language for OLAP databases, much like SQL is a query language for
relational databases. It is also a calculation language, with syntax similar to
spreadsheet formulas.
Multidimensional Expressions (MDX): Multidimensional Expressions is the query
language that you use to work with and retrieve multidimensional data in
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services (SSAS).
Perspective: A perspective is a sub-set of a model.

6. Review Questions
1. What is perspective?
2. Write down the steps for creating a perspective.
3.
5 Brieflydown
Write explain
thethe Multidimensional
various features you Expressions (MDX)and
can use to format Queries.
analyse data with
. PivotTable in Excel 2007.
4. Discuss about SELECT Statement Syntax.
6 Write short note on excel services data
. provider.

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Answers: Self Assessment Notes

1. Cube 2. Sub-set
3. True 4. True

5. True 6. Office Excel 2007

7. Power View reports 8. MSOLAP.4

10.7 Further Readings

Books Carlo Vercellis (2011). “Business Intelligence: Data Mining and Optimization for
Decision Making”. John Wiley & Sons.
David Loshin (2012). “Business Intelligence: The Savvy Manager’s Guide”. Newnes.
Elizabeth Vitt, Michael Luckevich, Stacia Misner (2010). “ Business Intelligence”.
O’Reilly Media, Inc.
Rajiv Sabhrwal, Irma Becerra-Fernandez (2010). “Business Intelligence”. John
Wiley & Sons.

Swain Scheps (2013). “Business Intelligence for Dummies”. Wiley.

Online links quartetfs.com/en/mdx-query-basics-and-usage-example?

www.oracle.com/technetwork/.../bi.../mdx-complex-queries-130019.pdf?
www.slideshare.net/.../mdx-multi-dimensional-expressions-introduction?
wwwbayer.in.tum.de/lehre/SS2001/DAWA-bayer/DWH-Ch10-1.pdf ?

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Business Intelligence

Note
s
Unit 11: Data
Mining
CONTENTS
Objectives
Introductio
n
1. Data
Minin
g
1. P
r
o
c
e
s
s

o
f

K
n
o
w
l
e
d
g
e
Objectives
D
i
After studying this unit, you will be able to:
s
• Define datac mining
o
• State data vmining approaches
e
• Identify data mining uses
r
• y mining issues
Discuss data
• 2.
DemonstrateT applications of data mining
y
• Explain limitations
p of data mining
e
• Recognize data mining models
s
• Discuss basics of data mining algorithms
o
f
Introduction
D
Data mining refers
a to the extraction of hidden predictive information from large
databases. Datat mining techniques can yield the benefits of automation on existing
software and hardware
a platforms. Data mining tools can answer business
questions that traditionally were too time
M
i
n
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T
a
s
 Unit 11: Data
Mining

consuming to resolve. In this unit, you will learn about data mining approaches, Note
uses and its related issues. Also, applications of data mining will be discussed. As s
the unit progress, you will learn about data mining models – predictive, summary,
network and association. Finally, data mining algorithms basics will be
introduced.
11.1 Data Mining
Data mining is the practice of automatically searching large stores of data to
discover patterns and trends that go beyond simple analysis. It uses sophisticated
mathematical algorithms to segment the data and evaluate the probability of
future events. Some key terms to know before going further detail in Data Mining.

Data

Data are any facts, numbers, or text that can be processed by a computer. Today,
organizations are accumulating vast and growing amounts of data in different
formats and different databases.

Did u know? This includes operational or transactional data (such as, sales, cost,
inventory, payroll, and accounting), non-operational data (such as industry
sales, forecast data etc.) and metadata i.e. data about data.

Information

The patterns, associations, or relationships among all types of data can provide
information.

Example: Analysis of retail point of sale transaction data can yield

information on which products are selling and when.

Knowledge

Information can be converted into knowledge.

Example: Summary information on supermarket sales can be analysed

in view of promotional efforts to provide knowledge of consumer buying
behaviour.

11.1.1 Process of Knowledge Discovery

Let us have an overview of the steps one by one:

1. Data cleaning: It refers to removal noise and inconsistent data.
3 Data selection: In this step, data relevant to the analysis task are
2.
. Data integration:
retrieved from theIn this step, multiple data sources may be combined.
database.

4 Data transformation: In this step, data is transformed or consolidated

. into forms appropriate for mining by performing summary or aggregation
operations.
5 Data mining: This is an essential process where intelligent methods are
. applied in order to extract data patterns.

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Note 6 Pattern evaluation: This step is used to identify the truly interesting patterns
s . representing knowledge based on some interestingness measures.

7 Knowledge presentation: In this step, visualization and knowledge

. representation techniques are used to present the mined knowledge to the
user.
Figure 11.1 shows data mining as a step in process of knowledge
discovery.
Figure 11.1: Data Mining as a Step in the Process of Knowledge
Discovery

Source:
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/content_images/fi g/0670330804027.p
ng

11.1.2 Types of Data Mining Tasks

Two
1 types of Data
Prediction miningThis
Methods: tasktype
are: of method uses some variable to predict
. unknown or future values of other variables.

2 Description Methods: This type of method finds human-interpretable patterns

. that describe the data.

11.1.3 Purpose of Data Mining

Data mining enables people to discover information that they can act on to better
understand, selectively market to and retain their best customers, or sharply cut
consumer fraud.

!
In this we use pattern recognition logic to identity trends within a sample
Caution
data set.

Self Assessment

Fill in.................................
1 the blanks: is the practice of automatically searching large stores of
. data to discover patterns and trends that goes beyond simple analysis.

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2 ......................... are any facts, numbers, or text that can be processed by Note
. a computer. s
3 The patterns, associations, or relationships among all types of data
. can provide
...................................
11.2 Data Mining Approaches
Two widespread data mining methods for finding concealed patterns in data are
clustering and classification analysis. Although classification and clustering are
often cited in the identical breath, they are different analytical advances.
Imaging a database of customer records, where each record represents a
customer’s attributes. These can encompass identifiers such as name and address,
demographic data such as gender and age, and financial attributes such as income
and revenue spent.
Clustering is an automated method to group associated records together. Related
records are grouped together on the basis of similar values for attributes.

Notes This approach of segmenting the database via clustering analysis is often
used as an exploratory technique because it is not necessary for the end-
user/analyst to identify ahead of time how records should be associated
simultaneously.
Figure 11.2: Clustering
Example

Source:
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/data/library/techarticle/dm-0811wurs
t/
outlier_by_clustering.jpg

Records inside a cluster are more alike to each other, and more different from
records that are in other clusters. Counting on the specific implementation, there is
a kind of measure of likeness that is used, but the general aim is for the approach
to converge to groups of associated records.
Classification is a different method than clustering. Unlike clustering, a
classification analysis requires that the end-user/analyst understand ahead of time
how classes are characterised.
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Notes
Example: Classes can be defined to represent the likelihood that a
customer defaults on a loan (Yes/No).
A common approach for classifiers is to use decisions trees to partition and
segment records. New records can be classified by traversing the tree from the
origin through branches and nodes, to a leaf representing a class.
Figure 11.3: Classifi cation
Example

Source:
http://www.siggraph.org/education/materials/HyperVis/applicat/data_mining/image
s/
tree.gif

Regression

The dependency of one or more independent predictor variables on a single

response variable is modelled using regression.

Task Compare and contrast the clustering and classification analysis.

11.3 Data Mining Uses

Data mining is utilised for a variety of reasons in both the personal and public
parts. Industries such as banking, insurance, medicine, and retailing commonly
use data mining to decrease charges, enhance research, and increase sales.

Example: The protection and banking industries use data mining

applications to notice deception and aid in risk evaluation.
Using customer data assembled over several years, businesses can evolve
forms that predict if a customer is a good credit risk, or if whether misfortune claim
may be fraudulent and should be investigated more neatly. The medical
community sometimes utilises data mining to help forecast the effectiveness of a
procedure or surgery.
Pharmaceutical companies use data mining of chemical compounds and
genetic material to help direct study on new treatments for infections. Retailers can
use data assembled through affinity programs (e.g., shoppers’ club cards, common
flyer points, contests) to consider the effectiveness

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 Unit 11: Data
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of product selection and placement conclusions, coupon offers etc. Companies such Note
as phone service providers and music clubs can use data mining to create a “churn s
analysis,” to assess which customers are expected to stay as subscribers and which
ones are likely to switch to a competitor.

In the public sector, data mining applications were initially used as a means to
detect fraud and waste, but now they are used for purposes such as measuring
and improving program performance.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:

4. Information can be converted into .................................
5. ............................ refers to removal noise and inconsistent data.

6 .......................... method uses some variable to predict unknown or future

. values of other variables.

11.4 Data Mining Issues

Privacy

One of the key matters raised by data mining technology is not an enterprise or
technological one, but a social one. It is the issue of individual privacy. Data
mining makes it possible to investigate routine enterprise transactions and glean a
significant amount of information about persons buying habits and preferences.

Data Integrity

Clearly, data analysis can only be as good as the data that is being analysed. A key
implementation dispute is integrating inconsistent or redundant data from distinct
sources.

Example: A bank may sustain credit cards accounts on several distinct

databases. The addresses (or even the titles) of a single cardholder may be
different in each. Software should convert data from one system to another and
choose the recently entered address.

Confusion

Another issue of concern is to decide is if it is better to set up a relational

database structure or a multidimensional one. In a relational structure, data is
retained in tables, allowing ad hoc queries. In a multidimensional structure, on the
other hand, groups of cubes are arranged in arrays, with subgroups created
according to category. While multidimensional organisations facilitate
multidimensional data mining, relational structures perform better in client/server
environments.

Cost

Finally, there is the issue of cost. While system hardware costs have fallen
spectacularly inside the past five years, data mining and data warehousing are
inclined to be self-reinforcing. The more mighty the data mining queries, the
larger the utility of the data being gleaned from the
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Note data, and the larger the force to increase the amount of data being assembled and
s sustained, which increases the pressure for much quicker, more mighty data
mining queries. This raises pressure for bigger, much quicker systems, which are
more expensive.
Self Assessment

State whether the following statements are true or false:

7. Data analysis can only be as good as the data that is being analysed.
8. Data mining makes it possible to investigate routine enterprise transactions.
9. In a relational structure, data is retained in tables, allowing ad hoc queries.

11.5 Data Mining Applications

Data Mining is a relatively new concept that has not completely matured.
Regardless of this, there are a number of industries that are already using it on a
normal basis. Some of these companies include retail shops, banks, and insurance
firms.
Many of these companies are using data mining for statistics, pattern
acknowledgement, and other significant tasks. Data mining can be utilised to find
patterns and associations that would else be difficult to find. This concept is
popular with many businesses because it permits them to discover more about
their customers and make intelligent trading conclusions.
There are a number of applications that data mining has. The first is called market
segmentation. With market segmentation, you will be able to find behaviours that
are common among your customers. You can look for patterns among customers
that appear to buy the same products at the same time.
Another application of data excavation is called customer churn. It will permit you
to estimate which customers are most likely to stop purchasing your products or
services and proceed to one of your competitors. In addition to this, a company can
use data mining to find out which purchases are the most likely to be fraudulent.

Example: By using data mining a retail shop may be able to determine

which goods are stolen the most.
By finding out which products are stolen the most, steps can be taken to
protect those goods and notice those who are stealing them. You can furthermore
use data mining to determine the effectiveness of interactive trading. Some of your
customers will be more interested to buy your products online than offline, and
you should recognise them.
While many use data mining to boost their profits, many of them don’t
realize that it can be used to create new businesses.

Example: Assume that you are the owner of a latest gadgets manufacturing
company, and you are able to accurately predict the next large-scale latest
tendency based on the buying patterns of your customers.
It is very simple to say that you will become very wealthy in a short span of
time. You will have an advantage over your competitors. For long-term thinking
rather than easily guessing what the next large-scale trend will be, you will be
able work out it based on statistics, patterns, and reasoning.

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Another example of automatic prediction is to use data mining to look at your past Note
marketing schemes. Which one worked the best? Why did it work the best? Who s
were the customers that answered most favourably to it? Data mining will allow
you to answer these queries, and once you have the responses, you will be able to
avoid making any errors that you made in your previous trade.

Data mining can allow you to become better at what you do. A financial
organisation such as a bank can predict the number of defaults that will happen
among their customers inside a given time, and they can also forecast the amount
of deception that will occur as well based on the past records overview.
Another useful application of data mining is the self-acting recognition of patterns
that are not discovered before.

Example: If you have a tool that can automatically search your database to
look for patterns which are created. If you have access to this technology, you
will be able to find relationships that could allow you to make strategic
conclusions.
This can lead to growth of organization based on reasoning.

Notes While data mining is a very important tool, it is important to note that it is
not a full proof thing. It cannot guarantee the success of you or your business
but, it will tilt the odds in your favour.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:

10. .......................... can be utilised to find patterns and associations that would
else be difficult to find.
11. With ............................, you will be able to find behaviours that are common
among your customers.

11.6 Limitations of Data Mining

Privacy Issues

The concerns about the individual privacy have been increasing enormously
recently particularly when internet is booming with social networks, e-commerce,
forums, blogs etc. Because of privacy issues, persons are afraid that their personal
information is collected and utilised in unethical way that possibly make them face
a lot of problems. Businesses collect data about their customers in numerous ways
for understanding their buying behaviours trends. A stage may come when the
organization may be acquired by other organization or is vanished. At that time
the individual data they own likely is be sold to other party or may be leaked.

Security Matters

Security is a large-scale issue. Companies own data about their workers and
customers including social security number (like in US), anniversary, payroll etc.
although how properly this information is taken care is still doubtful. There have
been situation that hackers accessed and robbed big database of customers from
large companies.

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Note Misuse of Data/Inaccurate

s Data
Data assembled through data mining using ethical purposes can be misused. This
information may be exploited by unethical people or companies to take advantage
in various ways which not only limits to fake identity proof creation and pass
confidential data to competitors. Also if incorrect data is used for decision-making,
it will affect the results of the company.

11.7 Data Mining Models

There are several different types of data mining models:
1 Predictive models: These types of models predict how likely an event is to
. occur. Usually, higher the score, the more likely the event is to occur.

Example: How likely an online transaction is to be fraudulent, or how likely

a railway passenger is to be a thief, or how likely a company is to go bankrupt.
2. Summary models: These models are used to summarize data.

Example: It can be used to divide online transactions or railway passengers

into different groups depending upon their characteristics.
3. Network models: This type of model represents data by nodes and links.

Example: In a network model describing Facebook friends, nodes might be

individuals and directed edges with weights might represent the likelihood that
one friend will contact another friend in the next 24 hours.
4. Association models: Association models are used to find and characterize co-
occurrences.

Example: Purchases of certain items, such as soft drink and pizza

together will be represented by association models.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:

12. ............................ type of model represents data by nodes and links.
13. ...................................... are used to find and characterize co-occurrences.

11.8 Data Mining Algorithms

A data mining algorithm is a set of heuristics and calculations that creates a data
mining model from data. The algorithm first analyses the data you provide,
looking for specific types of patterns or trends and then creates the data.
Analysis Services includes the following algorithm types:
• Classification algorithms: This type of algorithm predicts one or more
discrete variables, based on the other attributes in the dataset.
• Regression algorithms: This type of algorithm predicts one or more
continuous variables, such as profit or loss, based on other attributes in the
dataset.

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• Segmentation algorithms: This type of algorithm divides data into groups, or Note
clusters, of items that have similar properties. s

• Association algorithms: This type of algorithm finds correlations between

different attributes in a dataset. The most common application of this kind of
algorithm is for creating association rules, which can be used in a market
analysis.

• Sequence analysis algorithms: This type summarize frequent sequences or

episodes in data, such as a Web path flow.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:

14. A ........................................... is a set of heuristics and calculations that creates a

data mining model from data.

15. ............................................. type of algorithm finds correlations between

different attributes in a dataset.

Case Logic-ITA Student

Study
Data

W
e have performed a number of queries on datasets collected by the
Logic-ITA
to assist teaching and learning. The Logic-ITA is a web-based
tool used at Sydney University since 2001, in a course taught by
purpose isthe second
to help author.practice
students Its logic formal proofs and to inform the
teacher of the class progress.

Context of Use

Over the four years, around 860 students attended the course and used the
tool, in which an exercise consists of a set of formulas (called premises) and
another formula (called the conclusion). The aim is to prove that the
conclusion can validly be derived from the premises. For this, the student
has to construct new formulas, step by step, using logic rules and formulas
previously established in the proof, until the conclusion is derived. There is
no unique solution and any valid path is acceptable. Steps are checked on the
fly and, if incorrect, an error message and possibly a tip are displayed.
Students used the tool at their own discretion. A consequence is that there is
neither a fixed number nor a fixed set of exercises done by all students.

Data Stored

The tool’s teacher module collates all the student models into a database that
the teacher can query and mine. Two often queried tables of the database are
the tables mistake and correct_step. The most common variables are shown
in Table 1.

Contd....

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Note
s Table 1: Common Variables in Table’s Mistake and
Correct_step

Data Mining Performed

Each year of data is stored in a separate database. In order to perform any
clustering, classification or association rule query, the first action to take is to
prepare the data for mining. In particular, we need to specify two aspects:
1. What element we want to cluster or classify: students, exercises,
mistakes?
2. Which attributes and distance do we want to retain to compare these
elements?
An example could be to cluster students, using the number of mistakes they
made and the number of correct steps they entered. Tada-ed provides a pre-
processing facility which allows making the data minable. For instance, the
database contains lists of mistakes. If we want to group that information so
that we have one vector per student, we need to choose how the mistakes
should be aggregated. For instance we may want to consider the total
number of mistakes, or the total number of mistakes per type of mistake, or a
flag for each type of mistake, and so on.
Data Exploration
Simple SQL queries and histograms can really allow the teacher get a first
overview of the class: what were the most common mistakes, the logic rules
causing the most problems? What was the average number of exercises per
student? Are there any student not finishing any exercise? The list goes on. To
understand better how students use the tool, how they practice and how they
come to master both the tool and logical proofs, we also analysed data,
focussing on the number of attempted exercises per student. In SODAS, the
population is partitioned into sets called symbolic objects. Our symbolic
objects were defined by the number of attempted exercises and were
characterized by the values taken for these newly calculated variables: the
number of successfully completed exercises, the average number of correct
steps per attempted exercise, the average number of mistakes per attempted
exercise. We obtained a number of tables to compare all these objects.
Association Rules
We used association rules to find mistakes often occurring together while
solving exercises. The purpose of looking for these associations is for the
teacher to ponder and, may be, to review the course material or emphasize
subtleties while explaining concepts to students. Thus, it makes sense to have
a support that is not too low.
Clustering and Visualization
We applied clustering to try and characterize students with difficulties. We
looked in particular at those who attempted an exercise without completing it
successfully. To do so, we performed clustering using this subpopulation,
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(i) k-means in TADA- Ed, and (ii) a combination of k-means and
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hierarchical clustering of Clementine. Because there is neither a fixed
number nor a fixed set of exercises to compare students, determining
Contd....
 Unit 11: Data
Mining

Note
a distance between individuals was not obvious. We calculated and used a
s
new variable: the total number of mistakes made per student in an exercise.
As a result, students with similar frequency of mistakes were put in the
same group. Histograms showing the different clusters revealed interesting
patterns. There are three clusters: 0 (red, on the left), 1 (green, in the middle)
and 4 (purple, on the right). From other windows (not shown), we know that
students in cluster 0 made many mistakes per exercise not finished, students
in cluster 1 made few mistakes and students in cluster 4 made an
intermediate number of mistakes. Students making many mistakes use also
many different logic rules while solving exercises; this is shown with the
Classification
vertical, almost solid lines.
We built decision trees to try and predict exam marks (for the question related
to formal proofs). The Decision Tree algorithm produces a tree-like
representation of the model it produces. From the tree it is then easy to
generate rules in the form IF condition THEN outcome. Using as a training
set the previous year of student data (mistakes, number of exercises,
difficulty of the exercises, number of concepts used in one exercise, level
reached) as well as the final mark obtained in the logic question), we can
build and use a decision tree that predicts the exam mark according to the
attributes.
Supporting Teachers and Learners
Pedagogical Information Extracted
The information extracted greatly assisted us as teachers to better understand
the cohort of learners. Whilst SQL queries and various histograms were used
during the course of the teaching semester to focus the following lecture on
problem areas, the more complex mining was left for reflection between
semesters. Symbolic data analysis revealed that if students attempt at least
two exercises, they are more likely to do more (probably overcoming the
initial barrier of use) and complete their exercises. In subsequent years we
required students to do at least 2 exercises as part of their assessment.
Mistakes that were associated together indicated to us that the very concept
of formal proofs (i.e. the structure of each element of the proof, as opposed to
the use of rules for instance) was a problem. In 2003, that portion of the
course was redesigned to take this problem into account and the role of
each part of the proof was emphasized. After the end of the semester,
mining for mistakes associations was conducted again. Surprisingly, results
did not change much (a slight decrease in support and confidence levels in
2003 followed by a slight increase in 2004). However, marks in the final exam
continued increasing. This leads us to think that making mistakes, especially
while using a training tool, is simply part of the learning process and was
supported by the fact that the number of completed exercises per student
increased in 2003 and 2004. The level of prediction seems to be much better
when the prediction is based on exercises (number, length, variety of rules)
rather than on mistakes made. This also supports the idea that mistakes are
part of the learning process, especially in a practice tool where mistakes are
not penalized.
Using data exploration and results from decision tree, one can infer that if
students do successfully 2 to 3 exercises for the topic, then they seem to have
grasped the concept of formal proof and are likely to perform well in the
exam question related to that topic. This finding is coherent with correlations
calculated between marks in the final exam and activity with the Logic Tutor
and with the general, human perception of tutors in this course. Therefore, a
sensible warning system could look as follows: Report to the lecturer- in-
charge students who have completedLOVELY PROFESSIONAL
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those students, display the histogram of rules used. Be proactive towards 1
these students, distinguishing those who use out the pop-up menu for logic
rules from the others.
Contd....
Business Intelligence

Note
s ITS with Proactive Feedback
Data mining findings can also be used to improve the tutoring system. We
implemented a function in Tada-Ed allowing the teacher to extract patterns
with a view to integrate them in the ITS from which the data was recorded.
Presently this functionality is available for Association Rule module. That is,
the teacher can extract any association rule. Rules are then saved in an XML
file and fed into the pedagogical module of the ITS. Along with the pattern,
the teacher can specify an URL that will be added to the feedback window
and where the teacher can design his/her own proactive feedback for that
particular sequence of mistakes C (which the student has not yet made).

(a) XML encoded patterns (b) Screen shot of mistake

viewer

The structure of the XML file is fairly simple and is shown in (a). For instance,
using our logic data, we extracted the rule saying that if a student makes
the mistakes “Invalid justification” followed by “Premise set incorrect” then
she/he is likely to make the mistake “Wrong number of references lines
given” in a later step (presently there is no restriction on the time window).
This rule has a support of 47% and a confidence of 74%. The teacher, when
saving the pattern, also entered an URL to be prompted to the student. The
pedagogical module of the Logic Tutor then reads the file and adds the rule
to its knowledge base. Then, when the student makes these two initial
mistakes, she/he will receive, in addition to the relevant feedback on that
mistake, an additional message in the same window (in a different colour)
advising him/her to consult the web page created by the teacher for this
particular sequence of mistakes.
Support for Student Reflection
Extracting information from a group of learners is also extremely relevant to
the learner themselves. The fact that learner reflection promotes learning is
widely acknowledged. The issue is how to support it well. A very useful way
to reflect on one’s learning is to look up what has been learned and what has
not yet been learned according to a set of learning goals, as well as the
difficulties currently encountered. We are seeking here to help learners to
compare their achievements and problems in regards to some important
patterns found in the class data. For instance, using a decision tree to predict
marks, the student can predict his/her performance according to his/her
achievements
1 so farthe
Discuss how and have theof
discovery time to rectify
different if needed.
patterns Heredifferent
through more work
needs
. to be done to assess how useful this prediction is for the student.
data mining algorithms and visualisation techniques suggest you a
simple pedagogical policy?
Questions:
2. Also discuss the behaviour of clustering and cluster
visualisation.
Source: books.google.co.in/books?isbn=1586035304

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 Unit 11: Data
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11.9 Note
s
Summary
• Data are any facts, numbers, or text that can be processed by a computer.
Today, organizations are accumulating vast and growing amounts of data in
different formats and different databases.
• Data mining is the practice of automatically searching large stores of data to
discover patterns and trends that go beyond simple analysis.
• Two widespread data mining methods for finding concealed patterns in data
are clustering and classification analysis.
• A common approach for classifiers is to use decisions trees to partition and
segment records.
• Data mining is utilised for a variety of reasons in both the personal and
public parts.
• One of the key matters raised by data mining technology is not an
enterprise or technological one, but a social one.
• Data Mining is a relatively new concept that has not completely matured.
Regardless of this, there are a number of industries that are already using it
on a normal basis.
• The concerns about the individual privacy have been increasing enormously
recently particularly when internet is booming with social networks, e-
commerce, forums, blogs etc.
• A data mining algorithm is a set of heuristics and calculations that creates a
data mining model from data. The algorithm first analyses the data you
provide, looking for specific types of patterns or trends and then creates the
data.

11.10 Keywords
Association algorithms: This type of algorithm finds correlations between
different attributes in a dataset.
Association models: Association models are used to find and characterize co-
occurrences.
Classification algorithms: This type of algorithm predicts one or more discrete
variables, based on the other attributes in the dataset.
Data: Data are any facts, numbers, or text that can be processed by a computer.
Data mining: Data mining is the practice of automatically searching large
stores of data to discover patterns and trends that go beyond simple analysis.
Data Mining Algorithm: A data mining algorithm is a set of heuristics and
calculations that creates a data mining model from data.
Network models: This type of model represents data by nodes and links.
Predictive models: These types of models predict how likely an event is to
occur. Regression: It is a statistical technique for estimating the relationships
among variables. Regression algorithms: This type of algorithm predicts one or
more continuous variables. Sequence analysis algorithms: This type summarizes
frequent sequences or episodes in data. Summary models: These models are
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Notes 11.11 Review Questions

1. What is data mining?

2. Define data, information and knowledge.
3. Explain the process of knowledge discovery.
4. What are the types of data mining tasks?
5. Discuss purpose of data mining.
6. Briefly explain the data mining approaches.
7. How you can use data mining in Pharmaceutical companies?
8. Elaborate the issues of data mining.
9. Describe the application of data mining.
10. What are the limitations of data mining?
11. Discuss in brief the data mining models.
12. What are data mining algorithms?

Answers: Self Assessment

1. Data mining 2. Data

3. Information 4. Knowledge
5. Data cleaning 6. Prediction
7. True 8. True
9. True 10. Data mining
11. Market segmentation 12. Network models
13. Association models 14. Data mining algorithm
15. Association algorithms

11.12 Further Readings

Books Carlo Vercellis (2011). “Business Intelligence: Data Mining and Optimization for
Decision Making”. John Wiley & Sons.
David Loshin (2012). “Business Intelligence: The Savvy Manager’s Guide”. Newnes.
Elizabeth Vitt, Michael Luckevich, Stacia Misner (2010). “Business Intelligence”.
O’Reilly Media, Inc.
Rajiv Sabhrwal, Irma Becerra-Fernandez (2010). “Business Intelligence”. John
Wiley & Sons.
Swain Scheps (2013). “Business Intelligence for Dummies”. Wiley.

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 Unit 11: Data
Mining

Note
s
Online links www.cs.uiuc.edu/~hanj/pdf/ency99.
pdf?
www.cs.uiuc.edu/homes/hanj/bk2/toc.pdf
www.stanford.edu/class/stats315b/Readings/DataMini
ng.pdf

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Note
s
Unit 12: Understanding Data Mining
Tools
CONTENTS

Objectives

Introductio

1. Data
Minin
g
Tools
in
SQL
Serve
r

1. D
a
t
a

M
i
n
i
n
g

W
i
z
Objectives a
r
After studying this
d unit, you will be able to:
• Identify
2. the
D data mining tools in SQL server
a
• Discuss about
t the mining structure
• Explain thea configuring algorithm parameters

M
Introductioni
n
Data mining isi the process of analysing data from different perspectives and
summarizing it n into useful information. This information can be used to increase
revenue, cuts costs,
g or both. Data mining software analyses relationships and
patterns in stored transaction data depending on the open-ended user queries. In
D learn about data mining tools. Data mining tools in SQL server
this Unit, you will
e Also the unit covers mining structure and models of mining
will be discussed.
s configuration algorithm parameters will be defined.
structure. Finally,
i
g
12.1 Data Miningn Tools in SQL Server
e
Microsoft SQL Server
r Analysis Services provides the following tools to create data
mining solutions:
3. S
Q
L
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r
v
e
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 Unit 12: Understanding Data Mining
Tools

• The Data Mining Wizard in SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) makes it very simple Note
to create mining structures and mining models, using either relational data or s
multidimensional data in cubes.

Notes In the wizard, you select data to use, and then request exact data mining
techniques, such as clustering, neural networks, or time sequence
• Model viewers are supplied in both SQL Server administrations Studio and
modelling.
SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT), for exploring your mining models after they
are created.

Did u know? You can browse models using viewers tailored to each
algorithm, or go deeper into analysis by using the model content viewer.
• The Prediction Query Builder is provided in both SQL Server administration
Studio and SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) to help you create prediction
queries.

Notes You can also test the accuracy of models against a holdout data set or
external data, or use cross-validation to assess the value of your data set.
• SQL Server Management Studio is the interface where you organize living
data mining solutions that have been established to an example of Analysis
Services. You can reprocess structure and models to update the data in them.
• SQL Server Integration Services includes tools that you can use to clean data,
to automate jobs such as creating predictions and updating models, and to
create text mining solutions.
Let us discuss more about the data mining tools in SQL Server.

12.1.1 Data Mining Wizard

The Data Mining Wizard in Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services starts every
time when you add a new mining structure to a data mining project. It helps you
choose a data source and set up a data source model view that defines the data to
be used for analysis, and then helps you create an initial model.

Starting the Data Mining Wizard

To use the Data Mining Wizard, you must have opened a solution in SQL Server
Data Tools (SSDT) that contains at least one data mining or OLAP project. Follow
these steps:
• If your solution is ready for data mining, you can right-click the Mining
Structures node in Solution Explorer and select New Mining Structure to
start the wizard.
• If your solution does not contain any existing projects, you can add a new data
mining project. To add a new project, from the File menu, select New, and
then select Project. Then chose the template, Analysis Services
Multidimensional and Data Mining Project.

Relational or OLAP Mining Model

The next decision to make is whether to use a relational data source, or to use an
OLAP mining model.
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Note
s

Notes The Data Mining Wizard branches into two paths at this point,
depending on whether your data source is relational or in a cube.
Choosing an Algorithm

Next step is to decide on which algorithm to use in processing your data.

!
CautionEach algorithm provided in Analysis Services has different features and
produces
different results, so this decision can be difficult to make.
You can experiment and try several different models before determining which
is most appropriate for your business problem.

Features of Data Mining Wizard

Data Mining Wizard provides these following features:

• Auto-detection of data types: The wizard will examine the uniqueness and
circulation of column values and then suggest the best data type, and suggest
a usage type for the data. You can override these proposals by choosing
values from a list.
• Suggestions for variables: You can click on a dialog box and start an analyser
that calculates correlations over the columns included in the model, and
determine if any columns are expected predictors of outcome attribute, given
the configuration of the form so far.
• Feature selection: Most algorithms will automatically detect columns that
are good predictors and use those preferentially. In columns that comprise
too many values, feature selection will be applied, to decrease the cardinality
of the data and improve the possibilities for finding a meaningful pattern.
• Automatic cube slicing: If your mining model is based on an OLAP data source,
the ability to slice the model by using cube attributes is automatically
provided.

12.1.2 Data Mining Designer

After you have created a data mining structure and mining model by utilising the
Data Mining Wizard, you can use the data mining Designer from either SQL Server
Data Tools (SSDT) or SQL Server administration Studio to work with living models
and structures. The designer includes devices for these tasks:
• Change the properties of mining structures, add columns and create column
aliases, change the binning procedure or expected distribution of values.
• Add new models to an existing structure; replicate models, change model
properties or metadata, or define filters on a mining model.
• Browse the patterns and rules inside the model; discover associations or
decision trees.
• Validate forms by creating lift charts, or analyse the profit curve for models.
Compare models using classification matrices, or validate a data set and its
models by using cross- validation.
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 Unit 12: Understanding Data Mining
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• Create propositions and content queries against existing mining models. Note
Build one-off queries, or set up queries to develop propositions for whole s
benches of external data.
12.1.3 SQL Server Management Studio

After you create and deploy mining forms to a server, you can use SQL Server
administration Studio to organise the Analysis Services database that hosts the
data mining items. You can also continue to continue jobs that use the model, such
as exploring the models, processing new data, and creating propositions.

Notes Management Studio also comprises query editors that you can use to
design and execute Data Mining Extensions (DMX) queries.

4. Integration Services Data Mining Tasks and

Transformations

SQL Server Integration Services provides many components that support data
mining.
Some tools in Integration Services are designed to help automate common data
mining tasks such as prediction, model building, and processing.

Example:
• Create an Integration Services package that automatically updates the
model every time the addition of new customers updates the dataset.
• Perform custom sampling of case records.
• Generate models passed on parameters automatically.
You can also use data mining in a package workflow, as an input to other
processes.

Example:
• To weight score for text mining use probability values generated by the
model.
• Automatically generate predictions based on prior data and use those
values to assess the validity of new data.
• To segment incoming customers by risk use logistic regression.

Self
1 Assessment
Model viewers are supplied in both SQL Server administrations
. Studio and
Fill in..................................................
the blanks:
2 The .................................. is provided in both SQL Server administrations
. Studio and SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT)

3 The ................................. in Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services starts

. every time when you add a new mining structure to a data mining project.

4 .................................... Services provides many components that support

. data mining.

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Note
s

Task Find out the difference between Mining Model Viewer and Mining
Accuracy Chart Tab?

12.2 Mining Structure

The mining structure defines the data from which mining models are constructed: it
specifies the source data outlook, the number and kind of columns, and an
optional partition into training and testing groups. A single mining structure can
support multiple mining models that share the identical domain. The following
diagram shows the connection of the data mining structure to the data source, and
to its constituent data mining models.
Figure 12.1: Connection of the Data Mining Structure to the
Data Source

Source: http://i.technet.microsoft.com/dynimg/IC13488.gif

The mining structure in the Figure 12.1 is based on a data source that comprises
multiple tables or views, connected on the CustomerID field. One table contains
data about customers, such as the region, age, earnings and gender, while the
associated nested table comprises multiple rows of additional data about each
customer, such as goods the customer has bought. The Figure 12.1 shows that
multiple models can be constructed on one mining structure, and that the models
can use different columns from the structure.
Here:
Model 1 uses CustomerID, Income, Age, Region, and filters the data on Region.
Model 2 uses CustomerID, Income, Age, Region and filters the data on Age.
Model 3 uses CustomerID, Age, Gender, and the nested table, with no filter.
As the models use different columns for input, and because two of the models also
restrict the data that is used in the model by applying a filter, the models might
have very different results even though they are based on the same data.

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Note
! s
CautionHere, the CustomerID column is required in all models because it is
the only
available column that can be used as the case key.
12.2.1 Defining a Mining Structure

Setting up a data mining structure includes the following steps:

• Defining a data source.
• Selecting columns of data to include in the structure and defining a case key.
• Define a key for the structure (including the key for the bested table, if
applicable).
• Specify whether the source data should be separate into a training set and
testing set or not (Optional).
• Process the structure.

Data Sources for Mining Structures

When you define a mining structure, you use columns that are available in an
existing data source view. A data source view is a distributed object that permits
you combines multiple data sources and uses them as a single source. The initial
data sources are not evident to consumer applications, and you can use the
properties of the data source view to modify data kinds, create aggregations, or
alias columns.
If you develop multiple mining models from the same mining structure, the models
can use distinct columns from the structure.

Example: You can create a single structure and then build distinct decision
tree and clustering models from it, with each form using distinct columns and
forecasting distinct attributes.
Also, each model can use the columns from the structure in different ways.

Example: Your data source view might comprise an Income column, which
you can bin in different ways for different models.

Mining Structure Columns

The building blocks of the mining structure are the mining structure
columns, which recount the data that the data source comprises. These columns
comprise data such as data type, content type, and how the data is distributed. The
mining structure does not comprise data about how columns are used for an exact
mining model, or about the kind of algorithm that is used to build a model; this
data is characterised in the mining model itself.
A mining structure can also comprise nested tables. A nested table
comprises a one-to-many relationship between the entity of a case and its
associated attributes.

Example: If the information that recounts the customer resident in one

table, and the customer’s purchase resides in another table, you can use nested
tables to blend the information into a single case.
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Note The customer identifier resident is the entity, and the purchases are the
s related attributes.
Dividing the Data into Training and Testing Sets

When you define the data for the mining structure, you can also specify that some of
the data be used for training, and some for testing. Therefore, it is no longer
necessary to separate your data in advance of creating a data mining structure.
Instead, while you create your model, you can specify that a certain percentage of
the data be held out for testing, and the rest used for training.

Enabling Drillthrough

You can add columns to the mining structure even if you do not plan to use the
column in a specific mining model. This is helpful if, for example, you desire to get
the e-mail locations of customers in a clustering model, without using the e-mail
address throughout the analysis method.

Processing Mining Structures

When you process a mining structure, Analysis Services creates a cache that stores
statistics about the data, information about how any continuous attributes are
discretized and other information that is later used by mining models.

Viewing Mining Structures

In SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT), you can use the Mining Structure tab of Data
Mining Designer to view the structure columns and their definitions.

Self Assessment

State whether the following statements are true or false:

5 A single mining structure can support multiple mining models that share
. the identical domain.

6 When you define a mining structure, you use columns that are available in
. an existing data source view.

7 The building blocks of the mining structure are the mining structure
. columns, which recount the data that the data source comprises.

8. A mining structure cannot comprise nested tables.

3. Configuring Algorithm Parameters

You can change the parameters supplied with the algorithms that you use to
construct data mining models to customize the results of the model. The algorithm
parameters supplied in Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services change much more
than just properties on the model, they can be used to fundamentally adjust the
way that data is processed, grouped, and displayed.

Example: You can use algorithm parameters to:

• Change the procedure of analysis, such as the clustering procedure.
• Control feature selection behaviour.

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• Identify the dimensions of datasets or the probability Note

of rules. s
• Control branching and deepness of decision
trees.

12.3.1 Change an Algorithm Parameter

1 On the Mining Models tab of Data Mining Designer in SQL Server Data Tools
. (SSDT), right-click the algorithm type and select Set Algorithm Parameters.
The Algorithm Parameters dialog box will open.
Figure 12.2: An algorithm Parameters dialog
box

Source:
http://media.techtarget.com/digitalguide/images/Misc/dm_6.gi
f2 In the Value column, set a new value for the algorithm that you want to
. change. If you do not enter a value in the Value column, Analysis Services
uses the default parameter value. The Range column describes the possible
values that you can enter.
3 Click OK. The algorithm parameter is set with the new value. The parameter
. change will not be reflected in the mining model until you reprocess the
model.
12.3.2 View the Parameters

To view the parameters used in an existing model:

• In SQL Server Management Studio, open a DMX Query
window.
• Type a query like this one:
select MINING_PARAMETERS
from $system.DMSCHEMA_MINING_MODELS
WHERE MODEL_NAME = ‘<model name>’

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Note Self
s Assessment
Fill in the blanks:
9. The ............................... supplied in Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services
change much more than just properties on the model.
10. On the Mining Models tab of Data Mining Designer in SQL Server Data
Tools (SSDT),
............................... the algorithm type and select Set Algorithm Parameters.

Case Python Powers Journyx

Study
Timesheet

J
ournyx Timesheet (tm) is a commercial application that provides time,
expense, and
project tracking. In 1996, Curt Finch, Journyx CEO and founder, was
working in the when he saw an opportunity to use the web to accurately
staffing industry
store employee timesheet
collect and
information.
Figure 1: Journyx Time Entry
Screen

The first version of Timesheet focused on collecting accurate cost information,

with an eye towards applying that data in the formulation of new project cost
projections. Since then, Timesheet has expanded considerably to facilitate
tracking of time, mileage, and expenses, not just for project management but
also for billing and payroll purposes. Optional modules are available for
paperless expense reporting, advanced user role management, automated
billing and payroll, and to facilitate system access for disconnected travelling
users. Today, Timesheet is platform-independent, flexible enough to be
reconfigured by customers to fit unique organizational needs and scales to
tens of thousands of users for the large enterprise.
From the Start
Journyx Timesheet has been using Python from the beginning. Curt Finch
chose Python initially on the recommendation of a friend, Steve Madere, who
had founded Dejanews.com (now a part of Google). Describing the rationale
for his choice, Curt said, “I looked at Java and C and came to the conclusion
that 1 line of Python is 10 lines of Java or 100 lines of C.
Contd....

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Developers write code at basically a constant rate so we chose Python which Note
s
was (and is) the highest level language I’ve ever seen that is also flexible
enough to be generally useful.”

Architecture
From the beginning, Timesheet was designed and implemented as a web
application. It uses three-tiered web application architecture with separate
layers for web presentation, business logic, and data storage. As time has
progressed, the application’s functionality has advanced considerably, and
Curt’s decision to use Python for an implementation language has proven to
be good choice. Python is currently used for all application logic in the
Timesheet application. This includes all code between the initial Apache
dispatch, where mod_python is employed to expedite interpreter
instantiation, through the application logic, and down to the point of call out
to the database transport layer. Timesheet uses not only the Python standard
library but also several independently developed open source Python
subsystems, such as PyXML and ActZero’s SOAP support. PyXML is used to
implement certain business rules and to develop jxAPI, which is a SOAP-based
API into the application logic. Work is in progress to extend this API to
define Web Services Description Language templates for the jxAPI functions.
The application currently builds and ships with Python 2.1.1. Timesheet also
incorporates several non-Python technologies. The Unix and Linux
distributions are packaged with the Apache HTTP server and PostgreSQL
database. The Timesheet distribution for Windows ships with an optional
Microsoft Desktop Engine (MSDE) database and integrates with Microsoft IIS.
Timesheet can be configured to use a variety of third-party databases.
Results
The Timesheet project has succeeded spectacularly, generating millions in
revenue and allowing Journyx to grow every year, even under the current
economic conditions. Journyx, like many of our customers, uses Timesheet
internally as a mission critical part of the company infrastructure. It is used
extensively for project tracking, billing, and payroll. To date, approximately
11 person-years have gone into the Journyx Timesheet product, resulting in
over one hundred fifty thousand lines of Python code. In developing Journyx,
the two greatest benefits of Python were the speed with which features could
be written and deployed, and its true write-once-run-anywhere cross-platform
capabilities. Journyx developers have found that the simplicity and clarity of
Python combine with its object- oriented properties to make it a very powerful
and productive language. Python’s rich standard library, which includes
modules for things like string manipulation and HTML generation, further
supports programmers in meeting aggressive development schedules.
Because of these properties of the language, Python has enabled Journyx to
add features more quickly than our competitors. We’ve been able to
implement SOAP/XML and WSDL support and extended other aspects of the
application’s functionality well ahead of competitive products. One of the
key enablers of this efficiency in maintenance and improvement is the
inherent clarity and readability of the Python language. Other important
factors are the vibrant and responsive Python development community, and
the high degree of backwards compatibility and stability we have seen as the
language design evolves over time. Python’s cross-platform standard
library and platform- independent byte code file format allow the
deployment of Python modules to any platform, regardless of which platform
the module was prepared on. This helped not only in avoiding per-platform
development overhead but also facilitates customer support for the Timesheet
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software product. For example, a patch module built on a Redhat 6.2 system
UNIVERSITY 5
can be sent to a customer for installation on Windows XP or any other
operation system without the need for cross-compilation or translation of any
kind.
Contd....
Business Intelligence

Note Question
s s:
1 How Python made it possible for Journyx to produce a flexible, feature-
. rich product for multiple platforms in less time?

2 Explain how Python becomes an important competitive advantage for

. Journyx Timesheet (tm)?
Source:
http://www.python.org/about/success/journyx/
12.4 Summary
• The Data Mining Wizard in SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) makes it very simple
to create mining structures and mining models, using either relational data or
multidimensional data in cubes.
• The Data Mining Wizard in Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services starts
every time when you add a new mining structure to a data mining project.
• After you create and deploy mining forms to a server, you can use SQL
Server administration Studio to organise the Analysis Services database that
hosts the data mining items.
• The mining structure defines the data from which mining models are
constructed: it specifies the source data outlook, the number and kind of
columns, and an optional partition into training and testing groups.
• You can change the parameters supplied with the algorithms that you use to
construct data mining models to customize the results of the model.
• On the Mining Models tab of Data Mining Designer in SQL Server Data Tools
(SSDT), right-click the algorithm type and select Set Algorithm Parameters.

5. Keywords
Data Mining Extensions (DMX): Data Mining Extensions (DMX) is a language that
you can use to create and work with data mining models in Microsoft SQL Server
Analysis Services.
Data Mining Wizard: The Data Mining Wizard in Microsoft SQL Server 2005
Analysis Services (SSAS) starts every time that you add a new mining structure to
a data mining project.
Mining structure: It defines the data from which mining models are constructed; it
specifies the source data outlook, the number and kind of columns, and an
optional partition into training and testing groups.
SQL Server Data Tools: SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) transforms database
development by introducing a ubiquitous, declarative model that spans all the
phases of database development and maintenance/update inside Visual Studio.

6. Review Questions
1 What tools does Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services provides to create
. data mining solutions?

2 What is Data Mining Wizard? Discuss the process in starting the Data
. Mining Wizard.
3 What are the features of Data Mining
. Wizard?

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4 What is the Data Mining Note

. Designer? s
5 Explain SQL Server Management
. Studio.
6 Write short note on integration services data mining tasks and
. transformations.
7 What is mining
. structure?
8 Discuss the connection of the data mining structure to the
. data source.
9 What are the data sources for mining
. structures?
10. Give steps for changing algorithm
parameter.

Answers: Self Assessment

1. SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) 2. Prediction Query
Builder
3. Data Mining Wizard 4. SQL Server
Integration
5. True 6. True
7. True 8. False
9. Algorithm parameters 10. Right-click
12.7 Further
Readings

Books Carlo Vercellis (2011). “Business Intelligence: Data Mining and

Optimization for Decision Making”. John Wiley & Sons.

David Loshin (2012). “Business Intelligence: The Savvy Manager’s

Guide”. Newnes.
Elizabeth Vitt, Michael Luckevich, Stacia Misner (2010). “Business
Intelligence”.
O’Reilly Media, Inc.
Rajiv Sabhrwal, Irma Becerra-Fernandez (2010). “Business
Intelligence”. John Wiley & Sons.
Swain Scheps (2013). “Business Intelligence for Dummies”. Wiley.

Online links www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/ba-data-mining-techni

ques/?
www.icsti.org/IMG/pdf/VTTDataMiningTools.
pdf?
www.web-datamining.net/tools/?

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Note
s
Unit 13: Creating Data Mining Queries and
Reports
CONTENTS
Objectives
Introductio
n
1. Predi
ction
Queri
es
1. B
a
s
i
c

P
r
e
d
i
c
t
i
o
n

Q
u
Objectives e
r
y
After studying this unit, you will be able to:
• D
Explain prediction queries
e
• Discuss about
s data mining extensions
i
Introductiong
n
Data Mining
2. Extensions
A (DMX) is a query language used for Data Mining Models
supported by dMicrosoft’s SQL Server Analysis Services product. Like SQL, it
supports a data ddefinition language, data manipulation language and a data query
language, all three
i with SQL-like syntax. Difference is that SQL statements
n
operate on relational tables while DMX statements operate on data mining
models. In this g
unit, you will learn about prediction queries like adding, singleton
and batch queries. Later on in this unit you will learn about data mining extensions
and statements-P data definition statements, data manipulation statements and
r
data query statements.
e
d
13.1 Prediction i Queries
c
The aim of a tusual data mining task is to use the mining model to make
predictions. i
o
n
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c
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Notes
Example: You might want to forecast the amount of expected downtime for
a certain cluster of servers, or develop a score that shows if segments of
customers are expected to reply to an advertising campaign or not. To do all these
things, you need to create a prediction query.

Functionally, there are distinct types of prediction queries supported in SQL

Server, depending on the type of inputs to the query. They are shown in Table
Table 13.1: Types of Prediction
13.1. Queries

Query Type Query Options

Singleto Use a singleton query when you want to predict outcomes for a single
n new case, or multiple new cases. You provide the input values
predictio directly in the query, and the query is executed as a single session.
n
queries
Batch Use batch predictions when you have external data that you want to
predictio feed into the model, to use as the basis for predictions. To make
ns predictions for an entire set of data, you map the data in the
external source to the columns in the model, and then specify the
type of predictive data you want to output.
The query for the entire dataset is executed in a single session,
making this option much more efficient than sending multiple
repeated queries.
Time Use a time series query when you want to predict a value over some
Series number of future steps. SQL Server Data Mining also provides the
prediction following functionality in time series queries:
s • You can extend an existing model by adding new data as part of
the query, and make predictions based on the composite series.
• You can apply an existing model to a new data series by
using the REPLACE_MODEL_CASES option.
Source: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh213169.aspx
• You can perform cross-prediction.

13.1.1 Basic Prediction Query Design

When you create a prediction, you normally supply some piece of new information
and ask the model to develop a prediction based on the new data.
• In a batch prediction query, you map the model to an external source of data
by using a prediction join.
• In a singleton prediction query, you type one or more values to use as inputs.

Did u know? You can create multiple propositions using a singleton prediction
query. However, if you need to create many propositions, performance is
better when you use a batch query.
Both singleton and batch prediction queries use the PREDICTION JOIN syntax to
define the new data. The difference is in how the input side of the prediction join
is specified.
• In a batch prediction query, the data comes from an external data source that
is specified by using the OPENQUERY syntax.
• In a singleton prediction query, the data is supplied inline as part of the
query.

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Note 13.1.2 Adding Prediction

s Functions
In addition to predicting a value, you can customize a prediction query to return
various types of information that are related to the proposition.

Example: If the prediction creates a list of goods to recommend to a

customer, you might furthermore desire to return the probability for each
proposition, so that you can rank them and present only the peak
recommendations to the client.
To do this, you add prediction purposes to the query. Each model or query
type supports specific functions.

Example: Clustering models support special prediction purposes that supply

extra details about the clusters created by the model, while time series models
have functions that assess difference over time.

3. Singleton Query

The first step is to use the SELECT FROM <model> PREDICTION JOIN (DMX) in a
singleton prediction query.

Example: The following is an example of the singleton statement:

SELECT <select list> FROM [<mining model name>]
NATURAL PREDICTION JOIN
(SELECT ‘<value>’ AS [<column>], ...)
AS [<input alias>]

Here, the first line of the code defines the columns from the mining model that the
query should return, and specifies the mining model that is used to generate the
prediction:
SELECT <select list> FROM [<mining model name>]

The next lines of the code define the characteristics of the customer that you use to
create a prediction:
NATURAL PREDICTION JOIN
(SELECT ‘<value>’ AS [<column>], ...)
AS [<input alias>]
ORDER BY <expression>

If you specify NATURAL PREDICTION JOIN, the server matches each column from
the model to a column from the input, based on column names. If column names do
not match, the columns are ignored.

4. To Create a Singleton Prediction Query

1 In Object Explorer, right-click the instance of Analysis Services, point to New
. Query, and then click DMX. Query Editor opens and contains a new, blank
query.
2 Copy the example of the singleton statement into the
. blank query.
3 Replace the
. following:
<select list>
with:

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Note
[Car Buyer] AS Buyer, PredictHistogram([Car Buyer]) AS Statistics s

The AS statement is used to alias columns returned by the query. The

PredictHistogram function returns statistics about the prediction, including
the probability and the support.
4 Replace the
. following:
[<mining model>]
with:
[Decision Tree]

5 Replace the following:

. (SELECT ‘<value>’ AS [<column name>], ...) AS t

with:

(SELECT 35 AS [Age],
‘5-10 Miles’ AS [Commute Distance],
‘1’ AS [House Owner ],
2 AS [Number Bikes Owned],
2 AS [Total Children]) AS t
The complete statement should now be as
follows:
SELECT
[Car Buyer] AS Buyer,
PredictHistogram([Car Buyer]) AS
Statistics
FROM
[Decision Tree]
NATURAL PREDICTION JOIN
(SELECT 35 AS [Age],
‘5-10 Miles’ AS [Commute Distance],
‘1’ AS [House Owner],
2 AS [Number Bikes Owned],
6 On the File[Total
2 AS menu, Children])
click Save AS t
. DMXQuery1.dmx As.
7 In the Save As dialog box, browse to the appropriate folder, and
. name the fi le Singleton_Query.dmx.

8 On the toolbar, click the Execute

. button.

!
CautionThe query returns a prediction about whether a customer with the
specified
characteristics will purchase a car, as well as statistics about that prediction.

13.1.5 Batch Query

The next step is to use the SELECT FROM <model> PREDICTION JOIN (DMX)
in a batch prediction query.

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Notes
Example: The following is an example of a batch statement:
SELECT TOP <number> <select list>
FROM [<mining model name>]
PREDICTION JOIN
OPENQUERY([<datasource>],’<SELECT statement>’)
AS [<input alias>]
ON <on clause, mapping,>
WHERE <where clause, boolean expression,>
ORDER BY <expression>

Let us see which line of code is useful for what purpose. Here, the first two lines of the
code define the columns from mining model that the query returns, as well as the
name of the mining model that is used to generate the prediction in the saw as
singleton query return.

Notes The TOP <number> statement specifies that the query will only return
the number or the results specified by <number>.
The next lines of the code define the source data that the predictions are based on:
OPENQUERY([<datasource>],’<SELECT statement>’)
AS [<input alias>]

The next line defines the mapping between the source columns in the mining
model and the columns in the source data:
ON <column mappings>

The WHERE clause filters the results returned by the prediction query:
WHERE <where clause, boolean expression,>

The last (and optional) line of the code specifies the column that the results will be
ordered by:
ORDER BY <expression> [DESC|ASC]

Use ORDER BY in combination with the TOP <number> statement, to filter the
results that are returned.

Example: In this prediction you will return the top ten car buyers, ordered
by the probability of the prediction being correct. You can use [DESC|ASC] to
control the order in which the results are displayed.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:

1. The aim of a usual data mining task is to use the mining model to
make
2 .......................
When you create . a prediction, you normally supply some piece of new
. information and ask the model to develop a prediction based on
the ....................... .
3 Both ....................... and ....................... prediction queries use the
. PREDICTION JOIN syntax to define the new data.

4 In addition to predicting a value, you can customize a prediction query to

. return various types of information that are related to the ....................... .

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5 In ....................... -, right-click the instance of Analysis Services, point to New Note

. Query, and then click DMX. s

2. Data Mining Extensions (DMX)

Data Mining Extensions (DMX) is a language that you can use to create and work
with data mining models in Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services. You can also
use DMX to create the structure of new data mining models, to train these models,
and to browse, manage, and predict against them. It is composed of Data Definition
Language (DDL) statements, Data Manipulation Language (DML) statements, and
functions and operators.

1. DMX Statements

You can use DMX statements to create, process, delete, copy and predict against
data mining models. There are three types of statements in DMX: data definition
statements, data manipulation statements and data query statements.

Task Compare and contrast the data manipulation statements and data query
statements.
13.2.2 Data Defi nition Statements

Data definition statements are used in DMX to create and define new mining
structures and models, to import and export mining models and mining structures,
and to drop existing models from a database. Data definition statements in DMX
are part of the data definition language (DDL). You can perform the following
tasks with the data definition statements in DMX:
• Create a mining structure by using the CREATE MINING STRUCTURE
statement
• Add a mining model to the mining structure by using the ALTER MINING
STRUCTURE statement.
• Create a mining model and associated mining structure simultaneously by
using the CREATE MINING MODEL
• Export a mining model and associated mining structure to a file by using
the EXPORT statement.
• Import a mining model and associated mining structure from a file that is
created by the EXPORT statement by using the IMPORT statement.
• Copy the structure of an existing mining model into a new model, and train
it with the same data, by using the SELECT INTO statement.
• Remove a mining model from a database by using the DROP MINING MODEL
statement.

13.2.3 Data Manipulation Statements

Data manipulation statements are used in DMX to work with existing mining
models, to browse the models and to create predictions against them. Data
manipulation statements in DMX are part of the data manipulation language
(DML). You can perform the following tasks with the data manipulation statements
in DMX:
• Train a mining model by using the INSERT INTO statement.
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Note • Extend the SELECT statement to browse the information that is calculated
s during model training and stored in the data mining model, such as statistics
of the source data.
• Create predictions that are based on an existing mining model by using the
PREDICTION JOIN clause of the SELECT statement.
• Remove all the trained data from a model or a structure by using the
DELETE (DMX) statement.

13.2.4 DMX Query Fundamentals

DMX functions can be used to obtain information that is discovered during the
training of your models, and to calculate new information. One can also use these
functions for many purposes, including to return statistics that describe the
underlying data or the accuracy of a prediction, or to return an expanded
explanation of a prediction.

Self Assessment

State whether the following statements are true or false:

6 Data manipulation language (DML) is a language that you can use to create
. and work with data mining models in Microsoft SQL Server Analysis
Services.
7 You can use DMX statements to create process, delete, copy and predict
. against data mining models.

8 Data definition statements are used in DMX to create and define, to import
. and export, and to drop existing models from a database.

9 Data manipulation statements in DMX are not a part of the Data

. Manipulation Language (DML).

10. DMX functions can be used to obtain information that is discovered during the
training of your models, and to calculate new information.

Case Federal Agency Data Mining

Study
Reporting
(a)Short title
This section may be cited as the “Federal Agency Data Mining Reporting Act of
2007”.
(b)Definitions
In this section:
(1) Data mining: The term “data mining” means a program involving
pattern-based queries, searches, or other analyses of 1 or more
electronic databases, where—
(A) A department or agency of the Federal Government, or a non-
Federal entity acting on behalf of the Federal Government, is
conducting the queries, searches, or other analyses to discover or
locate a predictive pattern or anomaly indicative of terrorist or
criminal activity on the part of any individual or individuals;

Contd....

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(B) The queries, searches, or other analyses are not subject-based and do Note
s
not use personal identifiers of a specific individual, or inputs
associated with a specific individual or group of individuals, to
retrieve information from the database or databases; and

(C) The purpose of the queries, searches, or other analyses is not solely—

(i) The detection of fraud, waste, or abuse in a Government

agency or program; or

(ii) The security of a Government computer system.

(2) Database: The term “database” does not include telephone directories,
news reporting, and information publicly available to any member of the
public without payment of a fee, or databases of judicial and
administrative opinions or other legal research sources.

(c) Reports on data mining activities by Federal agencies

(1) Requirement for report: The head of each department or agency of the
Federal Government that is engaged in any activity to use or develop
data mining shall submit a report to Congress on all such activities of
the department or agency under the jurisdiction of that official. The
report shall be produced in coordination with the privacy officer of that
department or agency, if applicable, and shall be made available to the
public, except for an annex described in subparagraph (C).

(2) Content of report: Each report submitted under subparagraph (A) shall
include, for each activity to use or develop data mining, the following
information:

(A) A thorough description of the data mining activity, its goals, and,
where appropriate, the target dates for the deployment of the
data mining activity.

(B) A thorough description of the data mining technology that is being

used or will be used, including the basis for determining whether a
particular pattern or anomaly is indicative of terrorist or criminal
activity.

(C) A thorough description of the data sources that are being or will
be used.

(D) An assessment of the efficacy or likely efficacy of the data mining

activity in providing accurate information consistent with and
valuable to the stated goals and plans for the use or development
of the data mining activity.

(E) An assessment of the impact or likely impact of the implementation

of the data mining activity on the privacy and civil liberties of
individuals, including a thorough description of the actions that
are being taken or will be taken with regard to the property,
privacy, or other rights or privileges of any individual or
individuals as a result of the implementation of the data mining
activity.

(F) A list and analysis of the laws and regulations that govern the
information being or to be collected, reviewed, gathered, analysed,
or used in conjunction with the data mining activity, to the extent
applicable in the context of the data mining activity.

(G) A thorough discussion LOVELY

of the policies, procedures, and guidelines
PROFESSIONAL 18
that are in place or that are to be
UNIVERSITY developed and applied in the use 5
of such data mining activity in order to—
Contd....
Business Intelligence

Note (i) protect the privacy and due process rights of individuals, such
s as redress procedures; and

(ii) ensure that only accurate and complete information is

collected, reviewed, gathered, analysed, or used, and guard
against any harmful consequences of potential inaccuracies.
(3) Annex
(A) In general: A report under sub-paragraph (A) shall include in an
annex any necessary—
(i) classified information;
(ii) law enforcement sensitive information;
(iii) proprietary business information; or
(iv) trade secrets (as that term is defined in section 1839 of title
18).
(B) Availability: Any annex described in clause (i)—
(i) shall be available, as appropriate, and consistent with the
National Security Act of 1947 [50 U.S.C. 3001 et seq.], to
the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs, the Committee on the Judiciary, the Select
Committee on Intelligence, the Committee on
Appropriations, and the Committee on Banking, Housing, and
Urban Affairs of the Senate and the Committee on Homeland
Security, the Committee on the Judiciary, the Permanent
Select Committee on Intelligence, the Committee on
Appropriations, and the Committee on Financial Services of
the House of Representatives; and
(ii) shall not be made available to the public.
(4) Time for report: Each report required under
sub-paragraph (A) - shall be—
(A) submitted not later than 180 days after
August 3, 2007; and
(B) updated not less frequently than annually thereafter, to include any
activity to use or develop data mining engaged in after the date of
the prior report submitted under sub-paragraph (A).
Questions:
1. Define data mining according to the act.
2. What is the content of report?
Source: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2000ee-3

13.3 Summary
• The aim of a usual data mining task is to use the mining model to make
predictions.
• Functionally, there are distinct types of prediction queries supported in
SQL Server, depending on the type of inputs to the query.
• When you create a prediction, you normally supply some piece of new
information and ask the model to develop a prediction based on the new
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• Both singleton and batch prediction queries use the PREDICTION JOIN
syntax to define the new data.
 Unit 13: Creating Data Mining Queries
and Reports

• In addition to predicting a value, you can customize a prediction query to Note

return various types of information that are related to the proposition. s

• Data Mining Extensions (DMX) is a language that you can use to create and
work with data mining models in Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services.
• There are three types of statements in DMX: data definition statements, data
manipulation statements and data query statements.
• Data definition statements in DMX are part of the Data Definition Language
(DDL).
•
Data manipulation statements are used in DMX to work with existing mining
models, to browse the models and to create predictions against them.
•
DMX functions can be used to obtain information that is discovered during the
training of your models, and to calculate new information.
4. Keywords

Data Definition Language (DDL): Data Definition Language (DDL) describes the
portion of SQL that allows you to create, alter, and destroy database objects.
Data Manipulation Language (DML): A data manipulation language (DML) is a
family of syntax elements similar to a computer programming language used for
inserting, deleting and updating data in a database.
Data Manipulation Statements: Data manipulation statements are used in DMX
to work with existing mining models, to browse the models and to create
predictions against them.
Data Mining Extensions (DMX): Data Mining Extensions (DMX) is a language
that you can use to create and work with data mining models in Microsoft SQL
Server Analysis Services.

5. Review Questions
1. What is prediction?
2. What are the types of prediction queries?
3. Discuss about basic prediction query design.
4. Write short note on adding prediction functions.
5. Give examples for singleton query.
6. Elaborate the steps to create a singleton prediction query.
7. What is batch query?
8. Explain the concept of Data Mining Extensions (DMX).
9. What is the use of DMX statements?
10. Write short note on data definition statements.
11. Discuss about data manipulation statements.
12. Provide Self
Answers: fundamentals of DMX query.
Assessment
2. New
1. Predictions data

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Business Intelligence

Notes 3. Singleton, batch 4. Propositio

n
5. Object Explorer 6. False
7. True 8. True
9. False 10. True

13.6 Further
Readings

Books Carlo Vercellis (2011). “Business Intelligence: Data Mining and

Optimization for Decision Making”. John Wiley & Sons.

David Loshin (2012). “Business Intelligence: The Savvy Manager’s

Guide”. Newnes.
Elizabeth Vitt, Michael Luckevich, Stacia Misner (2010). “Business
Intelligence”.
O’Reilly Media, Inc.
Rajiv Sabhrwal, Irma Becerra-Fernandez (2010). “Business
Intelligence”. John Wiley & Sons.
Swain Scheps (2013). “Business Intelligence for Dummies”. Wiley.

Online links docs.oracle.com/cd/B28359_01/datamine.111/b28129/

process.htm
www.personal.psu.edu/glh10/ist110/topic/topic07/topic07_
09.html
technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms174949.aspx

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 Unit 14: Reporting
Tools

Unit 14: Reporting Note

s
Tools
CONTENTS

Objectives

Introductio

1. Repo
rting
Tool
Funct
ionali
ties

2. Repor
ting
Servi
ces
Using
SQL
Serve
r
Objectives
1. A
r
After studying this
c unit, you will be able to:
• h functionalities of reporting tools
Identify the
i
• Discuss thet reporting services using SQL Server
e
• Explain thec analysis services using SQL Server
t
Introductionu
r
e
Reporting software is used to generate human-readable reports from various data
sources. Business operations reporting and dashboard are the most common
2. W
applications for a reporting tool. Market share-leading reporting solution is from
o
Microsoft Microsoft
r SQL Server Reporting Services is the solution of choice for
many businessesk that require enterprise reporting capabilities. In this unit, you will
learn about functionalities
i of reporting tools. Later on in this unit, reporting
services using SQL
n server will be discussed with appropriate screenshots. Finally,
g using SQL server will be introduced.
analysis services

w
14.1 Reporting Tool Functionalities
i
t
Following are the reporting tool functionalities:
h
1 Front End: Data is ineffective if all it does is sitting in the data warehouse. As
. an outcome,
S the production layer is of very high significance.
Q
2 Data source connection capabilities: There are two types of data
L
. sources:
O The relationship
S
database
O The OLAP
e multidimensional data
source
r
v
e
r
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e
p
o
r
t
Business Intelligence

Note 3 Scheduling and distribution capabilities: The reporting tool must have
s . scheduling and distribution capabilities.

Notes Weekly reports are scheduled to run on Monday morning, and the
resulting reports are distributed to the senior executives either by email or
4 web publishing.
Security Features: Because reporting tools are aimed towards a number of
. users, making sure people see only what they are supposed to see is
important.

Did u know? Security can reside at the report level, folder level, column level or
row level. Generally all established reporting tools have these capabilities.
5 Customization: Provide easy way to pre-set the reports to look exactly the
. way that adheres to the corporate standard.

6 Export capabilities: The most common export needs are to Excel, to a flat file,
. and to PDF.

!
CautionFor Excel, if the situation wants, you will want to verify that the reporting
format,
not just the data itself, will be exported out to Excel.

Example: The BIRT reporting features like report layout, data access, and
scripting support are used to create reports that use the custom reporting URLs
from Rational Asset Manager.

Self Assessment

1 Fill in
There arethe blanks:
two types of data sources: the ....................... and the OLAP
. multidimensional data source.

2. ....................... is used to generate human-readable reports from various data

sources.

14.2 Reporting Services Using SQL Server

Microsoft has come up with its own reporting service, in conjunction with SQL
server database to insert the Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services [SSRS]. It
supplies projects of type Business Intelligence task therefore endowing not only
large companies but also medium-sized and small businesses also to earn from its
advantages. This helps in better business decisions too.

SSRS supplies some extensions towards the data rendering, consignment and
security of reports thereby allowing it to have a higher programmable ability. This
innovative approach enables reports to be created with lesser development effort
[compared to other reporting services], along with customized security choices.

SSRS is a comprehensive reporting platform whereby accounts are retained on

a centralized web server (or set of servers). Because accounts are centralized,
users run accounts from one location. Having centralized accounts also means
that report deployment is rather simplified.

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 Unit 14: Reporting
Tools

14.2.1 Note
Architecture s
After using SSRS, the architecture is just like a small operating system. The
Report Manager is the central person who acts as a manager to decide when the
reports will be scheduled to run along with maintaining the user profiles on the
report server.
On Report Server all the reports reside. All other activities pertaining to SSRS is
done at report server.

Did u know? Report Designer is a graphical tool that is hosted within the
Microsoft Visual Studio IDE. It provides tabbed windows for Data, Layout, and
Preview that allow you to design a report interactively.

14.2.2 Working with SQL Server Reporting Services

After installing SQL server reporting services on your system, start the Visual
studio IDE. Go to File -> New Project, and you will be shown a prompt with ‘New
project’. Select Business Intelligence Projects from the Project Types. As this is
our first project, use ReportFigure
Project14.1:
Wizard.
New Project
Window

Source: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/books/Start_SSRS/1.jpg

Specify the name of the project as well as the location where the project will be
placed. On click of OK, you will be prompted with a report wizard screen as shown
in Figure 14.2. Click on Next to follow up to the next screen.

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Business Intelligence

Note Figure 14.2: Report Wizard

s Screen

Source: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/books/Start_SSRS/2.jpg

On the next screen, you will need to create a data source for the report. Just click
on Edit to specify the server name and the database then will be used from that
server. The connection string is automatically created.
Figure 14.3: Select Data
Source

Source: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/books/Start_SSRS/3.jpg

On click of Next, you will be prompted with the Query Builder screen. Here you can
add tables, select columns as well as execute the SQL statements.

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 Unit 14: Reporting
Tools

Figure 14.4: Query Builder Note

s

Source:
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/books/Start_SSRS/5.jpg
Figure 14.5: Add a table

Source:
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/books/Start_SSRS/6.jpg

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Business Intelligence

Note Figure 14.6: Query Builder with sample

s data

Source: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/books/Start_SSRS/7.jpg

Based on what query suits your report, create the SQL statement and proceed
forward. On next click, you will be prompted with the report type screen. You can
choose as Tabular or matrix. To make things simpler, use the Tabular format.

Figure 14.7: Chose Report Type

Source:
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/books/Start_SSRS/8.jpg

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 Unit 14: Reporting
Tools

On next click, you will come to the table designing screen, wherein you will be Note
prompted to display the fields as Page, Group or Details. s

Figure 14.8: Design the table

Source: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/books/Start_SSRS/9.jpg

On next click, you will be prompted with the Table Style prompt, which contains a
list to choose. Select any one from them.

Figure 14.9: Choose table style

Source:
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/books/Start_SSRS/10.jpg

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Business Intelligence

Note On next, you will be prompted with the deployment details screen. Specify the
s report server name (normally it is http://localhost/ReportServer). If you are using
another server then you can specify the location as
http://servername/ReportServer . Also give the deployment folder.
Figure 14.10: Choose Deployment
Location

Source: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/books/Start_SSRS/11.jpg

Finally, the Report name needs to be entered and done; you got your first
report in place.
Figure 14.11: Complete the report

Source:
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/books/Start_SSRS/12.jpg

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 Unit 14: Reporting
Tools

You can preview the report to change the data specifications if required. Once Note
done, press Ctrl+F5 and the deployment of the report will occur. s

Task Prepare a presentation on the steps of generating report using SQL server
2008.
Self Assessment

State whether the following statements are true

or false:
3 SSRS supplies some extensions towards the data rendering, consignment and
. security of reports thereby allowing it to have a higher programmable
ability.
4 SSRS is a comprehensive reporting platform whereby accounts are retained
. on a centralized web server (or set of servers).

5 The Report Manager is the central person who acts as a manager to decide
. when the reports will be scheduled to run along with maintaining the user
profiles on the report server.

14.3 Analysis Services Using SQL Server

For business intelligence applications Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services
(SSAS) delivers Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) and data mining
functionality. OLAP is supported by Analysis Services by letting you design, create,
and manage multidimensional structures that contain data aggregated from other
data sources, such as relational databases.
Analytical solutions are rapidly evolving mission critical for many companies. This
has led to an explosion of data retained in these systems and a need to support
bigger and quicker solutions that can be created and evolved quickly and
effectively.
An Analysis Services instance is deployed in a mode that supports a memory and
storage architecture that is optimized for all kinds of solutions. You can also
install PowerPivot for SharePoint, which has its own internally set server mode.
Figure 14.12: Analysis Service
Each server mode is independent of the other mode; each one supports a type of
analytical database that only runs in its modality.
ion
icat
Fu
Repl T e ll-
Sext
h a rc
Databa
Be r rvic
e

se
r ok
Se

Not
n Ser

Engine
s

ifica
vice
tio

Integrati
on
Services
Reportin Analysi
g s
Service Service
s s

Source:
http://i.msdn.microsoft.com/dynimg/IC6000.gif

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Business Intelligence

Note
s

Notes You cannot use SQL Server Management Studio to develop, manage,
or query multidimensional data sets that were built by using PowerPivot for
Excel.
Self
Assessment

Fill in the blanks:

6 OLAP is supported by .................... by letting you design, create,
. and manage multidimensional structures.

7 An Analysis Services instance is deployed in a mode that supports

. a .................... architecture that is optimized for all kinds of solutions.

Case Microsoft SQL Server

Study
2008

G
lobal aviation fuel companies supplying airlines in the current fragile
economic
climate are highly sensitised to potential airline collapses. The liability
of unpaidor even un-invoiced deliveries can significantly harm the
invoices
within an extremely competitive market. Getting this information into the
profit margins
hands of the people who can make some sound commercial decisions was
paramount for one such company.

Following a successful pilot in 2007 and the rapidly changed economy in Q4

2008, BMN was engaged to turn around an analysis and reporting tool within
a matter of weeks. By using the right tools and approach, the results have
been astonishingly productive with a solution that puts the power in the
hands of the end user.
Solution:
The principal project objective was to enable the creation, management, and
delivery of business intelligence reports for the analysis of customer account
open debt and priced un-invoiced deliveries from all account receivable
systems.
This required the consolidation of data feeds from multiple regional
accounting systems into a single data warehouse against which data cubes
and their dependent reports could be developed.
A SQL Server 2005 Business Intelligence solution was implemented to meet
the customer requirements of accuracy, flexibility and performance.
Features:
• Centralised credit exposure reporting environment allowing clear
identification and analysis of account information by account holders
• A complex data consolidation procedure to ensure data is up-to-date
for global account managers
Contd....

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 Unit 14: Reporting
Tools

Note
• Reports run daily and are easily available to users who are travelling
s
for them to down load and view
• Timing of the extracts takes into account when updates are posted to
ensure the data is as up to date as possible
• Reports can be exported in multiple file formats to provide accessibility
for further analysis offline
• Optimized data extract procedures and schedules to ensure reporting
does not impact on other accounting system functions

Deliverables:
• SQL Server Integration Service components to manage the data
extracts and scheduling from multiple disparate systems
• SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) components providing a foundation
for Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) analysis and data mining. Used
to create data-cubes of summarised, pre-calculated data for complex
reporting solutions
• SQL Server Reporting Services components for report generation based
upon data gathered from the data-cubes. This is the means by which
users select, parameterise and run pre-defined reports

Question:

Analyse the case and provide any other solution to the problem.
Source: http://www.bmn.ltd.uk/CaseStudy_SQL_Reporting.aspx

14.4 Summary
• Following are the reporting tool functionalities: front end, data source
connection capabilities, scheduling and distribution capabilities, security
features, customization and export capabilities.
• There are two types of data sources: The relationship database and The
OLAP multidimensional data source.
• Microsoft has come up with its own reporting service, in conjunction with
SQL server database to insert the Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services
[SSRS].
• SSRS is a comprehensive reporting platform whereby accounts are retained
on a centralized web server (or set of servers).
• After using SSRS, the architecture is just like a small operating system. The
Report Manager is the central person who acts as a manager to decide when
the reports will be scheduled to run along with maintaining the user profiles
on the report server.
• Report Designer is a graphical tool that is hosted within the Microsoft Visual
Studio IDE. It provides tabbed windows for Data, Layout, and Preview that
allow you to design a report interactively.
• After installing SQL server reporting services on your system, start the Visual
studio IDE. Go to File -> New Project, and you will be shown a prompt with
‘New project’.

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Business Intelligence

Note 14.5
s
Keywords
Ad Hoc Reporting: Ad Hoc Reporting allows end users to easily build their own
reports and modify existing ones with little to no training.

Embedded Reporting: It enables organizations to embed reports directly into

business applications and web portals, enabling users to consume reports within
the context of their business process.

Interactive Sorting: Applying sort capabilities to a report enable users to sort the
data by any of the columns the report contains in ascending or descending order.

Matrix: A format that supports row and column groups, and which can display
aggregated summary data in the cells where row groups and column groups
intersect one another, similarly to a pivot table or crosstab.

Report Designer: Report Designer is a graphical tool that is hosted within the
Microsoft Visual Studio IDE.

Table: A tabular format in which data is displayed in rows and columns. You can
create a hierarchy of rows to reflect groupings in your data and display group
totals.

UDM: It provides an intermediate logical layer between the physical relational

database used as the data source and the proprietary cube and dimension
structures that are used to resolve user queries.

14.6 Review Questions

1. Discuss about reporting tool functionalities.
2. “After using SSRS, the architecture is just like a small operating system”.
Elaborate.
3. Discuss about working with SQL Server Reporting Services.
4. Explain about the analysis Services Using SQL Server.
1. Relationship database 2. Reporting
Answers: Self Assessment software
3. True 4. True
5. True 6. Analysis Services
7. Memory and storage

14.7 Further
Readings

Books Carlo Vercellis (2011). “Business Intelligence: Data Mining and

Optimization for Decision Making”. John Wiley & Sons.

David Loshin (2012). “Business Intelligence: The Savvy Manager’s

Guide”. Newnes.
Elizabeth Vitt, Michael Luckevich, Stacia Misner (2010). “Business
Intelligence”.
O’Reilly Media, Inc.

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 Unit 14: Reporting
Tools

Rajiv Sabhrwal, Irma Becerra-Fernandez (2010). “Business Note

Intelligence”. John Wiley & Sons. s

Swain Scheps (2013). “Business Intelligence for

Dummies”. Wiley.

Online links msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/

ms159106.aspx
ww.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/solutions.../business.../
reporting.aspx
www.accelebrate.com/sql_training/ssrs_tutorial.htm

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144411 For Enquiry: +91-
1824-300360
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