Dataception

Self-Serve Data Preparation and Augmented Data Prep Go Hand in Hand! I was talking to a friend the other day and she shared with me her experience at a recent business intelligence conference. She was a bit confused by some of the terminology and we spent a few minutes parsing the terms and talking about the concept of self-serve data preparation. She was confused by the fact that self-serve data prep and augmented data preparation are often mentioned in the same discussion. “If something is self-serve,” she said. “How can it be augmented? Self-serve seems to me to mean that a person can do it alone without assistance.” She considers ‘augmenting’ to be assisting. Well, in some ways she is correct. But, let me tell you what I told her. Augmented Data Preparation  is designed to provide guidance, recommendations and auto-suggestions so that a user can work alone to get sophisticated results in a simple, intuitive, self-serve environment. Self-Serve Data Preparation  allo

Social BI Guides Administrators by Highlighting the Type of Content Users Want! Social networks and social media affect the lives of consumers and business users alike. Everyone knows them, and everyone uses them. Every aspect of modern life involves sharing and social interaction, Imagine an environment where business users can access a business intelligence and analysis portal and see popular data to rate, share and comment. This type of sharing can optimize resources by allowing users to access reports, dashboards and data that might be just what they need to complete a task or analysis. When you implement social media and social networking within the Business Intelligence environment business users can share, rate, discuss and learn from others. With  Social BI , organizations will see the emergence of power users who take a creative, insightful approach to data analysis. Just as social media users can ‘Like’ or ‘Share’ a provocative post from another user, a social bu

Self-Serve Data Preparation Takes the Headache Out of Data Analytics! Self-Serve Data Preparation (aka augmented data preparation) is all about efficiency and the presentation of sophisticated data preparation tools in an easy-to-use environment. The idea behind self-service data preparation is to give the average business user the ability to prepare, use, report on and share data without the assistance of IT staff or analysts, thereby making their jobs easier and making every team member more of an asset to the organization. Business users love  Self-Serve Data Preparation  because they can control data elements, and the volume and timing, perform data preparation and test theories and hypotheses by prototyping on their own. No one likes to be restricted to complex tools or forced to wait for programmers or data scientists. Give your business users access to crucial data and connect them to data sources so they can mash up and integrate data in a single, one-stop, inter

Self-Serve Data Preparation Takes the Headache Out of Data Analytics! Self-Serve Data Preparation (aka augmented data preparation) is all about efficiency and the presentation of sophisticated data preparation tools in an easy-to-use environment. The idea behind self-service data preparation is to give the average business user the ability to prepare, use, report on and share data without the assistance of IT staff or analysts, thereby making their jobs easier and making every team member more of an asset to the organization. Business users love  Self-Serve Data Preparation  because they can control data elements, and the volume and timing, perform data preparation and test theories and hypotheses by prototyping on their own. No one likes to be restricted to complex tools or forced to wait for programmers or data scientists. Give your business users access to crucial data and connect them to data sources so they can mash up and integrate data in a single, one-stop, inter

Can Business Intelligence for CRM Help Attract and Retain Customers? Customer service and customer satisfaction are the backbone of customer relationships. In an effort to ensure customer satisfaction and retention, businesses spend a lot of time trying to understand buying behavior, customer expectations for product support, website support and product and service variety, as well as gaps in product and service offerings. If an organization can accurately monitor and measure customer service factors and customer satisfaction, it is easier to resolve issues and capitalize on opportunities and to anticipate customer needs and fill market gaps. The goal is always to attract new customers, retain existing customers and obtain those all important client references. Business Intelligence for CRM  is crucial to business success. Your competitors have already embraced metrics and KPI for customer relationship management to provide objective metrics and understand what tasks and ac

Need Analytics for Business Users AND Data Scientists? No Problem! Does your business intelligence solution provide true advanced analytics capabilities? Can your BI tool satisfy the needs of business users, data scientists and IT staff? That may seem like a tall order but with the right business intelligence software, you can provide predictive analytics for business users, including assisted predictive modeling that walks users through the analytical process and allows them to achieve the best results without a sophisticated knowledge of data analytical techniques. You can transform those business users into Citizen Data Scientists! Plug n’ play predictive and forecasting tools help businesses to create Citizen Data Scientists by enabling the average business user to leverage sophisticated predictive algorithms without the expertise and skill of a trained data scientist, so users who are not statisticians or predictive algorithm experts, can leverage Self-Service Plug n’ Pl

Does Your BI Tool Easily Connect to ERP and Other Crucial Software? Today’s business enterprise does not want to settle. If you plan to implement or upgrade your business intelligence solution, you would understandably expect to be able to use the other solutions your business users depend upon. Best-of-breed or enterprise solutions like Tally® for accounting and financial management, or SAP or Navision for enterprise-wide management are just such examples of software and solutions you would want to integrate and include in business intelligence and advanced analytics. So, if you are in the market for a new or upgraded BI tool, you definitely need to consider the cost and time required to implement and, equally importantly, to connect and integrate data from other crucial applications and solutions so that you can easily access, use and analyze data within the  Business Intelligence Tool . Your business intelligence and augmented analytics solution should take a comprehensive

Does Business Intelligence for Small Business Really Exist? Just because a business is small, that doesn’t’ mean they are exempt from the problems of larger organizations, nor does it mean they have any less need to monitor and manage data and to understand results and plan for the future. If you are small business owner or manage and you think business intelligence for small business is out of your grasp because of cost or complexity, you will be pleased to know that BI for small business can and does exist and it is cost-effective and easy to implement and use. If it is to be successful, a small business must constantly explore opportunities for growth and market and competitive optimization. No matter the size of the organization, no business manager wants to spend money needlessly and no business wants to operate in an environment of confusion or guess at results and the potential for future success. Even in the smallest business environment, your competition may inc

Can Business Users Adopt Assisted Predictive Modeling? Assisted predictive modeling is no longer the sole domain of data scientists and IT staff. With the right predictive analytics tools, your business users can accurately plan and forecast results and share data to build a dependable picture of the future for your organization, and for each team, division and individual. Plug n’ Play Predictive Analysis  can truly provide predictive analytics for business users and predictive analytics can benefit organizations in many ways. Whether you want to find out how best to acquire and retain customers, what new products and services your customers want, how to price a product, where to open a new location, or how your customer purchasing behavior is changing, predictive analysis can help you understand historical patterns and use your data and results to more accurately predict the future. In the past, business users struggled to understand the relationship between their roles and

Can My Business Get a Business Intelligence Solution for Tally Users? If you work in business, you use technology and software. If you use software, you have most likely come up against a software ‘silo’; one of those frustrating tools that you love for what it can do and hate for how restricted it makes you feel. You can’t integrate data or tasks with other crucial systems and you live in a world of workarounds. If you are a Tally® user, you probably love the solution! Accounting, financial tasks, Tally handles it all, including ad-hoc data mining and visualization. But, you need more. Your reporting needs are never-ending, and the need for ad hoc data mining and visualization is enormous. Your top executives need to monitor summary results and key performance indicators, and sales managers need information on weekly sales, targets, and receivables. Standard reports aren’t enough. You need new reports and formats all the time and you need mobile access to data and integra

Is Self-Serve Data Preparation Really Possible? Your business users are ready to do the job! They have a lot of data spread across the enterprise in various data repositories and forms and they want to pull it all together and analyze the data to get the answers to the questions you ask them every day. But, preparing that data is not easy. In the old days, team members would reach into a file cabinet and pull out folders with the right information. They would pour over the numbers and the data and draw conclusions and then make a plan or provide a report. Sometimes the data was old and sometimes the conclusions they drew were incorrect or based on biased opinion. Today,  Self-Serve Data Preparation  can provide business users with the tools they need to find and prepare the data they will need to answer those crucial questions and to do all of that without the assistance of an already overburdened IT staff. Data preparation does not have to be difficult. Now your users

Business Intelligence for Healthcare Allows Business Users to Manage Results! Every industry and type of business function can use clear, concise business intelligence. Analytics for healthcare can help your organization to plan and forecast and to find the root cause of problems and capitalize on opportunities. The healthcare industry is under more scrutiny today than any other single industry. Whether your enterprise is a medical practice, a single hospital or an enterprise with multiple regional facilities or an urgent care, ambulance or home nursing care practice or a health insurance provider or healthcare software solutions enterprise, your business is more complicated today than ever before! In order to make confident decisions and mitigate risk, your enterprise must understand and attend to privacy laws, information security, health care practice regulations, patient records and requirements, practice management, staff management, training, financial stability, f

Analytics Translator? Citizen Data Scientist? What is the Difference? There is a new business role on the horizon and, at first glance, it may seem very much like a role that was introduced a few short years ago. This new enterprise role is known as an  ‘Analytics Translator’  and, while there is some confusion regarding the distinction between this role and the newly minted  Citizen Data Scientist  or  Citizen Analyst , there are some subtle but important differences. In a previous article ( What is an Analytics Translator and Why is the Role Important to Your Organization? ), we discussed the definition of an Analytics Translator. Here, we will discuss the role of Citizen Data Scientist and Analytics Translator and how they differ. To understand these roles, let’s look first at the somewhat more familiar role of Citizen Data Scientist (AKA Citizen Analyst). What is a Citizen Data Scientist (Citizen Analyst)? Gartner defines a  Citizen Data Scientist  as ‘a person w

Can Augmented Data Discovery Make a Difference in My Organization? There are so many new terms in the business intelligence and advanced analytics domain. So, what is augmented data discovery, and why is it important for your enterprise? Augmented Data Discovery (aka Smart Data Discovery), takes the enterprise beyond data monitoring and helps users discover the more subtle yet crucial factors that affect business success. It identifies hidden issues and patterns within the data so the organization can address challenges, capitalize on competitive and market advantages and plan for the future with more confidence. There are a couple of components to the augmented data discovery continuum. First, there is  Augmented Data Preparation  This process helps users access data integrated from varied data repositories and sources in a single interface, so they can test theories and hypotheses. These tools give users access to crucial data and Information and connect to data sources,

Can One BI Tool and Solution Guarantee User Access and Appropriate Security? I have a few pet peeves but every one of my team members knows ONE of these pet peeves all too well. I HATE spending time and resources on endless report customization and data sharing that never quite makes it to every team member. I hate it when everyone isn’t on the same page! But, I don’t have the time to run to every office and check on what team members are using to make decisions. I did find a  Business Intelligence Tool  that helps me by giving me the peace of mind of knowing that every team member has access to the same reports, data controls and access and can, therefore, share and understand information AS a team and make appropriate decisions. The analytics tool I have now provides fine grain access controls so we can develop reports and roll them out to every team member ONCE to provide a uniform, clear, intuitive environment with appropriate access rights by region, territory, role,

Can Business Intelligence for Telecommunication Be Implemented Easily? The telecommunications industry is complex and requires attention to numerous factors including security compliance, industry standards, customer satisfaction, market competition, technology evolution, staffing, and more. Business intelligence for telecom allows the organization and its business users to access data integrated from disparate sources and to use analytics for telecommunication to leverage out-of-the-box features including sophisticated, advanced data discovery tools that are easy enough for every business user to adopt and utilize. KPI for Telecom  provides the opportunity to establish and manage key performance indicators (KPIs) that ensure objective metrics and measurement of activities, tasks and factors that affect business success. A  Reporting Tool for Telecommunication  should be designed to support the industry, its business functions and needs. To the extent that a business int

Does Your Business Culture Support Data Analytics and Data-Driven Action? Data analytics is not just for day-to-day business intelligence. These days, pretty much every business has some form of data analytics software. If your organization has embraced data democratization, you are probably encouraging business users to use BI analytics and, hopefully, your senior executives, middle managers and data scientists are using these BI analytics tools for strategic initiatives, as well. In order to align the tasks and activities of the organization to achieve goals and objectives, the enterprise must have an overarching vision of how best to cascade  Business Intelligence Analytics Software  and how to use and share the analysis to make the best decisions and to examine and understand what the data is telling the user. Gartner research suggests, ‘To make this collaboration happen, business and IT must work together on vision, strategy, roles, and metrics. Everyone is going to have

Augmented Analytics and Advanced Data Discovery for Business Users! Augmented analytics can help your business users to find and understand critical data and to do their jobs more effectively. Without the knowledge of a data scientist or an IT professional, business users can perform advanced analytics, using features that guide and make recommendations at every step so that data is prepared, viewed and analyzed in a way that ensures clarity and a comprehensive understanding of trends, patterns, and data sensitivity and success thresholds. Advanced Data Discovery  software must provide appropriate access and security, mobile scalability and performance and guides and auto-suggestions, that will allow  Smart Data Discovery  and allow users to find the right data and to leverage that data to anticipate problems and capitalize on opportunities without a misstep or delay. No organization can afford to hire a large team of data professionals and business users should not be expected to

Can Plug & Play Predictive Analytics Help Business Users Function Effectively? Plug & Play Predictive Analytics is not an exotic process that is limited to data scientists or IT staff. Plug & play predictive analysis is so named because it really is a plug and play process. This type of predictive analytics tool is designed to be accessible and usable by business users. In today’s fast-paced, competitive business landscape, no enterprise can afford to wait for clear, concise information. No team member can be expected to achieve peak performance if they have to wait for business intelligence and clear analysis and information. Often, the process of submitting predictive analytics requests can be cumbersome and much is lost in the translation. Users wait for data, only to find that the data is incomplete or out-of-date or that they forgot certain parameters or critical factors and that they must start again. A good  Predictive Analytics Tool  offers  Assisted Predict

How Can Assistive Predictive Modeling Help My Business Users? Assistive Predictive Modeling allows business users to leverage a self-serve advanced analytical tool and to enjoy complex, sophisticated forecasting and business predictions in a simple, user-friendly dashboard environment – all without the skills of an analyst, data scientist or IT professional. Predictive Analytics  for business users incorporates analytical and forecasting techniques with easy-to-use tools to guide them through recommended techniques and report formats and ensure that the methods and reports they choose are appropriate to the type of data and information they need. If you are wondering how and why predictive analytics software has expanded into the self-serve business user market, the reason is simple. Every business is operating in a rapidly changing competitive environment and market. In order to achieve goals and objectives and perform well in their respective roles, business users need to analy