Engaging Visualization and “Mobile Now”(?)

Daniel Mockler

Manager, Business Intelligence

Reporting & Analysis, FRP

2013 AAIR SIG Forum

About QUT

• Campuses at Gardens Point, Kelvin Grove and Caboolture

• Approx. 45000 students including 6000 international

• Vice Chancellor Professor Peter Coaldrake

• Work just completed on the new Science and Engineering Centre in the south-east corner of GP campus.

• Will bring together teaching and research in science, technology, engineering and mathematics in a world-leading model and dynamic community hub.

About Business Intelligence @ QUT

• Data Warehouse founded in 2002. Recent redevelopment of the warehouse using Kimball methodologies

• Current team structure includes Information Architect and BI Manager, directly supported by a team of six, working across requirements gathering, Data Modelling, ETL and Report development

• Also supported by the Information Analysis team as well as other members of Reporting and Analysis

• Primary Applications :

• Business Objects Data Services,

• Business Objects XI3.1 and BI4

New version of Business Objects

The Need To Evolve

• New version of Business Objects provides access to new capabilities and product enhancements

• Needed to stay in line with ongoing support

• Running on same version (XI 3.1) since 2006

• However, vastly different prospect when considering the regularity of Patching and Service Pack updates in the new version

DEV QA UAT Release

Benefits of a Stable Environment

• Current environment stable, less exposure to new features, but less problematic

• BI4 demonstrating an aggressive release cycle • Currently at Support Pack 7 since go live late

2011 each with numerous patches • No timeline for release dates of major or minor

releases • Bigger issue when Mobile comes into the

equation (handling App releases – more later)

Upgrade Required to Embrace New Capabilities

Upgrade Project Underway

• Substantial conversion work required to upgrade

• Provided an opportunity to : • Consider Reporting

Portal redesign • Prototype new

functionality • Test drive new version

• Allow time for product bug fixing and release of stable version of toolset

Provided opportunity for holistic consideration of overall Reporting environment.

Redevelop Reporting Portal

• New QUT External Website and Intranet • Time to revamp the existing Corporate Reporting website and

move towards a University wide central Reporting Portal

• Corporate look and feel, identify redundant items and/or group more effectively.

• Existing Corporate Dashboard in Business Objects Environment already meeting Strategic Reporting needs so could be used as a template

• Provide an entry point to the BO environment, but with immediate Dashboards presenting meaningful and current insights at a glance.

Xcelsius Dashboarding

BO product with historic question marks • Previous internal prototyping not convincing • Licensing issues – no integration • Roadmap not clear

Reconsider now that future more defined • Product has a solid place in SAP’s roadmap (finally) • Class leading visualizations • Identify an effective strategy to work within license limitations

Initial Web Design and Xcelsius Prototypes Built

Development

• Update of existing PL/SQL Web code to reflect corporate look and feel

• Enhanced menu system • Removed redundancy • Integrated Dashboard using

Flash (Xcelsius)

Data Warehouse Integral to Dashboard Development

• “You are married to your Data Warehouse, but only dating your Visualization software”

• Leverage existing tried and true data • Use BO semantic layer to guide extract development • Data Warehouse used to create an XML data mart used to store

source code and metadata to build raw data files • Data Services (ETL Tool) used to pull it all together – Extracting,

Transforming and Dumping, in this case, to create XML output files used to feed Xcelsius

• Integrate with existing scheduling capabilities to ensure data is always fresh (but not refreshable)

Initial Suite of Reports Completed in Three Months

• Initial dashboard developed reasonably quickly. Design used as the template for further development.

• Workload shared around team to ensure broad exposure and cross-skilling

• Limited drill down capabilities, pure ‘Dashboards’, in most cases.

Research Dashboard needed to provide drilling capabilities, pushing the boundaries in the current architecture

Xcelsius Demonstration

Mobile BI

• “By 2015, over 50 percent of mobile BI users will rely exclusively on mobile devices for insight delivery and will grow BI users by 20 percent” – Source: Gartner Inc.

• “Design for Mobile first” – touted in various streams, conferences, Twitter, forums.

• Beware of marketing hype surrounding new products – be careful what you take on board

• Road traveled to date is evolving and far from complete, but enlightening

• Identify your clients, define use cases

Variety of Tools Available

Many cloud solutions in play providing good self-learning and prototyping opportunities.

RoamBI • Great tool to rapidly deploy mobile reports with

immediate WOW factor • Server licensing and integration capabilities • One major flaw – iOS only • Hard to sell a solution that meets what in most cases is

the majority of the user base, but not all.

Other Players

• Enterprise BI Providers (Oracle, IBM, Microsoft), Niche Players (Tableau, Yellowfin) and others (Exxova,….)

• All options to consider… time consuming to try them all • Many different flavours, of essentially the same ice cream

Our Own Backyard

• SAP Mobile solution options • SAP BI • Explorer

• Licensing limitations – or no licenses

• SAP assisted with a prototype license option

SAP BI for Mobile

• Make use of existing semantic layer and reporting tools

• Sales pitch – Author once, consume everywhere (not quite true)

• Opportunity for reuse of existing reports with some modifications for device

• Immediate results, and not just iOS. Android App available now, with Microsoft App in the pipeline

Development of Mobile BI Reports

• Met with key users and designed and developed a suite of reports

• Reports intended to prototype capabilities and generate interest.

• Demonstrated at Annual Leadership forum – interest peaked

• Ongoing requests for access

Analysis with SAP Explorer

• Data Exploration tool - with Mobile option • Useful tool for exposing data to Analytical Power Users • Some limitations

Mobile BI Demonstration

Toolset Options – Reporting, Mobile, Dashboarding

• Gartner Recommendation: “Select the mobile BI tool according to the organization’s required capabilities, and don’t be restricted to the incumbent vendor if it fails to fulfill your needs. To meet your requirements, consider the addition of a pure-play mobile BI vendor, to augment the existing BI Platform” – Critical Capabilities for Mobile BI, 2012

• Desktop still the majority – Tablet is in hand, but in the majority of cases, the

desktop is the place where people spend their time • A target Market does exist and depending on the organization, this may vary in

size but still likely be capped • What is the future of Apps? (or is it the future of Web Apps??)

Nice to have flexibility of choice, but; More Cost, More Development, More Support

Where to Now?

• Mobile BI is not traditional BI

o User needs are different o App’s are different o Attention span is limited o Ease of access and fast response is demanded o BUT – Benefits can be great

• Development and support with the App release cycle • Will tablets evolve into laptops?!

Questions

Daniel Mockler Business Intelligence Manager Dept of Reporting and Analysis Division of Finance & Resource Planning Ph: 07 3138 2899 Email: daniel.mockler@qut.edu.au