Introduction
As a Reader of these articles
I want to understand what they are about
So that I know whether I should keep reading
Hello
When I embarked on my AgileBI journey I didn’t understand how much of a journey it would be.
This series of articles is aimed at capturing the learning I have gather over this journey so far, in the hope that it will make your journey faster and more fun. I won’t say easier because in my experience any major change involves a fair amount of being uncomfortable and exposes constant challenges.
I also know that I have only touched the surface of AgileBI, and with every engagement I have I discover a new challenge and ideally a new solution for that challenge. So my aim is to provide Concepts, Processes and Templates that enables you to focus on the unkown areas, rather than struggling with the areas that have been explored before.
In my head there are six major areas that I can summarise the many facets of the AgileBI approach into:
Other Blogs from this category.
BI Problems – Data Requirements
BUSINESS USER BUSINESS ANALYST The Scenario? An analyst asks business users what they require to be delivered. The business user articulates what they require and the analyst documents this in a standard requirements document template. But when the solution is...
ODE & 3CPO – Talking multiple languages
When we decided to start building ODE we knew a few things already. One of those things was that most of our customers already had data warehousing technology.
They had already invested in Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, SAS, Teradata, Informatica or any of the other raft of data warehouse repositories and ELT technologies that are abound in the market place.
We also knew that it would be a big decision on their part to throw out this technology and implement the technology we decided to pick to be able to use ODE and gain the AgileBI benefits that it provides.
ODE – The start of a journey
About two years ago we started a journey into the world of AgileBI. It all started out of frustration (as most journeys do), frustration about the magic sauce.
The magic sauce was the reason why one data warehouse project would be a raving success and the next a ‘meh’. It was often the reason that after delivering a raving success and then returning 12 months later I would find the data warehouse had become a ‘meh’. By that I mean not updated, not well managed and not delivering to the stakeholders expectations.
The little things I love about YellowfinBI #5
User Guide Videos! Typically I dislike youtube videos and prefer to follow the tutorials to get something done. But when I was using the Yellowfin Append Sub Query functionality in anger the other day I just couldn't get it to do what I wanted, even as I followed the...
The little things I love about YellowfinBI #4
Subqueries! Often you want to manipulate the data you are using to get a report just the way the user wants. And often this requires you to do sub queries on the data you are using (for me it was creating columns for my measures based on offset periods, so I could...
The little things I love about YellowfinBI #3
Up to date and easy to find documentation! One of the coolest things about Yellowfin is that they do releases every month which includes squashed bugs and a raft of smaller new features, as well as point releases every six months or so, that typically introduce major...
The little things I love about YellowfinBI #2
Making the impact of editing the semantic layers visible. When you edit a semantic layer that is being used by users, there is a high chance that you are going to effect the Dashboards and Reports they are using. Why? Because you are changing the underlying layer that...
The little things I love about YellowfinBI #1
Additive and Semi Additive Measures! When creating measures in your semantic layer (called Views in Yellowfin, Universes in BO, Information Maps in SAS, RPD in OBIEE etc) its important to be able to define your measures as additive or semi additive to ensure they...
Yellowfin makes changing view names seamless
One of the frustrations I have with many BI products I have used is that they often state all their components are fully integrated. But when you go to use it in anger you find gaps that increase the effort required to do simple things. Often its around metadata...