Most
store managers start their day by viewing online reports showing how their particular
store is doing compared to the other stores in their district and to other stores
companywide. These reports are simple, static reports and the managers can flip
through them quickly. This is close to being suitable for a scorecard, but the reports
contain more detailed information than is normally found in a scorecard scenario.
Reports do not have to be static. Interactive reports provide tremendous flexibility
by allowing end users to narrow the scope through parameters by selecting values
from drop-down list boxes. In addition, reports can provide drill-down capabilities,
either by linking to other reports or providing expanding and collapsing regions
directly in the report. Adding such interactivity allows end users to answer many
questions themselves without having to learn complex analytic applications or how
to perform their own queries.
Analytic Applications
Analytic applications are specialized tools that enabled detailed analysis on
data in a warehouse. In this book I specifically about tools that interact with
Analysis Services, the cube-building engine Microsoft provides with SQL
Server. Surprisingly, most readers will already be using the most popular analytic
application, Microsoft Excel. Excel has had the capability to interact with Analysis
Services cubes for some time, but Excel 2007 makes a huge leap forward in the
capabilities and usability of Excel as a cube browsing tool.
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