On the Front Line: Integrating BI
into Custom Applications
A crucial group of users is those on the front
line, whether they're on an assembly line or at
a point-of-sale kiosk with a customer. These
employees typically don't even view reports,
much less perform any sort of analysis. These
workers access data through tools they use
every day, such as a machine they manage or
a kiosk that's also
a cash register. For
workers such as
these, integrating
data from the
warehouse directly
into day-to-day
operations makes
perfect sense;
they can use BI
without knowing
they're doing so,
and yet the business achieves great
benefits.
In the case of a point-of-sale application, data from the warehouse could be mined to provide suggestions for cross-selling that's far from the
standard, "Would you like fries with that?"
For example, data mining gives employees
the ability to recommend to customers the
products most often sold together with what they're purchasing now, based on all past
sales. Or, based on a series of questions, a
clerk might recommend a product to meet
the needs of a customer who isn't sure what
he wants. For an employee taking phone
orders from existing customers or salespeople
in the field, applications could easily show
a customer's past sales history and margin
compared to the average for all customers.
You can provide this level of custom
application integration in a variety of ways.
You can embed reports from Reporting
Services in applications, users can access data
directly by using a data access library, and
you can render controls in applications that
display data. The integration of the .NET
Framework throughout SQL Server 2005
makes it especially powerful for working
with custom applications.
Data warehousing is powerful because a
single warehouse can support so many different kinds of users through different tools.
The same data can be rendered in a variety
of ways so that it meets the needs of each
user group, thus delivering on the promise
of pervasive BI by incorporating accessible
data throughout the business.
End of Article
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