Efficiency required in BI

For business intelligence (BI) projects to work at their optimum level, any data quality issues that crop up have to be tackled quickly and efficiently, writes Experian.

This is according to an advice piece on the SmartData Collective Web site, which suggested that data profiling should be conducted in the early stages of such an initiative in order to identify potentially high-risk areas.

It went on to explain that this is an important step in making sure such projects work out in the way they are intended to. "Data quality issues make it difficult to integrate data into the analytical environment and can make user reports worthless," the report advised.

The next meeting of Cambridge Network's popular IT & Infrastructure special interest group in November will focus on BI: alerting and querying integrated low-level process data to drive down costs and catch service failures faster, says Cambridge Network.

Speakers include Youssef Hamadi of Microsoft, who will talk about The Smart Workflow Foundation. He will explain how modern mathematical programming tools can be efficiently embedded in a workflow engine to optimise business decisions.

Joining him will be Angela Spicer of Zap Technology, talking about the BI landscape and how improved integration of process data is changing the way companies use BI; and Richard Jones, director of technology at Anglia Business Solutions, whose presentation will be on Web services for BI.

SuccessFactors unveiled a new Calculator in the Cloud service that is said to allow users to pull together analytic mashups with data from its human resources software suite as well as from other software-as-a-service applications reveals PC World.

The capability is made possible by SuccessFactors' recent acquisition of Danish BI vendor YouCalc. Terms were not disclosed. The deal is the latest by SuccessFactors following its purchases of Inform and Cubetree.

SuccessFactors' Business Execution Software Suite contains a range of modules covering areas such as compensation management, employee training, goal management and workforce planning. The company says the new Calculator service will allow users to conduct real-time analysis of their business, including 'what-if' scenarios, using a combination of metrics, such as employee satisfaction rates crossed with the current backlog of sales leads.