Business Intelligence Use with Ease

What makes a BI platform easy to use for IT users?

Factors that make BI easier for the IT department to manage and maintain include:

• Web-based deployments

• An intuitive and appealing User Interface (UI)

• In-memory analytics

• The ability to automate regular activities, including report scheduling, as well as exception and alert-based reporting

• Ability to easily combine data from different data sources

• Ability to easily connect to an expansive range of data sources and types

• Ease of deployment/installation

• Ease of embedding and integrating with third party applications

• Ease of upgrade/migration

• The ability to easily scale to meet changing reporting needs

• The ability to easily answer ad-hoc queries to allow IT to do more with less and deliver more BI and better serve the business

• Ease of dashboard and report creation

• Training specific to user role and job function

• Ease of data segmentation and security of data: The ability to restrict data access based on user groups and robust user authentication processes

What makes a BI platform easy to use for Business users?

Factors that make BI easier for business users to consume and utilize effectively include:

• Reducing the number of clicks it takes for business users to reach desired results/insights

• Speed of report delivery – excessive wait times result in frustration and user drop-off

• A metadata layer to shield users from underlying complexities

• Easy drag and drop report building

• Ability to independently interact and manipulate data: Easy drill through and drill down options

• Ability to share insights and stay up-to-date via collaborative features and native mobile applications

• Intuitive data visualizations to help understand and consume BI content – The ability to easily and quickly derive actionable business insights from the data presented in reports

1. Data visualizations can encourage user take-up and enable users to glean better business insights from data analysis. While this is obviously true, complex data visualizations are a doubled-edged sword, with the ability to distract and detract from the consumption of data analysis. The key to effective data visualization, analysis, and deeper insights is to make it easy by keeping it simple. This ensures that the data, not the chart or graph, remains the center of focus. Stephen Arnold in his article – Ease of Use: A Barrier to Business Intelligence Adoption – toes a similar line in relation to fancy UI and data visualizations, asserting that “Eye candy may not have the caloric value needed. I prefer a system that combines both rigor and ease of use.” Also, take heed of the irreverent modern-day data visualization expert and aficionado, Stephen Few, and his philosophy espoused in Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data: “An effective dashboard [or report] is the product not of cute gauges, meters, and traffic lights, but rather of informed design: more science than art, more simplicity than dazzle. It is, above all else, about communication.” Poor data visualization leads to user frustration, misuse, abuse, distrust, and ultimately, abandonment. Great data analysis, through highly intuitive data visualizations, leads to satisfied, active and informed users, and remarkable ROI.

• The ability to personalize settings, functions and features to enhance both perceived and actual usefulness

• Training specific to user role and job function

• An intuitive and appealing UI

• The ability of the BI solution to “work as expected and [be] similar to another tool with which a user has experience” (such as a Web-browser) – BeyeNETWORK report

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