Giving the Right BI Tool to the Right User

Computerworld - Nearly anyone involved in business intelligence technology can recall a horror story that involved giving users too many freedoms with BI tools. Indeed, of any technology that IT is involved with, BI might be the most difficult to deploy when it comes to putting the right tools in the right hands so that the right data is delivered at just the right time.

For instance, three years ago, San Antonio-based Valero Energy Corp. had an array of BI tools because it had gone through multiple mergers and acquisitions. The options included systems from Cognos Inc. and Hyperion Solutions Corp., as well as Crystal Reports, which is now owned by Business Objects SA. A pitfall, says Kirk Hewitt, director of reporting and financial systems at the $82 billion refiner, was that users were running reports off different versions of the data.

Somebody might take data from the data warehouse, load it onto a Crystal Reports server and do their reporting off the server, he says. But they might not do an update every morning, so all the data in that report was not consistent with what was in the warehouse the previous night.

Valero took measures to solve that problem in 2004, when it began a two-year project to consolidate its BI architecture. That effort included standardizing on SAP Business Information Warehouse (BW), SAP ERP software and an Oracle data warehouse. Valero also moved all report- and query-building functions into the IT department and chose one front-end tool  Information Builders Inc.s WebFocus  as well as the online analytical processing (OLAP) capability in SAP BW.

Now, although users can slice and dice and drill down into data using WebFocus, theyre using reports built by the IT group and comparing data that has been qualified and structured by IT. All reporting originates from information services; we no longer have reporting pockets in the business, Hewitt says. That ensures that were aware of what the requirements are, that the requests make sense within our infrastructure and that the data is available on a timely and accurate basis.

Some of the People, Some of the Time
Valero isnt the only company thats moving from what might be considered the Wild West era of BI to a more controlled and sophisticated approach. As companies realize the potential of BI implementations, theyre also learning how many things can go wrong if they dont standardize tools, work with users on how they want their business intelligence delivered, coordinate with them on creating queries and reports, and ensure that everyone is working off the same set of correctly structured data.