The key general categories of business intelligence applications are:

 Spreadsheets
 Online analytical processing (OLAP)
 Data mining
 Data warehouse
 Data cleansing

 Spreadsheets
is a file made of rows and columns that help sort data, arrange data easily, and
calculate numerical data. What makes a spreadsheet software program unique
is its ability to calculate values using mathematical formulas and the data
in cells. A good example of how a spreadsheet may be utilized is creating an
overview of your bank's balance.

Spreadsheet overview
Below is a basic example of what a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet looks like, as well
as all the important features of a spreadsheet highlighted.
In the above example, this spreadsheet is listing three different
checks, the date, their description, and the value of each check.
These values are then added together to get the total of $162.00 in
cell D6. That value is subtracted from the check balance to give an
available $361.00 in cell D8.

Difference between a workbook, worksheet, and

spreadsheet
Because the terms spreadsheet, workbook, and worksheet are so similar, there
can be a lot of confusion when trying to understand their differences. When you
open Microsoft Excel (a spreadsheet program), you're opening a workbook. A
workbook can contain one or more different worksheets that can be accessed
through the tabs at the bottom of the worksheet your currently viewing. What's
often most confusing is that a worksheet is synonymous with a spreadsheet. In
other words, a spreadsheet and worksheet mean the same thing. However, most
people only refer to the program as a spreadsheet program and the files it
creates as spreadsheet files.

Examples of spreadsheet programs

Today, Microsoft Excel is the most popular and widely used spreadsheet program, but there are also
many alternatives. Below is a list of spreadsheet programs that can be used to create a spreadsheet.

Google Sheets - (online and free).

iWork Numbers - Apple Office Suite.
LibreOffice -> Calc (free).
Lotus 1-2-3 (discontinued).
Lotus Symphony - Spreadsheets.
Microsoft Excel.
OpenOffice -> Calc (free).
VisiCalc (discontinued).
Examples and uses of a spreadsheet
Although spreadsheets are most often used with anything containing numbers,
the uses of a spreadsheet are almost endless. Below are some other popular uses
of spreadsheets.

Finance
Spreadsheets are ideal for financial data, such as your checking account information, budgets,
taxes, transactions, billing, invoices, receipts, forecasts, and any payment system.

Forms
Form templates can be created to handle inventory, evaluations, performance reviews,
quizzes, time sheets, patient information, and surveys.

School and grades

Teachers can use spreadsheets to track students, calculate grades, and identify relevant data,
such as high and low scores, missing tests, and students who are struggling.

Lists
Managing a list in a spreadsheet is a great example of data that does not contain numbers,
but still can be used in a spreadsheet. Great examples of spreadsheet lists include telephone,
to-do, and grocery lists.

Sports
Spreadsheets can keep track of your favorite player stats or stats on the whole team. With the
collected data, you can also find averages, high scores, and statistical data. Spreadsheets can even be
used to create tournament brackets.

What is an active worksheet?

An active worksheet is the worksheet that is currently open. For example, in the Excel picture above,
the sheet tabs at the bottom of the window show "Sheet1," "Sheet2," and "Sheet3,"
with Sheet1 being the active worksheet. The active tab usually has a white background behind the tab
name.

How many worksheets open by default?

In Microsoft Excel 2016 and earlier and OpenOffice Calc, by default, there are three sheet tabs that
open (Sheet1, Sheet2, and Sheet3). In Google Sheets, your spreadsheets starts with one sheet
(Sheet1).
In Microsoft Excel 365, by default, there is only one sheet tab that opens (Sheet1).
What is the length limit of a worksheet name?
Not to be confused with the file name, in Microsoft Excel, there is a 31 character limit for each
worksheet name.

How are rows and columns labeled?

In all spreadsheet programs, including Microsoft Excel, rows are labeled using numbers (e.g., 1 to
1,048,576). All columns are labeled with letters from A to Z, then with two letters. For example, after
the letter Z, the next column is AA, AB, AC, ..., AZ and then incrementing to BA, BB, BC, etc., to the last
column XFD.
When working with a cell, you combine the column with the row. For example, the very first cell is in
column A and on row 1, so the cell is labeled as A1.

 Online analytical processing (OLAP)

is the technology behind many Business Intelligence (BI) applications. OLAP is a powerful
technology for data discovery, including capabilities for limitless report viewing, complex
analytical calculations, and predictive “what if” scenario (budget, forecast) planning.
How is OLAP Technology Used?
OLAP is an acronym for Online Analytical Processing. OLAP performs multidimensional
analysis of business data and provides the capability for complex calculations, trend analysis,
and sophisticated data modeling. It is the foundation for many kinds of business
applications for Business Performance Management, Planning, Budgeting, Forecasting,
Financial Reporting, Analysis, Simulation Models, Knowledge Discovery, and Data Warehouse
Reporting. OLAP enables end-users to perform ad hoc analysis of data in multiple dimensions,
thereby providing the insight and understanding they need for better decision making.

Advantages of OLAP
Knowledge is the foundation of all successful decisions. Successful businesses continuously plan,
analyze and report on sales and operational activities in order to maximize efficiency, reduce
expenditures and gain greater market share. Statisticians will tell you that the more sample data you
have, the more likely the resulting statistic will be true. Naturally, the more data a company can
access about a specific activity, the more likely that the plan to improve that activity will be effective.
All businesses collect data using many different systems, and the challenge remains: how to get all the
data together to create accurate, reliable, fast information about the business. A company that can
take advantage and turn it into shared knowledge, accurately and quickly, will surely be better
positioned to make successful business decisions and rise above the competition.

OLAP for Multidimensional Analysis

Business is a multidimensional activity and businesses are run on decisions based on multiple
dimensions. Businesses track their activities by considering many variables. When these variables are
tracked on a spreadsheet, they are set on axes (x and y) where each axis represents a logical grouping
of variables in a category. For example, sales in units or dollars may be tracked over one year’s time,
by month, where the sales measures might logically be displayed on the y axis and the months might
occupy the x axis (i.e., sales measures are rows and months are columns).To analyze and report on the
health of a business and plan future activity, many variable groups or parameters must be tracked on
a continuous basis—which is beyond the scope of any number of linked spreadsheets that define an
enterprise—essentially, the dimensions necessary for the creation of an effective business model.

Implementing an OLAP Solution

OLAP technology implementations depend not only on the type of software, but also on underlying
data sources and the intended business objective(s). Each industry or business area is specific and
requires some degree of customized modeling to create multidimensional “cubes” for data loading
and reporting building, at minimum. An OLAP solution might be intended for dynamic reporting for
finance professionals, with source data originating in an ERP system. sponsor of OLAP.com] is one
such product that features Excel as a front end, for a wide variety of uses.
 Data mining

Data mining is the process of discovering patterns in large data sets involving
methods at the intersection of machine learning, statistics, and database systems.

The major steps involved in a data mining process are:

 Extract, transform and load data into a data warehouse

 Store and manage data in a multidimensional databases
 Provide data access to business analysts using application software
 Present analyzed data in easily understandable forms, such as graphs

Benefits of data mining

In general, the benefits of data mining come from the ability to uncover hidden patterns and
relationships in data that can be used to make predictions that impact businesses.
Specific data mining benefits vary depending on the goal and the industry. Sales and marketing
departments can mine customer data to improve lead conversion rates or to create one-to-one
marketing campaigns. Data mining information on historical sales patterns and customer behaviors
can be used to build prediction models for future sales, new products and services.
Companies in the financial industry use data mining tools to build risk models and detect fraud. The
manufacturing industry uses data mining tools to improve product safety, identify quality issues,
manage the supply chain and improve operations.
 Data warehouse

a data warehouse, also known as an enterprise data warehouse, is a system used for
reporting and data analysis, and is considered a core component of business
intelligence.

How Data warehouse works?

A Data Warehouse works as a central repository where information arrives from one or more data
sources. Data flows into a data warehouse from the transactional system and other relational
databases.

Data may be:

Structured
Semi-structured
Unstructured data

The data is processed, transformed, and ingested so that users can access the processed data in the
Data Warehouse through Business Intelligence tools, SQL clients, and spreadsheets. A data warehouse
merges information coming from different sources into one comprehensive database.
By merging all of this information in one place, an organization can analyze its customers more
holistically. This helps to ensure that it has considered all the information available. Data warehousing
makes data mining possible. Data mining is looking for patterns in the data that may lead to higher
sales and profits.
Types of Data Warehouse
Three main types of Data Warehouses are:

1. Enterprise Data Warehouse:

Enterprise Data Warehouse is a centralized warehouse. It provides decision

support service across the enterprise. It offers a unified approach for
organizing and representing data. It also provide the ability to classify data
according to the subject and give access according to those divisions.

2. Operational Data Store:

Operational Data Store, which is also called ODS, are nothing but data store
required when neither Data warehouse nor OLTP systems support
organizations reporting needs. In ODS, Data warehouse is refreshed in real
time. Hence, it is widely preferred for routine activities like storing records of
the Employees.

3. Data Mart:

A data mart is a subset of the data warehouse. It specially designed for a

particular line of business, such as sales, finance, sales or finance. In an
independent data mart, data can collect directly from sources.

What Is a Data Warehouse Used For?

Here, are most common sectors where Data warehouse is used:

Airline:

In the Airline system, it is used for operation purpose like crew assignment,
analyses of route profitability, frequent flyer program promotions, etc.

Banking:

It is widely used in the banking sector to manage the resources available on

desk effectively. Few banks also used for the market research, performance
analysis of the product and operations.
Healthcare:

Healthcare sector also used Data warehouse to strategize and predict

outcomes, generate patient's treatment reports, share data with tie-in
insurance companies, medical aid services, etc.

Public sector:

In the public sector, data warehouse is used for intelligence gathering. It helps
government agencies to maintain and analyze tax records, health policy
records, for every individual.

Investment and Insurance sector:

In this sector, the warehouses are primarily used to analyze data patterns,
customer trends, and to track market movements.

Retain chain:

In retail chains, Data warehouse is widely used for distribution and marketing.
It also helps to track items, customer buying pattern, promotions and also
used for determining pricing policy.

Telecommunication:

A data warehouse is used in this sector for product promotions, sales

decisions and to make distribution decisions.

Hospitality Industry:

This Industry utilizes warehouse services to design as well as estimate their

advertising and promotion campaigns where they want to target clients based
on their feedback and travel patterns.

Steps to Implement Data Warehouse

The best way to address the business risk associated with a Datawarehouse
implementation is to employ a three-prong strategy as below

1. Enterprise strategy: Here we identify technical including current

architecture and tools. We also identify facts, dimensions, and
attributes. Data mapping and transformation is also passed.
 2. Phased delivery: Datawarehouse implementation should be phased
based on subject areas. Related business entities like booking and
billing should be first implemented and then integrated with each other.
3. Iterative Prototyping: Rather than a big bang approach to
implementation, the Datawarehouse should be developed and tested
iteratively.

Best practices to implement a Data Warehouse

 Decide a plan to test the consistency, accuracy, and integrity of the
data.
 The data warehouse must be well integrated, well defined and time
stamped.
 While designing Datawarehouse make sure you use right tool, stick to
life cycle, take care about data conflicts and ready to learn you're your
mistakes.
 Never replace operational systems and reports
 Don't spend too much time on extracting, cleaning and loading data.
 Ensure to involve all stakeholders including business personnel in
Datawarehouse implementation process. Establish that Data
warehousing is a joint/ team project. You don't want to create Data
warehouse that is not useful to the end users.
 Prepare a training plan for the end users.

Why We Need Data Warehouse? Advantages &

Disadvantages
Advantages of Data Warehouse:

 Data warehouse allows business users to quickly access critical data

from some sources all in one place.
 Data warehouse provides consistent information on various cross-
functional activities. It is also supporting ad-hoc reporting and query.
 Data Warehouse helps to integrate many sources of data to reduce
stress on the production system.
 Data warehouse helps to reduce total turnaround time for analysis and
reporting.
 Restructuring and Integration make it easier for the user to use for
reporting and analysis.
  Data warehouse allows users to access critical data from the number of
sources in a single place. Therefore, it saves user's time of retrieving
data from multiple sources.
 Data warehouse stores a large amount of historical data. This helps
users to analyze different time periods and trends to make future
predictions.

Disadvantages of Data Warehouse:

 Not an ideal option for unstructured data.

 Creation and Implementation of Data Warehouse is surely time
confusing affair.
 Data Warehouse can be outdated relatively quickly
 Difficult to make changes in data types and ranges, data source
schema, indexes, and queries.
 The data warehouse may seem easy, but actually, it is too complex for
the average users.
 Despite best efforts at project management, data warehousing project
scope will always increase.
 Sometime warehouse users will develop different business rules.
 Organisations need to spend lots of their resources for training and
Implementation purpose.

Data Warehouse Tools

There are many Data Warehousing tools are available in the market. Here,
are some most prominent one:

 1. MarkLogic:
 MarkLogic is useful data warehousing solution that makes data
integration easier and faster using an array of enterprise features. This
tool helps to perform very complex search operations. It can query
different types of data like documents, relationships, and metadata.
 http://developer.marklogic.com/products
 2. Oracle:
 Oracle is the industry-leading database. It offers a wide range of choice
of data warehouse solutions for both on-premises and in the cloud. It
helps to optimize customer experiences by increasing operational
efficiency.
 https://www.oracle.com/index.html
 3. Amazon RedShift:
  Amazon Redshift is Data warehouse tool. It is a simple and cost-
effective tool to analyze all types of data using standard SQL and
existing BI tools. It also allows running complex queries against
petabytes of structured data, using the technique of query optimization.
 https://aws.amazon.com/redshift/?nc2=h_m1

Data cleansing

is the process of detecting and correcting corrupt or inaccurate records from a record set, table, or
database and refers to identifying incomplete, incorrect, inaccurate or irrelevant parts of the data and
then replacing, modifying, or deleting the dirty or coarse data.

How Can I Use Data Cleaning?

Regardless of the type of analysis or data visualizations you need, data cleaning is a vital step to
ensure that the answers you generate are accurate. When collecting data from several streams and
with manual input from users, information can carry mistakes, be incorrectly inputted, or have gaps.
Data cleaning helps ensure that information always matches the correct fields while making it easier
for business intelligence tools to interact with data sets to find information more efficiently. One of
the most common data cleaning examples is its application in data warehouses.

Benefits of Data Cleaning

Here are several key benefits that come out of the data cleaning process:
It removes major errors and inconsistencies that are inevitable when multiple sources of data are
getting pulled into one dataset.
Using tools to cleanup data will make everyone more efficient since they’ll be able to quickly get what
they need from the data.
Fewer errors means happier customers and fewer frustrated employees.
The ability to map the different functions and what your data is intended to do and where it is coming
from your data.

6 Steps to Data Cleaning

To achieve your goals and meet expectations on how your fleet data can benefit you, you must first
determine how will you execute data cleanup successfully. A couple of great guidelines to follow is to
focus on your top metrics. What is your company’s overall goal and what is each member looking to
achieve from it? A good way to start is to get all the interested parties involved and start throwing
ideas around.
Here are some best practices when it comes to creating a data cleaning process:
1. Monitor Errors
Keep a record and look at trends of where most errors are coming from, as this will make it a lot
easier to identify fix the incorrect or corrupt data. This is especially important if you are integrating
other solutions with your fleet management software, so that errors don’t clog up the work of other
departments.
2. Standardize Your Processes
It’s important that you standardize the point of entry and check the importance of it. By standardizing
your data process you will ensure a good point of entry and reduce the risk of duplication.
3. Validate Accuracy
Validate the accuracy of your data once you have cleaned your existing database. Research and invest
in data tools that allow you to clean your data in real-time. Some tools now even use AI or machine
learning to better test for accuracy.
4. Scrub for Duplicate Data
Identify duplicates, since this will help you save time when analyzing data. This can be avoided by
researching and investing in different data cleaning tools, as mentioned above, that can analyze raw
data in bulk and automate the process for you.
5. Analyze
After your data has been standardized, validated, and scrubbed for duplicates, use third-party sources
to append it. Reliable third-party sources can capture information directly from first-party sites, then
clean and compile the data to provide more complete information for business intelligence and
analytics.
6. Communicate with the Team
Communicate the new standardized cleaning process to your team. Now that you’ve scrubbed down
your data, it’s important to keep it clean. This will help you develop and strengthen your customer
segmentation and send more targeted information to customers and prospects, so you want to make
sure you get your team in line with it.