2. Cubes and Power BI May 3, 2016 Anthony Bonaduce
Director of Sales and Business Development

3. Credentials
Jet Reports delivers unparalleled access to data through fast and flexible reporting and business analytics solutions that are cost effective, provide rapid time-to-value, and are built specifically for the needs of Microsoft ERP users.
10,000 Companies in 94 countries use Jet Reports
everyday for their financial reporting.
Founded in 2002
My credentials to give this presentation is that is what we do at Jet – manage people’s data

4. There is an opportunity in finance
Data = Value
The finance department sits at the information nexus of the organization
Collects data from everywhere
Consolidates and distributes
With all that info, it can be an agent for change
Leverage info to help execs and line of business mgrs. Optimize processes, achieve goals, avert problems, drive leading indicators – make decisions

5. Fantasy scenarios
Scenario 1 – The VP of Finance who works with department heads on strategy
Scenario 2 – The Finance Analyst who helps to optimize operations
Scenario 3 – The company where decisions are made on facts
VP can assess companies progress…KPI’s – dashboards – drill down to see performance…no IT help needed
Work closely with executive team on the cool stuff like investment strategy, hiring plans, corporate development
Financial analyst who has data at her fingertips – do ad hoc or major reporting without re-inventing the wheel every time. Fighting thru formulas macro’s…
Spend time helping managers optimize operations versus data management tasks that undermine data integrity
CEO, CFO, Sales – in a meeting. Rather than arguing…discussing options…agreeing on actions. Facts, not gut feel

7. Back office provider of information
Reality
Back office provider of information
Back office – not out in front leading the organization
Most finance groups have yet to step up and advise the business in a proactive manner
Play a back office role
Why
Spend too much time producing internal, static, statutory reports that don’t drive the business. Look back – not forward.
Producing is the wrong word – searching for info…reconciling…testing…defending
Two problems
Leaves little time to analyze and collaborate
Create info silos – no organizational wide view

8. Adding direct value to the business
New role for finance
Adding direct value to the business
Just keeping the books, budget, cash, tax and treasury
Procuring risk
Automation is coming
Low tolerance for people and process that don’t add direct value
Movement in other shared services roles (IT, HR), to make them more active contributors to success
Re-engineer how they handle data – how they turn it into information – valuable corporate resource

10. Obstacles to adding value - systems
Too many touch points Complex systems that are too hard to access Lack of user confidence
Obstacles exist before finance can become a strategic advisor to the business
Systems / Data / Legacy
ADP payables and the ERP
Executives see the expenses going out –a report shows them that
Payables folks need to
Finance guy needs to communicate with his payable people and with management – the numbers needs to gel.

11. Obstacles to adding value - data
Poor quality data Diverse semantics The IT problem
Semantics frustrate finance
Data spread across several systems, each with accounts, codes, transaction types
What is gross profit, revenue, a customer
Someone has to reconcile this
Multiple spreadsheets
Data integrity problem
Much time spent – tight timelines – can’t wait for IT
Everybody thinks its an IT problem

12. Obstacles to adding value - legacy
Excel Spreadmarts The Human Data Warehouse The Finance problem
Problem is that Excel is so good
Powerful / easy
Import / query
Modeling / analyze
Excel runs the largest companies
This creates silos – spreadmarts
Spreadmarts don’t reconcile
Besides that they take up huge amounts of time
Time machines
Well paid people spending days collecting, compiling, formatting
Human DW’s
Everybody thinks this is a finance problem
IT is frustrated by Finance. Finance is frustrated by IT.

13. The modern data warehouse
The answer for finance
The modern data warehouse
One version of the truth story…

14. What is a data warehouse?
Reporting database built with business users in mind
Provides a way to consolidate data from multiple systems
Tables and fields named in plain business language make it easy to understand the data
Many tables can be turned into a few tables
Transaction tables can be optimized for fast reporting
Cleanses data
Organizes data
A DW is a reporting database. A DB that allows the business user access to the information that they want, laid out so that it is easy to consume and understand
Consolidate info from multiple sources
Ability to rename fields
Ability to put like information in the same table
Optimized for reporting – fast as possible for data retrieval
Flexible security
Handle complex business rules and logic
Tables and fields can be named to anything you want. Often it is hard for a user to know where the data is. They can see it in the entry fields, but don’t know where it is
Many tables can be mapped into one. 10 sales related tables become one sales table with all the info you need
Can be optimized for reporting. This can have unintended consequences in an ERP system – ERP developers don’t like to do this, but it is exactly what a DW is for
Gets you away from the tyranny of source systems
The hard stuff that might be going on in your reporting process now, can be automated in a DW
Make it as easy as possible for the business user to get at the information

16. GL data is easy to map
Here is the good news – this is the easiest thing to model in the BI world. Our consultants always sort of smile when this requirement comes up – they know they can do it and the results will be impressive
GL data is easiest to map. Just take the related fields that you need from the various parts of the GL and consolidate it into one table in the DW.
Pull in GL accounts. Flag Income statement / flag balance sheet. Make report with filter and there you go – easy way to build IS or BS. Even a one touch…
Link the COA to product hierarchies, so you have reports that navigate sales, invoices, expenses and monthly financial results – flexible table structure and lets you have extreme drill down capabilities

17. Faster report production
Tricky part is getting it to tie to the penny with your GL – adjustments, accruals, normalizations…
Consistent / Governed / confidence inspiring
GL to match cubes – commissions – don’t want to have arguments between finance and VP sales
Get transaction data to match financial data
Not hard but takes some work. The benefits are that since data is now aggregated, you can start to produce reports much faster.
And then deliberately add the other systems you need. When you do this - you can really start to synchronize your naming conventions. Make decisions around hierarchies and various calculations

18. But it goes further than that
Conscious approach
Blending of enterprise assets
Consistent way to deliver information
deliver a predictable, complete, consistent, reliable, and timely source of information to deliver on the promise of BI.
Deloitte whitepaper: ‘How to Build Successful BI Strategy’

19. And further

21. Data warehousing and bi truth
DW and BI are not technologies
Technology enables BI, but should not be the focus of it. The focus should be what data is going to be used, how is it going to be combined, and how are your data consumers going to use it.
At the very least I can promise you this – you will not be able to plunk money down on a piece of software and magically be transported to a useful BI environment…

22. Data warehousing and bi truth
DW and BI are not ‘frameworks’ or ‘platforms’
Unless I’m talking from a technical perspective, I don’t even like to call it a framework or a platform.
AWS, Azure – platforms
Your IT hardware - framework
I think the term: BI environment is better. Because..

23. Data warehousing and bi truth
They are a way to engage with the data, to tell a story, to figure out what to do next
BI is about understanding which metrics are meaningful to your business. Which ones will reveal the critical aspects and which will drive action or allow accurate decisions.

24. Data warehousing and bi truth
Its not the same thing as ERP and shouldn’t be treated as such
ERP is an enterprise wide application designed to create and enforce process and workflow among other things. Requirements are rigid, somewhat static and implementation is necessarily a long and involved process.
Different mindset, different approach, different goals
BI is different because it is designed to take data points that are generated from such a rigid system and transform them into ‘actionable analytics’. Requirements for this are flexible and are guaranteed to change frequently. Implementation should be quick and designed to handle the dynamic nature.

25. Data warehousing and bi truth
There is no ‘one size fits all’ solution
Every company’s activities are unique and so the way they handle their data needs to be unique as well.
How are sales trending – what is driving that
How does that affect inventory costs
How do salespeople, vendors, and warehouse locations all contribute to the mix
BI needs to be nimble to react to changes
OK folks – that was a deep dive into our philosophy and beliefs – I could talk about that all day. Lets get to some more practical stuff though – Power BI….

28. WHAT POWER BI IS
Power BI is a suite of business analytics tools to analyze data and share insights on the web.
Excellent data visualization tool with the ability for users to access dashboards from the web or their mobile device
Embedded visualizations inside of corporate applications
Gateways to access on premise data directly from the cloud
Low cost of ownership – licensing is $10 per user per month

29. WHAT POWER BI IS NOT
Power BI is not an end-to-end solution when left solely in the hands of the average business user
A data modeling background is necessary unless you already have all of your data in ONE streamlined data source such as a data warehouse or Analysis Services database
Delegation of security, user access, and setting up the gateways requires ongoing IT involvement
Many people think that Power BI is free (there is a limited free version) but the paid version is typically needed for all users in a corporate environment

30. THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS
Power BI front-end combined with a prebuilt back-end maximizes usability and value of Power BI
Little to no knowledge of ERP tables/fields required by Power BI users when using the data warehouse and cubes
Security and access to underlying data can be controlled centrally through many BI Tools
Connecting to a data warehouse and cubes enables publishing of corporate dashboards with Power BI from Day 1