Siri meets Business Intelligence

As you may know, Apple’s latest iPhone, the 4S, has a virtual assistent in it called Siri. You can ask Siri questions or tell it do something for you, just by using your voice. For example “What will the weather be tomorrow?” or “What is my next meeting about?”. This is very cool stuff!

So, as we have seen this big move towards mobile business intelligence over the last two years with tools like RoamBI, MicroStrategy (and now even SAP has awoken), how cool would it be to go one step further and let Business Intelligence meet Siri?! Think of commands like “Who is my top sales guy in Germany for 2011?”, “Call this person now!”, or something like “Siri, give me the total sales for customer BMW”.

Dutch SAP BI colleague Ronald Konijnenburg checked the possibilities to make this work and came across an interesting tool called Siri Proxy:

Siri Proxy is a proxy server for Apple’s Siri “assistant”. The idea is to allow for the creation of custom handlers for different actions. This can allow developers to easily add functionality to Siri.

After installing Siri Proxy on a Ubuntu (Linux) machine and checking some existing plugins from the Siri Proxy community he took up the challenge to write his own plugin. This plugin should be able to execute SQL statements and query any database (in-memory or not). With some technical help on the Ruby programming (Ruby is the language Siri Proxy is written in) a working plugin was created in a very short time period.

As a proof of concept a MySQL database was installed on the Ubuntu environment, with a simple table containing the key figures Sales and the objects Sales rep, Customer and Date, loaded with some random data. Now, by asking Siri a question like “Give me total sales for customer Google”, the spoken words are translated into a SQL statement that looks something like SELECT * FROM Sales.Sales WHERE Customer = ‘Google’. After executing this SQL statement on the table the sales amount will be returned. Siri now can nicely tell you the answer.

Check the video below to see a demonstration of Sire meeting Business Intelligence. The second video (click the more… button below) gives a bit more background info.

Again, great job Ronald! So what’s next? Siri talking to SAP HANA?

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New Book: Integrating SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.x with SAP NetWeaver

SAP Press recently released Integrating SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.x with SAP NetWeaver by Ingo Hilgefort. This book is the successor to the 2009 Integrating SAP Business Objects XI 3.1 BI Tools with SAP NetWeaver and is now updated with content on the latest SAP BusinessObjects 4 (BI4) release.

In this book Hilgefort explains how we can setup the (new) BI4 platform on top of a SAP BW or SAP ECC environment. He does this by covering the complete implementation cycle: First he goes through the installation steps for the SAP BusinessObjects server and client tools (Crystal Reports, Dashboards, Live Office, Analysis and the BI Platform Client tools like the Universe Designer and the Information Design Tool). This is done in a very detailed step-by-step manner, discussing every installer screen that will appear in the process. This really is very helpful the first time you have to do this! This extremely detailed approach is followed throughout the whole book.

Each front-end tool has a chapter dedicated to it in which the several data connectivity scenarios are discussed for the specific tool. These chapters all have the following approach: First all possible connectivity options are discussed. As you can see the overview figure for SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards (Xcelsius) now really has become art.

Next the supported and unsupported SAP BW elements are shown in a table for each connectivity option. Also a metadata mapping is given for the BEx Query elements, showing for example how a navigational attribute or variable is treated by the front-end tool. I also like the translations of the terms used in SAP BusinessObjects, like Key figure becomes Measure and Variable is called Prompt. All these overviews make things very clear.

To get you started these chapters all have a Create your first report section, that shows you step-by-step how you can create a simple report with each tool and how to set up the several connections. Again, a lot of screenshots are used here so even if you haven’t worked with some of the tools yet, you will learn fast on how to configure the data connection. Good stuff!

Live Office and BI Web Services (QaaWS) haven’t been forgotten. There roles have become less important with the new connectivity options in BI4 but they can still be used. Hilgefort discusses this situation and shows how to use them in combination with Dashboards. The book finishes with chapters on report publications and SAP Portal integration, which makes this book very very complete.

Just like all the other books written by Ingo Hilgefort you really should pick up this one! Not only as a reference guide but also to go through the step-by-step sections to get a good understanding of the several connectivity options when integration BI4 with SAP. Also make sure you check his site/blog which is totally dedicated to the SAP BI integration subject.

#Juice30days Fav Five

This month I’ve been following the #Juice30days guide by Juice Analytics to learn more on data visualization. You really should check their cool website and blog and follow the 30 days program. They are doing a great job setting this up. I put my Fav Five content in this post.

1. A Guide to Creating Dashboards People Love to Use

This 3-part white paper  gives us best practices and guidelines on how to create and design better dashboards.

Part 1: Foundation helps you identify your target audience, understand what type of dashboard you want to create and why it is valuable to your organization. It concludes guidance regarding how to focus your message on the information and metrics that matter.

Part 2: Structure helps you start on designing your dashboard, including what form it should take, how to design for audience understanding, and what navigation, interactions, and capabilities will make your dashboard useful and engaging.

Finally, Part 3: Information Design dives into the details of interface and information design. You will learn how to lay out your dashboard and best practices for charting and data presentation.

2.  Who is Edward Tufte?

I knew about this guy, but hadn’t read a lot of his work yet. So this story resulted in a very large and expensive Amazon.com visit…

3.  5 Phases of Data Analytics Maturation: Part 1 & 2

I found this article very fun to read since I could plot the stages exactly to the environments at the clients I work(ed) for, especially the Tribal Elders phase, which is – sadly enough – still reality.

In this article the 5 different stages of maturity that information workers go through as they try to become more effective and efficient at consuming and acting on information are explored.

Phase 1: Tribal Elders

Phase 2: Static Reports

Phase 3: Bigger Static Reports

Phase 4: Ad-hoc reports

Phase 5: Experienced Guide

4. Before trying to communicate information, first understand it.

When thinking about information, don’t confuse the medium with the message. Watch it:

5.  30 Resources to Find the Data you Need

Need some data for your latest demo dashboard or report? This list has some nice sources to get you started.

Understanding big numbers

Yesterday I saw this picture on my Facebook wall that I have to share with you. It is an easy but extremely powerful example of how you can present the same information in two totally different ways.

Using the big numbers can makes information blurry (which is probably for a reason in this case). People don’t have any real feeling or connection to those billions or trillions besides that it is just a big shitload of money. Transforming these figures to something we can relate to, like our own annual income, makes the numbers understandable again.

Reminder: Support Wikipedia

Okay guys, just a short reminder here so you don’t forget to make a contribution to Wikipedia this year. For years it has been my #1 place to quickly find (basic) information on any topic I want to learn about, even in my own language. I like the idea of everybody in the world having easy access to everything we know, and Wikipedia is the ultimate platform to make this happen. So join me and keep this great site running!