In Association with Global Institute of Management & Technology, Krishnanagar

Global Journal on Advancement in Engineering and Science (GJAES)

Vol. 1 Issue 1: March-2015 (ISSN: 2395-1001)

Original Research Work

Web Based Business Intelligence Tool for a Financial Organization

Sukanta Singh1, Rajib Dutta2
Department of Computer Science & Engineering,
Global Institute of Management & Technology, Krishnagar, Nadia, West Bengal
Email: sukantasingh2008@gmail.com1, rajibdutta2007@gmail.com2
Abstract: The real work of taking output from the data warehouse depends largely on how it is managed.
Although a lot of research is going on to enhance the design and development of Data warehouse, Very little
effort has been spent on the maintenance side. Without proper maintenance data warehouse is not going to give
the desired output which is expected of it. In this work a comparison of various architectures of Data
Warehousing system, based on analyzed on concepts like wrapper, monitor, integrator, metadata, data quantity
indicator is considered. The proposed design of the data warehouse improves the decision capabilities of the
existing independent business intelligence decision support systems. The unified model also allows flexibility of
adding new restoration projects in future. In this paper, we first try to identify the data warehousing design
implications, and propose a multidimensional spatial model that supports the analyses. We then present some
sample reports, and define measures by which the Internet Order Quantity, Customer Count and Discount
Amount by Geography can be evaluated.

Keywords: Business Intelligence, 3D Cube structure, Star schema, Snowflex Schema, ETL process, Web
based Report.
I. Introduction
According to Bill Inmon, a data warehouse is a subject oriented (high level entities of enterprise for e.g.
customer, product), integrated (consistent naming convention, consistent variables, consistent attributes of data),
time variant (data obtained over a long period of time), and nonvolatile (arrival of new data doesn’t updates
previous data) collection of data to support the management’s decision making. [1] More generally, data
warehousing is a collection of decision support technologies, aimed at enabling the knowledge worker, such as
executive, manager, and analyst, to arrive at better and faster decisions. Data warehouses provide access to data
for complex analysis, knowledge discovery, and decision-making. They support high performance demands on an
organization's data and information.
The origins of business intelligence may be traced back to the first data processing applications, which
were simple applications such as accounts payable and receivable. [2] These applications ran on sequential
technology, such as magnetic and paper tapes. Using sequential media for storage meant the entire file had to be
accessed, even if only a fraction of the file was needed. Oxide often stripped off of magnetic tapes, and entire files
were lost. These issues led to the need for a new way to analyze information.
The shortest definition of Business Intelligence (BI) might be the following: any tool, process or activity
that can be used for obtaining the best information of supporting the decision-making process. [4] BI technologies
provide historical, current, and predictive views of business operations. Common functions of Business
Intelligence technologies are reporting, online analytical processing, analytics, data mining, business performance
management, benchmarking, text mining, and predictive analytics.
II. Developing a 3D Cube From Other Data Sources
Data warehouse processes are executed by use of ETL-tools (extraction, transformation, loading). These
tools provide connectivity to a broad set of different data storage formats (e.g. different database systems like
Oracle, DB2 or SQL Server or different text file formats). In order to turn warehouse data into decisive
information, it must be tailored to the needs of the end users which are located in different organizational units
(e.g. functional departments).
Typically, the informational needs of the marketing department differ from those of the accounting
department. As a consequence of this, specific departmental views on the data have to be created. [6] These
views, which are called data marts which can be further customized in order to comply with the informational
needs of single users (e.g., a specific salesperson in a defined region). To get information from these data marts,
end users are provided with a set of tools which allow analytical processing. Most commonly are report
generation tools which support simple aggregations (e.g. calculation of statistical measures like mean values,
etc.).

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 S. Singh and R. Dutta., “Web Based Business Intelligence Tool for a Financial Organization”,
Global Journal on Advancement in Engineering and Science, 1(1), March 2015, pp. 43-46

Figure 1: A typical diagram of ETL process

In order to provide interactive analysis with user defined views, OLAP tools are frequently used. While
report generation tools and OLAP provide more or less simple analytical operations, data mining tools permit
the analysis of complex patterns. For instance, data mining tools can reveal buying patterns of customers which
can be used to optimize marketing campaigns.
III. Metadata Model and Schemas
Multidimensional models lend themselves readily to hierarchical views such as roll-up display and
drill-down display. Roll-up display moves up the hierarchy, grouping into larger units along a dimension. A
drill-down display provides the opposite capability, furnishing a finer-grained view through disaggregating
process. The Multidimensional storage model involves two types of tables: dimension tables and fact tables. [6]
A dimension table consists of tuples of attributes of the dimension. A fact table can be thought of as having
tuples, one per a recorded fact. This fact contains some measured or observed variables and identifies them with
pointers to dimension tables. Two common multidimensional schemas are star schema and snowflex schema.
Star schema architecture is the simplest data warehouse design. The main feature of a star schema is a
table at the center, called the fact table and the dimension tables which allow browsing of specific categories,
summarizing, drill-downs and specifying criteria. Typically, most of the fact tables in a star schema are in
database third normal form, while dimensional tables are de-normalized (second normal form).
The primary keys of each of the dimension tables are linked together to form the composite primary
key of the fact table. [3] In a star schema design, there is only one de-normalized table for a given dimension.
Snowflake schema architecture is a more complex variation of a star schema design. [8] The main difference is
that dimensional tables in a snowflake schema are normalized, so they have a typical relational database design.
Snowflake schemas are generally used when a dimensional table becomes very big and when a star schema
can’t represent the complexity of a data structure
IV. Process For Evaluating Business Intelligence Tool
Business Intelligence (BI) refers to computer-based techniques used in spotting, digging-out, and
analyzing business data, such as sales revenue by products or departments or associated costs and incomes. [7] BI
technologies provide historical, current, and predictive views of business operations. Common functions of
Business Intelligence technologies are reporting, online analytical processing, analytics, data mining, business
performance management, benchmarking, text mining, and predictive analytics.

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 S. Singh and R. Dutta., “Web Based Business Intelligence Tool for a Financial Organization”,
Global Journal on Advancement in Engineering and Science, 1(1), March 2015, pp. 43-46

Figure 2: Grid Views of Internet Order Quantity, Customer Count and Discount Amount by Geography

Figure 3: Grid Views of Internet Sales Amount, Customer Count, Order Quantity, Sales Amount and Reseller Gross Profit
by Date

BI Reporting applications publish reports via corporate intranets and the Internet. This method allows a BI
Reporting application to span physical and geographic boundaries.

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 S. Singh and R. Dutta., “Web Based Business Intelligence Tool for a Financial Organization”,
Global Journal on Advancement in Engineering and Science, 1(1), March 2015, pp. 43-46

V. CONCLUSION
Create a complete web Business Intelligence tool based on an organization using Data Warehouse and maintain a
strong ETL process which will be dynamic and must more efficient. Hope this web tool is very useful for an
organization’s financial department. Data warehouses are still an expensive solution and typically found in large
firms. The development of a central warehouse is a huge undertaking and capital intensive with large, potentially
unmanageable risks. Unlike operational systems data warehouses need a lot more maintenance and a support
team of qualified professionals is needed to take care of the issues that arise after its deployment including data
extraction, data loading, network management, training and communication, query management and some other
related tasks.
REFERENCES
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[8] Hanson, Joseph H. An Alternative Data Warehouse Structure for Performing Updates. December 1996, UMI Press.
[9] Labio, W.J. and H. Garcia-Molina, Eficient Snapshot Diferential Algorithms for Data Warehousing, Technical Report. 1996, Stanford
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[10] McElreath, J., Data Warehouses: An Architectural Perspective. Perspectives, November 1995. Computer Sciences Corporation, El
Segundo, CA: p. 13.
[11] Meta Software Corp., Using DesigdIDEF to Simulate Workflow Models with ServiceMOdel, 1995, Meta Software Corp.: Cambridge
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