Alex Stevenson

Metoscope / Alex Stevenson
some like it hot 02

Talking About Analytics Governance…

Some Like It Hot

I had the pleasure of attending the DGIQ conference in San Diego last month.  It had been some time since I had attended an event in person, I think Big Data London '21 was the most recent prior to this, and I was very much looking forward to meeting some of the Data Governance community in the US and exchanging ideas.  Added to this I'd been accepted to present on a topic close to my heart: "Analytics Governance - adding value in the final mile".

Well, I have to report the conference venue was ideal, the event well organised with wide-ranging, topical content, and the participants - speakers, attendees and exhibitors were fully-engaged. Congratulations to Tony Shaw and his team for providing a great forum to exchange ideas.

The presentation was fun to deliver.  Fair to say I was a little apprehensive that a 5pm slot on the first day of conference would yield a low attendance but was happily proved wrong.  Throughout, the audience asked searching, relevant questions on Analytics Governance and I hope they found our discussion as useful and thought-provoking as I did.

Anyway, that reminds me of one stand-out question I received at the Q&A stage of proceedings.  I'd placed an image of the Forum in Rome on the slide with a few question marks peppered across it.  On inviting further questions a hand shot up and someone asked: "When's the best month to visit Rome?".  Drawing on my limited experience I was able to reply along the lines of "June's fine if you don't mind the heat but I'd recommend you skip the Trevi fountain and Spanish Steps...".  Always up for a left-field question.

Other themes touched on in the session related to the need for end-to-end observability from data source to point of consumption, providing quality assurance for analytics output and how automation can drive efficiencies in transformation and migration programmes.  From holiday advice to thorny problems experienced with analytics in the information supply chain - an eclectic mix.

Anyway, the conference gave me an opportunity to listen to people's views on what's being done well in the data governance domain and also areas where challenges remain.  Transpires that Analytics Governance is an emerging topic of interest and it was great to validate this with folks who seemed to relish challenging hubris and "group think".

So, the trip from London was certainly worth it from my point of view.  I got to meet a range of people: practitioners, vendors, polymaths and specialists; and felt that I was able to take the pulse of what's going on in the data governance space.  This domain, a little like San Diego in early June, is warming-up, trending to hot.

Looking forward to another trip to the beach in 2023!

BI & Analytics - 07/13/2022
Gold-L

Analytics Governance

Meeting the challenge?

Today, more than ever, organisations are seeking to harness their information assets as effectively as they can.  Many are introducing automation to improve efficiencies, cloud computing to reduce costs and AI/machine learning to deliver a further range of benefits.  Often the transformation needed by mature organisations with complex IT architectures requires a commitment to complex, multi-year change programmes.

Not addressing the constraints of aging, legacy systems leaves companies vulnerable to new, disruptive entrants that are not hampered by the baggage of the past.  Hence, the strategic, enterprise-wide initiatives being undertaken by organisations of all hues to modernise and become “data driven”.

The creation of executive roles such as Chief Data Officers (CDOs) and Chief Data and Analytics Officers (CDAOs) alongside the wide-spread adoption of data governance initiatives marks the growing importance of controlling data to support corporate strategy.  A focus has been on improving the quality and value of data assets.  Rightly so, as they are the foundation of information that flows and is used throughout organisations.  But what is happening downstream of these on-prem or cloud data stores, lakes or lake houses?...

What control is being applied to Analytics assets?  How are responsible C-suite executives equipped to control and curate the applications that source governed data and produce much of the information used for decision-making?

Most companies that have undertaken some form of digital transformation will continue to use multiple, disparate BI and analytics applications.  This presents a range of challenges that left unaddressed will result in continued issues and the potential benefits from improvements to data assets not being fully realised.  Some of the challenges I’m aware of by team are:

For analysts, developers and support teams:

  • How can we identify inconsistencies and address proactively?
  • How can we analyse issues, react and resolve quickly with reduced effort?
  • How can we simplify and optimise the portfolio of BI & analytics applications?
  • How can we reduce repetitive manual tasks and focus on analysis?

For management:

  • How can we mitigate the risk of mis-reporting?
  • How can we optimise our BI & Analytics resources?
  • How can we deliver change programmes efficiently and with reduced risk?
  • How can we maximise the value of our data and analytics assets?

For consumers of analytic output:

  • What degree of confidence to attach to metrics?
  • Where to find the appropriate information across so many apps?
  • How is information produced and in what context should it be used?

What challenges do you experience in producing or using BI and analytics?  How do you tackle them now and what, if anything, are you hoping for by way of improvement?

Green shoots are emerging in the form of governance practices and new software solutions to help address some of the above.  Metonomy, for one, enables organisations to increase the value of their analytics assets through metadata automation software.  It is now possible, using such solutions, to extend enhanced governance and control to the “last mile” of an enterprise information flow.

We will be sharing more insights and guidance in future posts, so if you are wanting to find out more about governance and how to improve trust in your data, then stay tuned.  Find out more about the art of the possible, today, at: www.metonomy.io.

BI & Analytics - 03/18/2022

Optimize BI & Analytics Apps

Alex Stevenson demonstrates how to optimize legacy BI & Analytics applications using Metoscope automation software. This presentation was given at the Hyperion Solutions 2020 virtual conference organised by InterRel Consulting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwSIpg__Gqg
BI & Analytics - 01/04/2021

Inspect

This page provides a developer or analyst with the facility to inspect all captured information relating to an element and is available within the Analysis module.

Inspect is comprised of the following panes:

Selection Options

Explore

Compare

Visualize

Annotations

Usage

Selection Options

Explore

Compare

Visualize

Annotations

Usage

06/22/2020

Capturing BI meta data

Setting up and running a Capture Process

This is the mechanism by which meta data is acquired from a source application Instance for a specific Product Module and inserted into the Metonomy repository.

Pre-requisite: a valid Application Instance | Product Module must be created and the application data refreshed for the source to be available for meta data capture.

To set-up and run a capture process, navigate to the Acquire Objects tab under the Capture menu tab and carry out the following steps:

  1. enter a meaningful Process Name (unique) and Description into the relevant input fields as above in the Process Details section.
  2. select a Product Module and Instance from the dropdown controls in the Select Source section for which meta data are to be acquired.
  3. select the scope of meta data to capture, the selection controls that are displayed are dependent on the selected Product Module and the nature of the source BI Instance, e.g. Power BI PBIX files will display a file selector, whereas Power BI Service will display input fields for required user credentials, URL and client ID & secret.

For example:

  1. to continue meta data capture, move mouse-pointer over the Process button at bottom right of page and click.
  2. depending on the Product Module selected in step 2, there may be a subsequent dialog displayed enabling the selection of specific functional areas. Select the required check boxes and click the OK button .
  3. A progress bar will be displayed below the Process button indicating the stage of meta data capture. The “0/1” label illustrated represents # of completed processes/# of processes initiated. When a capture process is running it is possible to click on this label to access the Capture Process Execution dialog.
  1. When the meta data has been captured successfully a “Done” indicator is displayed. Click on the Save button to commit the captured meta data to the repository or click on the Cancel button to quit the capture process. A confirmation dialog will be presented with “Yes” and “No” options if Cancel is selected.
06/17/2020

Editing or Deleting an Instance | Product Module

Editing or Deleting an Instance | Product Module

Edit

Follow these steps to edit an existing Instance | Product Module:

  1. move the mouse-pointer over the edit link on the appropriate table row and click.
  2. amend the Instance Name and/or Instance Description and click on Save to commit or Cancel to return to the Instances tab.

Delete

Follow these steps to delete an existing Instance | Product Module:

  1. move the mouse-pointer over the delete link on the appropriate table row and click.
  2. a confirmation dialog box will be displayed with “Yes” and “No” buttons. Click on Yes to proceed with deletion of selected Instance | Product Module or No to return to the Instances tab.

Tip: exercise caution when deleting as this change cannot be undone.

06/17/2020

Adding a new Application Instance | Product Module

Definition: An Application Instance is a specific occurrence of an application of a Vendor’s software in a distinct environment. For example, there may be a SAP BusinessObjects “Sales & Marketing” BI application that is implemented in 3 environments, e.g. Development, Test and Production. Each application + environment combination is referred to as an “Instance”.

A Product Module is a module within a BI or Analytics software product, e.g. SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence Documents, SAP BusinessObjects Universes or Power BI Service, amongst many examples.

Adding an Instance | Product Module

Follow these steps to create an Application Instance with relevant Product Module:

  1. first select a relevant Product Module for which meta data will be captured.
    Tip: the values listed in the Product Module control are populated based on available adaptors. The concatenations of <Vendor | Product | Product Module | Version> are distinct.
  2. next, enter a unique name into the Instance Name field, e.g. “Sales & Marketing (Prod)”
  3. enter a meaningful description
  4. click on the Save button
  5. the adjacent table Current Instances | Product Modules will be updated with the new addition.

Persisted Data Refresh

NB: once a change has been applied to an Instance | Product module it is important that the application data is refreshed. To do this, position the mouse-pointer over the data refresh icon in the top right corner of the page and click.

06/16/2020

Explore

This page enables an analyst or developer to search all of the captured meta data associated with a selected Product Module and one or more Instances.

Selection Controls:

This is where the scope of the initial search is set.

Figure 1: selection controls

To select the scope of search, undertake the following tasks:

  1. select a single a Product Module from the dropdown control. The Instance dropdown will be populated with valid values.
  2. select one or more Instances from the dropdown control using the checkboxes. The table underneath the Instance control will be populated with Parts that are present in the selected Instances.
  3. select one, more than one or all Parts using the checkboxes.
    Note: by positioning the mouse-pointer over a column header and right-clicking the mouse button, a local column filter will be displayed which enables a search to be applied to the Parts table. Click away from the table to hide the filter.
04/14/2020

Analysis Overview

The Analysis module is designed to enable the exploration of captured meta data in order to achieve rapid insights. Accessed via the topline tab menu or through guided navigation from the Home page, the following pages are available:

Figure 1: Tabs available under “Analysis”

Explore: enables retrieval of nodes, attributes and values from multiple instances of a selected Product Module. For example, search for all occurrences of a key word (e.g. “discount”) or object type (e.g. query) across SAP BusinessObjects instances for Finance and Sales & Marketing.

Inspect: provides a facility to view captured meta data, usage data and applied annotations relating to a single selected Part (e.g. dashboard, analysis, report or semantic layer). Furthermore, visualizations are available to view the Object Model of the selected Part or view as a hierarchical tree or treemap. It is also possible to view the similarity of the selected Part against all other parts within the relevant Instance.

Query: this is where a user can write, save and re-use their own SQL queries to interrogate the meta data repository.

Visualize: a range of chart and diagram types are available to support insights into lineage, hierarchical relationships and structures between and within BI & Analytics Parts.

04/14/2020

How to Contact Support

WordPress started in 2003 with a single bit of code to enhance the typography of everyday writing and with fewer users than you can count on your fingers and toes. Since then it has grown to be the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on millions of sites and seen by tens of millions of people every day.

The following is a list of some of the features that come standard with WordPress, however there are literally tens of thousands of plugins that extend what WordPress does, so the actual functionality is nearly limitless. You are also free to do whatever you like with the WordPress code, extend it or modify in any way or use it for commercial projects without any licensing fees. That is the beauty of free software, free meaning not only price but also the freedom to have complete control over it.

Your Entire Workflow

WordPress can take the place of your entire workflow from the initial draft to the time you hit publish – spelling, grammar, collaboration, and review – there’s no need for e-mails back-and-forth or expensive desktop software.

WordPress is a powerful semantic publishing platform, and it comes with a great set of features designed to make your experience as a publisher on the Internet as easy, pleasant and appealing as possible.

We are proud to offer you a freely distributed, standards-compliant, fast, light and free content management system, with sensible default settings and features, and an extremely customizable core.

Beyond Black and White

Everything that makes webpages feel rich – pictures, videos, music, documents – can feel right at home in WordPress. With a drag-and-drop file uploader that uses the latest technology to ensure your file effortlessly makes it to the web page every time, and a media browser to help you store, organize and find the files you’re looking for, WordPress hosts the files that make your pages pop:

  1. Your Site is Your Castle
  2. Extensive APIs
  3. Enterprise Ready
  4. Interoperability
  5. Trust, but Verify

Not everyone is evil, but keep those who are in check by limiting which html tags are kosher on your weblog.

The Right Tuxedo for Any Content

Your content deserves the best. The site should conform to your content, not the other way around. WordPress comes with a full theme system which makes designing everything from the simplest site to the most complicated portal a piece of cake. Have a new design every day. Your ideas should look as good as what they say.

Everything you see here, from the documentation to the code itself, was created by and for the community. WordPress is an Open Source project, which means there are hundreds of people all over the world working on it. (More than most commercial platforms.) It also means you are free to use it for anything from your cat’s home page to a Fortune 500 web site without paying anyone a license fee and a number of other important freedoms.

Obsessively Organized

It doesn’t matter how much content you have, if your visitors can’t find it. WordPress organizes your content by day, by month, by year, by author, by category — any way you can describe it — and dynamically creates browsable archives so things always stay up to date.

WordPress has killer search baked in. Every word you write is fully searchable through a single box at the top of each page and if your users choose to use an external search engine like Google, rest assured, WordPress will present your content in a way that all but ensures it makes it to the top of the results every time

With built in support for custom post types and custom taxonomies, if you can dream it, WordPress can make it a reality.

04/10/2020

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