Expertise

Business Intelligence Expertise

Our senior employees and management have been working in the Business Intelligence arena since its inception. We have a clear understanding of how the technology can help your business. We can help with proposal writing, budgeting and phasing of complete, enterprise solutions. Our phased approach would often commence with business studies and very rapid prototyping, allowing you to present demonstrable results from real data in order to gain further executive approval for a larger scale development.

Data Consolidation & Extraction Expertise

We have in-depth experience in the extraction and transfer of data. It doesn’t matter what kind of database or technology your data currently resides; Oracle, SAP, Quickbooks, Excel, Email … a filing cabinet somewhere. We have the staff and technology to extract it ready for processing. Quantity of data is also usually not an issue, we have handled data sources in the 10’s of Terabytes.

Data Manipulation Expertise

Often, data in different systems look different. Maybe one data source has a customer name in the format of first, middle, last and another system has a name of last name and first name. Sometimes addresses in one system have a state abbreviation and in other systems has the full state name or maybe just the zip code or GPS coordinates. Our team of experts can merge all these data sources into a one single source of data for use in the enterprise wide data analysis system. Even miss-spelling of product names and differing capitalisation can be merged into unified, consistent data.

Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services Expertise

This is a technology, often called SSIS, which is designed specifically for data extraction and transformation. It allows professionals to build a data flow in a graphical format which shows the various transformations applied to the data as it makes its way from a legacy system into the base SQL Server database being used as the foundation for the resulting data warehouse.

Data Warehouse Design Expertise

Once the key data and systems have been successfully identified, our team gets to work designing a new structure for the data in a special database designed to produce the final data warehouse. Client input is essential in this phase to determine the kinds of data which may be most useful to the organisation, but of course, our experts already have a good idea.

Data Warehouse Construction using Microsoft Analysis Services

To build a data warehouse, we would use Microsoft Analysis Services. This is the key piece of Microsoft technology, part of SQL Server, which allows the aggregation of huge quantities of data into one or more “cubes”, which can be exposed to thick/thin analysis clients and Excel and other reporting and dashboarding systems. Our experts have been building warehouses for clients using versions 2000, 2005 and recently 2008 of this product. We often help Microsoft as early adopters of this package, taking pre-release versions to give our clients the very latest technology.

Report Generation using Microsoft Reporting Services

Reporting Services was originally designed to allow fast production of reports even from standard SQL data sources. However, it now fully supports multi-dimensional queries from Microsoft Data Warehouses and is therefore a welcome addition to the Business Intelligence suite. Using Reporting Services, complex, standard reports can be pre-defined and published to a web server or be sent out via email. These reports can also be auto-generated on a time schedule and archived. Another component is called Report Builder which can allow key member’s of your company’s analysis team to build and save custom reports themselves using a drag and drop WYSIWYG web interface. Reporting services can display data in various graphical formats including line, bar and pie charts and can be embedded into corporate dashboards for executive decision support systems. Because of its power, Reporting Services has many tips and tricks which our experts have taken years to master. To help the community, Angry Koala setup a community site called “Report Surfer”, which allows industry professionals to promote and share expertise in this technology.

Key Performance Indicator (KPI) Development

Angry Koala has been developing KPI solutions in a variety of technologies since its inception. We have a passion for graphical interfaces and enjoy coming up with radical new ways to display data in a manner which is readable, meaningful and pleasing to the eye. As Microsoft has also embraced this area by acquiring a few companies which specialise in graphical gadgets, we now have a whole host of the latest technology at our disposal.

Digital Dashboards using Microsoft Sharepoint

Microsoft developed the Sharepoint technologies to allow companies to develop their own intranet infrastructures in an organic way without resorting to specific web developers. Companies often have developed their own document management systems and workflow and collaboration systems using this technology. Our experts often can develop Sharepoint dashboard “parts” to form Business Intelligence dashboards which you can integrate into your existing Sharepoint systems. These parts, being Sharepoint compatible, can have full access control and customisation to allow the creation of Digital Dashboards enabling each part of your business to see differing views of your data.

Data Analysis and Reports using Microsoft Excel

The Excel product line from Microsoft’s Office suite has been the preferred ad-hoc analysis tool for many corporations. Our experts can show you how to access the power of a data warehouse from within Excel itself. This enables buy-in from many parts of your organisation who mainly use Excel for data analysis and would strongly oppose having to learn any other new tool to do their work. Microsoft is committed to making Excel a bigger and bigger part of their Business Intelligence suite and are currently working on faster and easier ways to access, analyse and capture data in Excel from a Microsoft Data Warehouse.

Specialised and Other Custom Technologies

Once we have the necessary Data Warehouse and Cubes in place, we can work with you to gain access to this data in almost any format you can imagine. With Microsoft’s full embrace of the XML and web services standards we can now gain access to the data in many different new technologies such as Microsoft Silverlight, Adobe Flex and Flash, mobile platforms, Java, etc. This will allow you have the ultimate flexibility in the presentation of your data.

Scoping, Project Management, Training, Support

We not only have the hard-core technologies necessary to implement your successful Business Intelligence solution, but also all the softer supporting skills and services necessary to make your deployment a total success. We will scope and phase the project based on your perceived needs and recommendations from our experts. Later take care of the Project Management for both our staff and co-ordination will the relevant sponsors within your organisation. During and after the deployment we will help with the minimal training needed to fully understand the power of the implemented solution. This includes custom report generation, Excel and other Microsoft Product access. Also, archiving, maintenance and troubleshooting skills. After we have left your solution in place, our team of support specialists will be on hand to help you with any subsequent issues and training needs as they arise.