Business Intelligence Tools Research Articles

From data vault to dashboard: using business intelligence tools to encourage reflective learning

From data vault to dashboard: using business intelligence tools to encourage reflective learning

Collection of Survival and Clinical Data for Multicenter Clinical Trials Using the Qlikview App Provided By CIBMTR

Introduction The Center for International Blood & Marrow Transplant Research (CIBMTR) presents a system that makes it easier to register standardized transplantation data, as well as a business intelligence tool for the devolution of data to the transplant centers, the Qlikview app, which allows data extraction. The software might be useful for the conduction of clinical trials. Objective To evaluate overall survival (OS) and clinical characteristics of patients (pts) undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) in Brazil while testing the usefulness and efficacy of the Qlikview app. Methods Seven Brazilian transplantation centers were asked to enter the in the CIBMTR database using their passcodes and retrieve data from all the pts undergoing HSCT between 2008 (when the Data Back to Centers, DBtC, began) and 2018 using the Qlikview. The seven spreadsheets with the whole set of clinical and demographical data were unified and analyzed using the SPSS software. OS was calculated using Kaplan Meier curves and log rank test. Results In the study period, 3994 pts received transplants in the seven centers (1546 autologous and 2448 allogeneic transplants). The set of data analyzed represented approximately 21% of the transplants performed in Brazil in the period. Among the autologous HSCTs, 1346 (87%) pts were adults and 1514 (98%) had malignant diseases (750 multiple myelomas, 292 non-Hodgkin lymphomas and 262 Hodgkin lymphomas). Among allogeneic HSCTs, 1514 (62%) were adults, 1739 (71%) had malignant diseases (603 AML, 574 ALL and 263 pts with MDS/MPN). The allogeneic source of cells was the bone marrow in 1611 (66%), 685 (28%) peripheral blood and 152 (6%) umbilical cord blood. The two-year OS for the pts with malignant diseases undergoing autologous HSCT (1202) was 79% for adult pts (1055) and 68% for children (147), while for allogeneic transplants for malignant cases (1138) it was 55%, 45% and 38% respectively for pts receiving transplants from HLA matched related (777), unrelated (287) and related donors (74) but with some HLA incompatibility (p Conclusion The Qlikview app allowed the standardized collection and analysis of data from the selected transplant centers, which may be useful for countries, such as Brazil, where a national database is not available. However, some variables were lacking in the app and should be added to improve the analyses. The data analysis has shown that pts characteristics and survival in the seven Brazilian centers are similar to the international literature.

Business intelligence for order fulfilment management in small and medium enterprises

In this study, we investigate business intelligence (BI) tools that help a small and medium enterprise (SME) to improve its supplier order fulfilment management. Making use of the huge amount of data in its enterprise resource planning system, the company can seek opportunities for building collaborative supplier relationships to implement a just-in-time strategy. The proposed BI tools are developed to select suppliers with whom to form collaborative relationships. In addition, a BI dashboard is developed for the company to manage the cash conversion cycle of its supply chain. Developing BI tools that make use of limited information technology resources, we address the business and technical challenges of large unstructured datasets and lengthy computation time. The results show that SMEs can benefit from BI tools at an affordable cost, joining the emergent trend of deploying business analytics to make systematic innovation.

Critical Barriers to Business Intelligence Open Source Software Adoption

Over the past few years, managers have been hard pressed to become more data-driven, and one of the prerequisites in doing so is through the adoption of Business Intelligence (BI) tools. However (1) the adoption of BI tools remains relatively low (2) the acquisition costs of proprietary BI tools are relatively high and (3) the level of satisfaction with these BI tools remain low. Given the potential of open source BI (OSBI) tools, there is a need for analyzing barriers that prevent organizations from adopting OSBI. Drawing a systematic review and a Qualitative Survey of BI Experts, this study proposes a framework that categorizes and structures 23 barriers to OSBI adoption by organizations including 4 that were identified by BI Experts but not explicitly found in the literature. This paper contributes to OSS and Information Systems (IS) research literature on BI adoption in general and provides specific insights to practitioners.

Business intelligence for order fulfilment management in small and medium enterprises

In this study, we investigate business intelligence (BI) tools that help a small and medium enterprise (SME) to improve its supplier order fulfilment management. Making use of the huge amount of data in its enterprise resource planning system, the company can seek opportunities for building collaborative supplier relationships to implement a just-in-time strategy. The proposed BI tools are developed to select suppliers with whom to form collaborative relationships. In addition, a BI dashboard is developed for the company to manage the cash conversion cycle of its supply chain. Developing BI tools that make use of limited information technology resources, we address the business and technical challenges of large unstructured datasets and lengthy computation time. The results show that SMEs can benefit from BI tools at an affordable cost, joining the emergent trend of deploying business analytics to make systematic innovation.

Processing data from OPC UA server by using Edge and Cloud computing

Edge, Cloud computing and experiment how to connect device using protocol OPC UA with edge/embedded device and process data from it in cloud Azure. OPC UA brings information integration and interoperability across separated devices and applications. Edge device in experiment was used to transform data from OPC UA server which had OPC UA binary format to JSON Publisher/Subscriber format. Data from OPC UA server were stored in cloud Azure. Cloud Azure offers access to our data from different places in the world, data storing, processing and visualization. OPC UA data were processed by business intelligence tool from Microsoft.

Understanding the Business Value Creation Process for Business Intelligence Tools in the UAE

Background: In today’s dynamically changing business environment, organizations are constantly striving to improve their organizational performance, and the use of business intelligence (BI) aids in this process. This is a key reason why BI has captured the attention of many academicians and practitioners. Most of the research on BI highlights its importance and the ways in which it facilitates decision-making; however, there is limited research on how the use of BI tools and applications benefits the organization by enabling it to convert the millions of dollars spent on BI investment into business value. This study validates the “business value of BI” framework by evaluating the business value creation process for BI tools in the UAE.

Metrics and Benchmarks for Empirical and Comprehension Focused Visualization Research in the Sales Domain

<p>Data visualization is an effort which aims to communicate data effectively and clearly to the audience through graphical<br />representation. Data visualization efforts must be coordinated with an understanding into the Cognitive Learning Theory (CLT). In the sales domain, sales data visualization are made possible with the available Business Intelligence (BI) tools such as Microsoft Power BI, Tableau, Plotly, and others. These tools allow seamless interaction for the top management as well as the sales force with regard to the data. Sales data visualization comes with an array of advantages such as self-service analysis by business users, rapidly adapt to changing business conditions, and enable continuous on-demand reporting among others. The advantages of sales data visualization also comes with the challenges such as difficulty in identifying visual noise, high rate of image change, and high performance requirements. In an effort to reduce cognitive activity that does not enhance learning, sales visualization dashboard must be designed in a way that is neither<br />too simplistic nor too complex to ensure that the Intrinsic Cognitive Load (ICL), Extrinsic Cognitive Load (ECL), and Germane Cognitive Load (GCL) are in sync with the audience. With the combination of sales data visualization and CLT, understanding complex sales details quickly is made possible by not only the top management of the organization, but also the sales force of the organization.</p>

How the use of business intelligence tools in the fistula sector can improve surgical performance

Aims: The aim of Operation Fistula’s ongoing work is to incentivize our partnering clinical teams by providing performance-based funding. We do this using a coordinated chain of business intelligence tools, and by sharing detailed customized visual dashboards so they can track both patient outcomes and surgical performance. We have repurposed a number of leading business intelligence tools to create a patient tracking and performance management system. This platform combines several technologies to collect, store, and analyze data, which we communicate with our partners.
 Methods: In order for data to be collected into our system, our partner surgeons and nurses input patient data directly into customized, standardized, electronic forms on a tablet or phone. Results are uploaded in real time, and feed into the data visualization software. Our London-based team is then able to create data visualization dashboards, based on the collected data, which are shared with stakeholders in our partnering countries.
 Results: We are tracking surgical outcomes using our mobile data collection and visualization programmes. We are also measuring the impact of the digital performance-based funding model, currently being used in the SAVA region in Madagascar. Our partnering clinical teams have responded positively to the introduction of our system, which we have found to ensure quality standards of care.
 Conclusions: The initial phase of this work has yielded positive results. We have seen increased engagement and motivation from our partnering clinical staff, which exemplifies how both a performance-based funding system, and access to digestible data, can improve surgical performance.

5S Dashboard Design Principles for Self-Service Business Intelligence Tool User

Non–information technology (IT) professionals and nonexpert casual users are increasingly adopting self-service business intelligence (SSBI) tools (such as Tableau, Qlik, and Power BI) to create data visualization dashboards. This study identified the most relevant dashboard design principles for SSBI tool users. The research approach included organizing a focus group in which most of the participants were non-IT professionals in health care, extracting recommended principles from the literature, applying these recommended principles by using data on quality of diabetes care to design relevant dashboards, and proposing the following 5S dashboard design principle framework: 1) seeing both the forest and trees, 2) simplicity through self-selection, 3) simplicity through significance, 4) simplicity through synthesis, and 5) storytelling. The third and fourth principles are novel and provide solutions to decision-making problems (such as conflicting results from excessive and discordant indicators) encountered by health care professional in the public sector as well as in other domains. The 5S dashboard design principles are easily memorized and practical and thus enable non-IT professionals and nonexpert casual users to design insightful dashboards efficiently by using SSBI tools.

A tale of 2,000 charts: Measuring provider response to patient-reported outcome measures.

157 Background: Patients undergoing cancer treatment often experience physical and psychosocial symptoms that go undetected by clinicians, which highlights the need to incorporate patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) in routine care. Systematic symptom screening for cancer patients using the Edmonton Symptom Assessment System (ESAS) is standard practice in Ontario. However, provider response to PROMs is essential to addressing symptom burden. To measure provider response, Regional Cancer Centre (RCC) Leads and Cancer Care Ontario developed a chart audit process. The objective was to determine whether the clinical team acknowledged, assessed and/or addressed symptoms identified by ESAS screening. Methods: RCCs received a chart audit tool with preset options and a data dictionary. Sites audited at least 140 charts for seven of the ESAS symptoms. Sites used a business intelligence tool to access patient charts based on sampling parameters. RCCs were required to audit charts of patients whose ESAS symptom scores were moderate to severe (4-10), with at least five charts in the moderate range (4-6). Results: 2,380 charts from 13 RCCs were audited based on ESAS scores from September to December 2016. Symptoms were most often acknowledged when the intensity was severe (69.9%), regardless of symptom type. Acknowledgement (71.5%), assessment (67.7%) and intervention (55.8%) were most often offered to patients reporting pain. Patients reporting depression and anxiety were the least likely to have the symptom acknowledged (44.5%, 45.0%, respectively) and be offered assessments (45.8%, 50.1%, respectively) and interventions (35.7%, 36.6%, respectively). Patients reporting moderate to severe depression and anxiety most commonly declined interventions (7.8%, 7.7%, respectively). Conclusions: These data show that providers disproportionately respond to physical symptoms, which may be easiest to treat due to clear management plans and referral pathways. To truly offer person-centred care, the emotional burden related to cancer must also be addressed, and providers must be trained to properly respond to psychosocial symptoms. Chart audits identify gaps in symptom management and areas for quality improvement.

The Use of Business Intelligence Tools to Analyze the Influence of Interactivity and Interaction Factors on the Assessment of Distance Students’ Performance in Virtual Learning Environments

This paper aims to improve the practice of distance education, by providing managers with a view of aspects that influence the progression of students. To that end, it analyses “Interactivity and Interaction” factors in Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) communication systems, seeking to understand how these elements influence the performance of distance learning students at the beginner level. The study was carried out using data from a Brazilian distance learning private university, which utilizes a virtual learning environment. The research involved four steps: construction of a business intelligence environment, statistical analytical work, decision trees and clustering techniques to describe data, establish the most relevant variables and identify standards that may support the conclusion. https://doi.org/10.26803/ijlter.17.9.6

Optimization of data flow execution in a parallel environment

Although the modern data flows are executed in parallel and distributed environments, e.g. on a multi-core machine or on the cloud, current cost models, e.g., those considered by state-of-the-art data flow optimization techniques, do not accurately reflect the response time of real data flow execution in these execution environments. This is mainly due to the fact that the impact of parallelism, and more specifically, the impact of concurrent task execution on the running time is not adequately modeled in current cost models. The contribution of this work is twofold. Firstly, we propose an advanced cost model that aims to reflect the response time of a data flow that is executed in parallel more accurately. Secondly, we show that existing optimization solutions are inadequate and develop new optimization techniques targeting the proposed cost model. We focus on the single multi-core machine environment provided by modern business intelligence tools, such as Pentaho Kettle, but our approach can be extended to massively parallel and distributed settings. The distinctive features of our proposal is that we model both time overlaps and the impact of concurrency on task running times in a combined manner; the latter is appropriately quantified and its significance is exemplified. Furthermore, we propose extensions to current optimizers that decide on the exact ordering of flow tasks taking into account the new optimization metric. Finally, we evaluate the new optimization algorithms and show up to 59% response time improvement over state-of-the-art task ordering techniques.

Socio-Environmental Vulnerability Mapping for Environmental and Flood Resilience Assessment: The Case of Ageing and Poverty in the City of Wrocław, Poland.

The phenomena of urbanization and climate change interact with the growing number of older people living in cities. One of the effects of climate change is an increased riverine flooding hazard, and when floods occur this has a severe impact on human lives and comes with vast economic losses. Flood resilience management procedures should be supported by a combination of complex social and environmental vulnerability assessments. Therefore, new methodologies and tools should be developed for this purpose. One way to achieve such inclusive procedures is by incorporating a social vulnerability evaluation methodology for environmental and flood resilience assessment. These are illustrated for application in the Polish city of Wrocław. Socio-environmental vulnerability mapping, based on spatial analyses using the poverty risk index, data on the ageing population, as well as the distribution of the areas vulnerable to floods, was conducted with use of a location intelligence system combining Geographic Information System (GIS) and Business Intelligence (BI) tools. The new methodology allows for the identification of areas populated by social groups that are particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of flooding. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2018;14:592-597. © 2018 SETAC.

The new era of business intelligence

PurposeAs the health care sector is changing rapidly, there is a growing need to develop new ways to make data-driven decisions, especially at the organizational level. Data utilization, like business intelligence (BI) activities, benefits health care organizations. The purpose of this paper is to study the potential of Big Data and the utilization of BI tools in creating value in the private health care industry in Finland.Design/methodology/approachIntellectual capital (IC) components and Möller et al.’s (2005) work on value capabilities are used as a framework to point out the roles of data utilization and BI tools in value creation. Thematic interviews enable understanding of the value creation based on Big Data potential and utilization of BI tools in the Finnish private health care industry.FindingsThe findings will provide an understanding of the existing data sources and BI tools used in private health care. In addition, it provides an insight into the future-oriented Big Data potential, which can create new business concepts. The approach provides valuable insights for value identifying the future needs of data utilization and creates an understanding on the current state within the private health care sector.Originality/valueData-driven value creation is one of the most discussed topics in private health care sector. By analyzing the current data-source utilization, challenges with data and BI tool utilization and the future vision and development roadmaps, the authors gain a better understanding of the IC components and value creation capabilities.

Big picture in statistical frame – a statistical analysis and data visualization project of price change for electronic resources in academic libraries

PurposeThe purposes of this paper are as follows: first analyze and visualize the price-changing pattern of common electronic resources; second, provide predictions for future price changes at the vendor level; third, discover any potential cause of such price changes; and fourth assess the practice of skills and techniques used for statistical analysis and data visualization.Design/methodology/approachStatistical analysis and data visualization of library’s expenditure data were conducted using business intelligence tools, in this case, Microsoft Excel and IBM SPSS.FindingsThis study reports the price changes of electronic resources over the past few years, as well as future prediction until 2018.Originality/valueOverall, this research combines statistics analysis and data visualization to unveil current price-changing trends of E-resources, provides price prediction of near future and offers unique, while valuable, reference for future evidence-based acquisition decisions.

GIVING THE BOSS THE BIG PICTURE: DEMONSTRATING CONVERGENCE VISUALIZATION DESIGN PRINCIPLES USING BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE AND ANALYTICS TOOLS

Business Intelligence and Analytics (BIA) tools have been widely commercialized to ease the process of retrieving, analyzing and presenting the information. Some of the major BIA tools’ applicants are the experts and decision makers whoare known as the higher level management in an organization. They use BIA tools to derive for better business decisions. However, the management's activities involve Complex Cognitive Activities (CCA) such as decision making, analysis, forecasting, strategizing and sense making. These activities require higher level thinking in which the management team needs to analyze and synthesize the information. While there are various kinds of visualization within BIA tools having been developed to present the information, there is a lack of initiatives to facilitate higher level thinking effectively. One of the lacking initiatives is about visualizing the interconnectedness within information complexities in a way that can help experts and decision makers gain insight from the overall situation (the big picture). Therefore, this paper intends to demonstrate convergence visualization design principles that are able to complement current BIA tools in order to provide the big picture for higher level thinking.Based on the flow concept, the demonstration structured multiple visual elements to become a flow of sequential phases of a sponsorship process as the higher level of visual structure. Then the complementary between higher and lower level visual structure facilitates the exploration of overview and in-depth information for the higher level thinking process.

A research on the use of business intelligence for academic research

PurposeAt the moment, business intelligence (BI) is known as the way for analyzing data in an organization. Simple search in the literature shows that there are many papers which discuss about BI applications and related matters. In addition, there are different approaches and tools that support using BI in organizations. This paper aims to focus on the use of BI tools for academic applications, and it describes how the academic area will benefit from using BI.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is based on using BI tools and other library studies.FindingsA process for using BI tools in academic applications has been presented. Also, two cases are stated about activities of e-learning participants and literature analysis, for which BI tools are used to analyze data and simplify difficult tasks.Originality/valueThis paper shows how BI tools can be used for research and academic applications.

The Analysis of Factors Affecting College Choice by Using Tableau

Business depends on Data. Now a days we are dealing with large amounts of data, like petabytes. IT teams receive continuous requests from the users in the issues related to handling data. so the key objective now is, how we are going to handle data in an efficient manner , and how to represent that data in an understandable format. One of the available solution is using data visualization- an art of presenting the data in a manner that even a non-analyst can understand[1] . The most popular tools for visualizations / data discovery are Qlikview and Tableau. In this paper we are going to focus on One of the fastest evolving Business Intelligence (BI) and data visualization tool is Tableau . In short, Tableau - helps the people see and understand their data. In this paper we are going to introduce about Tableau and represent an organizational data by using this Tableau , Then we will focus on creating views and analysis of data.

Financial management and forecasting using business intelligence and big data analytic tools

This paper discusses about the latest and efficient financial tools and techniques which optimize the financial cost of the organization and predict the financial situation of the organization to flourish the business in the efficient way. Financial management basically means to accumulate funding for the enterprise at a low cost and to expend this collected funding for earning extreme profits. Thus, financial management means to plan and control the finance of the company. Financial management is usually concerned with the flow and control of money within an organization and be it either reserved or open sector. So, these tools if functional in the better way then business will reach in the utmost altitude. Recently some computational tools have been developed by the computer scientist for the efficient management and prediction for the business which is very useful for forecast and prediction in the era of digital world. The intention of this paper is to review and discuss the most significant applications of Business Intelligence in financial management and forecasting and prediction domain as well as point to new technology trends that will affect financial development.