Exam 2: BI

Question 1

Reasons why orgs become data rich, information poor:

Answer 1

Lack of data
Inaccurate data
Unaggreagated/isolated data sources
In-accessible data (due to incompatible systems (legacy systems))
Operational data can’t always be queried

Question 2

Information hierarchy for data-centric firm (top to bottom)

Answer 2

Wisdom
knowledge
information
data

these all lead to DECISIONS

Question 3

Difference between intuitive approach and data-driven approach:

Answer 3

intuitive: based on how one feels about a question

data-driven: based on data from the past or other similar occurences

Question 4

what are the 3 types of decisions and what is the difference?

Answer 4

Unstructured: actor must undertake judgement & evaluation, and apply insight to problem (upper management decisions)

Semi-structured: actor must partly undertake judgment/evaluation, and partly apply insight to problem (middle management decisions)

Structured: routine, occurs frequently. actor only needs to gain recognition of the issue and its agreed procedure

Question 5

What are the 4 operations that a Simple Reporting tool does to data?

What are SRS used for primarily?

Answer 5

FSGM

Filtering
Sorting
Grouping
Making simple calculations

Used for assessment (past/present comparisons)

Question 6

What are some benefits & disadvantages of reporting systems?

Answer 6

Benefits:
Quick summaries of data, quick charts
applications are easy to learn

Disadvantages:
needs many reports to answer questions
can’t define relationships between data

Question 7

What does OLAP do?

Answer 7

adds OLAP cube and modelling to determind data exploration and analysis

OLAP reports are Dynamic, and provide real time manipulation of data

Question 8

What are the two features of an OLAP report?

Answer 8

dimension: business category/entity (like product, customer, location, region)

measure: attribute of dimension (likes $ value of sales)

Question 9

What is a query tool?

Answer 9

a tool to interrogate a data source(s) and return a subset of data, possibly summarized, based on a set of criteria

Question 10

what is Python? what is R?

Answer 10

a general purpose programming language that is also popular for data analytics

a programming language specifically created for analytics, statistical, and graphical computing

Question 11

what are graphical query tools?

Answer 11

allow a user to create a query through a pointandclick or draganddrop interface, rather than requiring programming knowledge

Question 12

what are canned reports?

Answer 12

canned reports provide regular summaries of information in a predetermined format

Question 13

what are ad hoc reporting tools?

Answer 13

ad hoc reporting tools put users in control so that they can create custom reports on an as-needed basis by selecting fields/ranges/summaryconditions/parameters

Question 14

what are dashboards?

Answer 14

heads-up display of critical indicators that allows managers to get a graphical glance at key performance metrics

Question 15

what are Data Warehouses?

Answer 15

special databases that are used to manage, prepare, consolidate, and store data that were extracted from other sources. intended specifically for the purposes of data mining and data analyses

Question 16

what are Data Marts?

Answer 16

subset of an organizational data store, usually oriented to a specific purpose. analytical data stores focused on specific business functions for a specific community within an org

Question 17

how are Data Warehouses and Data Marts related?

Answer 17

data marts are often derived from subsets of data in a data warehouse