No / Many data warehouses are currently underutilized by managers and knowledge workers. Can high-quality end-user metadata help to increase levels of adoption and use?

API, Application Program Interface, enables users to interact with data. However, access to an API often depends on programming proficiency, which can limit its usage. This study explored ways to improve API usage by developing and implementing a custom portal for Power BI’s API, called AdminPortal (AdP).         To address the first research question, which investigated whether AdP improved API usage compared to the existing portal, a System Usability Scale (SUS) survey was conducted. The second research question was studied through qualitative methods, including open-ended questions and documentation of use cases, to gain deeper insights into how AdP could be utilized and how it improved the workflow for Power BI administration. The results showed a statistically significant difference between AdP and the existing portal, with AdP receiving higher SUS scores. Additionally, comparing workflows with and without AdP highlighted two use cases, where AdP simplified tasks by providing a user-friendly interface, in contrast to the manual processes or coding requirements of the existing portal.   AdP demonstrated the feasibility of accessing API benefits without coding. While offering advantages like automation and flexibility, AdP also presented challenges such as information selection and user interface complexity. / API, Application Program Interface, gör det möjligt för användare att interagera med data. Tillgängligheten till API är ofta beroende av programmeringskunskaper. Detta medför begränsningar i användandet av API. Denna studie har genom att utveckla och implementera en anpassad portal för Power BI:s API, kallad AdminPortal (AdP), studerat möjligheten till en förbättring av användningen av API.  I studien användes en kombination av kvantitativa och kvalitativa metoder. Den första forskningsfrågan fokuserar på om AdP förbättrade användningen av API jämfört med att använda den befintliga Power BI-portal, vilket undersöktes med hjälp av System Usability Scale (SUS). Den andra forskningsfrågan studerar djupare insikter i hur AdP kan användas för att förbättra arbetsflödet för administration av Power BI. För detta användes kvalitativa metoder, inklusive öppna frågor under SUS-undersökningen och dokumentation av användarfall.  Resultaten visar en statistiskt signifikant skillnad mellan AdP och den befintliga portal som tillhandhålls av Power BI, där AdP får högre SUS-poäng. Dessutom, jämfördes två användarfall, med eller utan AdP, där AdP visar på mer användarvänlighet jämfört med de manuella processerna eller kodningskompetensen som krävs för den befintliga Power BI-portalen.  AdP visar möjligheten att få tillgång till fördelar av API utan kodning. Samtidigt som AdP erbjuder fördelar som automatisering och flexibilitet, har även AdP utmaningar relaterade till informationsurval och användargränssnittets komplexitet.

Business intelligence (BI) systems have been widely recognized as a leading technology for many years. However, despite the high priority and importance placed on BI, there has been a significant lack of BI system implementation (BISI) success. BI systems are not considered to be conventional information systems (IS) and often rely on the integration of a complex information infrastructure. Consequently, the degree of information quality (IQ) and system quality (SQ) have not met expectations for BISI success. This study was designed to determine how an organization may gain benefits in the context of BISI by uncovering the antecedents and critical value factors (CVFs) of SQ and IQ necessary to derive greater BISI success. In phase one, a list of BISI SQ and IQ characteristics were collected through literature discovery and an open-ended questionnaire delivered to a group of BI user experts. The collected items were grouped and categorized based on their similarities. In phase two of the study 257 survey responses were collected from BI users to measure the level of importance, i.e. value, they placed on SQ and IQ characteristics. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) via principal component analysis (PCA) was then used to uncover the CVFs of SQ and IQ that influence BISI success. Two highly reliable CVFs for SQ of BISI with a cumulative variance of nearly 62% and three highly reliable CVFs for IQ of BISI with a cumulative variance of over 75% were subsequently identified. In phase three of the study, an extended conceptual model for IS success was validated to assess the uncovered CVFs of SQ and IQ, as well as their influence on the constructs of perceived SQ of BISI and perceived IQ of BISI. Employing partial least squares (PLS), a subset of structural equation modeling (SEM), the research model was then used to assess the dimensions of perceived SQ of BISI and perceived IQ of BISI as antecedents of the constructs of perceived user systems satisfaction and perceived user information satisfaction from BISI. The crossover effects of perceived user systems and information satisfaction from BISI were also analyzed. The results identified two SQ CVFs of BISI (integration flexibility SQ and reliability SQ) that demonstrated a significant positive impact on perceived SQ for BISI as well as three IQ CVFs of BISI (representation IQ, intrinsic IQ, and accessibility IQ) that had a significant positive impact on perceived IQ of BISI. The constructs of perceived user systems satisfaction and perceived user information satisfaction from BISI had explained variances of R2 = .576 and .589 respectively. Additionally, 12 items of SQ for BISI and 14 items of IQ for BISI were identified as possessing high reliability. This study makes two important contributions to the IS body of knowledge. First, it investigated the universal set of antecedents of SQ and IQ to establish the CVFs of IQ (integration flexibility SQ and reliability SQ) as well as the CVFs of IQ (representation IQ, intrinsic IQ, and accessibility IQ) for BISI success. Second, this study evaluated the crossover effects of system and information satisfaction in BISI success highlighting the importance that BI users place on the need to distinguish between the BI system, the IQ of the output produced, and the influence of IQ on perceived user system satisfaction from BISI. This study benefits stakeholders by focusing on what is important to BISI success and identifies those areas that are most likely to lead to better use of scarce resources while providing the greatest benefits.

Vor dem Hintergrund des steigenden Interesses von computergestützter Textanalyse in Forschung und Praxis entwickelt dieser Beitrag auf Basis aktueller Literatur ein generisches Vorgehensmodell für Text-Mining-Prozesse. Das Ziel des Beitrags ist, die dabei anfallenden, umfangreichen Aktivitäten zu strukturieren und dadurch die Komplexität von Text-Mining-Vorhaben zu reduzieren. Das Forschungsziel stützt sich auf die Tatsache, dass im Rahmen einer im Vorfeld durchgeführten, systematischen Literatur-Review keine detaillierten, anwendungsneutralen Vorgehensmodelle für Text Mining identifiziert werden konnten. Aufbauend auf den Erkenntnissen der Literatur-Review enthält das resultierende Modell daher sowohl induktiv begründete Komponenten aus spezifischen Ansätzen als auch aus literaturbasierten Anforderungen deduktiv abgeleitete Bestandteile. Die Evaluation des Artefakts belegt die Nützlichkeit des Vorgehensmodells im Vergleich mit dem bisherigen Forschungsstand.

Submitted by Maicon Juliano Schmidt (maicons) on 2015-07-03T14:01:56Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Gisela Schaffer.pdf: 1249713 bytes, checksum: 1e36960802d3ae90cd217a20ac19de4d (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-07-03T14:01:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Gisela Schaffer.pdf: 1249713 bytes, checksum: 1e36960802d3ae90cd217a20ac19de4d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-06-26 / Nenhuma / Escândalos financeiros internacionais geraram aumento de estudos científicos em governança corporativa envolvendo empresas de capital aberto. Organizações que são isentas da obrigatoriedade do uso de boas práticas de governança corporativa também têm aderido a estas práticas. Neste sentido, esta pesquisa analisou como a governança corporativa com seus princípios balizadores pode ser estruturada com apoio da controladoria e uso da técnica de Business Intelligence. A pesquisa foi aplicada em uma cooperativa agropecuária da região sul do Brasil com foco em produção de derivados de leite in natura, coletados de seus associados produtores rurais. Esta pesquisa se desenvolveu primeiramente a partir da coleta de dados com questionários aos gerentes e entrevistas com conselheiros, vice-presidente, presidente, diretor administrativo e gerente de tecnologia de informação. Posteriormente, as questões foram classificadas nos princípios balizadores de governança e confirmadas pela avaliação de juízes, possibilitando o primeiro cruzamento dos assuntos de boas práticas envolvendo conselho de administração, conselho fiscal, gestão, assembleia geral ordinária e auditoria externa. Os princípios balizadores analisados são os de responsabilidade corporativa, prestação de contas e de transparência. O segundo cruzamento possibilitado foi com relação às atribuições de controladoria que podem apoiar cada boa prática considerando a priorização identificada nas entrevistas e questionários. Deste cruzamento, foram selecionadas as práticas que envolviam informações para fazer o vínculo com a técnica de Business Intelligence. Estes relacionamentos evidenciaram uma estruturação de apoio da controladoria e Business Intelligence para a governança corporativa considerando transparência, responsabilidade corporativa e prestação de contas. / International financial scandals have generated a rise in corporative governance-based scientific studies inside open capital companies. Even non-obligated organizations have also using good practices in corporative governance. Thus, this research analyses how corporative governance and its milestones principles, with controllership and Business Intelligence techniques, can be structured. Research took place in a southern Brazilian co-op agribusiness, mainly focused in dairy processing from milk collected from partners and members. The research kick-off was made from data collection from questionnaires to company management and interviews with director’s board, vice-president, CEO, CFO and IT manager. After, the questions had been classified by corporative governance’s milestones, and confirmed by a PhD’s board, thus allowing crossing of good practices issues with administration board, audit committee, management, members’ general meeting and external auditors. Disclosure, accountability and compliance were the milestones analyzed. A second crossing was made using good practices supported by controllership, considering ranked-based issues as identified by the questionnaires and interviews. Based on this last data crossing, relevant information was classified to bond with Business Intelligence techniques. This related data showed a controllership and Business Intelligence support for corporative governance, considering disclosure, accountability and compliance.

Submitted by Joana Azevedo (joanad@id.uff.br) on 2017-07-10T15:00:16Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissert Breno Brand.pdf: 2005883 bytes, checksum: dfd2186104d3b7a80698862cb9bca43f (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Biblioteca da Escola de Engenharia (bee@ndc.uff.br) on 2017-07-10T16:03:00Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissert Breno Brand.pdf: 2005883 bytes, checksum: dfd2186104d3b7a80698862cb9bca43f (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-07-10T16:03:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissert Breno Brand.pdf: 2005883 bytes, checksum: dfd2186104d3b7a80698862cb9bca43f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-06-03 / A forma como uma organização utiliza seus recursos de Tecnologia da Informação (TI) pode definir seu desempenho. A Business Intelligence (BI) é uma ferramenta de TI, que tem como principal característica a transformação de dados de diversos Sistemas da Informação (SIs) em informações úteis para a melhorada gestão em aspectos externos (mercado) e internos (processos). Apesar de serem reconhecidos pela literatura científica, muitas empresas ainda têm dificuldades em obter os benefícios desta tecnologia. Sua avaliação é crucial para se entender porque uma ferramenta com tantas vantagens ainda é alvo de dificuldades de implantação e uso no setor de Telecomunicações. Esta dissertação tem por objetivo avaliar a BI em empresas do setor de telecomunicação por meio de atributos de avaliação de TI. Para isso, foi utilizado o método de múltiplos estudos de caso; a abordagem qualitativa, com roteiros de perguntas fechadas e abertas, com entrevistas semiestruturadas realizadas com os gestores de TI e usuários do sistema. A avaliação da BI, realizada entre gestores os entrevistados, tem como objetivo a triangulação dos dados, entre o fornecedor da tecnologia e o usuário da BI nas três organizações pesquisadas. O trabalho finaliza com a identificação de que as principais vantagens da BI identificadas na literatura estão alinhados com a pesquisa de campo. A integração de dados de diferentes SIs com dados atualizados em tempo real garante melhor entendimento da organização e resulta em decisões com maior qualidade e agilidade. Seu principal problema, atualmente, está na dificuldade de selecionar relatórios úteis em meio a um grande volume de informações. As motivações e pressões para implantá-la estão não só nos seus benefícios, mas no alinhamento do planejamento estratégico da organização com os benefícios da BI. Para se ter sucesso com a BI é preciso que seus diversos aspectos determinantes sejam satisfeitos; a existência prévia da cultura decisória analítica, o apoio da alta diretoria e, assim, o alinhamento estratégico com a organização e a presença de um líder que tenha grande conhecimento tanto da organização como um todo e conhecimento técnico sobre a BI e seu conjunto de vantagens e benefícios. / Nowadays, the way companies use their Information Technology (IT) resources defines their performance. The Business Intelligence (BI) is an IT tool which transforms data from Information Systems (IS) of the company into useful information to improve external and internal business management. Even though their advantages are well known in the scientific literature, many companies still fail on obtaining its benefits. The assessment of BI is important to provide understanding on why it is difficult to have benefits from the tool. Therefore, it is important to evaluate BI and understand the value and efficiency of management actions and IT investments in the Telecommunication sector. This essay objectives to evaluate BI in companies on the telecommunications sector through IT assessment attributes. For that, it was used the multiple study case method, a qualitative approach followed by questionnaire with both closed an opened questions and semi structured interviews with CIOs and the system’s users. The IT evaluation was performed with these interviewed in order to obtain a triangulation of data between user and IT supplier in the three researched organizaions. This essay ends with the identification of the main BI advantages ground in the scientific literature that are in line with the founds on field research. The data integration from the organization’s different ISs into a central system with updated data and available in real time ensures better understanding of the organization and provides more quality in the decision-making process. BI’s main current problem is in the difficulty on selection useful reports among huge volume of information, also known as big data. The main motivations and pressures to implement BI are not only on its benefits but in aligning it with the organizaion’s strategic plan. In order to be successful with BI, there are some crucial factors that must be satisfied; the prior existence of the analytical decision-making culture, the support of the executives and thus the organizaion’s strategic alignment with BI; and the presence of a leader with great knowledge of both organization as a whole and technical knowledge about BI and its set of advantages and benefits.

Business Intelligence platforms contain many detailed tools with overlapping functionality. The primary aim of this thesis is to compare two BI platforms from leaders in the market - IBM Cognos BI (version 10) and SAP Business Objects (version 3.1). This comparison emphasises their practical usefulness in both ad hoc and standard reporting. In the first theoretical chapter there is a definition of basic terms and a brief description of the BI solution. In the following two chapters there are detailed descriptions of IBM Cognos BI and SAP Business Objects platforms including the most important tools. The theoretical part of this thesis is based mostly on documentation. The practical part of this thesis defines criteria for the evaluation of BI platforms. Following this chapter is the main comparison based mostly on my practical experience with each tool and experience from a migration project from IBM Cognos to SAP BO. Workarounds are described in some cases to compensate for missing functionality. The results this thesis are evaluation criteria as well as a description and comparison of both platforms. The merit of this thesis is an identification of problematic functionality present in BI solutions from the points of view of new development, implementation and migration.

<p><strong>Problem/frågeställningar: </strong>När företagsledare runt om i världen ska ta beslut uppgår 40% av dessa beslut till att baseras på magkänslan. Ett påstående kring konkurrensfördelar och magkänsla är att ”<em>ett av de största hindren för konkurrensfördelar är att agera enbart på magkänsla eller intuition</em>”. Denna uppsats tar fasta på det påståendet och granskar hur BI, ett verktyg som stödjer företagsledarna i sina beslut, spelar in. Ett synsätt för att studera konkurrensfördelar är det resursbaserade synsättet, där resurser följaktligen är grunden i det som skapar konkurrensfördelar. Kombinationen mellan hur BI stödjer med information för att underlätta beslut och faktumet att magkänsla eller intuition hindrar konkurrensfördelar gör att den här uppsatsen ställer sig frågan ”<strong>Hur och varför kan BI ur ett resursbaserat synsätt stödja skapandet av konkurrensfördelar på kort samt lång sikt inom stora företag?”</strong></p><p><strong>Syfte: </strong>Att beskriva samt förklara hur och varför BI ur ett resursbaserat synsätt kan stödja skapandet av konkurrensfördelar på kort samt lång sikt inom stora företag.</p><p><strong>Teori/modell och metod: </strong>Inom den teoretiska referensramen presenteras och diskuteras först definitionen av BI och dess användning. Därefter följer en presentation av det resursbaserade synsättet utifrån en modell byggd av Hart, vilken kompletteras med annan forskning inom det resursbaserade synsättet. Det genererar sedan en egen modell, som därefter byggs på med en BI-del för att utgöra en undersökningsmodell som används vidare i uppsatsen.</p><p><strong>Tillvägagångssätt: </strong>För den här uppsatsen har 18 st företag som har någon form av BI på företaget intervjuats. Utöver att företagen är bland Sveriges 120 största har inga vidare urval sett, vilket har resulterat i respondenter från branscher så som media, teleoperatörer och försäkring. På dessa företag har intervjuer skett med den person som ansetts vara BI-ansvarig. Vissa företag har Controllers som är de som har övergripande ansvaret för BI, medan det på andra företag är IT-chefer eller specifikt BI-ansvariga. Inom metodavsnittet förs även en genomgång kring de intervjufrågor som framtagits.</p><p><strong>Huvudsakliga resultat/slutsatser:</strong> I slutsatserna fastslås bland annat att BI kan stödja och driva på en så kallad patchningsförmåga, vilket innebär att företag är snabba i anpassningen mot marknaden. Därutöver konstateras att en av anledningarna till att BI stöttar skapandet av konkurrensfördelar är dess förmåga att stödja effektivisering, optimering och processinnovation i olika förmågor som senare kan leda till konkurrensfördelar. Dock visar det sig också att BI är sämre på att stödja skapandet av konkurrensfördelar på lång sikt, tack vare avsaknaden av stöttandet till faktorer som gör resurser svåra att imitera.</p> / <p><strong>Problem: </strong>When business leaders around the world are about to take a decision, 40% of these decisions are based on gut rather than any rational information. This, together with the claim that “<em>one of the biggest hinders for competitive advantage is acting solely on gut or intuition</em>” leads to the combination of the decision support tool Business Intelligence and competitive advantage. Competitive advantage can be seen from numerous perspectives; one of these is the resource-based view, where the resources are the basic pillar for competitive advantage. From this the thesis study question is formulated; “<strong>How and why can BI, seen from a resource-based perspective, support the creation of competitive advantage, on short and long term, in large companies?</strong>”</p><p><strong>Purpose</strong>: To explain and describe how and why BI, seen from a resource-based perspective, can support the creation of competitive advantage, on short and long term, in large companies.</p><p><strong>Theory: </strong>The theoretical foundation is based upon definitions on BI and what BI really is, together with a presentation and discussion on the resource-based view. Following the BI and resource-based view parts, the research model for this thesis is presented, where a modified resource-based view model for competitive advantage, and a definition collection for BI, is combined.</p><p><strong>Method: </strong>For this thesis, 18 companies where they have some sort of BI solution implemented, has been interviewed. The companies have been selected based from their size, where the 120 largest companies first were contacted with an interview proposal. The companies are based in industries such as media, telephone communications and insurance. On these companies, the individual that is the “BI responsible” has been interviewed, which varies from company to company. BI responsibles could be Controllers, IT Managers or specific BI Managers.</p><p><strong>Conclusions:</strong> In the conclusions part of this thesis the research question is divided into a how part and a why part. One conclusion from the how part, is that BI can both support and drive a so-called patching capability, which means that a company can be faster and more agile in their market adaption. One of the reasons why BI can support competitive advantages from a resource-based view is that it can help to drive efficiency, optimization and process innovation in different capabilities that can lead to competitive advantage. Another conclusion is that despite its abilities to support what drives competitive advantage through the resource-based view, the term for this is mainly short-term, due to the fact that it is not hard to imitate the information, which constitutes the basic resources that BI supports.</p>

Abstract Nowadays, companies and organizations manage large amounts of data to be used as support in decision making. A good solution for data management is in the form of data warehouses. A data warehouse is used to gather information from multiple sources within a company and arrange the information in a way that makes it easy to retrieve and analyze.   Designing a data warehouse is not a simple task. The study herein will focus on what a data warehouse is and how the ETL process is used for data storage in the data warehouse. ETL stands for Extract, Transform and Load and is the process that retrieves data, transforms it and finally loads it into the data warehouse. In addition to gathering information from literature we have also conducted an interview with data architect Rasmus Lindén with Know IT AB. During this interview Lindén described how Know IT AB had constructed a data warehouse for Upplands Lokaltrafik, with primary focus on how they used the ETL process to treat data to be stored in UL’s data warehouse.   The purpose of this paper is to examine the theory behind the ETL process and subsequently investigate how it may be applied by comparing the theory and how the company Know IT AB has applied it when designing data warehouses. One of the observations we made is that the theory we have studied fails to mention or illustrate some factors we during our interview found were considered important in designing data warehouses. / Sammanfattning Företag och organisationer hanterar idag stora mängder data som används som beslutsunderlag. För att hantera all data kan ett datalager vara en bra lösning. Ett datalagers uppgift är att samla information från flera olika källor inom företaget och ordna informationen så att den senare är lätt att ta fram och analysera.   Att konstruera ett datalager är ingen enkel uppgift. Den här studien kommer att fokusera på vad ett datalager är och hur ETL-processen används för att lagra data i datalagret. ETL står för ”Extract” ”Transform” och ”Load” och är den process som hämtar data, transformerar och slutligen laddar in det i datalagret. Förutom att ha samlat information från litteratur har vi även gjort en intervju med dataarkitekten Rasmus Lindén på Know IT AB. Under intervjun beskrev Lindén hur Know IT AB hade konstruerat ett datalager åt Upplands Lokaltrafik och fokus låg på hur de använde ETL-processen för att behandla den data som skulle lagras i UL:s datalager.   Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka hur ETL-processen ser ut i teorin och att därefter undersöka hur det kan se ut i praktiken, genom att jämföra hur företaget Know IT AB har tillämpar det när de bygger datalager. Något vi upptäckte i våra jämförelser är att den teorin som vi har tagit del av inte nämner eller belyser vissa saker som vi under vår intervju fann var viktiga då man byggde ett datalager.

Thesis (D. Phil.(Information Science))--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 237-250).