What is business intelligence and why do we need it?

In an age where Business Intelligence has become a bigger domain than most trending technologies if you ask twenty people what the term business intelligence means, you are likely to get ten different answers. So let me put it in the simplest terms without losing the technicality of it. Business intelligence (BI) is the set of techniques and tools for the transformation of raw data into meaningful and useful information for business analysis. To put it simply, Business intelligence is the technology that gets the right data to the right people, at the right time so that they can make more effective business decisions.

The below points shows the benefits of business intelligence.

The fast answer to any
business query

Enables real-time analysis
with quick navigation

Identify cross-selling &
up-selling opportunities

BI

Reduces the risk of
bottlenecks

Helps you know your
business better

Improves decision
making

What is data visualization and its importance?

Data visualization is nothing but the pictorial or graphical representation of information/ data. It provides insights into complex data sets by communicating the key aspects in more intuitive and meaningful ways. Data visualization lies at the intersection of design, communication, and information science.

Importance of data visualization

Analyzing the data
in a better way

Faster decision
making

Making sense of
complicated data

Need for Analance

The following shows make Analance one of the prominent tools for data visualization.

A Single platform covering everything from BI to AI

Analance
business intelligence

Slice & dice, analyze, visualize, and share descriptive analytics.

Analance
advanced analytics

Train, score and evaluate multiple forecasting models.

• One platform to integrate, master, administer and manage
• No breaks in process and work flows
• No more data silos
• Improved workload and process performance leading to timely insights and faster decisions
• Supports seamless scalability across platform

What is Analance?

Analance is a combination of a strong visualization, data analysis, and a cloud-based, On-premise, and Hybrid tool. It provides interactive visualizations with self-service business intelligence capabilities, where end users can create reports and dashboards by themselves, without having to depend on information technology staff or database administrators.

Analance business intelligence (ABI) capabilities

Connect multiple data sources and get derived insights with advanced visualizations, Analance has below ABI capabilities

Analance advanced analytics (AAA) capabilities

Analyze data with multiple out of the box algorithms and deploy the best performing model, Analance has below AAA capabilities

INTUITIVE GUI AND STEP-BY-STEP PROCESS WORKFLOWS.

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Users can quickly connect and prepare data with a click of a button.

DISCOVER PATTERNS, SPOT ANOMALIES, FRAME HYPOTHESIS.

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Check assumptions by connecting to one or multiple data sources with a live or in-memory connection.

RUN UNIVARIATE AND/ OR BIVARIATE STATISTICAL TESTING.

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Explore data structures with feature engineering to select significant columns and features for further analysis.

INTEGRATES SEAMLESSLY WITH R AND PYTHON

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Zero-coding machine learning algorithms so users can jump-start their analysis. AAA extends its capability to support custom algorithms.

IMPROVE ACCURACY OF PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS WITH ENSEMBLE MODELING.

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Run two or more related or different analytical models and combine outcomes into a single score to improve the accuracy of predictive analytics.

DEPLOY MODELS INTO THE ANALANCE BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE (ABI) MODULE TO VISUALIZE.

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Stay within the same platform to slice and dice predictive output. There is no need to export data.

Building blocks of Analance

A good understanding of these building blocks would help you understand concepts and will let you create detailed and complex reports.

The basic building blocks of Analance are the following:

• Datasource
• Workspace
• Visualizations ( Workbook )
• Dashboards
• Documents
• Business challenge ( advanced analytics )
• Admin module ( to manage application settings )

Datasource

Datasource is a bundle of datasets from various databases, enabling the user to perform a wide range of data analyses with different databases. Datasource is the primary component of a workbook, which is used to interpret, structure, and layer multiple data into a single source for building data visualization. Analance allows the user assigned with a Data Modeler license, to connect to a database and select the tables to bundle into a dataset. After building datasets from different databases, the user can combine them to create a data source that enables a user to:

• Connect with 23 different data connectors to fetch data.
• Associate data stored in different data sources to access related data.
• Perform sophisticated and detailed data analysis to make meaningful business decisions.
• Seamlessly integrate heterogeneous data from different data sources.

Create a datasource

The process to create a datasource is explained below:
Steps to create a datasource:

Connection creation

The process to create a connection is explained below:
Steps to create a connections:

1. The left pane displays the connector category, and the right pane contains its respective connectors.
2. From the right pane, click the required connector through which you need to get data and click Next.
3. Enter the connection details to establish a connection and click Create connection.

Workspace

Analance is a robust, scalable end-to-end platform that combines Data Science, Business Intelligence, and Data Management into one integrated self-serve platform.

When a user logs into Analance, the user will land on My workspace. With Analance My workspace, the user can manage the datasource and workbook in folders. A folder is a placeholder, or container, where many files can be placed into groups and organize entities. A folder can also contain other folders, and there can be many levels of folders within folders. Folders in Analance are categorized into Application folders and My folders. By default, Application folders include Quick access, Trash, and Shared with me folders. My folders are the user folders, where the user can create folders within which the user can create Datasource and Workbook.

My workspace

My workspace is the landing page from where the user can create and manage folders, datasources, workbooks. and business challenge

Folder, entity sharing

The option to share the folder appears:

1. Enter the name of the recipient, the auto-suggestion appears
2. Select the name from the list.
3. Enter your message in the Add an optional note text box, which will be added in the notification mail.
You can share a folder with View, Modify, or Modify and Share rights.

Schedule export

The option to share the folder appears:

1. You can export a datasource in CSV format with selected delimiter and also in XLSX format. with filter and with formatting option will be available
2. If the with filter and with formatting is not enabled, filters and formatting applied in the datasource will not be considered and only the original contents will be available.
4. Selecting the start date, time, and respective time zone for export.
5. Indeed, you can set a recurrence for your export. If you select daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly, you need to select the end date.

Visualizations ( Workbook ) and Dashboards

Workbook is a collection of sheets and dashboards, which helps to transform the data into excellent visualizations. Analance allows the user assigned with Business intelligence license to create and share a workbook that includes sheets and dashboards. Sheet allows the user to access the created datasource, manipulate the data, and convert them into graphical representation. Dashboard is a collection of sheets, which helps to present multiple visualizations and data at a single place. You edit the data in a datasource the user needs the Data Modeler license.

1. Enter a name for the workbook in the Name text box.
2. Enter the description for the workbook in the Description text box.
3. Click Create. Analance creates a workbook with sheet1 by default.

To create a dashboard, perform the following steps:
1. Open the Workbook.
2. At the left bottom, click the add icon and then click Dashboard. A new dashboard will be created.
3. After adding a dashboard to the Workbook, you can add the required sheets to the Dashboard.

To add sheets to dashboard, perform the following steps:
1. In the bottom navigation bar, click the Dashboard in which you want to add sheets. The Sheets pane displays a list of sheets created in the Workbook.
2. From the Sheets pane drag and drop the required sheet to the dashboard.

Document upload

1. Analance validates the document for supported format, allowed file size, virus, and corrupted file.
2. If the document is in an unsupported format, then Analance displays the error message as shown below. You can continue only if you remove the unsupported document.
3. If the document size is above the allowed upload limit, then Analance displays the error message. You can continue only if you remove the unsupported document.
4. If the document contains a virus, then Analance displays the error message. You can continue only if you remove the document.
5. If the document is corrupted, the document may not be uploaded. You can continue removing the document and uploading a valid document.

To create a dashboard, perform the following steps:
1. Open the Workbook.
2. At the left bottom, click the add icon and then click Dashboard. A new dashboard will be created.
3. After adding a dashboard to the Workbook, you can add the required sheets to the Dashboard.

To add sheets to dashboard, perform the following steps:
1. In the bottom navigation bar, click the Dashboard in which you want to add sheets. The Sheets pane displays a list of sheets created in the Workbook.
2. From the Sheets pane drag and drop the required sheet to the dashboard.

Business challenge ( advanced analytics )

1. The business challenge can be created by the user who has necessary privileges and licenses as AAA creator or based on the user role mapped if any
2. The user can create a business challenge by clicking the "Add" icon from the sidebar and selecting the business challenge
3. On selecting the business challenge, a modal window will be opened

Data analysis

1. On click of the data analysis option when a new BC is created or by clicking the Add new and Data analysis is selected, a modal window is opened. It will be the Create data analysis modal window
2. The title of the window will be "Create data analysis" and when in edit mode it will be "Update data analysis"
3. It will have the Name field which is mandatory where the name will be filled by default as New data analysis
4. The description field will accept the text with multiple lines
5. The background color of the model will be in blue when the job is in the queue or in the progressing state
6. Once the result is executed, the background color will be changed to red when failed or green when success

5. Based on the analysis selected, the count of the analysis selected will change
6. When the user clicks Save and execute button, the data analysis will get executed after validating mandatory items

Modal

1. Initially, when the user lands into the page, the select existing datasource modal will open
2. This modal will be the same as the datasource modal in the Workbook and functionality will also be the same
3. The user can select only one datasource at a time
4. The user can also create a new datasource, which on click will follow that flow and land back into this step

5. The preview will immediately show the data of the columns selected
6. User can also use the filter, on click of the filter icon in the preview section which will open the new filter modal
7. Cancel will open a confirmation modal as "Do you want to save the changes? Note: Your changes will be lost if you don't save them. with Cancel/Don't Save/Save and functionality will be the same as in Workbook / datasource

Admin module ( to manage application settings )

Analance Admin is a self-service platform, using which an administrator creates and manages tenants, users, user roles, channels, and licenses and also configures Analance.

Analance follows a multitenancy model. Access to Analance is based on the license purchased by an organization. The license can be either for a single-tenant or multi-tenant. Based on the license type, privileges to access Analance are allocated. An organization can have multiple tenants. Under the multitenancy model, each tenant has an administrator. For a single-tenant system, the default cluster administrator is the tenant administrator.

Users: A user is an account created in Analance, using which a person uses the features in Analance to add, edit, or share a datasource, workbook, dashboard, and professional reports.

User roles: A user role is a set of privileges that can be assigned to the user(s). This helps the administrator to allow or restrict user privileges to the users across tenants.

Tenants: A tenant is an environment in which users and user roles are created. A tenant can be referred to a team, project, or organization.

Channels: A channel is a user group, which can be used across Analance.

Licenses: Analance has two types of licenses such as creator and recipient, which can be assigned to the users, according to the requirement.

Analance allows the administrators to configure tenant settings. These settings will be applied throughout the tenant.

Root admin

1. The root administrator has the authority to configure the document formats that are allowed/restricted to the users. In Application settings, the Included formats will contain the list of allowed document formats and Excluded formats will contain the list of restricted formats.
2. The document formats added in the application settings will be listed in the Tenant settings > Documents section. Using which the tenant administrator can configure further.