************************************************************ DSS News D. J. Power, Editor August 4, 2002 -- Vol. 3, No. 16 A Bi-Weekly Publication of DSSResources.COM ************************************************************ Check the Naval Medicine CIOs case by eRoom Staff ************************************************************ Featured: * Announcement: AIS SIG DSS meeting at AMCIS 2002 * DSS Wisdom * Ask Dan! - What is ETL software and how is it related to DSS? * Spreadsheet-based DSS Tip - Include Comments and Notes * What's New at DSSResources.COM * DSS News Releases ************************************************************ DSS News is sent to more than 850 subscribers from 50 countries. Please forward this newsletter to people interested in Decision Support Systems and suggest they subscribe. ************************************************************ Announcement: AIS SIG DSS meeting at AMCIS 2002 08/09/2002 The Association for Information Systems Special Interest Group about Decision Support and Analytical Information Systems (SIG DSS) will have a business meeting on Friday, August 9, 2002 at the Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS) meeting in Dallas, TX, USA. The meeting will be held in Moreno A in the Hyatt Regency at Reunion at 5 PM. Please mark your calendars to attend this meeting and invite your friends. See you at the SIG DSS meeting. ************************************************************ DSS Wisdom Creating integrated systems to provide information for management decision making has been a goal for many years. Schoderbek, Kefalas and Schoderbek noted in 1975 that "Efforts have been made in many companies to design a total data base and then to use that base to generate the necessary information. To be sure, there has been some integration of data in many organizations, but, for the most part, this has been true for those systems utilizing the same kinds of related data. This similarity of inputs is one of the requirements of an integrated system; if compatibility of data does not exist, the system is not integrated. (p. 221)" from Schoderbek, P. P., A. G. Kefalas and C. G. Schoderbek, Management Systems: Conceptual Considerations, Dallas, TX: Business Publications, Inc., 1975. ************************************************************ Get information about Dan Power's new book, Decision Support Systems: Concepts and Resources for Managers, at http://www.dssresources.com/dssbookstore/power02.html . ************************************************************ Ask Dan! by Daniel J. Power What is ETL software and how is it related to DSS? Data warehousing practitioners have all experienced the frustration of creating a large data store from existing operating data bases built using a variety of data models and technologies. ETL software attempts to make that task easier. ETL is an acronym for extract, transform and load. This type of software is also called data extraction software and it is sometimes referred to as "pipeline software" (cf., Gray and Watson, 1998). In managing databases, ETL refers to a software package with three primary functions. EXTRACT reads data from a specified database and writes a subset of data to a file. TRANSFORM changes the new data set using rules or lookup tables. Finally, LOAD writes the data set to a database intended to support reporting, queries, drill down and other decision support solutions. ETL software can be used to create a temporary data set for a specific decision support purpose or it may be used to create and refresh a more permanent data mart or data warehouse. Why is ETL software needed? Because in many situations the data that managers want to analyze is in diverse databases and in diverse formats. ETL software can get existing data into a form and format that is useful in a specific decision support task. Also, in some situations ETL software can be used to improve data quality and data integration. According to a Business Objects press release, ETL is "a critical building block to a successful business intelligence deployment". The ETL task is a complex problem in most companies and for most decision support projects. The goal is to extract comparable data that is consistent and then "clean up" the data and structure it for rapid queries (cf. Anahory and Murray, 1997 p. 22-26). Although I have moved data sets and recoded fields and populated new databases with existing data, I'm not an "ETL person". I know how important the extract, transform and load tasks are, but they also seem a bit tedious and boring from my perspective. You can get more information on ETL at the web sites of vendors. Three vendors are Ascential (www.ascentialsoftware.com) with its DataStage XE product, IRI (http://www.iri.com) and Acta Technology (www.acta.com). On July 9, 2002, Business Objects announced it would acquire Acta Technology. So ETL software helps prepare data from diverse data sources for use in a data-driven DSS. ETL begins the data warehouse/data-driven DSS development process. ETL software does NOT however insure the quality of DSS data -- it is only a tool that needs to be used intelligently. Readers interested in creating a DSS data store may want to check Larry English's White Paper titled "Ten Mistakes to Avoid If Your Data Warehouse Is To Deliver Quality Information" that is available at http://www.infoimpact.com. References Anahory, S. and D. Murray, Data Warehousing in the Real World: A Practical Guide for Building Decision Support Systems, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1997. Business Objects Press Release, "Business Objects to Acquire Acta Technology, Inc.", July 09, 2002. Gray, P. and Watson, H.J., Decision Support in the Data Warehouse, Upper Saddle River, NJ; Prentice-Hall PTR, 1998. ************************************************************ Check the DSS mini-track at AMCIS in Dallas. For information visit http://hsb.baylor.edu/AMCIS2002/ ************************************************************ Spreadsheet-based DSS Tip Include Comments and Notes A Spreadsheet-based DSS should be well documented. Paper documentation is usually not however appropriate. A DSS developer may want online narrative documentation, but in context notes and comments can be especially helpful to users. In MS Excel, to add a comment to a cell click the cell in which you want to add the comment. On the Insert menu, select Comment. In the pop-up box, type the comment text. When you finish typing the text, click outside the comment box. A red triangle appears in the upper right corner of the cell and positioning the mouse over the triangle displays the comment. ************************************************************ What's New at DSSResources.COM 08/03/2002 Posted Web-based DSS page. 08/02/2002 Posted case by eRoom Staff, "Naval Medicine CIOs use collaboration and knowledge-sharing decision support application", eRoom, Inc., 2002, posted at DSSResources.COM August 2, 2002, URL DSSResources.COM/cases/. 08/01/2002 Posted Knowledge-driven DSS page. 07/28/2002 Updated Subscriber Zone Resource Index. 07/28/2002 Reformatted and moved DSS Case Summaries page to the Subscriber Zone. 07/28/2002 Reformatted and reorganized Decision Support Articles On-Line. Moved offsite article links page to the Subscriber Zone. 07/27/2002 Reformatted Vendor Case Studies page and rotated cases. 07/22/2002 Updated Top 5% DSS Web Sites page. ************************************************************ DSS News Releases - July 22, 2002 to August 4, 2002 Complete news releases can be found at DSSResources.COM. 08/03/2002 HMonline announced breakthrough workers' compensation bill submission process. 08/01/2002 Sand Technology awarded $3 million CRM Analytics and Data Warehousing contract for Singlepoint. 08/01/2002 Intergraph's International Internship Program presents challenging learning environment for University students. 07/31/2002 SGI receives major order to enhance DaimlerChrysler's Virtual Reality Center. 07/31/2002 Genesys Conferencing to provide access to Web Conferencing Services via HP Jornada 928 Wireless Digital Assistant. 07/31/2002 Resource Allocation: Steps and Tools for Optimizing Resources. 07/31/2002 Cognos announces support for mySAP(TM) BI. 07/31/2002 Industry Leaders launch first partner-Led Microsoft-Qualified Prescriptive Architecture Guides for Internet Data Centers. 07/30/2002 U.S. Army selects CorVu for Strategic Readiness System. 07/30/2002 Documentum announced new product that unifies collaboration and enterprise content management. 07/30/2002 Business Objects expands product and service intelligence analytic application. 07/29/2002 Oracle adds third world record in data warehouse benchmarks. 07/29/2002 Santa Clara Valley Health and Hospital System deploys budgeting, reporting and analysis on the web with Comshare® CPM software. 07/29/2002 iManage chosen to facilitate collaborative working and improve efficiency for Zurich architects HZDS. 07/29/2002 LoadBuilder™ from Haestad Methods streamlines water demand assignment for hydraulic modeling. 07/29/2002 SkillsNET selects Meridian Project Systems' GigaPlan for Project Management. 07/26/2002 Intergraph supports education excellence with GeoMedia education grants program. 07/25/2002 DDH Software announces HanDBase 3.0 for both Palm OS and Pocket PC Handhelds. 07/25/2002 Sagent announced major changes to its management team: Boisvert new CEO, Springsteel COO. 07/24/2002 Command System, Inc. demonstrates C2 Integration and Coalition Fire Support interoperability with Raytheon's AFATDS. 07/24/2002 Intergraph announces GeoSpatial World 2003 and issues call for presentations. 07/24/2002 Cognos takes leadership position in growing corporate scorecarding market. 07/23/2002 Genesys Conferencing to offer Web Videoconferencing solutions with Philips web cams. 07/23/2002 Palm and IBM team to deliver wireless solutions for the enterprise. 07/23/2002 Insignia begins search for world's smartest Java developers with JPDA 2002 Application Developers contest. 07/22/2002 PeopleSoft positioned as top challenger in META Group CRM Market evaluation. Check release. 07/22/2002 MathWorks announces release 13 with major new versions of MATLAB and Simulink. 07/22/2002 COBE Cardiovascular pumps corporate performance with Cognos analytic applications. ************************************************************ You can read 786 DSS News releases in the Subscriber Zone at DSSResources.COM. ************************************************************ DSS News is copyrighted (c) 2002 by D. J. Power. Please send your questions to daniel.power@dssresources.com. You have previously subscribed to the DSS News Mailing List. |