“ConosCo”
The Business Intelligence System of
the Italian Court of Audit
April, 22-23th 2013
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Technological innovation in the Court of Audit
The Court of Audit, in line with the Italian Public
Administration modernization and innovation strategy,
carries out initiatives aimed at:
• Increasing the efficiency of the judicial
administrative action
• Improving the delivery of services to citizens
• Reinforcement its institutional role
and
....through an innovative approach based on the use of
ICT
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Technological innovation in the Court of Audit
Inside the italian Court of Audit, the enhancement of
technology has followed 3 main areas:
• investment in information assets, development and
evolution of operational information systems
• investment in business intelligence advanced tools
for data analysis
• use of new methodologies for data analysis
… and what are the the aims of this?
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Aims of Technological innovation in the Court of Audit
o simplification, rationalization and transparency
of information
o timeliness of data collection and monitoring
o “Digitalization” or “dematerialization” (using
the digital document)
o strengthening instruments for quantitative and
qualitative control of revenues and
expenditures
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Technological innovation in the Court of Audit: the
Business Intelligence System
The project of the business intelligence system “Conosco”
was launched by the President of the Court of Audit in
2008 with the aim of identifying new tools for Public
Finance control.
Later, the project’s objectives and technical/operational
requirements were defined in collaboration with IT
Department of Italian Court and Consip (a public company
particularly skilled in IT)
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ConosCo – the aims
ConosCo as an instrument to monitor public
finance
During the last years the Court of Audit has implemented
its information technology infrastructure in order to better
support its institutional activity, and has started many IT
projects mainly concerning :
1. controlling and reporting activities on Ministries and
other public bodies
2. controlling and reporting activities on local authorities
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Technological innovation in the Court of Audit: Why a
Business Intelligence System?
NEED:
REQUEST:
The continuous change of the social, political
and economic context poses
increasingly new questions, often
extemporaneous,
and increasingly complex decisions
The satisfaction of “knowledge” needs requires
the availability of complete, timely and reliable
information and a specific IT solution
The solution for addressing those needs and to
support decision making, is called ...
SOLUTION:
Business
Intelligence
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Technological innovation in the Court of Audit: the
Business Intelligence System
What is it?
Business Intelligence is a set of methodologies, processes,
architectures, and technologies that transform raw data into
meaningful and useful information. This information is used to
enable more effective, strategic, tactical, and operational
insights and decision-making, which are necessary for an
organization to obtain and analyze data to support decision
making and control.
How is
it done?
Presentation
Processes
Methodologies
Storaging
Software
Hardware
Acquisition
Statistics
Processing
Data Sources
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Technological innovation in the Court of Audit: the Data
Warehouse
What is it?
The “beating heart” of the
system is the Data Warehouse
“A subject-oriented, integrated, time-variant,
non-volatile collection of data organised in
support of management’s decision-making
process.”*
… for the Court of Audit that means Public
Finance assessment and control
* William (Bill) H. Inmon is considered the "father" of one of the main models of data warehouse
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Technological innovation in the Court of Audit: the Data
Warehouse
What is it?
A tool to assist the management to make decisions
(knowing to decide):
− A binder of information on “thematic areas" of
interest (subject oriented);
− A single coherent data collector (integrated)
− A system that tracks information changes over time
(time variant);
− A set of homogeneous information that can not be
modified by the user (non volatile);
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Technological innovation in the Court of Audit:
The Pyramid of this Information System: the
relationship between business Intelligence,
Data Warehouse and operational systems
Processes
Data
Users
Strategic Control
Decision Making
Synthetic
Dashboard
Information analysis
and monitoring
Analysts
Aggregate
Data Warehouse
Operational Systems
Management of
Institutional and
Organizational Processes
Operational
Detailed
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Technological innovation in the Court of Audit: ConosCo
DATA WAREHOUSE System
Data Sources
Functionality
Central Gov. Finance Area
Dashboard - Indicators
DM Central Gov. Finance
SIRGS-CDC
Local Gov. Finance Area
SIRTEL
SIQuEL
Query
DM Local Gov. Finance
Jurisdiction & Attorney Area
SISP
EDW
Report
DM SISP
Personnel Area
SIAP*- CDC
DM Personnel
Quality e metadata
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Central Gov. Finance Data Mart
what are the controlling and reporting activities on Ministries and other public bodies?
Expenditures
 Money Orders
 Payments
 Account of residual assets
and liabilities passed on to
the following balance sheet
Treasury flows
SIRGS:
Revenues
 Revenue Receipts from
BKI
 Public revenue
Balance
 balance-sheet items
 Ministerial Decrees
 Administrative measures
Cdc
SicogeSipa-Igepa…
 State assets
Assets
Integrated Information Systems (12) of the State General Accounting Department
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Local Gov. Finance Data Mart
www.corteconti.it
XML
•cross checks carried out
Information System - SIRTEL in automatic mode
•Error reporting in real
time to local
Administrations.
Data storage
The Local Administration sends
the final balance in XML file
format
50.000 balance
items from each local
authority
Report to
Parliament
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Technological innovation in the Court of Audit: data integration
The decision to build the Court of Audit data warehouse with a single
data container (“Enterprise DW”) allows a subsequent rapid
implementation of new thematic Data Marts.
Public Finance
Regional Finance
Central Gov.
Finance
Local
Gov.
Finanza
Locale
Finance
Public agencies
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ConosCo overview
Data integrator of different information systems in order to:
• perform complex financial analysis
• share information and results of the analysis with some
other public bodies
• obtain information in real time through financial indicators
concerning revenue, expenditure, ….
• monitor expenditure’s trend of the Public Administration
• produce graphical representations
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ConosCo characteristics
•
•
•
•
Modular (new datamarts)
Incremental (data and analysis)
Customizable (analysis and indicators)
Historicized (current data and time series)
Finanza Locale
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ConosCo: the Data Warehouse characteristics
Quality and Metadata
Characteristics
Data Quality is the measure of the
conformity degree between the expected
data in the system and the rules of
Business
It determines the ability to transform the
data into useful and reliable information
Poor data quality spreads
QUALITY
Poor quality of data is expensive
Data quality can be improved
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ConosCo: the Data Warehouse characteristics
Quality and Metadata
Characteristics
The information needed to
contextualize the data
-
Indicator Tab
Indicator name
Description
Data source
unit measure
Algorithm calculation
threshold
METADATA
Business Metadata
(synthetic)
financial autonomy :
Own Revenue/Current
Revenue
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ConosCo – multidimensional analysis
Economic
classification
Geographical
Economic classification
View
Time View
Geographical View
Multidimensional View
classification
Time
1.500
Amount
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ConosCo – multidimensional analysis
It’ also possible the
«drill down»
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ConosCo – multidimensional analysis
Data correlation
Revenues
Expenses
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ConosCo – dashboard
dashboard: synthetic and intuitive representation of the
most important financial indicators on public
expenditure
This dashboard represents the expenditure of a
chosen Ministry through a set of indicators an
indexes
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ConosCo – dashboard
Dashboards are available to analyze the economic
and financial management of local authorities through
synthetic indicators
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ConosCo – complex report
In one click you can obtain a report on
local authorities economic and financial
management (250 pages)
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ConosCo – Integration with office tools
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ConosCo – MOBILE functionality
Tablet
SmartPhone
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About the Change Management – the changes and the
benefits
CHANGES INTRODUCED BY
ConosCo
Significant time savings in the production of
the report and analysis
The BENEFITS
• Real-time analysis
• Easy access to information
• Quality of work
Reduction of routine and repetetive works
• Reduction of errors in tables
processing
• Data Integration
Shared work mode and new ways of
working in offices and between offices
• Sharing information, results and
analysis methodologies
•Dynamic and flexible reporting
Change in
processes
verification
and
monitoring
• Availability of synthetic indicators
• Time Series, cluster Analysis
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Thanks
•
I think there is a world market for maybe 4-5
computers
(Thomas Watson IBM Chairman, 1943)
•
Future enters into us, in order to transform
itself in us, long before it happens
(R.M. Rilke)
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